Looking Toward a New Due Date

January 16th 2018.

The day our first child was due to enter the world. I realize it’s just an estimated date and they’re rarely correct, but it’s one I’ll never forget.

I’m not naive enough to expect that today would be remembered by anyone other than me. Even my husband had to be reminded. It’s not that he doesn’t care, but a due date simply isn’t ingrained into his mind. But due dates echo in the heart of a mother from the moment they’re spoken.

I’ve dreaded this week since June, not knowing what it would hold. I wondered if I’d walk into it with a womb still lacking fruit, or maybe I’d have a bump beginning to show. Little did I know, my “rainbow baby” would come and go before now, leaving me with two storms. But God has met me here today, reminding me that his goodness is triumphant and always shines through. I may never get to experience a rainbow baby, but the joy I have in Christ is the rainbow, shining brightly while the storm rages, reminding me of hope.

Having our heart fixated on the “should have been’s” is rarely helpful, but may I have this day to honor the life that should have been–the baby I should be holding in my arms this month?

A Reminder of Life

Due dates remind us that our babies existed. They had inherit worth and personhood from the moment God began knitting them together in our wombs. They are human.

The babies I lost made me a mom, invisible to many, yet visible to God. I felt the evidence of their lives in my body and I will never be the same. This due date calls my heart to rejoice that my first baby lived. Yet I grieve even as I cling to true hope.

True Hope

The January snow has been falling steadily and quietly since before my feet touched the bedroom carpet, early this morning. Gone are the fears of laboring during a snow storm. Instead, I look out my back door at our snow covered yard and newly whitened pine tree, and I’m filled with peace. The snow glimmers as if to remind me of hope…not the hope found in a circumstance, but rather in the Prince of Peace. As I sit and watch it delicately trickle down from the sky on the day before my due date, I know God is with me. And I know my babies are safe with him.

My hope was never found in the receiving of a child. My hope is found only in Christ. He is the reason I can approach this new year filled with old due dates, and be at peace. He’s the reason I can have joy through the tears. Only by his grace does my faith prevail.

I don’t know what he has for us in the future, but I do know he is sovereign, wise, good and faithful. His goodness will be on display through my life, and I will taste the benefits of it, no matter the form it may take.

And in that truth, I rejoice.

If you’re walking through a similar season, I pray you’d join me in focusing on a new due date–the one where we are due to be with Jesus forever, and the day we will meet our little ones in heaven.

May these lyrics comfort your soul as they have mine:

Be still, my soul; the Lord is on thy side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul; thy best, thy heavenly, Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul; thy God doth undertake
To guide the future as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence, let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul; the waves and winds still know
His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.

Be still, my soul; the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord,
When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul; when change and tears are past,
All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.