Today was a poignant example of holding both things: joy and sorrow, hope and melancholy, smiles and tears. I considered the truth of it--how we are always holding both. I remembered the way Solomon put it, "For everything there is a season; A time for every activity under heaven," and also Dickens, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Also, in the same verse, the Bible leads us to both "rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep."
Two children with Trisomy-18 died this week. One was a four-year-old boy named Dane and the other was a seven-year-old girl named Twila. I have found few words to describe the experience of being in a community where so many children die. To add to this, the majority of them die suddenly. I was rejoicing with Dane just two weeks ago as he was tolerating respiratory weans from his vent.
At the same time as tears rolled down my face as I grieved for these families, Wylie looked at me with her little gopher teeth and a grin big enough for the whole world. I thought my fellow Trisomy-18 momma got it right when she wrote, "That's all we can do is continue taking care of God's precious diamonds, till he decides its time. We all serve great purposes bigger than we all can even imagine." This mother has an extraordinary perspective and is one of our trisomy community's biggest cheerleaders.
While there is time, there is every activity under heaven. Some day there will be no more time and no more "under heaven." Through Jesus Christ, a gate is opened into the eternal. Some activities will cease when the world as we know it comes to an end: dying, mourning, killing, warring, weeping, destroying, shaming. I can barely imagine what that will be like.
Dane and Twila have left time. They have now entered a place where suffering and illness have ceased. Mourning trisomy parents often refer to their children's death day as their "best day that became our worst day." Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends are stuck in time and left to mourn and mourn and mourn. And how could they not? Surely, as my friend stated, Dane and Twila are God's diamonds--precious, rare, and exceedingly valuable.
What are we to do? There is one thing that we can do here that we cannot do in heaven. We cannot have faith. When time stops, we will have full sight. "We will know as we are fully known."
The opportunity to exercise faith thrills me. "Though [I] have not seen Him, [I] love Him, and even though I do not see Him now, I believe in Him and [am] filled with a inexpressible and glorious joy." Demonstrating faith fulfills my purpose as a human. God is honored by it and I am fulfilled by it.
I lift my faith to God as a gift. He has given me an unspeakable gift in Wylie and I give Him my belief. What better way can I spend my vapor of time than to glorify Him with my trust? Though for a little while we will suffer many trials and troubles, we are on our way Home to experience uninterrupted joy with our God and one another.
