Friday of Spring Break started with a Facebook post from my dear friends showing their adorable 32-week-old baby in 4D ultrasound. He looked just like his brother did as an infant. Everything was great and the baby was measuring three weeks bigger than his actual age. Jokes were made about his upcoming delivery in May.
Saturday night, the text came through that the baby had passed away in utero. No movement had been felt all day. Doctors didn’t know what had happened. Ultrasounds showed no heartbeat. In less than 18 hours this adorable little boy had gone from vibrant to lifeless. We clung to the hope that Jesus can do the impossible. Think of all the people He raised from the dead. Think of His resurrection. This pregnancy itself was a miracle from the start as odds were overcome just by where the baby had implanted.
But there was nothing miraculous this time. Sometimes there isn’t. Sometimes in this world all we experience is death. And sometimes we don’t understand. How can we understand a perfectly healthy baby, a perfectly healthy mother and a family who would have welcomed the infant into loving arms and raised him to love and serve the Lord, dying before breathing one breath of air? Where is the justice in the death of a baby?
Sometimes we can’t understand, for God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. Sometimes we just have to trust that no matter what happens, God is trustworthy. God is faithful. God is righteous. God is merciful. God is just. He is those things even when we don’t see it. Even when it doesn’t make sense. Even when it seems He is doing the exact opposite.
That’s what I cling to when I think of that adorable little boy with the cutest button nose. We just celebrated his life--all 32 weeks of it. I can't think of one other person who has impacted so many people in less than a year. I can't think of anyone I have ever met who has so drastically changed everyone he ever came in contact with. It’s important you know…his name is Justus.
