Shrouded in darkness, muscles sore and aching, struggling to find a clearing in the dark woods that once seemed never ending, I finally can see Him. A break in the trees and thick forest undergrowth allow me to make careful labored steps through the dead leaves and briars that cover my path. We are now standing by our river together. I can tell He is overjoyed to see me, anxious to speak, but too patient and loving to let His words be the first to whisper over the sound of the rush of the water stirring over the rocks in the river bank.
"I am tired," I say. "I don't know what I am doing here, but I know I want to be where You are, and I know You have things You want to teach me. But please, show me slowly. I feel so weak."
Walking backwards, He takes me by my hands and leads me to a large rock, covered in a carpet of thick green spongy moss where I can sit and rest for just a few minutes. He bends down in one graceful movement and removes my shoes and socks and then rolls up my pant legs. He then takes my hand in His, and pushes my sleeve up to my elbow with His other hand. He does this again with my other sleeve. "He did not bring me here to rest," I think, disappointed, shoulders slumped in defeat. "He brought me here to work. I'm about to get dirty."
I am reassured by His presence that the work that is about to be done will not be easy, but it will be profitable. He is capable and strong and promises that my burden will be light because He will carry most of it. I am overcome with thankfulness when I think how precious our time will be together.
"What are we going to do here?" I ask Him.
"I am going to show you how I have been faithful." He says with kind, patient eyes. "We are here to stack stones together to build a memorial for you and for generations to come that declares, 'God is good. And that I am working all the details of your life for the purpose of allowing you to see Me more clearly.'"
A wave of excitement washes over my weariness and floods my muscles with a new found strength. "Where do we begin?" I ask. He points to the opposite side of river bank, where four partially exposed large shards of flat broken rock jet out of the mud.
"We are going to use these four rocks to build our foundation." He says.
I step slowly into the water, and let the coolness lick my toes, then ankles, then calves, then knees. I walk over to the water's edge on the other side of the river where the rocks seem as though they have found their final resting place. They seem too large and too unwilling to be moved. I wonder why He didn't choose stones that didn't require so much ambition.
"I want you to uncover them so you can see their worth." He says.
I use the palms of my hands to sweep away dead leaves and mud from the first one. The stones have been there so long that tiny tree roots and moss have radiated all over the surface. I use my fingers to dig into their growth and I rip them away. After a few minutes, with dirt caked under my fingernails, I look at the first stone with a sense of proud achievement when I can finally see the surface. Then I swallow hard in horror when I realize what these stones represent.
They are made of granite with a smooth and polished flat surface. They are headstones, and they tell the story of four lives lost. I feel the sting of hot tears building behind my eyes. I try to blink them away, only to feel them slide down my cheeks and fall into the river below. If my babies had lived long enough to have been born before they reached death, these would have been the rocks that would have been used to memorialize them.
I look at Him in disbelief. "This is where we are starting?" I scoff. "With remembering death? I thought we were going to examine Your goodness!"
"My definition of goodness and yours are so very different. That's what I'm here to show you. Your children that live with Me now are the foundation of this story. You could have never been ready to receive My fullest blessing if you were not emptied first. Their lives were filled with meaning and purpose, and that's why you need to uncover them."
I realize that I was the reason that these stones were buried so deep into the mud and mire. I had cast them away, wanting to bury the idea of them, to forget that they were a blessing because the hope of imagining their existence on earth hurt too much.
As I uncover the three remaining stones, I let my mind wander to the times when I was thankful for life growing inside of me. Positive pregnancy tests. Flickers of heartbeats on ultrasound monitors. Shrieks of joy when sharing the news with loved ones. Counting to the number nine as I flipped the pages of my calender. "They are such sweet memories." I tell Him. "You're right. I should have never allowed them to get so cloudy and covered."
