I sit here amidst the rhythm of the inflating and deflating of the circulation bands that keep Evangeline’s tiny legs and feet oxygenated as she lays still, drugged to a stupor to be relieved of the pain she bears. The hum of the vacuum that drains her wound provides white noise, and even peace, amidst the distant sounds of beepers, alarms, children’s cries and the pitter patter of nurses feet, and even the occasional code blue that echoes through the halls like the endless rippling of one tiny stone tossed into the sea.
A mother weeps tears that cannot be comforted, a deep pain we all feel, yet it breaks her into pieces. A piece of her heart is torn away like the storms tear away the branches and the pounding of the waves leaves the beaches bereft of their soft white sand. A baby that once suckled his mother’s breasts, and clutched at her flesh with tiny hands that opened and closed into tight fists against her soft chest, now lies silent, limp, lifeless.
The mother’s suffering knows no end. She sits and rocks her baby that is no longer. She rocks the body of the baby that was. She feels the warmth leave him, and the child that once felt warm and alive in her arms, is now cold, empty, gone. She cries for the loss of her son and what he was to her, and for all the dreams she had for him that she has now lost with his passing.
In another room, a precious little girl with no hair at all on her head, and her skin a pale ghostly white, sits smiling in her mother’s arms, peaceful. She wears a knowing look on her face that is beyond her years. She knows something we do not know. Her mother’s eyes, sad and dull, tell the tale that no one wants to hear.
Yesterday, I sat alone, waiting to hear news of our daughter who lay under anesthesia, weak and helpless. I was angry, angry that she had to suffer so again, angry that my baby was at home sick without me, and even angry that my iPad was broken.
A young couple came and sat next to me. I felt angry. I wanted to be alone. I wanted to write. The nurse turned on the television for the couple whose eyes were wide and mouths turned down, cheeks hung low.
Will you have some coffee? The man asked his wife, softly, weakly, pained.
“No.” I’d rather not, she said, tears welling up in her big brown eyes that seemed like bottomless wells of pain that knew no end.
I looked up from my book that couldn’t hold my attention and smiled, my anger softened by their faces. My eyes met theirs, and the woman spoke to me.
It’s our son. He’s seven. They found a tumor that is so big and wrapped around every organ in his stomach and even his spine.
Her tone spoke the prognosis that her words did not.
I groped for words of comfort, but my mind seemed to stand still, stunned by the words this woman spoke. I thought of our eleven children, so full of life, and anger welled again inside of me for this couple who had only one, and even he was being taken from them.
I wanted to speak of miracles and how amazing the doctors are here, and how big our God is. But I didn’t. I only reached for her hand and held it.
Tears fell down her cheeks. Her husband walked away in an agony too deep to share. And we sat there, two mother’s trying to let go of our fears and even our children, and lay them in Jesus’s hands.
In moments, the woman’s mother, neither of whose names I know, slowly walked up and sat down next to her daughter. She walked with a cane and a limp that told of the pain she bore, her face was wrinkled but her bright eyes, amidst her aged skin, looked as young as those of a child. They sparkled with a joy that I had known, but had somehow forgotten amidst all the suffering of the past months.
She took our hands in hers, and I wondered at this silly scene of three women holding hands, and I wondered too at how I found myself holding hands with these two women I did not even know.
The old lady spoke the most simple words in her shaking, faultering voice. “Jesus came to suffer. He came to make us one with Himself, to forever pay the price of every wrong we’ve ever done. He came to die to call us brother and sister and mother. But there is a message in His dying on the cross that we so often miss. He came to show us how to suffer too, because there is no joy without pain, no life without death. We must learn to suffer well.”
And here she paused and wiped a tear from her eye. She swallowed hard, as if she were composing her self to go on and speak again.
Her words resonated in my mind. He came to teach us that we would suffer too, and in the midst of the suffering, we would find Him, our Savior, in a way we never could have if we had never known the pain.
Still we sat there, bound together in our womanhood, in our mothering, broken, grieving, lost.
Then as if the spirit filled her, she began in a soft, almost whispering, lilting tune to sing the words of that famous hymn I’d grown up singing in that little country church on the hill, Amazing Grace.
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed.Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.The Lord has promised good to me,
His Word my hope secures;
He will my Shield and Portion be,
As long as life endures.Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who called me here below,
Will be forever mine.When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’d first begun.
I listened as she sang every verse from memory, so quietly that only we could hear her, but as she did, my heart was drawn anew to this God who brought us closer to Himself through suffering. And somehow I saw more clearly how suffering and pain and loss is as much a part of life as the happy moments are.
Then she stopped singing and said, “You see, this isn’t all there is. There is eternity for us and for sweet Jason. Joy cometh in the morning, my daughters. Close your eyes now, and ask the spirit to fill you with His feelings. And you will know joy.”
When she spoke the word joy, I realized that there in the hospital waiting room, on the brink of letting her grandson go, she resonated joy. And she knew too, that joy didn’t depend on whether he lived or died, it depended on no circumstance at all.
Joy is the gift God gives to us through His spirit, and the pain, the loss, the suffering, the dying, the suffering of the cross, only draw us closer to Him. Somehow in a mystery I do not know, it’s in the suffering that we come to know the greatest joy and peace of God.
But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control. Against such things there is no law. Gal. 5:22:23
There can be no joy without pain.
Jesus came to show us that too, that day He fell beneath His cross, that day He let Simon carry his cross for Him, the day He let him share in His pain, the day Simon must have come to know the joy Jesus came to give.
The old lady knew it.
And the little girl with her bald head and ghostly skin knew it too. I saw it in her eyes.
And Eliza and Evangeline know it.
It is the joy of God, and they have come to know that joy through suffering.
My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into various trials knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. ~ James 1:2-3
There are secrets we do not know. But I know this. There can be no joy without suffering.
The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law. Deuteronomy 29:29
May we all come to know the joy that only He can give.
Blessings!
Diane
Thank you so much for sharing those moments with us. I was so encouraged! I am praying for you and your family in this, another trial.
Janine Dillard recently posted..Redeemed for a price
Thank you so much, Janine. Your comments always encourage me.
Xo
Beautifully written…
x
Thank you, Claudia! Your comments always bless me, faithful friend.
Xo
I just posted this beautiful message from your blog dated June 5, 2014 on my Facebook page today… Oct. 17, 2014. My sweet husband went home to Jesus two days after you posted this. Today God directed my paths to see it. It’s one of His mercies that are new to me each morning. I love your heart. You help me to see the reason for suffering and how God is always there with us. His ways are perfect. I love your family. Praying for you all right now.
Because He loved us first,
Diane B
What a tender moment. Thank you for sharing. I I am sending you prayers of strength and love as always.
The words I Know are, “I’ve got THE joy, joy, joy, joy…” “And I’m so happy, … I’VE got THE love of JESUS in my heart””I’ve got the love of JESUS,love of JESUS down in my heart…”I believe this a pilbuc domain song and you can make up almost any verse you want to go with it.Another verse we use is:”I have the love of people…”