Pregnant with grief, God birthed mercy and compassion

As we celebrate Nathaniel’s 4th birthday this week my mind and heart have gone back to his pregnancy and birth again and again.

In January 2011 I had returned to Haïti for the first time after experience the earthquake in 2010.  In all honesty my heart was just broken. I had gone to Haïti initially with grand ideas of bringing help to Hätians, and instead I was left helpless in the aftermath of a devastating natural disaster and lost emotionally.  I had watched children die, a city of poverty fall and felt mortality and helplessness I couldn’t comprehend. I’d spent a year trying to find a new normal at home all the while not understanding why I had been allowed to survive let alone live in luxury in Canada, yet grateful. I went to counselling for PTSD and attempted to be “normal” again.

When the opportunity to return to Haïti came, I knew I had to return, yet I was scared, terrified to go, to fly, to stay, to leave my girls, my husband, my family.Outside of some flying anxiety and my first panic attack when we revisited the hotel where we had stayed when the earthquake hit, it was a positive trip. We were able to meet our sponsor children and visit the project and find renewed hope and purpose.  I returned home and among many things with a heightened appreciation for life Chad and I decided to get pregnant again.

What I didn’t expect was a pregnancy filled with nightmares and fears of the possible. Many nights Chad would roll over to find me crying, he would ask me what was wrong and I would try my best to explain to him my sadness and fears, my grief as I processed that life was not fair, that horrible things happen, that this baby might not live, that there were no gaurentees. My faith was not shattered, I loved God wholeheartidly, trusted him wholeheartidly, but my heart hurt to know that that did not save  me a life without heartache. Chad would pray with me, and tell me stories of our future together that would bring a smile to my lips and I would fall asleep wrapped in his arms, clinging to hope as my heart grieved.

9 months of this brought me to the day they delivered my handsome little man.  How my heart swelled with love for him. I had struggled with my sugars throughout my pregnancy and I was heartbroken when they took him from me for 4 hours after birth while he stabilized but soon we were headed home with my snuggly, content, healthy little man.

Long nights of nursing found me in the rocking chair in the livingroom feeding Nathaniel, desperately trying to stay awake and I had a series of dreams. This time my dreams were not nightmares but it was as if Jesus was walking towards me, the first night he handed me a violin, the second night, he handed me a guitar and the third night he put his hand on my shoulder and pointed to the piano. I was certain he told me it was time to sing again.  I had struggled since the earthquake to sing at all, my heart was so heavy with grief.

Throughout my pregnancy I was adamant this child’s name needed to mean “mercy and compassion” I was certain this baby would show God’s mercy and compassion to the world somehow.  But that night, as I looked at the piano and felt the warmth of my son snuggled in my arms I realized that Nathaniel was actually a gift of God to me, to see God’s mercy and compassion toward me in the face of the grief I had witnessed. I felt a wave of warmth wash over me as my heart began to heal.

http://testimonytrain.com/i-knew-it-was-jesus/