severe mercy. rest in peace.
I want to try to explain this phenomenon happening inside me. It’s something that is mine because I know Jesus. I know the Author of Life. I know the Author of the life that was inside me. To begin with, I feel distinctly empty. Hollowed out. Barren. Unmistakably, remarkably vacant.
I am in a new way profoundly comforted to know that Jesus was human. The knowledge that He wept at the loss of life wraps me up in the truth of the value of life. It tells me that we are not wired to experience death. We were meant for life.
I have been thinking about the phrase “Severe Mercy.” The mercy that redeems the traumatic and uses it as a tether to pull us nearer to Himself. It is the most bizarre thought I have ever had, to look at Jesus with vision blurred from all the crying and through eyes swollen from grief and to SEE so clearly how badly it is that I need to need Him.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
It is crazy and yet it makes perfect sense- It is a gift to need, because the One you receive is the One you have been needing all along. I don’t want to ever say that my need to need Jesus is worth the loss of any life. But then I am in awe again at the reality of being a child of the Most High God. That my baby does not pass from life to death. She passes from life to the fullest life, in the arms of her heavenly Father. A better caretaker than I ever could have been on this earth.
And then I know that He is the Author of Life. I am convinced that His perfect plan would not have been tinged by the shock of death. He does not delight in death. He does not intend that any precious sweet innocent life be ended, or that His children are born into a fallen world where disease prevails and causes miscarriage. But He is the REDEEMER. He redeems this heart wrenching loss, and delivers into His own caring hand, where it is safe and loved eternal.
It occurred to me today in my second or third shower of the day, how DEEPLY CONVICTED I am of the ABSOLUTE TRUTH that the Lord LOVES my sweet baby. I know because He transfered that love into my heart at the start of her life. Knowing beyond knowing that He loves me is NEVER my default- because I am myself- we wrestle with our selves all the day; we know our shame and carry it on the earth. But I KNOW the unmovable love my Heavenly Father has for my sweet innocent baby. This little baby who never had eyes to see or ears to hear, who will never speak a word, what did she ever offer to the Lord? And yet with such care He took notice of her, loved her into existence and received her into His hand.
His love is free.
My heart is ripped apart, and I marvel at the mercy of the Lord Jesus to walk close to the broken hearted; to be broken hearted with them, and to love me so much as to both allow and arrive in the moment of my need.
