Due Date

It was a day we were looking forward to since last November when two pink lines appeared on the pregnancy test I took on a whim.  I never anticipated we would be spending it next to our son’s grave.  July 22^nd was my due date; it was also our last full day in America, so hard for two different reasons.  I had anticipated it being a difficult day but I’m never sure how things will go, this grief thing is pretty unpredictable.  But my gut was right this time. It was a hard day.

  

We planned on going to the cemetery one last time and have a family worship time there.  We found our usual shady tree, set out our blanket and enjoyed some sugary goodies.

We thought it would be fun for the boys to leave something for their brother before we left the country.  We brought some wooden stars to paint heaven blue and sunny yellow.  Both boys loved painting and since it’s been scorching hot they dried in minutes.

Then the boys ran around, found some rocks, and I broke out the water guns, which gave Marvin and I few moments of solitude.

We cleaned up Seth’s grave and added a few things we made for him.  It was good for my heart to know that as we were heading back home that he had a few things from us.  I love how the boy’s stars turned out.  The bunting makes me smile; it adds some happiness to a very sad place.  Of course there were tears, songs of worship, praying that my heart would believe because my heart only felt hurt at them time, praying that we would trust the Lord in a very hard place.

We gathered our stuff and sought shelter in the air conditioning of the car and reminded ourselves of his promises.

Then we drove off and left our son’s grave.  It was painful.

We grabbed lunch on our way back to Kansas City.  We missed the lunch crowd so the restaurant was pretty dead, but there was one family there with a baby about the age Seth would have been.  Every cry was torture, just a constant reminder that our baby was in a grave and not in our arms.  With each cry the tears grew stronger.  I’m sure our server wasn’t sure what to do with my tears, but how do you describe to a 20 something stranger the pain you are feeling with words, there truly were none at the moment.

Then we headed back to Kansas City to finish up packing.  Boxing up a few baby things we had for Seth was physically painful.  I held on tight to clothes Seth wore, and put them in a special place and the fact that they weren’t in our suitcases broke my heart a little more.

But the Lord carried us through a very difficult day and all day long I was repeating this verse......

“Therefore we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and inward troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we set our eyes on not what is seen, but on what is unseen.  Since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

2 Corinthians 4:16-19

His word is so sweet.