Lessons from Some Pretty Special Bugs

I think the hardest thing for me to deal with right now is to see how much the bugs love babies. Not only that, but to see how good they are with them. When they are around them they come alive. All of our friends babies help to fill a void that they are feeling. Each time one of them squeezes one of our bugs fingers there is a little recognition and I can tell it feels right.

I wish that they could experience "big sistering" again. I wish they didn't have to experience this level of pain and sadness.

Alexa saw pictures of one of our friends' new babies on Facebook. She had wires on her. She asked me "Why does she have medical stuff on her." I told her that she had trouble breathing when she was born and the doctors at the hospital had to help her. Now she is doing OK. She then said, "So God helped Andrew's baby sister...but not mine".

I tried to explain to her that God was helping Ava too. It's just that she was born broken and Andrew's baby just needed extra help. I tried to explain to her that when she was born both she and Emily had "medical stuff" on them too. (They needed to stay in the NICU for 10 days as they were born at 34 weeks gestation.) I told her that the "medical stuff" helps people and that God helped her. She liked that, as did Emily. But it was short lived. They really just want Ava with us. But didn't we all?

There is such a difference. There are so many stories out there about miraculous healing in unlikely conditions. People surviving an accident. Doctors getting there in the nick of time with just the right treatment. A fluke piece of plastic stopping an injury from being fatal. There are so many stories. These are of people who were not born with an underlying condition with a terminal diagnosis. There are even stories about miracles for those with a terminal diagnosis, but the miracle is in the secondary issue, not the terminal disease.

God does preserve life. He restores it. When Jesus walked this earth He restored people afflicted with inborn errors, as the geneticists would like to say this day in age. He rose people from the dead. HE rose from the dead. But this is what I have been contemplating: If God restored Ava to stay on this earth how would that further His Kingdom? What would have been better for Ava, to live here with us or complete restoration?

When Eric died I would think, knowing it wasn't realistic, but wishing so, that God could give him back to me. That he would raise him from the dead, too. It came out of desperation and a longing to be a busy Mommy, not a grieving Mommy. I had similar thoughts about the miscarriages I had that flanked my pregnancy with Eric. Maybe, just maybe, there was a twin and I will still have a baby. But here's the deal. If you are born, you will die. I don't want any of my deceased children to "come back to me". I don't want to have to mourn them again.

The girls have been making me think about Heaven. They are so concrete and have concrete visions of it. I am trying to be very mindful of not misrepresenting what Heaven is and what The Bible tells us about it. Allan and I have always been very intentional about answering our girls realistically and not sugar-coating what we say. And yesterday I realized that they taught me something that I never realized.

I know that I will be reunited with God and my loved ones once I die. I know that Heaven is a real place, not something esoteric with harps and angels flitting from here to there. It's tangible. It's grounded. It's perfect. But I've always thought about the people there in not a concrete way. I know that we will have new bodies, and we can recognize our loved ones. But I kinda imagined some kind of nomadic existence searching for loved ones. But Jesus has a room for us. There's the ability to talk. There are angels as well. There is really no reason that I can't think that Eric and Ava are together talking, frolicking. Why can't it be? They are in a room prepared for them. Maybe it says "Benton" on the door.

I know for certain that Heaven is my destination. But I am still on this earth and I need to keep on keeping on. It's harder some days than others. Allan and I were chosen to carry this burden, and each one of you who read this have your very own burden too. Probably one that we could never imagine having to handle.

Part of the keeping on for us is to try and get our Joy-Hope Foundation off the ground, develop and Esty site for "Ava" prayer bracelets, go to Disney and make some happy memories in the midst of the sadness, and work on a couple of books floating in my mind. These are all things that we are called to do. We don't know why. But we will follow the path that is laid before us.

Living is hard. We make mistakes. We loose our cool. We are human and mess up all the time. We question, we doubt, we praise, we get it right sometimes. The bottom line is that God is always there to guide us and help us walk the walk we are asked to. We just have to ask Him to help and let Him in.