A Time for Everything
There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die...
For little Landis, the time to be born was followed too closely by a time to die. I never saw him, but I went to his funeral and stared through watery eyes at a white casket not much bigger than a shoebox. I can't quite wrap my mind around how small six ounces is, but I do know that it's too small to survive on this earth. So I stood there in the biting cold, a lump in my throat and tears that never quite made it past my eyes, watching my friend sob over the baby that she never got to cuddle or feed or bathe. But she did get to love him. Those eighteen weeks she carried her child inside her she loved him with the fierce love of a mother. A love that I marvel at.
And I grappled with the questions. Why was her time to rejoice cut short by a time to grieve? Why was a piece of her heart bound up with that grave in the frozen ground? Why did it happen this way?
But my questions were cut short by the words of our pastor, who said that Landis's life, as brief as it was, touched the lives of that small group huddled together in the cold. And it would touch other's through the lives of his parents, his grandparents, his aunts and uncles. I still don't understand it, but once again I must find comfort in God's perfection. And I have to believe that Landis's parents will get to hold him one day. Until then, these frozen tears will serve as a reminder of the one we lost.
There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die...
For little Landis, the time to be born was followed too closely by a time to die. I never saw him, but I went to his funeral and stared through watery eyes at a white casket not much bigger than a shoebox. I can't quite wrap my mind around how small six ounces is, but I do know that it's too small to survive on this earth. So I stood there in the biting cold, a lump in my throat and tears that never quite made it past my eyes, watching my friend sob over the baby that she never got to cuddle or feed or bathe. But she did get to love him. Those eighteen weeks she carried her child inside her she loved him with the fierce love of a mother. A love that I marvel at.
And I grappled with the questions. Why was her time to rejoice cut short by a time to grieve? Why was a piece of her heart bound up with that grave in the frozen ground? Why did it happen this way?
But my questions were cut short by the words of our pastor, who said that Landis's life, as brief as it was, touched the lives of that small group huddled together in the cold. And it would touch other's through the lives of his parents, his grandparents, his aunts and uncles. I still don't understand it, but once again I must find comfort in God's perfection. And I have to believe that Landis's parents will get to hold him one day. Until then, these frozen tears will serve as a reminder of the one we lost.
posted by Brandy at 1/17/2005 03:43:00 PM
1 Comments:
His mercies are new every morning! I don't know if you remember that one summer at camp I received word that my sister-in-law and brother lost their baby. I didn't understand it, but very soon after, Carol became pregnant again, and Zachary turned 5 last November. I can't imagine life without him, and he wouldn't have been born had my other nephew/neice made it! I like to think that Carol and Gus will hold their precious little one some day. God is faithful--even when we don't quite understand...
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