Holding Onto Our Hope

photo drawn by our five year old daughter of her with her hoped for baby sister

I slept the restless sleep of a heart breaking and grief expected.

The bleeding grew worse and the pains increased.

I kissed my love before he walked out the door for another day of work, his arms wrapping me close in unspoken words of shared tears.

I watched our three little loves laugh and love and live, the absence of you growing heavier and harder.

I had been carrying you here in the safety of my womb and here I was waiting for one last goodbye.

I rushed to the bathroom as your arrival weighed me down and with one final sigh of pains and tears and grief I felt you leave my womb...

empty...

broken...

torn.

I stared at you, tiny and lifeless, as the emptiness of my womb made my knees tremble and ache.

I scooped you out of the water and carefully, tenderly, gently placed you in a tiny cup with lid tightly wound closed.

And then I held you in my arms, the first and last time here on earth.

You were two little bumps where arms were waiting to be formed and a tiny body curled into a C, cradled in my earthly arms while your soul rested safe in the arms of Christ.

You were here, but you were there.

You were born lifeless into my arms, but born to eternal life in the only arms that heal and comfort and restore.

I held onto you, our Hope baby, for just a moment in time, but the real Hope you remind me of already I will hold onto forever.

Now, my arms are as empty as my womb and my heart broken, but hearts can be mended and emptiness filled by the  one Hope that is an anchor for the soul.

As the rains flood and the storm rages, He comes, sure and steadfast, to bind up all wounds and comfort all tears.

I miss you.  I will always miss you.

But I know where you rest, where I will meet you once more.

You rest in the arms of the only Hope that gives life without end and love without fail.

One day, I will see you for real, fully restored and fully alive...right at the feet of the One whose arms will always hold us both.