Dichotomy of Sons

I snuggle down a bit deeper into the old rocker and breathe deeply. I smell the freshly washed tight curls that cover his head. Strawberry and coconut. Mmmmm. What a blessing this moment is.

Five years.

I hear the words echo in my head as I rock this snuggled in, jammied one who clings to me with his warm, dark fingers.

It's been five years.

I am aware on so many levels the way time passes and yet does not impact the deeper pockets of pain that I carry. I am indented with the wounds that death has inflicted, yet I daily live full of love.

Dichotomy.

I rock this child and hold him tighter, if it's even possible. He says nothing, just cuddles his face into my neck. We love one another. We are together.

It is December 29th. A night of deepest searing pain for me 5 years ago. A day when the sun went black. A third pregnancy ending in horror. And this time, we'd made it to 39 weeks.

But now...we've rolled ahead five years. Now I sit holding a child from Africa in my lap. Freshly bathed and read to, he clings to me as if he knows I need it.

"Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart." Luke 2:19

One son is gone from me, another is snuggled in.

One is from my own body, the other from someone else's...whom I will never know.

One son lives with Jesus, another is here waiting to learn about Him from me.

One son taught me so much by his leaving, another here has taught me much by his arrival.

Believe it or not, I am comforted by the fact that I do not understand the ways of God. Scripture says His ways are higher than ours, His thoughts, higher than our thoughts. I take comfort in this. I do not want to know why.

I simultaneously ache from the pain in my heart from Oskar who left me too quickly and delight in the armful of love I have on my lap who looks at me with deep dark eyes and stutters out, "M-m-m-mommy, I l-l-l-l-ove you."


Thank you, Lord. For all of it.