That is not this rain

On Tuesday, June 29th, I delivered my two precious sons whom we have named Isaac and John, names that represent a fulfilled promise and a hope for the future. Both of my sons are with Jesus, and I have spent the rest of this week at home with my husband, recovering, crying, thinking, writing, talking, praying, reading, and questioning.

It has been the most difficult week of my life.

There is no human love like the love of a parent for his/her child, and no grief more profound than when that love is asked to say goodbye rather than to embrace. I miss my boys, and yet the gratefulness I feel for the mercy that God has shown far outweighs anything else. I have faced tragedy before; I am sure I will face it again, yet the question, for me, has never been "why did this happen?"

I am pretty sure I already know the answer to that: it rains on the just and the unjust alike.

Sometimes, I think that the sky simply does not know what else to do, and so it rains. Even when the sun is aching to shine and all of humanity cries for the warmth of summer, the sky knows to rain. And so it does. Life releases the torrential downpour of unexplained pain and unfeeling circumstances. In those moments, thunder cracks and lightning splits the sky, a seeming feeling of utter alone-ness follows as the fear of what could be - what could have been - creeps into the very fiber of your being. The rain pounds, flooding those below with emotions that never seem to end.

But that is not this rain.

There are times when the sky simpy pulls the clouded blanket around, hiding itself from view, and releasing a gentle outpouring. This rain, for some reason, does not bring the same fear as did the storm, neither does it seem to never end. Though it is cold and causes those below to grab a blanket of their own, it seems to bring hope - as if we know that, without this cold, wet, gray season, we would never see the life that only grows with rain.

And that is this rain.

You see, over the last 2 weeks, I have faced moments where the loss was so overwhelming that I wasn't sure I could keep breathing. And yet, in those moments, it was as if the clouds broke for just a second and God brought me hope. It wasn't that the rain stopped; it was that the hope of what was to come was - for just a moment - stronger than the drizzle. It is that hope that I cling to. I know that God is with me. I know that life will drizzle, but I also know that it will shine, lit with the wonder of his love and the promise of his continued faithfulness.

I know that I will never "be over" the events of the last 2 weeks, and to be perfectly honest, I never want to be over them. I love my boys, and as I've said already, I miss them. But in that, I know that I didn't lose them. They aren't lost. They are with God - happy, healed, whole - and as a mother, there is nothing more I could ask for than to know that my children are ok.

And so until the day that I get to hold my sons for the first time, I will simply leave it at this: Psalm 91:2 - "I will say of the Lord, You are my refuge and my fortress, my God; in him will I trust."