Life & Death: Both are Hard to Swallow

Facebook is bombarded with births of babies.  Friends and family back in North America having babies.

Life.

It’s beautiful. It’s miraculous.

It’s difficult. It’s temporary.

I always love when a new life is born.  And yet sometimes I cry. 

I have longed for children, to be a mom, for more than three quarters of my life. No seriously, I have.  It’s a sweet story as to why but I’ll save that for some day.

On Tuesday, In Step got two babies: three-month old Adam (who is named after our friend Adam Pollock who is working with In Step right now with construction) and three-week old Austin (who is named after a team that is here – they leave today – and they are from Austin, Texas).

Baby Adam is a preemie.  His mother left him at the hospital after giving birth and never returned.  It’s believed that she thought he was going to die, being a preemie and so she just ran.  It even took a long time for the hospital to contact the children’s department that they had an abandoned baby there. Why? Who knows but history shows that they too assume the babies in that condition will die. And when they don’t, they then call the children’s office.

When Baby Adam was born, he weighed 2.4 pounds. When we got him on Tuesday, he weighed 3.5 pounds. He’s SO tiny for a three month old. In fact, he is smaller than Austin (who is only three WEEKS old).  But he looks like a fighter; he’ll pull through this. He’ll fall in love with formula and have the sweet leg rolls that everyone always loves on babies.

Austin has a similar story although he wasn’t a preemie. His mother left him at the hospital too. It’s not known as to why and it probably never will be.

But these baby boys are so little and so gorgeous.  

Life. It’s beautiful. It’s miraculous.

Yesterday (Wednesday), In Step got a newborn baby girl. They named her Lynn (after a Kenyan friend of Jeff and Carla). She literally was a newborn. She was born yesterday morning/early afternoon.  Her mother gave birth to her and left her in a maize (corn) field. A passerby found her and took her to the police station. She was released by the hospital, the police and the children’s department into In Step’s hands. When she arrived at In Step yesterday evening, she was only hours old.  And after being at In Step for only a few hours, she died in the arms of one of the members of the Austin team.  She went from arms on earth to arms in Heaven.

Life. It’s difficult. It’s temporary.

It constantly aches me; it breaks my heart on so many levels.  There are women in this world, myself included, who LONG to have babies and who can’t. And yet there are some women in this world who have babies with no problem and yet throw them away like a piece of garbage.

It’s hard not to judge; it’s hard not to be angry. Not at God but at these women who don’t understand what an amazing gift they’ve been given.

“Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.” Psalm 127:3-5 NIV.

“People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.’ And he took the children in his arms, placed his hand on them and blessed them.”  Mark 10:13-16 NIV.

I don’t understand why things are the way they are. I don’t pretend to. If I did, I’d be lying and foolish. But I have faith.

“Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1 NIV.

Much Love,
Meredith