When I am just about to finish sweeping the remaining mud off of them, I hear the water splashing and feel it swirling behind me. He is standing beside me, waiting to help me carry the stones to the place they are about to reside. Without caring about his own comfort by trying to keep His clothes dry, He dips into the water below until He can rest the first stone upon His shoulder. I watch as He stands effortlessly, and He treads slowly through the water to the opposite river bank. I walk behind Him, my hand under the stone, knowing that I'm not really bearing any of the weight, but wanting Him to know I want to help Him. Once we step onto the dry land, with a loud echoing thud, the stone is dropped and cements itself into the wet sand.
We walk back and forth three more times until the stones are placed where He originally created them to be. In a celebration of finality and accomplishment, I kneel down beside our foundation. The four stones fit perfectly together like puzzle pieces, and I trace their edges with my finger, pretending to glue them together with the mud that still clings to them.
"I'm a little sad," I tell Him."I'm sad that my babies were never memorialized properly. There are no names or dates or dashes between the day there were here and the day they were gone." With my index finger, I draw the letters "M-A-G-G-I-E" into the second stone representing the daughter we knew we had lost. "I'm sad that no one will know they were here."
I find myself wishing that the stones were prettier. The lives that they represent are so precious to me, but no matter how hard I try wiping the stones clean with my hands and sleeves, the dirt from the river still clings to them. In defeat, I place the palm of my hand on the first stone. "December 2007" I speak out loud and let Him know I remember my first baby. "Maggie: May 2008" I say as I place my hand on the second. I hear Him whisper behind me. "April...She came to Me in April. I wanted you to still have Mother's Day with her." I nod, remembering the sweetness of my first Mother's Day, the day before we watched the ultrasound show her life had been swept away weeks earlier. "July 2008." and "December 2008," I speak as I touch the last remaining two. I miss them, and now these dirty rocks without any words engraved in them are the only proof that they were here.
"I wished they could have at least been born," I tell Him.
He kneels beside me, hands on my shoulders, meeting me where I am, and weeps with me as a weep. I feel as though He is not weeping for the four lives that were lost, but for me- for me not being able to see and understand what He wants me to.
"Can you show me what You see when you look at these stones?" I plead. I think He has been waiting for me to ask.
He goes to the edge of the river and picks up a large clay jug. He dips it into the cool water, filling it to the brim. He walks over to our foundation, raises the jug above it and pours the water over it, saturating the stones. The water fills every crack, washing away all of the remains of Earth. I can see the rocks clearly now; the stones aren't merely granite slabs. When I look closely at the first stone, I see bits of blue topaz sparkling all over the surface. And the second- diamonds, the third- rubies, and the fourth- blue topaz.
"What are these?" I ask.
"Birth stones." He says, smiling.
In a wave of enlightenment, I feel my heart overflow with thankfulness. "These babies were born." I say with enthusiasm "...Straight into heaven. You made them all into a miracle, transforming them from perishable to imperishable. They knew no pain or loss or the sting or sadness of death. They knew me...and then they knew You. The stones don't need words or letters or dates to point others to their lives. Instead, their lives point others to You."
I am satisfied with the stones used to represent their four lives. They are now beautiful and meaningful. They represent death swallowed up in victory. They are created for what they were always meant to be- testimonies of the Goodness of God.
"Is this what you mean when You said You are going to show me Your goodness?....How all of the things that have happened were meant to bring You glory?" I ask.
He nods, smiling. I look around at the river bank that is covered in stones, each a story waiting to be picked up, told, and stacked on top of this foundation.
"Can we stack a few more?" I ask, no longer feeling weary.
"Not yet," He says. "You need time to grieve, to understand, and then to celebrate."
With arms folded in front of me, I walk over to the large mossy green rock and sit down so I can take a look at and admire the foundation we laid. I am beaming with pride and accomplishment. He sits next to me, His arm squeezes my shoulders together.
"Well done," He says.
With wide eyes and eyebrows raised, I look at Him in disbelief, "I'm pretty sure You did everything."
He smiles and chuckles. "Now we're getting somewhere."
3 comments:
Megan,
You write so beautifully what God is showing you! I'm so thankful to be a small part of your sad, beautiful, grieving, joyous journey!!!!!
wow. beautiful. thank you.
Megan, this is amazing. Thank you.
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