March 9

This time of year, I am pretty much always in the middle of reading through the Old Testament, and it just so happens, I've been reading about significant days that God told the Israelites to set aside for sacrifice, rest, and remembrance.

I don't celebrate too many special days where I am busily sacrificing bulls and rams and goats and flour and pouring wine over all of it. But I have days of significance that God has set aside in my life asking for sacrifice, rest, and remembrance.

March 9 is one of them.

14 years ago, Whitney Leigh was stillborn. Full-term. Lovely girl, dark-haired, straight from the hand of God.

This 14 year journey is not one I want to imagine repeating, but I would not trade it. Not even to have her back. I don't remember the day I realized I submitted under God's hand and stopped begging him to give her back, but it happened. I accepted his will, not joyously, not easily, but I did. And that place of acceptance has led to the most freedom and growth I have ever experienced.

I used to say he was good.
I used to say he was great.
I used to say he was sovereign.
Now I believe it.
Not because someone else told me, but because I had to live through nearly unendurable pain from his hand when he seemed anything but good, anything but great, and his sovereignty seemed either fake or cruel.

To see what I imagined was my greatest treasure--my daughter--I had to look at Jesus. I looked at him, first reluctantly, then in blazing anger, then in rending grief. He never looked away from me. It was in looking at him, I found my greatest treasure. It was him all along.

I have so much joy in knowing my daughter has lived her life in the presence of Jesus these last 14 years. I have so much joy in knowing I will live my always in his presence when he calls me.

I also smile, wondering if somehow my daughter knows my friend's son. He was a little baby when Jesus called him home, just a few short years before he called our Whitney. I don't know how friendships look in heaven, but I know that God has called us into relationship with himself and others, so I would just love it if they were friends. I look forward to seeing them both.