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Hello Again :)
I wanted to update you all on the process we have been on. It has been mostly valleys but the Lord has walked with us. As we process, we would love to invite you alongside of us, as the Lords saint's, to lift us to Him in prayer, that it may rise as incense before His throne as His Bride walks together as pilgrams in this world.
Grief. What an interesting part of being human. The process of grief over these past 7 months has looked different than any other grieving either of us have gone through. I decided the day we lost the baby that I was going to hold nothing back. I don’t know if it was the right decision but I sure am thankful for it. Whenever I became overwhelmed in grief, whether in public or private, I let it come out and the tears flow. I doubt I even had any emotional energy left to try and hold it back but I still made the conscious decision to do the opposite. I do believe that this allowed me to really feel everything that came over me- things that I would not have expected to feel, things happening on a subconscious and instinctual level. Sometimes it meant crying around coworkers but that gave (and continues to give) me an opportunity to share this suffering and even more, to share the hope I have in Christ. Stephen has had a tougher time in some senses working through all of the emotions and questions amidst suffering. His prayer request is that his heart would believe truth. Please pray that the Lord would convince his heart of truth and of His goodness.
Sometimes I greatly dislike how weak and sensitive I am but I now understand Stephen more now when he says he wishes he was as weak as me, for, it truly has driven me to dependence upon our Lord and strengthened my faith in ways I couldn’t have imagined. I am broken and so weak before our holy, mighty, and loving God. There have been moments I have been angry with the Lord or simply in great physical pain due to my body’s healing process that I am heavily tempted to blame it on the Lord.
“If you hadn’t allowed me to get pregnant unplanned and then taken the baby in a torrent of physical and emotional pain, I wouldn’t be here. I would be in the pain I am in now. I wouldn’t be separated from my Escondido community. I wouldn’t have been stripped away from our support in the middle of a global pandemic. I wouldn’t feel like you sent me into the wilderness to die. I wouldn’t be battling hormonal and seasonal depression. I wouldn’t be suffering.”
And then, in the way only a merciful and gracious Father can do, He reminds me of the cross. In the shadow of the cross, God reveals himself in the weakness and mercy of the suffering. He is found in the weak things of the world. By His Spirit and His word, often through His Bride, he reminds me of His Son. He doesn’t dismiss the suffering of this broken world, He doesn’t tell me to just lift my thoughts higher to escape my pain, rather, He enters into it. He condescends to us. He takes on flesh and meets me here, in the middle of my pain and suffering. He doesn’t take it away but He walks with me through it.
He has sent his people to weep with us. Oh how our Escondido community surrounded us and didn’t gives us spiritual platitudes the way Job’s friends did but rather came to us in our suffering and wept with us. And then they helped us to set our hope upon our risen Savior. I am dearly thankful for each of you.
Had this miscarriage happened a year prior, before I was introduced to the reformed categories of the “theology of the cross” vs “the theology of glory” (I’d encourage you to look it up and explore the differences!), I most likely would have just tried to “ascend” out of my pain by thinking “higher thoughts set on God”. It’s kinda how I lived all of my Christian life…more gnostic in thought and practice than historically and Biblical Christian. My worldview has been being deconstructed since February. For this kind of grief and suffering to enter in just 4 months after that began left me at a place totally stripped bare of who I am and what I believe about Christianity.
What I have found is something so much more real and void of an escapism mindset. I have found the Jesus who entered into this world. “Only if we allow ourselves to take seriously the empirical evidence that seems to count against God’s faithfulness to His promises are we able to receive an answer that is as deep and provocative as the question” -Michael Horton.
The answer is not a theoretical answer to the problem of evil, rather is is a practical one- the death and resurrection of the Son of God. He suffered more physical, emotional, and spiritual pain than I can even bear to imagine for our redemption. He lived under the shadow of suffering and the cross. This life is and will be one of suffering but it will be one accompanied by the presence of our suffering savior who has borne infinitely more than we ever will, who comforts us by His presence, and who grants us hope for the life that is coming where there is no more pain, suffering or tears. Oh how I look forward to that day- to enter into the wedding feast of the lamb and see Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Paul, the apostles, and then turn…and look into the face of our savior Jesus Christ. To look upon His beauty and glory in its fulness and to be fully in His presence forever. This grief is hard and full of pain and toil but it is a severe mercy. It is a place where I am being humbled by His mighty right hand, where I am finding Christ. We grieve, but not as the world grieves, for we have hope.
We love you dealry, thank you for your prayer and support over the years,
The Byrd's
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