As I sit here about to add finishing touches to the sermon I’m to give at church this morning, having had a busy day yesterday working a full day and conducting counselling on top of that, it’s really not that dissimilar to this day 8 years ago.
At that point in our lives, Sarah was nearly halfway through her pregnancy with Nathanael. It was a Thursday and it had been a most unexpected day that had consumed our thinking. Yet, little did we know that the following Tuesday would change our lives forever.
That Tuesday we had the final scan to check on our baby’s progress. There are some days that have certain details etched into your memory, and other details are missing. It was one of those days.
As we travelled out beyond that July 1 Tuesday, we recognise we were in a season where the storm was coming, but from the perspective of beforehand, that July 1 Tuesday was a Category 5 storm in itself.
None of us ever prepare for bad news. And when you receive bad news like this that changes your world in an instant, the rest of your life is shaded differently. In the course of about 15 minutes, we were transported from one life to another, even though outwardly nothing had changed at all.
~
When the sands of life shift under you, it puts everything into his proper perspective.
We so rarely live this reality in our lives. So rarely are we shaken out of our first world concerns. So rarely do we commune with the matters of life and death that loss and grief bring.
Suddenly you recognise that nobody can possibly understand, but at the same time you need support more than ever. The temptation is to do it alone. But if there are those who will care for us over the longer journey, it’s wise to receive this help. Yet, this and other things can seem costly in an energy expensive season.
We had no idea, and were positively clueless, when we walked into that ultrasounding facility on that innocent-enough though fateful day. I know that we expected to get baby photographs, because it hadn’t entered our minds that there could be something drastically wrong.
But what this season of life gives us is a perspective we wouldn’t otherwise have. We now see how precious every pregnancy stage is, and the fragility of life, not just in pregnancy, but overall. More than ever, I find myself living my last day, imagining how fleeting my life is.
Having lost a child, as a person with faith, I find myself caught up in the heavenly perspective a lot. It realigns my priorities, not that I always get them right. But I’m living as a dead man already, which from the Christian perspective brings out the meaning of life.
I look around me and see how temporary we all are, and that the cusp from the worldly life to the eternal is merely a breath away. We get so caught up in otherwise being here.
This is a non-exhaustive article tapping into merely a wisp of reflection.
I’d never come backward of July 1 before this day. It puts the problems of that June 26 day into better perspective.
No comments:
Post a Comment