Dear Me 20 Years Ago,

 

I can see her face. She’s just a baby herself. She didn’t know hard yet. She didn’t know how dark days could get, how lonely a room full of people could feel, how ravaging guilt could be, or how hard she would soon fight for joy. She delivered her own baby fast, not knowing His fast entrance would represent his fast exit.  The nurse said, “This is so easy for you, you should have ten.” That nurse had no idea how hard it would be to be the mother of this sweet, little boy.

It’s hard to imagine that here I am, twenty years from the day no parent ever wants to have to face. I remember pondering so many times what it would be like twenty years later. I don’t know why twenty. I think it just seemed so far off and like some marker in time. I think I felt like in twenty years, surely I would no longer be shattered and would have learned to breathe again. When I think of that baby that I was, losing my baby, I wish I could go back and tell her a few things. This is perhaps some of what I would tell her:

First, I would tell her she will be able to breathe again. She will one day wake up, and it won’t feel like the wind was knocked out of her.  She won’t have to remind herself to keep breathing, and each pump of her heart keeping her body working so she can breathe, won’t hurt anymore.

I would tell her some days will be oh so dark, but she will not get lost. The dark is not dark to Him. He will lead her every step of the way through the valley of the shadow of death and will not leave her there. She will wish she could run hard enough to leave the awful darkness behind, but the only way forward is slowly through. He is the good Shepherd and will bring her out on the other side.

I would also tell her she won’t feel lonely forever, but ONLY Christ can meet her in the whole journey. I would tell her to cling to Him on the days when it feels like the whole world has moved on, and she’s frozen in a place of inability to know how to take the next step. He alone knows all her pain and can take each step with her.

I would give her the hope of knowing that there will come a time when she can think a happy thought without a sad one. She will experience deep abiding joy in Christ. She will laugh with abandon again.

I would tell her that though she will wake up for so many days wishing she was someone else, wishing this wasn’t her story, it will not be the end of the story. She will discover down the road that through all this unbearable heartache, she will know God in a way she never has. She will love Him so dearly, that she would never want to give that up because He is her everything.

I would let her know beauty from ashes is real. She will see God create beauty from their ashes in ways she could never have imagined and realize that she won’t even know the half of it until she’s holding her boy once again on the other side of eternity.

I would want her to know she will never stop grieving and missing him. Twenty years later, there will still be tears sometimes. However, it’s not gut wrenching anymore. It’s not a gaping wound in her heart. The edges have healed. It’s not raw, but there is always a hole. The tears will be reminders that she will always love him and miss him and he will never be forgotten.

She will need to know that she can learn a new perspective that will make getting up each day easier. She will learn to see with the perspective that each new day brings her closer to him, not further away. She will also learn to live in light of eternity, knowing this life is not all there is. This life is a vapor and will be gone so quickly. Her suffering is only for a season. Eternity with the Savior is ahead.

I would want her to know the renewed grief that comes with each new story she is told of a family losing their child, will grow compassion in her and remind her to bring those families to the throne of grace. Each of those tragedies will teach her more of what it means to sit with people in their suffering and make space for their pain.

I’d want her to know that her marriage will survive, and they came out stronger together. This would be a defining moment in their marriage that would draw them closer together and teach them to communicate and support each other no matter how hard things get.

Finally, I think I would tell her that voice that said she’s a terrible mother and wasn’t good enough, is a LIAR. She NEVER had to be good enough. Jesus is.

Then, I’d sit down next to her, let her know her tears were a good and healthy thing, and just be present in the dark. I’d do that because what she will learn along the way is that her vision will change. She will suddenly realize that everyone around her is hurting too and the best way to be the hands and feet of Jesus, is to pull up a chair in the pain.

That baby who lost her baby, may not have know about hard and loneliness and darkness and loss and guilt, but she never had to walk through any of it alone. Jesus became her truest friend, and today, she's okay. I know she would want to know that.