Lord willing, we are just days away from meeting sweet Zoe’s little brother. My head is swirling like our washing machine, which is currently filled with blankets and burp cloths for our little boy. I can’t believe that we are about to welcome another child into our family. A child whom we hope we will get to bring home from the hospital with us.
The last few months as we have anticipated his birth have been filled with their own challenges. Once you have had a child die, everything feels very different. Because I’d had a miscarriage before Zoe, I already knew what a gift it was to be pregnant. But every single moment of this pregnancy has just been a treasure that I don’t take for granted. Every kick. Every sleepless night. Every bout of nausea. It all reminds me of God’s grace towards us in this new child. Grace is unmerited favor, we do nothing to earn it or deserve it. Rhett Benjamin is an undeserved gift from God, just as Zoe was.
It has not been easy though. Every day has also been a battle between fear and faith. The fear that he would also be sick with Zoe’s terrible disease, or that something else might happen to him could have just paralyzed me. I honestly could have just drowned in those thoughts and allowed myself to experience zero joy during this season of pregnancy. I have continually had to turn my eyes back to the cross, to remember that even if Rhett were to be taken from me also, it would not change the character of God. He is good. No matter our circumstance, he remains the same. He is immutable, even when my emotions are chaotic.
Rhett’s life also brings new griefs about Zoe. I am so sad that she is not here to welcome her little brother. So sad that my parents won’t be bringing her up to the hospital to sit in the bed with me and gingerly pat his head for the first time. Heartbroken that every picture next week (and always) will be missing her beautiful face. When I imagine what Rhett will look like, I wonder if his blue eyes, perfect lips or little hands will look like Zoe. These are new “big sister sorrows” that I had no idea would exist when she died a year and a half ago. But now I think with every new season of life, there will be different things that we will miss about her.
We hold all of our sorrows in tension with hope: both for this life and for life eternal. It can be frightening to hope for things in the present, to believe that something might go well this side of heaven. And yet somehow hope makes us more tender…acknowledging our vulnerability and lack of control over whatever suffering might come our way in life. It can be just as daring to embrace hope as it is to embrace suffering.
Cody and I pray that when Rhett is born, we will be able to experience the heights of joy because we know the depths of sorrow, not in spite of it. Joy really is richer and deeper for those who do not cower away from sorrow and suffering. To exist fully, they must exist together. That is what brings real richness to our own hearts and to relationships.
“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep,” Paul wrote in Romans 12:15. This beautiful juxtaposition of believers meeting one another where they are in suffering or celebration has never been more clear to me than it was a month ago at our church. We were given a wonderful shower for Rhett in the same room where we had received and wept with friends after Zoe’s memorial service. It made the space even more holy to me, remembering that this is how believers are to share in one another’s lives…weeping and rejoicing, rejoicing and weeping.
Similarly, the week before Zoe was born, some of our friends were married in our sanctuary. It was a truly beautiful wedding, and they closed with the modern hymn by King’s Kaleidoscope, “All Glory be to Christ.” Two weeks later, we sang that same song in that same sanctuary. Not at a wedding, but at my baby’s memorial service. It is a song of that reminds us our lives…the weeping and rejoicing… are temporary, but the glory of God is eternal. We praise him in the seasons of sorrow and the seasons of celebration, not necessarily because we feel like it, but because he is worthy.
“All glory be to Christ our king!
All glory be to Christ!
His rule and reign we'll ever sing
