We Lost our Baby (Part 2)

 July 20

We're still waiting for the baby to come out naturally. But honestly, all this waiting is good for the soul. Although there is that part of me that wants it to happen already so I can start recovering physically... like I want to move forward somehow the soonest time possible. But maybe that's why we are still here, in the waiting... because so much more is accomplished when we quiet our souls.

A week before we received the news that our baby is gone, God showed me a picture of a man sitting on a big rock with sheep at his feet. He had his back on me but he looks like a shepherd, overlooking the vast field, at peace, resting, unhurried...

I immediately felt it was David. 

I was asking God for career direction at that time and that was the picture He gave me. I thought I was still pregnant at that time, little did I know that the baby in my tummy was already gone. 

Hmm... what does that mean? I was only looking for an answer regarding my career but apparently, He was already preparing to give me an answer for what was to come. I guess sometimes, He answers those questions we haven't even learned to ask ourselves.

But what God impressed me in the next couple of days was not what the man was doing in the picture but what the man was feeling in the picture. Then a few days after that ultrasound saying that our baby is gone, I was reading the Good and Beautiful God by James Bryan Smith and it read the passage, Psalm 23!

It clicked that that was the image! Of course, it was Psalm 23! While David was the one wrote it, it wasn't him the passage was referring to. It was JESUS.

JESUS was the man in the picture, and well, I was one of the sheep:

The Lord Is My Shepherd

A Psalm of David.

1

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2 

    He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters.

3 

    He restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness

    for his name's sake.

4 

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

    I will fear no evil,

for you are with me;

    your rod and your staff,

    they comfort me.

5 

You prepare a table before me

    in the presence of my enemies;

you anoint my head with oil;

    my cup overflows.

6 

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me

    all the days of my life,

and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord

    forever.

I was getting teary-eyed while I was reading it because of how God has always prepared me somehow for major curveballs ahead. The words HE RESTORES MY SOUL was an assurance that He is here, he is not rushing me to be okay because it is not okay. But He promises me that He will restore my soul and I can rest on that, just as the sheep can rest soundly at the feet of its shepherd.

It was also an invitation to the less hurried life, to a life of less but more, a life of simplicity but so much deeper.

I praise God even at a time like this because He is always inviting me in His presence. I must admit that I tend to forget Him at times especially when I have been so busy with work and projects that I can't even finish an online service! True story! I can't even connect with those around me kasi may gagawin pa ako... I was too busy to be interrupted so when life finally interrupted me, Jesus was there and He has always been -- waiting.

He is always waiting for me, on every high and low of life, He invites and welcomes me to sit at His feet.

And maybe He is also inviting you to His presence these days, so I just want to also encourage you: He is patiently waiting and maybe we are the ones who need to pause, stop and breathe in His presence. :)

PS. I will be updating here what happens in the next few weeks as we wait. Well, nothing has changed since my last post but come to think of it, maybe everything has -- there is still fear, and worries yes, but knowing that He is with me makes all the difference. :)