Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Karis's Delivery Day


Yesterday was by far the hardest thing God has ever asked me to walk through.  Nobody looks forward to laboring and giving birth, but what gets you through that hard process is knowing your reward of precious new life at the end, and yesterday we could not hold onto that reality.  Everyone says “you will forget the pain as soon as you hold that baby,” but I would not forget the pain, I would only feel it more when there was no joy waiting for us at the end. In fact, what the end of laboring and birthing would bring for us is more hurt and more pain. It felt unbearable. 

I felt as if someone beat me up and there I was standing at the starting line of a marathon knowing the gun was about to be shot off and I would have to start running.  As I took the first pill to induce labor, it was as if the man pulled the starting gun, no looking back now, I had to run this race to the finish line.  The struggle was in this race I didn’t even want to get to the finish line.  The finish line only meant more hurt.

As I laid in bed that night after inducing, I kept telling God I couldn’t do this and that he had to do it through me.  I didn’t have the strength, but I knew he did.  I didn’t have the emotional capacity but he did.  I didn’t have the energy, but he did.  I was so scared, but he was so strong.  Because of his faithfulness He has shown us these past two weeks, I knew, confidently knew, he would carry us through.  But that didn’t mean I wanted to walk through it.  I begged him in the middle of the night if there was any other way.  I remembered Jesus in the garden, sweating blood asking God the same question.  I knew the pain I had to walk through and felt so afraid.  In the quiet of the night, he didn’t give me a way out, he only promised He would go through the pain with me. 

At 5:30am the cramps came strong enough to wake Kory up and head to the hospital.  We checked in, got our room, and went through the same steps we remembered going through for Avery.  Feelings of familiarity tried to tell me I had been here before, but this was far from familiar.  My contractions were coming in closer and stronger.  Worship music filled the room, songs that brought tears and hope together.  The song “It Is Well” started to play and the line in the song that says, “through it all, my eyes are on you” spoke to my soul.  My eyes had to be on Him if I wanted to get through this day.  In that moment he gave me a new finish line to cross, a purpose for the day.  In this day I had the opportunity to honor Karis well with a graceful delivery that she deserved.  The task before me allowed me to tangibly be a mommy to her and give her something special, even though she may never know it.  I also had the opportunity to give God glory in the midst of my suffering. A lot of times as we are getting ready to do something big whether it’s putting on a camp, gearing up for ISI, or leading some sort of something, I’ve always told God right before we do it that this is for him.  This is my act of love for Him that day.  This is how I’m worshiping Him that day. And today was no different.  My labor was an act of worship to Him.  These two reasons gave me enough strength to endure the hours of labor.  It was for God & it was for Karis. 
 
Nurses came in and out, tuned in to my emotional condition as much as my physical condition.  I held Kory’s hand tight as I looked into his eyes for strength as I breathed through each painful contraction.  With each squeeze of physical pain that I felt, the squeeze of pain on my heart was hardest.  Kory read Scriptures over us from 8am to 11am.  We hung onto truth as we held onto each other. 

And then it came, time to push, the part I was most scared of.  Kory saw the fear in my eyes and he quickly began praying out loud for the Lord to comfort us and be with us.  I sobbed and screamed as I mustered the strength to push her out.  Kory’s face was pressed against mine as our tears ran together.  We let ourselves feel the heavy weight of loss. We’ve never cried harder, and the Lord has never been closer. In such a moment of deep pain, the Lord provided a profound moment of bonding between Kory & I that I will hold onto. We were closer in that moment to each other and the Lord than we had ever been.  Suffering has a strange way of deepening relationships and taking them to more intimate depths than they have ever known.

As we looked and held our lifeless daughter, I thought about how we were supposed to be changing her diaper, figuring out how to nurse, hearing her cry and watching her stretch and wiggle.  We were supposed to watch her grow, bandage her scraped knees, build sandcastles on the beach, and walk her down the aisle.  We were supposed to know her favorite ice cream and figure out if she was sweet like her mommy or spicy like her daddy.  Avery was supposed to be a big sister and they were going to be best friends.  Through my tears I told Kory our family would never feel complete on this earth without her.  But we do not grieve as those who do not have hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14).  We have the hope that she is home.  She is complete and healed.  She is experiencing life, life to the full with Jesus in heaven.  We will never have to see her cry.  We will never have to see her heart break.  We will never have to watch her endure any pain.  This fallen world will never weigh heavy on her soul.  Because Karis Faith Lantz will never have to know what pain is.  She will never experience it.  What joy this brings a momma’s heart.  My baby girl is taken care of; her soul is with her Savior.

After hours of seeing family, and soaking in our time together in the hard moments of pain, it was time to say goodbye.  Kory & I had beautiful moment with her as we laid hands over her in her swaddled blanket.  We thanked God for her life and for how he had used her to teach us and so many, about himself.  We cried as we asked him for strength as we grieved our loss on this side of earth.  We asked him for wisdom as we still as parents of Karis, want to honor her life and glorify God through it.  We told him that He was good and that we trust Him more than we trust what we want.  And we kissed her sweet head and told her she better be right behind Jesus to hug us when we get to heaven.  She truly is a gift of grace in our lives.


“The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save.  He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”
Zephaniah 3:17

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”
Psalm 34:18







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