Switching Places

It's been a long while since I've been at a SIDS group meeting. For the longest time, it was Josh and I, sitting there being the 'fresh ones' and the support for us was tremendous. As I sat at that table, I listened to everyone's comments being directed towards a certain couple. Their daughter died, just five weeks ago. They passed around pictures, as so everyone did, cause of course, a SIDS parent has pictures on them at all times. But when I saw their baby girl, I looked at that smile, and thought, 'she was here, just 5 weeks ago.' It broke my heart for her, for them, and then came Sarah's face to my mind. Those last moments of kissing her soft cheeks, sitting on mom's couch nursing her, tucking her in before I left her...... there.......
When it came my turn to speak and to say any words of wisdom I was given by the Holy Spirit, I started with, "I'm 3 years out and......" I thought instantly, 'wow! 3 years..... I'm there. I'm where 'the others' were when we started coming there. We have switched places.'
I was no longer the fresh SIDS parent with that hopeless ache of no end, needing to be comforted. I am now, the one that is able to comfort, having hope that even though there is no end, peace still exists, the cool of the day exists, that the Kingdom of Heaven is still at hand. Where they are trying with every effort to keep their faces above water ( I remember well), I am standing waist deep with my arms held out while He, the One True Savior, is all around them. He is the One that is treading water with them, He is the One underneath them desiring to hold them up with time for healing, and He is the One flying over head taking charge of those waters, whether it is noticed or not.
Where is satan in all this? he is the seaweed that strokes our legs making us fear the water enabling the water to overcome us. Because of Jesus' name, because of what Jesus has done, He has given us power to overcome it. Sometimes I forget that power, because of my hopelessness. Instead of focusing on the shoreline, my attention is turned downward into the abyss. I would be lying if I told you that I never tread water and start to drown. I would also be lying if I said I have never looked at that abyss again.  But what would be honest is the fact that I serve a Faithful King. He has not left me, nor forsaken me. He has held my hand, and I have felt Him.

I left that meeting last night painfully knowing that they were going to go home to an empty house. I cried most of the way home, remembering that feeling of first stepping into the house after Sarah died, I was missing my baby, and for the first time, I prayed, " Lord, Thank you for giving me my trials, so I can comfort those hurting now." He knew more than I did, that I needed them in order to reflect the Light.  I came home, last night, to a full house because of what the Lord has done for me.

I encourage all who are reading this, to go and be comforters, in the way that God has made you to be.

1 Corinthians 1:3-7
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort."