Choosing Joy Through The Tears

Before having Little Bug, JP and I tried to have a baby for ten years. Ten. A decade. An entire decade of hoping and praying for a baby. Before Little Bug came into our lives, JP and I were pregnant twice. Both times, both babies went to the arms of Jesus before they were born.

We named both babies. We had memorial markers made for both babies. Those markers now reside in one of my favorite parts of our homestead: my flower garden.

Those markers were the single most healing gesture that could have ever occurred for my heart. JP decided to have one made after we lost our first baby.  He had her name, dates, a scripture, and a phrase engraved on her stone. Sadly, another stone for her brother joined hers, just 15 short months later.

We have never made it a secret that we lost our first two children. The hardest part of dealing with it publicly was Mother’s Day. I tried to avoid most places on Mother’s day. Church was especially rough, because the church we attended at the time would ask the mothers to stand. While it seems as a lovely way to recognize mothers, it left me in agony. Do I stand and get the odd looks from everyone, since I obviously have no child in my arms? Or do I remain seated and quietly deny the life, albeit short, of my baby? After the first year, I just stayed home.

When Little Bug was born into our family, JP and I agreed that she would know all about her brother and sister that were now in Heaven. Little Bug visits the markers as much as I do. Not in a somber, solemn way, but in a happy-go-lucky, little girl way. She always announces so proudly that she has a brother and sister, but that they are in Heaven.

 While I used to cringe at her proclamation, I now smile with joy that my daughter will never allow her brother and sister to be forgotten. The idea that the lives of our first two children would be forgotten was one of my biggest fears. I have no pictures. No clothes. No mementos of any sort. Just my memories.

Even the horrid memories of my times in the hospital are cherished, for they are part of my babies’ stories. When I lost my babies, every little memory associated with them became precious to me, locked away forever in my mind, to be replayed over and over.

I now am able to look back at those times with smiles. JP and I are able to talk very openly as to what life would have been like for us with an eight year old, a seven year old, and a six year old. We are able to laugh and joke about how I would be bald from pulling out all of my hair. We are able to choose joy through our pain.

Every once in awhile, ignorant people will make extremely rude comments to Little Bug or to me about her being an only child. As if we planned it that way. As if we wanted it that way. As if we wouldn’t give anything, including our own lives, to have it any other way.

Jeremiah 1:4-5 says, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.” God knew my sweet babies before I did. He now has them with Him. I cling to His sweet promises that I will see them in Heaven. Because of these promises I am able to truly say, as this song says, without ANY hesitation, God is good. All the time!

Today, as we celebrate our baby boy’s birthday in Heaven, we choose to live our life to the fullest. Yes there have been, and will be tears. Yes there will be memories that chase away the smiles. However, because we have not made our loss a secret, there will also be family and friends to support us. To encourage us. To pray for us. To help remind us why it is we CHOOSE JOY though the tears.