Choosing joy…while you bury your baby and your talk becomes your walk…
Fifteen years have passed since we watched a beautiful, yet horridly ugly casket the size of a shoebox lower into the ground with the fully formed body of our baby girl. She was not meant for this world, though for almost seven months we thought she was. We had named her. Aubri. That’s right, the name that our now twelve year old answers to was originally to be given to her sister.
I couldn’t do it. I could not write that name on the death certificate. It truly wasn’t because I thought we might use it again. Honestly, I believe it was because I was so attached to that name. When I looked over at the sonogram screen and saw that little body curled up, motionless, I simply could not do it. I suppose my initial intention was to give her a name that meant nothing to me. Maybe…detaching myself from it all. It didn’t work. I was attached, and torn.
One of the amazing physician assistants that sat by my side from the moment we knew she was gone had recently lost a baby the same way. She was slap in the middle of the healing process and still chose to sit right beside me and hold my hand until Steve could arrive. Her name? Amber.
One of the other precious souls that would not leave my side was our dear friend who had worked for my doctor for several years. Her sweet hubby, Rob, was and still is one of Steve’s best friends on the planet, and they were (and still are;) so very dear to us! She would not leave. She stayed. She prayed. She cried. She laughed. She loved. Her name? Denise
Needless to say, when the nurse came to our room and asked if we had chosen a name, I knew the Lord had actually chosen for us. Amber Denise Chamblee. A name I was attached to for many different, and many similar reasons.
After we decided on the name, our next big decision was whether or not we would hold her. I didn’t want to. Are you kidding me? Hold my baby that is lifeless? How morbid! Wouldn’t that emotionally scar me for the rest of my life?? Who does that? They even sent a hospital counselor in to me to try and encourage me to hold her. I might regret not doing it she said. I remember thinking in my 26 year old self righteous and prideful mind, “hmph…I don’t need this lady’s advice…I know what I’m doing…I’m a STROOONG woman!!” Can you believe the arrogance?? It sickens me just thinking back on it.
Alas, I broke down. Now it was literally the last minute before we were to leave the hospital. I mean…bag packed, nurse escort called, Steve gone to pull the car around. He and my mom had both already held her and both encouraged me to do the same. Of course, in that same prideful brain of mine they were both lunatics too and didn’t know what the heck they were talking about. Truth is, they did know what they were talking about. And so did that counselor.
They brought her to me all swaddled in a blanket. She was so tiny. Her body was fully formed and her skin was soft and pink, except for her face…it had already begun to turn dark and shrink up a tad bit because her fluid was completely gone. I rocked her and cried. What in the world had just happened? Surreal. I kissed her head, and handed her back to the nurse. It was time to move forward.
A nurse rolled me out of the same doors I had rolled out of twice before, and straight ahead to my man who had been waiting for me both times beside the car with the door opennext to a buckled in car seat. Only this time there was no baby in my arms. No car seat needed. He grabbed my hand, took time to pray and thank the Lord for His love and strength, and we drove away.
It was in those moments, beginning with our doctor sitting at the foot of the sonogram table, telling me she was gone, and praying with me, to the moment we drove away, that I learned the meaning of true peace. This was not circumstantial peace that we have when our lives look the way we want them to. This is true peace…deep down, in the pit of your sick, sad, overwhelmed gut. Peace. It was then that God’s word came to life for me. It was then that I learned that it is indeed, “alive and active”, Hebrews 4:12. It was then that I watched Philippians 4:7 literally come to life. We had, “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding…”.
Never was that verse more true. This peace surpassed all of my human understanding. There was no way we could explain it in human terms. Still can’t. Only through the lens of scripture can one know that type of peace.
There, among the ashes, we began to choose joy. Not because it was easy, but because we’re called to, and there was no way we were going to say with our lips that we serve a mighty God who gives us an abundant life, yet walk around with a face and a life that says, “defeated”. No way! Our God is bigger than any tragedy that comes our way. He doesn’t give us a “hope so” life. He IS our living hope. That doesn’t mean we never cry. That doesn’t mean we’re never mad. That doesn’t mean our life is easy street. It simply means our talk became our walk the day we buried our baby girl.
