Wednesday, January 25, 2017

that's terrible

Dear Little One,


A few weeks ago I told an acquaintance about your condition. She knew there was something in our pregnancy that was troubling us, but she didn't know how serious it was. When she heard she was shocked. She immediately replied, "Oh golly, that's terrible. That's really, really terrible." And she kept repeating herself, "It's really terrible, so terrible that this is happening to you."

I agreed with her because we think so too, Nahum.

We think it's terrible.
We think it's tragic.
We think it's horrible.

That's why we have cried so much.

But (and there is a "but"), we know a God who also had something really, really terrible happen to His own Son. We know a God who can take even the most terrible things—like the death of His own Son—and make the most wonderful things out of them. We know a God so wise, so sovereign, and so all-powerful that He can turn even terrible into wonderful.

We don't have to pretend what the doctor says is happening to you is not terrible. We are free to mourn and to cry. But somehow when all the terrible settles, God is there and He seems closer than ever before. It is well with our souls, even in the midst of the terrible, because we are accompanied through the terrible by Him whose name is Wonderful.

What would be really, really terrible would be to go through this without Him.

Mom and Dad

Monday, January 16, 2017

body and blood

Dear Little One,


As you have probably noticed, we go to church most Sundays. At our church there are two services. They're not really meant to be picked between, they're meant to both be attended because the focus of each one is different. At the first one we spend most of the time focusing on the cornerstone of the Christian faith: Jesus, and particularly His death and resurrection. At the second one, the focus is broader. Of course, we still talk about Jesus, but we might also talk abut other themes, too. The Bible talks about so many topics.

Even though the services aren't meant to be picked between, we don't always go to the first service. Sometimes we're simply lazy, and sometimes we're justifiably tired. No one at the church keeps track of who attends, and no one scolds people who don't attend.

However, this morning I noticed I had a greater desire than usual to get up early and go to the first service. I wondered why. Maybe the main reason is because the theme of the first hour is a broken body and shed blood. I've never felt so close to those topics as I do now, Little One, because suffering has come close to you and me in the last weeks. The ultrasound shows that your body is broken. I know that I will shed blood for you.

As much as I can talk to family or friends about your situation and they can try to share our pain, Jesus best understands our sorrow. When we go to that first service on Sunday, we sing to and about Jesus, read about Jesus, think about Jesus and then take the bread and the wine. In so doing, we find comfort in Him. Jesus' body was broken without His Spirit being broken. His body bled but His spirit lived. When our hearts are broken and bleeding, He is the best person to tell, because He understands.

That first service has become more precious to us because of you. Thank you.

Mom and Dad

Friday, January 13, 2017

time with you

Dear Little One,


The other day I was telling your Dad that I am more fortunate than he is, because I get to spend more time with you than he does. When he's away at work, or even in another room, he can't be with you. But wherever I go, whatever I do, you're there with me. You get up with me. You go to German class with me. You work at design projects with me. You make regular trips to the grocery store with me. You go to bed with me. We do everything together.

But today it occurred to me that there's one thing only Dad can do for you. He's always given me a goodbye kiss before leaving to work, but now he gives you a goodbye kiss too, by kissing my tummy.  That's something I cannot do, because of course I cannot bend over enough to kiss you in my tummy. I pointed that out to him, that only he can kiss you. Dad smiled really wide. It made him feel special, that he gets to do something for you that I can't.

We thank God for every moment we have with you,

Mom and Dad

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

our little boy

Dear Little One,


Today we found out you're a boy! (We were quite sure of that, somehow, but the ultrasound told us we weren't crazy.) Dad was there to find out at the same moment as I did. He smiled at me and I smiled back. A little boy seems like such a nice way to start a family.

You're sixteen weeks old, a lanky fifteen centimetres long and you weigh 150 grams. The doctor showed us your arm and bent elbow, your leg and your wiggling foot. We got to see your heart pounding and your umbilical cord throbbing. We listened to your heartbeat, and he showed us how he could tell you are a boy. The only thing he didn't want to show us was your head, and we had to ask him, "Please, show us our boy's head."

He did, and we were sorry to see again that your head still looks like it stops above your eyes. That's not the way little boy's heads usually look, Little One. At least not the heads of little boys who can skip and throw balls and play catch and ride bikes. Not the heads of little boys who can bake cookies and run errands and read books and draw pictures. But somehow it's what the head of our favourite little boy looks like.

It was a strange mixture of happy and sad seeing you today, Little One. It should have been a moment of wonder and awe, to see you being formed in that secret place, and it was. But it was also a moment of sorrow and woe, because we kept thinking about what it means when a little boy has no skull.

You're still here, but somehow we already miss you, our little firstborn son.

Mom and Dad



Tuesday, January 10, 2017

wounds and healing

Dear Little One,


On Sunday we sang these words, "Durch seine Wunden bin ich heil" ("By His wounds I am healed.") Did you hear us? The doctor told us that you are wounded, Little One, and we have prayed for healing, and so those words jump off the page to me right now.

As we have told different people about your situation, I have realized that how people respond to news like we received about you depends a lot on worldview. A Christian's perspective on this is very different than most people's. To many people in this world, wounds are seen as 100% tragedy. But not to us. Why is that? I guess it's because our whole faith is built around the idea that sometimes wounding and death serve a greater purpose than we can see at the moment when they're happening. Christians believe that the very wounds which appeared to have broken Jesus were the wounds that offer us healing.

We grieve about your deformity, Little One, but we know that somehow what is happening to you is not 100% tragedy. Somewhere between the bread and the wine on Sunday, we remembered that we don't look at Wunden in isolation, or else we would despair. We don't pretend the wounds are not there, but we keep our eyes on the future Heilung—not just for your little body, but for this entire suffering and dying world.

With hope,

Mom and Dad

Thursday, January 5, 2017

hauptsache gesund?

Dear Little One,


Since coming to Germany, I've realized that overall, Germans are highly concerned with good health. You can see it in the thoroughness and strictness of their socialized healthcare system, in their concern with healthy eating and organic shops, and in their love of being outside and taking walks in the Wald. Not that North Americans aren't concerned with health; some are. But in the land where you will be born, they say "Hauptsache Gesund!" or "The main/most important thing is health."

We like all the healthy options available to us here, and you have already benefited from the good medical care here. We've always been the whole grain, fruit and vegetable types, so Germany suits us. We love being able to move around the city by bike or by foot. Germany gives Dad more weeks of holidays because it's important to them that their workers have time to rejuvenate, and we will never complain about that! But is the most important thing health, as they say here?

In Germany, God used to be worshiped above health, but not anymore. Most of the traditional churches have become more like museums to be visited, or nice place to find silence and take pictures. Surveys say that for most people in Germany, the idea of a personal, living God is passé. But that doesn't mean they don't worship any more. (Societies never eliminate worship completely—they just find another object to worship, usually some created thing instead of the Creator.) Good health is a god to be worshipped in Germany. Maybe the god above all gods.

I'm glad we don't worship at the altar of good health, Little One, because the priest of that god told us that modern medicine has no means to heal you. Which means that if the Hauptsache is that you be Gesund, your life would have no more purpose. Our hope would be extinguished. Exchanging the God of gods for the god of health is a choice a person can make, but an expensive one. Because when your health is taken away from you, you have no hope. And what then? Maybe your good health coverage would cover treatment for the depression that would surely follow?

I'm so glad your value was never tied up in your health.

Hauptsache Gott!

Mom and Dad