My Anchor Holds When I Can't Get A Grip | God's Presence in Loss

You can sit on the rugged rocks on the North Shore of Lake Superior, like God made you a captain’s chair. Their flat surface, a safe support for spectators.


You get a front row seat to magnificence. The thunderous crash of waves against the rocks below tells of monumental power as their mist descends. Waves receding back to their original reservoir of steel, cold waters.



The day we chose to go up was still. The sound I hear is memories of past trips. But there is no escaping the immensity of Lake Superior even when its waters are quiet.


Life is fragile.


I feel small here. Small is how I felt during the nine days prior to losing Theodore. Our fifth grandson was born too early to survive outside of his mother’s womb last Tuesday.


Humans, we are. Small. And powerless to change one single thing – if the mother’s body is laboring.


We got a crash-course on pre-term labor. We learned that administering the drug to stop it is only a buying-of-time before it becomes a danger for the baby. It doesn’t really stop, it only suspends. It was a two day reprieve, a little bit of rest – with hope.




We found that out when the drug wore off, the body resumes its course.

The waves and breakers washed over us. Psalm 42:7  We only had two choices in weathering the storm. Trusting . . . or another way. 


Our son and his beautiful bride named their second-born son, Theodore, “gift of God”.


A tiny boy, perfectly formed, but not yet developed enough to take a breath outside the water.

How earnestly we cried out to God. How we grabbed hold of His promises and pleaded for the waves to cease. And all the while, we wrestled against our own desire to be in control. To demand His will match ours.


We chose within our cries to be at peace with whatever the outcome, because we trust Him who alone has the right to choose.


How we’d hoped labor would stop and Theo could be with us here.
Just two more weeks they said, and he could go to a preemie unit where they would place him in a womb without water.
But God said, “I want Theodore Here.”


And we cried.
“Lord, not my will but yours . . .”


Four days had passed and we wanted to be near the large lake, to remind ourselves of the God who forms and holds all things together. Colossians 1:17
The rhythm of massive waves not unlike the beat of a tiny heart as heard in a hospital monitor.



Our God chisels [Isaiah 51:1] forms and destines [Psalm 139:16] and imparts life [John 11:25]


And so, with Job we say it, “. . . The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD.”   Job 1:21

Until we meet again Theodore . . .

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