one year

April 16th, 2022 my entire life changed. Forever. There will never be a day that I don’t think of as “Before Loss” or “After Loss”. There will never be a photo of me that I don’t see and immediately know if it was taken in the beforetime or the aftertime—my appearance is not so altered to other people, but I can immediately see the difference. That day is the dividing line between so much in my life. Between being sadness avoidant at all costs and forever being one of the grieving. Between thinking that I knew exactly the story God was telling in my life and knowing that I do not know. Between believing (without realizing it) that nothing truly horrific could happen to me and seeing my worst nightmare unfold before my eyes, never again to experience the comforting illusion that those I love are in no real danger.

After one entire year of grieving for Magnolia, I can see that there are tiny glimpses of redemption on the other side of that dividing line. It does not make me long for Magnolia any less. It does not fix the pain of her loss or make it easier to see baby girls in their Easter outfits. I would trade every single bit of spiritual and emotional growth I have experienced to be an exhausted mom whose daughter doesn’t sleep through the night yet. In a heartbeat I would trade this story for a life with Magnolia.

And also I believe it’s true that through Jesus all things are being redeemed. He is working all things for our good—which does not mean that all things are good on their own. Death is not made right by the Cross, as people so often try to convince us. If I try to see it charitably, I think people intend to comfort the grieving with that notion—that death is not something to mourn, if it happened it must be part of God’s plan for our lives and we should have “celebrations of life” instead of funerals because our loved ones are with Jesus. More honestly I think most people are just incredibly uncomfortable with grief, they don’t want to sit with hard questions or with someone who can’t stop crying. So in an attempt to stop your tears and escape from their own discomfort, they “encourage” you with half truths about how God will use your personal tragedy for His glory and that you should find joy in that. It’s just not true, friends. Or at best, it’s true only as part of a much deeper mystery rarely engaged with, held together in Jesus’s death and resurrection.

The Cross screams that death is the enemy, and that Jesus faced that enemy and defeated it, and one day death will be no more on this Earth. “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” It’s right there in the Text (and much less importantly as a key plot point in Harry Potter). Yes, Jesus went willingly to his death, yes his death accomplished what could not otherwise have been done—defeating sin and restoring us to right relationship with God. There is no denying that in this, God humiliated death by causing it to serve his own purpose. But death. is. still. an. enemy. Loss is still losing. And God is still working.

The moments I see God working in my grief are special. I won’t list them all, but I see Him beginning the redemption here that will only be complete in heaven when I get to see my gorgeous baby girl again. When I, with my scarred heart, can put my hands in Jesus’s scarred hands.