The birth of our first baby girl, Patience Jane Marie Lear, was bitter sweet. She arrived a week late, all 4 1/2 pounds & 16 inches of her, at around 11:30 am on Tuesday, March 25th, 2008. And no, I will not convert that to the metric system-she was born in the good ol’ USA. We spent four hours with her before she left this world, but it seemed like an eternity of expectation, emotion, & endurance. Just as she struggled to make it into this world, she labored to stay with us that warm spring afternoon. I held her in my hands, sensing her labor with each new breathe and struggle with every heartbeat. It’s difficult to put into words the feelings of absolute helplessness and overwhelming compassion that flood the heart of a father, knowing that every single second counts as the heartbeat of his daughter is quickly slipping away. Even in the midst of modern medical technology, the birth of a child, any child, remains a miracle beyond explanation, beyond comprehension, and even beyond despair.
How could a kind and loving God allow such a tender and special little person to suffer in so many ways? This world will never be what we’ve expected-sin has ruined what God created to be good, to be pure, to be right. Imperfection has tarnished what once shown with brilliant perfection. We now live in the hands of an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving God of mercy and grace in the midst of a dark, hopelessly lost world. I cannot explain the reason why most things happen in this life. I can only seek the face of the One who can, and trust that He will in the end. I can only love the child I have for the time given to me, and nothing more, and nothing less. My faith in the One true loving and holy God gives me hope in the darkest times. As one who has lost a child himself, I can trust that He knows my pain, and trust that He cares.
Never have such love and loss been so tightly intertwined than that fateful day when Mary’s firstborn son breathed his last breathe upon the cross. Can 33 seconds or 33 years make any difference to the amount of love a parent can feel for a child? The parental agony of every child ever lost was put on display that day at Calvary. Why? So that we might have life. So that we might have resurrection and victory over death. Without that hope, we have nothing. This life will end for all of us, and is slowly fading away with each passing moment, with every breathe we take. If this is all there is, then we have nothing to live for, no reason to hope for a better, lasting, and perfect life. We must be sure and put our hope in nothing less than that which is eternal, unchanging, everlasting, and true. Accept no substitutes. Anything less is a cheap and fraudulent promise of emptiness that fails us when the trials and tribulations of this life come our way.
Might we feel the sting of death for a time, so that we know its pain? Might we be sorrowful for a night, knowing that we are promised joy in the morning? Might we dwell in the shadow of the valley of death briefly, so that we too may look to the God who promises to deliver us from death, hell, and the grave? Might we spend that Friday at the cross, absorbing the pain, agony, and sorrow of death, all-the-while looking ahead to the promise of a new life to come? Those three days must have seemed like an eternity to the grieving family and friends of Jesus.
I think I have a sense of what it might have felt like-the sting, the sorrow, the questions, and moments of unpredictable memories and tears. Just questions and no answers-why now, why us, what went wrong, what could have been done differently. A wise friend said to us “don’t try and look for a reason-there are no reasons.” It’s true-not on this side of it all, and someday maybe we’ll get the chance to ask those questions. For now, I’m truly thankful-for the health of my wife Marie, for my wonderful son Jordan, for the time we were given with Patience. For her blond hair, her perfectly formed fingers and toes, her Lear nose, and the nine months and then some of joy of she brought to all of our family and friends.
I’m also very grateful for the support we’ve been given in this time of grieving-hours upon hours with loving family members--sharing stories, shedding tears, renewing hopes, admitting fears. For friends-the best any couple could ever ask for—friends who are willing to visit or call in spite of the difficulty of not knowing what to say or how to say it. To all who’ve come and spent time, brought food, given gifts- a sincere thank you from us all. And for the flowers-a bright reminder in dark times, a sign of life and hope, and a special blessing to Marie.
We’re more than willing to share what we’ve been through with all of you individually, but for the record we are still awaiting the doctor’s final reports & the medical bill. Suffice to say that as we understand it, Marie’s family line has a 50 percent chance of miscarriage, as we already knew going into this, due to the possibility of mis-matched chromosomes during conception and development of the fetus. As far as carrying the baby to term, we are so glad we had the chance to pursue this despite how it turned out. We wouldn’t have had it any other way. We trust the Lord and hope for the future to have another child should the opportunity arise in some fashion, via science, adoption, or just the plain old miracle of human reproduction.
