I didn’t just lose you. I lost the promise of you. The promise I thought I had. The promise I thought I heard. I think I even might have lost the confidence of believing a promise again. Maybe you were never a promise, only a dream I thought I had the right to dream, to treasure, to build on. Feeling you grow and move inside of me, I took as a promise that you were mine; that I will be raising you, holding you and nurturing you. Were you also cherishing a promise of having a mother and being part of a family? Or were you expecting to be with God so soon? Did you think of me as your mother or just a place of passing through? If only I had the chance to see you face to face, I would tell you that I would have loved being your mother. I would have liked to know you.
You probably do not view yourself as lost by me but rather found by Jesus. You are held, loved, equipped and used by Jesus. Maybe losing you is not that big of a loss but a tremendous gain for God’s kingdom. I do not understand God’s ways but I do know He loves you even more than I do. I also know you were created for a purpose and a calling that stretches far beyond our lives here on this earth. Losing you also meant gaining. God will never let his children suffer or lose without giving something back. God always restores, heals and gives even if it wasn’t Him who took in the first place. Gaining can have many forms and can easily be overlooked, because grief prefers playing the main role and over shadowing everything. Just after you passed away, I knew in my spirit that something amazing is going to grow from this. So even though some days I am overwhelmed by pain, I am expectant, anticipating something extraordinary in my life. I am determined not to miss anything that God is trying to do or trying to give. Someone asked me today to think about what gifts my baby boy has given me through the loss. It is not something that comes to mind quickly, but after given it some thought, I realized there are indeed: The most obvious gift I received through the loss of Kaleb is discovering my core, the person who God created me to be. Pain can have the effect of stripping you from all the patches, expectations and covering up through the years. Even removing all the masks and add-ons society has given us. What is left is the naked, pure, transparent you. The you, you need to be, the person only you can be. The person God wants you to be, but the person we are often scared to be. I like discovering this different but stronger me. It is empowering, it is freeing. It is a gift. The second gift my son has given me is helping me find my purpose. Each one of us has our calling in life, mostly to reach out to other people, lead people to God and glorify God. But finding our specific path and our specific role is often difficult. Since Kaleb’s passing it has been my desire to support other woman who has experienced the loss of a baby. To bring hope where there is despair and hopelessness. To encourage and comfort where there is isolation and hurt. I have since grown into this journey and have started to walk this road, which is not easy to do, but I know is for me. Although I am unsure, tired and empty most of the time, God is equipping me as I go along and thereby reminding me, it is not me changing lives or me touching others, but Him. I am only His vessel. So even when I feel at a loss of words, discouraged or sad, He makes a way, give me the words, ensure people are open for me and ready to receive what God wants to give or do. This gift has given me hope and life when I didn’t have anything left. And because I have always wanting to be a vessel for God, this is the best gift I could ever have asked for. The next gift is a gift, which I haven’t completely received yet. It is a gift I know I am going to receive, open and enjoy. It is the gift of a blessed and strong marriage. A marriage stronger than what I had up to now. A marriage that will bless others and bring glory to God. Grief and loss have the tendency to bring disconnection. Often each person experiences guilt or shame, due to lies the enemy wants us to believe. I really have to fight and challenge all the lies I believe that make me feel guilty and shameful. Being vulnerable in front of my husband and trusting him with all my pain is hard and difficult and it is easier to withdraw when someone is not on the same page or not able to help. Grief actually is a gift because it is like a magnifying glass, enlarging all the small cracks. Now all the weak areas are exposed and we can address and fix them. Another gift I have received is getting a bigger picture of God. We are always experiencing only glimpses of who God is, how He feels about us and what He can do. I am getting more of God due to my loss. I get to experience more of His love, more of His grace and more of His power. People who are in pain, I believe, have an advantage of being closer to God and therefore experience aspects of Him that we will not experience otherwise. I can say this from experience but also from God’s word: Psalm 34:18: God is close to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. God has been so faithful and has rescued me each time I felt without hope, without love and lifeless. He doesn’t grow tired of me. He doesn’t grow impatient with me. He is never irritated with me. He even loves me and accepts me in my grief, something the world struggles to do. Another gift which comes to mind, is people. I am a strong introvert and have always enjoyed staying home and not engaging with people too much. Since my loss I have been lead to people and God has sent people on my path who have touched my life in ways I cannot even express with words. A big part of my healing has come from the love and understanding of people which is a miracle and almost supernatural for me. I am still amazed by the blessing people can be, something I have never realized before. I have never needed people more than now and I have never appreciated people like now. I even long for interaction and connection with people. I often ask myself the question whether I will still choose to have Kaleb, even if I knew I was going to loose him. The answer is very easy. I will do it again without any doubt. The other question is whether the gifts I have gained are more than depth of the loss. My pain is still too raw and deep to answer this question. What I can honestly say is that the gifts are worth noticing, they are life giving and they are exciting me. I can think and ponder over them and be grateful for them just as much as I grieve the loss of my child. Like the song of Michael W Smith: There is strength within the sorrow There is beauty in our tears And You meet us in our mourning With a love that casts out fear.
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AuthorNanki Robbertse Archives
December 2017
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