Stillborn

"Even in laughter the heart may ache, and rejoicing may end in grief."

-Proverbs 14:13

Grief is a funny thing that sneaks up on you when you least expect it. There is no respect for time and place. Mourning may overtake you at work or in the middle of the grocery store. It keeps you up all night or invades your dreams. Sorrow has many faces. It is loneliness in a crowded room, unwarranted anger, a roller coaster of emotion, or apathy. Everyone is different, and everyone laments in their own way. Some find an inner drive to reinvent themselves while others drown in hopelessness and succumb to defeat.

"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear." 

-C.S. Lewis

In research for this blog, I ran across an article about a female chimpanzee whose baby died. That mama chimp carried her dead baby around for three days. One Sunday morning as I was getting ready for church, I saw a vision of myself so clearly, I began to weep. In my grief, I have also been carrying around dead babies. Have you?

"She smiles, but her heart weeps."

Think about this. Stillborn is defined as "ineffectual from the beginning; abortive; fruitless. While I did in recent months have a natural miscarriage that I have truly mourned, the dead babies I saw were disappointments, broken relationships, dreams that did not become reality, miracles that did not take place, and so on. Many were Ishmaels, things of my own doing to create happiness or fulfill my own desires. These were fruitless and ineffectual from the beginning because they were my plans, not God's plan.

In 2 Samuel 12, King David fasted and prayed for days on behalf of his infant son who became ill because David had sinned against the Lord. On the seventh day, the baby died as was foretold by the prophet, Nathan. The bible tells us upon hearing the news, David got up from the sackcloth, washed, changed his clothes, and went to the house of the Lord to worship.

I believe as it says in Proverbs that there is a time to mourn. The problem is we can get stuck in our grief. I appeal to you today if you are carrying around past hurts, past failures, or past disappointments, perhaps now is the time to get up from your sackcloth of mourning, wash in the water of the Word, and worship! Thank the Lord Jesus for not allowing your feeble attempts to become reality. As we know, anything we build ourselves is never going to compare to what "God has prepared for those who love Him!" (1 Corinthians 2:9) Pray earnestly for Him to fill every void and to heal every broken place. He is faithful to do that for you. How do I know? Because He's doing it for me!

Habakkuk 3:17-18

"Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails, and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior."