The Starkest of Dichotomies (SQL- Guatemala)

Blogs are supposed to have pictures, partly because people have short attention spans, partly because they are "pretty," and partly because they are "worth a thousand words." But there are some things in life that a thousand pictures could not convey...

I hugged her, closed the door, and the car pulled away.

She was off on likely the longest five or six hour journey of life... Some situations are so surreal that you can't ever imagine how you could adequately put them in words, but something in me knew, even before she rode away, that I needed to try. Honestly, even as I'm writing this, I can't help but think that it deserves more...

More feeling...

More words...

More than I can give.

An hour before I was sitting, preparing to read my Bible, Sally walked in... "I need someone with a pastoral heart to come with me..." ...I grabbed my shoes and got Jake as I left the driveway.

Five minutes later we were walking into the casket store, a simple little "Funeraria" with not much in it. Most notably, I could see a sign of the harsh reality that this is all-too-common here; what I would deem as...too many baby caskets.

Unfortunately, when we walked out, the store had one less.

As I we walked back around the corner and past the hospital, I carried this wooden box, trimmed in pink, surrounded by a black garbage bag as Jake and I followed Sally, Mary, and her new friend (whom I would come to find out, had lost one of two newborn twins).

Minutes later, Sally and myself were waiting for Mary and her new friend to come say goodbye to her baby. As we waited, another lady walked by holding a baby. I sat and smiled at the ten month old?as it would smile back full of joy. The change in thee woman's face as she realized what was in the bag beside me was obvious.

There I was...

An empty coffin in a black bag sat beside me, as I leaned against the outside of a room containing the child that would soon be in that coffin.

A tragedy.

Terrible.

Awful.

Words CANNOT describe it.

This baby behind me would never smile, play, laugh, grow up, have a family...

...but in front of me crawled something beautiful: A baby that could smile, could play, could laugh...a baby that can still grow up to have a family.

A miracle.

Wonderful.

Amazing.

Words CANNOT describe it.

And there I found myself...in the midst of perhaps the starkest of dichotomies.

Misery and Joy. Loss and Hope. Death and Life.

The tragedies of life are so gut wrenching, partly?because of the general nature of tragedy, but in part because we have become so accustomed to miracles that we consider them everyday things.  It is when we rub up against the antithesis of these everyday miracles, that we find ourselves seeking for the "Why?"

Often, we seek the "why" so fervently that we bring ourselves into another tragedy, wasting the time of our lives, missing the joys and the miracles we have right before our very eyes.

I didn't choose to squad lead to find myself kneeling and praying over a woman holding her dead baby in a back room of a Guatemalan hospital.  But it happened...

Ariel will never grow up. She won't have the struggles, nor the joys of life. She won't suffer a broken heart, nor have that broken heart mended.  She won't experience any more tears, nor will she experience laughter.  That is about as real as it gets, and things like that form real memories, even if the moments that made them were surreal.

I will remember a mother weeping as she holds her lifeless child.

I will remember carrying that child in a tiny wooden casket concealed in a black trash bag, behind her mother.

I will remember placing that casket into the back of an SUV as that mother prepared to carry her dead baby home...alone...on public transportation.

But I know I know that as tragic as it was, (And it IS utterly tragic beyond words) I will hold to the beauties I saw in the darkness.

I will remember a woman who had lost one twin baby, with another fighting for it's life, spending her time encouraging another woman who'd lost the second baby of her life.

I will remember kneeling and joining 5 others in prayer for a woman holding and mourning for her dead baby, as she sang praises to her Lord Jesus.

I will remember that same woman praying over her new found friend, for strength and her one surviving twin baby.

I will remember that nameless baby that smiled, crawled, and played in front of me.

I will remember the Light that shown in the face of darkness, the Peace the poured out in the face of misery, the life that poured out in the face of death.