Gospel Sorrow

Tomorrow will mark the 3rd anniversary of the funeral service for our daughter, Madelyn Grace Lutz. Madelyn died while still in my wife's womb, due to both a knot in her umbilical cord and the cord being wrapped around her neck. She was 26 weeks along, so my wife had to deliver her in the hospital the day after we found out that she had died, January 11th. This was the saddest moment that we have ever experienced, and it left us feeling completely helpless and hopeless.
At the time, I was not very strong in my understanding of Scripture, or of the nature of God's Sovereignty. I understood that God was in control of all things, but I didn't understand much more than that. I understood that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him, but that understanding was not very deep either.
Since that time, I have learned many things about God, myself, and my relationship with God through this suffering.
One of the main things I have been learning lately has been gratitude. There is nothing that will reveal a heart of ingratitude more than when God takes something away from you. This is what I have noticed lately that God has been revealing in my heart. There is a lot of ingratitude that remains in my heart, and one of the deepest areas of ingratitude within my heart has to do with God allowing my daughter to die.
What God has been showing me lately is that God didn't steal something from me when He let my daughter die--He simply chose to take back what was rightfully His. Psalm 127 says that "children are a gift from the Lord." Much like any other resource that God gives to me, my children are a gift to be "stewarded" properly. This is not to suggest that God took my daughter because I was not being a "faithful steward"--only the mind of God understands fully the purposes of God. But I do know that when God decides to call back one of His gifts, it makes the gratitude level for the other gifts that God has given rise a great deal.
I have also found that God has grown my gratitude for the time I have with the children that He has continued to entrust to me. I'm not sure how long I will have with each of them (I pray it will be a long time!), but I know that it causes me to think a lot more deeply about the frailty of the time I have with my children. Knowing the frailty of human life, it makes understanding the time I have with my other children much more precious.
Probably the most important thing that God has taught me, however, doesn't have as much to do with me as something that has been done for me. God sent His Son to die for me. God gave His Son to die for me--in my place--for my sin. I have never done anything to deserve any of my children, but let alone that God would give His Son to die for me. That God would give His Son to pardon my sin--even my sins of ingratitude over taking my daughter--is beyond words. I cannot describe the gratitude that is brought forth in pondering the depths of the mercy God has shown toward me in my sin. "For our sake, He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." (2 Corinthians 5:21)
God has done nothing but good for me, and has extended nothing but mercy toward me. I do not deserve any of the gifts He has given me, least of all that He would send His Son to pay the price for my sin.
Praise God for His salvation--it is the only thing that makes the death of a child possible to bear.
The Gospel is the only thing that makes the death of a child bearable, because it speaks to the deepest needs of life--forgiveness and restoration.
Forgiveness of sins now, and restoration of everything in eternity--including, I believe, those who have died in the womb.
As David said of his dead child, "He cannot come to me, but I will go to him.
The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation!