Since the Beginning...
The Lord has walked with parents of loss since Adam and Eve.
Adam and Eve experienced child loss.
The thought struck me a year ago as I walked through the Creation Museum. We walked through a room filled with a beautiful garden, displaying Adam and Eve enjoying a perfect, sinless life. Continuing down the path, the scenes changes.
A snake.
Eve eating fruit.
The couple leaving the garden.
The family toiling the ground.
Cain—standing over Able’s body.
Adam and Eve had to bury their child.
They experienced sorrow as they worked a dying ground.
They experienced sorrow as they raised their children.
Often the road after losing a child feels lonely. It is in the story of Adam and Eve that I am reminded that the path may feel lonely, yet it is a well worn path.
Over the past few years, I have never been more convinced that when the Lord said, “…in sorrow you shall bring forth children…” He wasn’t just talking about the pain of childbirth. He was talking about the sorrow of loss, the pain of infertility, the grief of a wayward child, the toil of raising a child desperately in need of salvation.
God is not surprised by my sorrow. Reading no more than three chapters into the Bible shows that God knew the pain we would face—and more than that, He had a plan to deal with it. The serpent would be crushed.
Today, I find myself struggling. The tears fall easily, my heart feels heavy. I long to press my hands around my sweet girls face and I dream of holding her just one more time—and yet, even if the Lord granted this to me, I know it wouldn’t be enough.
My arms are full, grateful for what I have on Earth, and yet, my heart longs for what it does not have.
I am not alone in my feelings. The path I walk is not empty, and it is traveled often, and feet have been down this road since the beginning of sin. The Lord has drawn near, leading the way. He has brought brothers and sisters in Christ who so kindly have loved us and walked with us over the past two years. There hasn’t been a day where God has not brought comfort in some unexpected or creative way.
I am grateful that when I open my Bible, it doesn’t take me long to see that the Lord has been working all things for good and His power is greater than death itself.
While we enter into our third year without Aurelia, I can’t help but cling to these things. The curse of a broken world took our daughter from our arms, yet, while we sat in that hospital room, it seemed God himself arrived to welcome her into His own perfect arms.
How kind is the Lord, that from the beginning of time, He is everywhere and in everything. May we always remember this.