Breathless Haste

Up until the time Brock was born, I thought I was the one in control of my life—in control of my job, money, family, and marriage. And my faith wasn’t intertwined with any of that. However, when it was time for Brock’s surgery, it became clear that both my life and his life were totally out of my control. I prayed more that week than I had likely prayed in my whole life, but those prayers were not answered in the way I had hoped.

Somewhere in my fog of grief shortly after Brock’s death, God carved these words into my heart: there is a heaven. I’m not sure how it happened. It wasn’t an audible voice, nor was it a still, small voice. I can only describe it as a very deep impression. Certainly, most of my life I would have told you that I thought that heaven existed. However, when you experience death so closely and personally, your life and beliefs are turned upside down. Instead of turning away from God, I decided to fully bet my life on this idea of heaven, and I placed my faith and life in the hands of the One who created the heaven I couldn’t see and the earth I could. What did I have to lose? As I grieved my loss, this anchor kept me from checking myself into an insane asylum.