Eternity Set in my Heart: Unexpected Hope

by Alecia Klauk
(Chapin, SC)

Today is significant for me. Today is my husband's birthday. That is obviously easy to celebrate. Good day. Today also was my due date for my little Eternity, my baby who died about 6 months ago in the womb. Bad day.

Perhaps.

I wanted to give myself permission to feel whatever would come today. I knew that I needed to make a plan for the day. I did not want to be alone, but I also did not want to be around people. So I borrowed my sister's perfect dog. She is at mt feet, dutifully keeping me company without asking me for a thing.

I want to allow the expression of whatever comes today. Sadness is expected and already been present. Anger may hit. Some confusion or frustration. I do not know what is yet to come today, but I have already been surprised by what has.

Peace. Quiet. Confidence. Even, dare I say, joy.

My first thought as I woke this morning was that I was marking what should have been. I should be having a baby today. I should be huge pregnant and then experiencing the joy of seeing that give way to fresh humanity. I should be exhausted and delirious with joy.

Those should haves are extremely painful, aren't they? Maybe you have your own. He should have been faithful. She should not have left. They should not be there. He should not have done that. She should not have died.

It is painful to be so full of longing and righteous desire for things, for good things, only to find the loss or lack of fulfillment of those things, those dreams. There has to be pain.

I knew that there would be pain today. That is not surprising.

What is surprising me today is that the should haves are being turned on their heads by a God bigger than my heart. Did you know that's in the Word of God?

1 John 3:20 "For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything."

He knows everything, and yet He is bigger than my heart. To me, today, that means that He can be louder than what I feel. He can overcome the should haves and replace them with truth.

The truth is that nothing is anything deviating from what should have been. There is pain. It is deep and life-changing. I know the depth of that searing burn of profound loss.

But, God is still the Author who is working it all together. When pain is fresh, that is so painful to hear because we cannot envision any possible scenario under which the sting could be abated. We cannot imagine that any good could come from such tragedy. It is impossible to even comprehend.

And in those places of impossibility is where God most loves to show Himself.

Several things happen, in my experience.

Unlike people at times, God does not hurry us in our grief. He knows that we are but dust, and so He is patient and loving as we process the pain. He is even right there to hold and comfort and collect every tear. He allows us the space to grieve without judgment, and provides us the Wonderful Counselor to console our aches.

And then, He does the extraordinary. At some point, and a time of His choosing, He flips the card over to reveal the good that had been hiding underneath. He shows a piece of His plan, and we can only stand amazed that there was good in there after all.

I think that is the surprise today: I can actually celebrate my daughter's life this day.

I have seen incredible things, miraculous things, come from my tiny girl going home so early. I have seen the lives surrounding me transformed: marriages enriched and even rescued, children validated, families strengthened, old, lonely pain given voice, professionals trained in true helps, and many many more. God got great mileage out of just 11 weeks.

And so the should have no longer makes any sense. The pain is real, but the truth is real as well.

And I can see those things only because He is working in me to change me and mold me more into the image of His Son, and Jesus surely knows better than I ever could what it feels like to long for what should have been.

In God's economy, every should is made right in time. Every should is eventually transformed into something beautiful.

I think today of all days, Ecc. 3:11 is singing a cacophony of orchestrated healing and peace to my feeble little heart:

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end."

She is securely set in my heart, and I am left to trust that something beautiful is and will be. I can also rest in the relief of not having to figure out all the answers, since that verse is also clear that I just can't. So I get solace and rest and hope all together.

The truth is that He is in control and is working things together in a way that may not make sense now, may not make sense ever to me on this earth, but yet, it still makes sense to Him. And that can be enough.

I can trust when I do not understand. I can lean when I want to run. I can love when I want to doubt.

Is there any greater hope? Is there any greater miracle? It astounds me when He does a work in me that I am so completely incapable of. He is working, and I am so grateful.

I am thankful that He turns every should on its head to His providence and will. I am thankful for His great love and mercy to me in the meantime while I wait to understand what I can. I am thankful for the faith He gives to release what I know I will never comprehend.

And I am thankful that today, I can celebrate my little Eternity. She is a piece of eternity to me, a peace while I wait for eternity. I am thankful for her, and I am thankful for the God who makes everything beautiful in its time, in His time.

1 John 3:1 gives the gut level should:

"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!"

All the other shoulds make sense only here, immersed in the depths of the great love of God. That is my only real comfort and peace, and to that, I will joyfully cling, from here to Eternity.