Give & Take

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about life (there are many) it’s that life is full of hardship and challenges, and nobody is spared their share of either. The loss of a loved one hurts just as much if you’re rich as if you’re starving and desolate. Cancer doesn’t seem to discriminate against wealth classes. Anxiety is found just as frequently in the lives of the rich and famous as those who are struggling to make ends meet.

Just as life promises hardship, it also promises another thing that none of us can escape indefinitely; our last breath. Death is unavoidable no matter how much you try and outrun it – as are gray hairs and wrinkles, if you’re fortunate enough to live long enough to receive them.

Pain is one of those things that has a relative scale of impact. To the person who just received diagnosis of a terminal illness, a papercut would be the last thing to worry them. To the individual who just got an excruciating papercut, nothing else matters in that moment. The same could be said for getting kicked in the nuts.

Shortly after moving into my home, I hosted an event for a young couple that I know. It wasn’t a celebration of life, or a baby shower. Rather, it was an event where my church family got together with the couple to mourn the recent news that the baby they had been expecting was dead. It was a really diffcult chapter for the couple, as well as the rest of the church.

It hadn’t been an easy pregnancy. Rather, it was full of complications beginning long before the child was ever conceived. When they finally got the news of the conception, it felt like a prayer had been answered. What followed was a series of months that took a painful toll on the expecting Mom and Dad.

When I got the news that the child had died in the womb, it hit me like a load of bricks. It wasn’t just somebody else’s baby that died; it was a future playmate of Atlas – somebody that he would never have the chance to play with, as he does with all of the other children, every other Sunday. Over the years, I’ve watched him build strong friendships with the kids there, and he looks forward to playing with them every week I’m able to take him.

This Sunday was no different. As soon as we walked in the door at Sparrow (the event space where our church meets weekly) he darted off to see his friends. A short while later, the service started and we took our seats in our usual spot; the front row.

Why do I sit there? Because there are fewer distractions. The sermon feels more like a conversation. I also don’t like looking at the back of people’s heads.

During worship, a familiar song was sung; one I’ve sung for many years.

Blessed Be Your Name

Blessed Be Your Name
In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your name

Blessed Be Your name
When I’m found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your name

Every blessing You pour out
I’ll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say…

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name
You give and take away
You give and take away

In the middle of “you give and take away” I looked up at the screen where the lyrics to the song were displayed. In the reflection, I saw the very back of the building and noticed a man dancing in the back with his newborn child.

Shortly after the loss of their child, the couple came to the church with exciting news; they had conceived again. Over the nine months that followed, all of us kept their family in prayer, praying this child would make it.

It did.

From the reflection in the screen, I saw one of the most beautiful sights in my life as we all sang; it was the father, dancing with his child.

You give and take away…
You give and take away…
My heart will choose to say….
Lord, blessed be your name.

Words truly fail to capture how I felt in that moment as I witnessed (through a reflection) the joy and love of a new Father dancing with his child, after the previous years had been filled with loss, hurt, death and anguish that only a parent can know.

As I watched, I felt a gentle nudge from God. Now, I don’t claim to hear God’s voice on a regular basis. In fact, there have only been a small number of times where I believe I’ve heard it. However, this Sunday was one of them.

“Aaron, don’t you know that I dance over you like this?”

It stunned me. I thought about the pain that I carry, as well as the hope that I have to have a ‘together family’ of my own. I thought of the agonizing tears I’ve cried and the the deep, scarring hurts that have accumulated over the last five years of Fatherhood, and all I could think about was God dancing over me through the tribulations; laying a path forward, hope for tomorrow and a better future than the past that’s been filled with anguish and suffering.

“Aaron, don’t you know that I carry you like this Dad holds his child?”

I thought of all of the moments where I’ve cried out to God for help. I thought of all of the times where I felt hopeless, lost, broken and incomplete.

“Aaron, don’t you know that I LOVE YOU like this Father loves his child, and the way you LOVE Atlas?”

Now I do.