OUR RAINBOW BABY
He’s my son — wholly and completely loved… just as my other babies are wholly and completely loved, though one absent from our home. Titus doesn’t replace them, he doesn’t make up for the heartbreak and loss and grief. Love doesn’t work that way. Love stands on its own while also bringing all things together. (That, friends, is a true miracle.)

I am not entitled to happy endings, nor am I ungrateful for them when they come. If anything, suffering has made me appreciate joy more… but I will not demand it.
I found out I was expecting a rainbow baby differently than most, I guess. Most lose their baby and then find out later they are expecting their rainbow baby. I found out Titus would be a rainbow baby while simultaneously losing his twin.
I don’t “deserve” this baby or this happiness. I receive him and this happiness with arms and heart wide open. I open the gift with gratitude and I embrace it with the measure of wonder and humility the gift warrants. In the Bible, the story of Noah, the rainbow is a picture of God’s promise to never flood the earth again in that way. There’s no assurance my life will never be flooded again, but I’ve made peace with that and I choose to see and absorb the beauty anyway. I don’t need storms or clear skies to find rainbows anymore.
I have seen the faithfulness of God in the midst of the storm — while in the eye of it surrounded by eerie silence yet thankful to realize I’m still alive, and also while tossed in the fray of it, gulping and gasping for a lifeline, wondering if a rescue boat will come before I drown. I’ve also seen it while safely back on shore, recovering under a blanket and wrapped in the comfort of love and sustaining grace.

There he is — God faithful within it all. (It’s who he is. He can’t not be.)
I’ve also seen the faithfulness of God well after the storm when the clouds are well and truly parted and the seas have grown still. I know the sun will rise in the east again tomorrow and the buds will eventually push their way through the barren winters. I know that love always finds its destination. I also know that new life comes after death — it’s the order of the world (made in light of heaven) and we can always hope for it, look for it, and call it into being.

I understand how little I understand and I see Jesus anyway, through it all. He is the source of life as I know it and my hope rests securely in knowing he never stops creating, never stops reproducing life, never stops loving us into becoming more of ourselves.
I have seen the faithfulness of God in the midst of the storm — while in the eye of it surrounded by eerie silence yet thankful to realize I’m still alive, and also while tossed in the fray of it, gulping and gasping for a lifeline, wondering if a rescue boat will come before I drown. I’ve also seen it while safely back on shore, recovering under a blanket and wrapped in the comfort of love and sustaining grace.

There he is — God faithful within it all. (It’s who he is. He can’t not be.)
I’ve also seen the faithfulness of God well after the storm when the clouds are well and truly parted and the seas have grown still. I know the sun will rise in the east again tomorrow and the buds will eventually push their way through the barren winters. I know that love always finds its destination. I also know that new life comes after death — it’s the order of the world (made in light of heaven) and we can always hope for it, look for it, and call it into being.

I understand how little I understand and I see Jesus anyway, through it all. He is the source of life as I know it and my hope rests securely in knowing he never stops creating, never stops reproducing life, never stops loving us into becoming more of ourselves.
