Death Defeated

Today I posted this on Facebook:

I am so glad God has given West Michigan so much sunshine this winter.

This California girl needed it. :-)

What prompted this "status update" was my seemingly mundane action of making beds and opening curtains in our bedrooms, noticing the crystalline sunlight streaming through our windows, and thinking of the abnormality of this much sunshine in Michigan, home of the battleship-grey winter skies. It's only February 9, so it's still cold outside, but it's so bright and cheerful and God, thank you for this sunlight! You knew I would need it this winter.

I went about my routine... making breakfast for the girls, putting some chicken in a pot to cook for the beginnings of chicken noodle soup. Washing faces, brushing hair and teeth, helping girlies get ready for the day.

Later on I posted as a follow up to my status update something about this being the first winter in six years that I've gone through with no anti-depressants, and no depression either. Which is why the sunshine has been so good for me. This all got me to thinking...

Many times God has done things in my life that seem to be for the sole purpose of teaching me about His sovereignty. It seems to be a big course in the spiritual education track He has me on. Its worth like 40 credits or something. As many times as He's gone over this with me and put me through my paces with regards to His sovereignty, you'd think I'd be done with this class by now. But I'm not. He's not finished with me yet.

I think God is beautiful in His sovereignty.

Leah is six years old. Before she was conceived, I was pregnant with our first child. I lost that pregnancy around the 14 week mark - two weeks before Christmas in 2004. Ultrasounds showed that the baby had not developed past about 10 weeks, and I had what is called a missed miscarriage. The doctors advised that I have a procedure called a Dilation and Curettage to remove the "products of conception," as my body wasn't in the process of doing it for me. We found out we had no living baby on a Friday, and we went in the following Monday after a hellacious weekend of dying the same death over and over again to have the D & C done. It was the worst nightmare of my life. I have never really talked about it and certainly never written about it up until this point.

So you can see, God is healing me.

But, that was undoubtably the darkest winter of my life. I had been struggling with depression off and on for several years - maybe longer - I don't know. I didn't know what depression was until I was well into the middle of it, and exhibiting symptoms of an eating disorder, in my late teens/early twenties. For a time the depression lifted when Bill and I got engaged and then married. But after the wedding the darkness fell again. And then lifted briefly when we discovered we were pregnant in the fall of 2004.

And then death happened. Again.

Not only did it happen, but this time it shattered hope, stole dreams, robbed joy, broke hearts, hurt and bled all over the place. I didn't even know that baby, but it's death caused the most pain I have ever felt in my life. And I was already well acquainted with death. Grief and agony that strong aren't meant to be born in the human body. We can't take it. We just can't take it.

I was put under completely for the D & C. The last thing I remember before the blessed relief of anesthesia was holding on to the nurse's hand on one side and the anesthesiologist's hand on the other side, crying so hard that my entire body was tensed to a breaking point like a bow pulled taut. You've heard words like "keening" before? That was the sound coming from my soul on that stark and impersonate operating table. I gripped the nurse's hand so hard I might have bruised it. And it's not like I hadn't had surgery before - I had - but this was different. So, so different.

I woke up in a softly lit recovery room, swaddled in warm, white blankets. It felt so wrong that I should be the one swaddled in blankets when the beginnings of my baby's body were in a medical waste receptacle somewhere. The nurse asked me to eat something. I ate a toasted bagel with butter. I had to get better so I could go home. This was outpatient, after all.

God, how could you do this to me?

God, how could you do this to me, and how is it that I still love you even in the middle of this? How is it that I still feel your presence with me in this darkest night of my life?

I bled for several days, but that wasn't the worst part of recovery. The tension of the grief and sorrow I had felt before being put under seeped into my body and I experienced whole muscles so sore I could barely breathe. To this day what has haunted me most is the completeness of that physical pain. All over my whole body, inside and out. Completely debilitating.

This wasn't supposed to happen. The surgeon didn't tell me about this beforehand.

As I am writing this, I am reminded of Jesus, sweet Jesus... "Surely, I have born your griefs, and carried your sorrows..." (Isaiah 53)

Is that what He felt like, on the cross? My Lord.

I was 24 years old when I lost this child. Depression and anxiety had dogged my heels for at least 6 years. My dad died when I was 10 was a phrase I had repeated so many times to so many people as a way of explanation. I'd worked in Assisted Living for a few years when I first moved to Michigan and during that time I'd held hands, bathed, fed, and cared for close to 20 seniors who I'd then witnessed die. Always the strong one was I.

And so, when I lost that baby, Death finally defeated me.

Really, life went on pretty much as normal, at least on the outside. I healed physically. I went back to work. I put up a Christmas tree. I couldn't stop crying. I felt vicious anger whenever I had to drive past the hospital where I'd had the D & C. I went to a hockey game. I slept all the time.

I finally got help. Help arrived in the form of little white pills in blister packs. I took one every day. Slowly, life got better... at least, manageable. I didn't cry any more. I got pregnant again. Leah was born. Life returned to our family.

I've written before about taking medication for anxiety and depression. And how, finally, God moved me to move on from it last summer.

And now, here we are. This winter. And the reason for my post - death defeated. Its not just about an abnormally sunshiny winter season... it's about the hold death had on my heart, and the healing Christ has worked in me.

I started out this post commenting on the sovereignty of God. I had a reason for that. Here's the story: A few days before Christmas just this last year, I ran in to an old friend and co-worker at Target. I had not seen her in at least a year and a half, when she left the employment where we had worked together for several years. The circumstances surrounding the last time I'd seen her were strange, and while she left on good terms and everything was fine on the surface, I always felt like that particular friendship needed closure. And while we live in the same town, we had not run in to each other in all those months, until a few days before Christmas. She looked radiant there in the center aisle of Target, and we had a wonderful conversation. We talked about my leaving the employment also, following God's leading into ministry and motherhood and healing, the joy of serving Christ... it was a wonderful and very divine connection.

I would not have connected it with God's loving and tender sovereignty had I not found out that this beautiful friend of mine died unexpectedly on January 10th. She was 52 years old. She left behind a husband and four daughters. She is in the presence of Jesus.

What kind of God knows someone you need closure with is going to join Him in a few weeks, and so arranges a chance meeting at Target to give you the closure your heart needs?

What kind of God knows that long and hard road you've traveled on with Death, and so works miracles in your heart and then works miracles in your life so you see - Death, where is your sting?

What kind of God knows you'll read about the message of the gospel and be struck by the simplicity of it - Death defeated, life vindicated - and will finally come to understand what the gospel has done in your own life?

"Oh, death, where is your victory? Oh, death, where is your sting?" (1 Cor 15:55)

"For I know the plans I have for you..." (Jer 29:11)

Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints. O LORD, I am your servant... you have loosed my bonds. (Ps 116:15-16)

For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world - our faith. (1 Jn 5:4)

So you see, I have been through the valley of the shadow of death. I have experienced the death of a child, the death of a parent, the death of innocence, the death of hope, the death of dreams, the death of life, and now, finally, the death of death. For many years I gave Death a piggyback ride as I attempted life. But God - rich in mercy, sovereign and full of grace - life vindicated, death defeated.

I am free.