never leave your hands

I can't believe that as I sit here ready to update the blog, I am yet again speechless and heartbroken over another unfathomable loss.  While home this week, I was devastated to hear that friend of the family, Amanda, and husband, Ben, lost their precious baby girl in the last few weeks of pregnancy.  Monday: a regular ultrasound, Thursday: no heartbeat on the baby.  This morning, there will be a viewing and funeral for sweet Lorelei, who is now in the arms of Jesus.  Please pray for her parents and grandparents who turned from great anticipation to mourning in a moment's time.
It's just something I will never understand; a reminder of my oh-so-finite mind.  In less than a month's time, this has happened to two people I know.  In less than a year, I know three babies who went home to Jesus rather than their mommy and daddy.  My friend and I counted seven people between us who we know in the past few years who have lost a baby in the end of pregnancy.  That's not mentioning the blogs that I keep reading with similar heart-wrenching experiences.  That's not supposed to happen.  You're supposed to hear of maybe one person- a friend of a friend of a great aunt's third cousin- in a lifetime who has ever had to endure something like this.  Pregnancies worries are supposed to be about middle-of-the-night cravings and kankles, babies are supposed to come out all goopy and screaming, and nurseries are supposed to be filled at the end of nine months with life's biggest blessing.  How do tragedies like this fit into God's plan?  Again, I'm reminded that I'm not equipped to figure that out.  I do know that in my small scope of life's trials, having Him to carry me through is the only thing that actually got me through.  I'm thankful that most of these couples that I know rely on that same God during the brightest and darkest hours.
We were talking in the last few days about how you can love someone so much even before you meet them.  Having been pregnant, I know that it is so true.  From the moment you see the extra line on the pregnancy stick or the image on the ultrasound, you forever have a new branch to your family tree and a love for him or her that reaches the moon and back.  On my drive back from Dayton tonight, I was reminded of the words in Psalm 139 that say, 


(13) "For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
(14) I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;"


Sometimes I forget that even before my love for my family was God's love for my family.  He knew about my boys and two babies of miscarriages long before I did, and He didn't just look on the process from afar or snap his finger for them to appear.  He knit them together.  He made them. ...He MADE them.  It's incredible to think about His love for them (and me for that matter) and how far it exceeds my ability to love them.  It also makes me think about a totally different aspect of loss-- what it's like when He "loses" a child-- when He has a hand-made love walk away or turn away from Him, when someone denies to accept Him as his/her creator, when they chose to live without Him.  We know that one day, if we accept Jesus as our Savior, we'll be with Him in heaven, and we'll meet up with all of our sweet babies who were cut short on time here.  But what about the eternal loss of those who decide they don't want that?  
Tonight, I will not just hug my two a little tighter, but I will pray a little longer- that through me, they will see Jesus- that they will cling tight to their Creator and recognize the love He has had for them from before they joined this world.  I don't want them to miss the crazy reunion party that we will one day have and the chance to meet all of these precious little ones who go before us.