Assured

Assured: something guaranteed, certain, confidently expected.

When you were born, sweet boy, we had no idea you would have special needs. I went to the operating room for a repeat cesarean section fully expecting a normal, healthy baby boy.

Your cry was weak. The room was silent. Something was not right.

No one came to visit us in the hospital. When your brother Emerson was born two and a half years before our room was filled with flowers and balloons. Yet with you, no one knew what to say so they said nothing.

The fear – of not knowing if I was going to be able to keep you and this new world we were unexpectedly thrust into – could not be made better by typical platitudes, Christianese or even, in some sense, Scripture. My faith has matured over the last twenty-four years, yet the platitudes and Christianese still offer little to no comfort. The solace I find is in the assurances, the promises yet to come. Until they are birthed, I sit much of the day in trust and hope. I feel gelatinous in the stasis but faith surrounds me.

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. (Hebrews 11:1)

My confidence is small.

Most days, my hope is simply to hope.

My assurance is great because I know Him.

I am not alone. He is here.

My tears are collected. My pain is seen and honored.

His mercy is new. I woke up. I breathe. Your brothers are well. I am loved. I am forgiven and redeemed.

My strength will be renewed. Even micro strengthening is significant. If I can lift my soul just a little longer today it is a victory.

This pain will not be wasted. He works ALL things for good. Yes, sweet boy, even my grief. I don’t know how, but am assured He will. It may not be proportional, but it will not go unclaimed.

I will be lifted out of the pit. I wonder if it comes so incrementally, I won’t realize it until I am out. Perhaps freedom will be found on an unexpected day, without warning or announcement. I wait with joyful anticipation.

His Grace is sufficient. I can’t do this, sweet boy. I am living every parent’s worst nightmare. His power is made perfect in weakness. I am protected.

I will be steadied as I walk along. When I am able, I will learn to walk again in this world without you. As a child just learning, I will lose balance and be recovered.

I was shaped by your birth. It was the first time I realized two things can both be true and opposed. I was ecstatic and scared. I was happy and sad. I was thrilled and disappointed.

I was shaped by your life. You taught me resilience, persistence, boundless laughter, strength, advocacy, purity, and how to love others unconditionally. I became the best version of me by loving you.

The beginning of your life, sweet boy, and now in the after have been two of the most uncertain, frightening times in my life. Learning to be the mom of a child with special needs was like moving to a foreign land with no knowledge of the language or customs. I didn’t even know we were headed there until we arrived. But I learned. Not only that, I made a home for us there. One filled with vigilance, fun, and so much love. It is the accomplishment of my life.

And on an ordinary Saturday morning in February it was destroyed.

There is no avoiding it, I will be shaped by your death. I will be shaped by the catastrophic loss of you. But also how I heal and what I choose to let take hold of my heart. I promise you, sweet boy, it will not be bitterness. It will not be fear. I will be shaped by how I move when forward motion is possible. You will be with me, sweet boy. Moving forward is not the same as on.

The shaping is yet to come. It is inevitable. It is consequential. It is uninvited but here all the same. Until the assurances reach full gestation, my soul – gelatinous, suspended – is held together by the promises they hold.