Everyday Black Matters
Day 2 of “When God Speaks {or doesn’t} kicks off with a heartbreakingly beautiful story from another beloved friend, Dabney with whom I had the pleasure of working with while I was at InterVarsity. Trigger warning for those who have lost children.
~
Last week I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl during my 21st week of pregnancy. Katherine Goodwyn Robinson was born on January 2nd, 2013 weighing 11 ounces and was 9 inches long. Kate died during labor as we expected and the words on my heart were those of Psalm 23. Not because it is the Psalm most people associate with times of tragedy, but because it is the Psalm God gave me to hold onto when there was nothing left in the world to hold onto.
In September, I drove to a retreat center north of Pittsburgh, one of my favorite places to spend time with God. It has been a meaningful place now for several years and been one of the spots that I know I can expect to meet Jesus. This time, I had asked my friend and spiritual director, Susan, to give me some sort of retreat guide for my time and so as I looked at the sheet I’d printed out, I was a little disappointed to read Psalm 23 would be the passage I would focus on that day. I felt so familiar with Psalm 23 – it was a Psalm that even people who weren’t Christians could quote….not to mention a little depressing. I was not in the mood for a downer Psalm because a week before this retreat, Adam and I found out that we were expecting another baby! We were thrilled.
But Susan had gone through the trouble of preparing my retreat guide, so I went ahead and spent an hour or two diving into the Psalm and letting God speak.
It was a perfect September day – just warm enough to spend several hours outside, but cool enough to wear a sweater. I spent hours on a picnic table outside a little cottage at the retreat center letting the sun shine on my back and glancing up from my bible and journal at a beautiful patch of green grass. As I read about God being my shepherd and not lacking anything, I could sense these truths washing over me. God was communicating so clearly that He was with me that day, “making me lie down in green pastures” just like the patch of grass in front of me. He was reminding me it was important to take that time to be with Him and that “making me” lie down, was so incredibly good for me; that I needed it. And maybe this Psalm wasn’t so depressing after all. God was my shepherd….check. I lack nothing…..check. He makes me lie down in green pastures….check. My cup overflows…..check. Shiley, our daughter, was just shy of turning 1, our jobs were good (mine was particularly good), we had an awesome childcare system set up with Adam’s mom, we had awesome friends and family nearby and were going to have another baby in May. What more could we want?
I sensed God speaking about some of the other things in the Psalm.
As I read through the part about anointing my head with oil, I felt God asking me to pause to let me know that this too was for me; he was preparing us for something. I sensed it was something that might be difficult….maybe even having to do with this new baby. A thousand thoughts ran through my head…..I wondered if I was making it up, I wondered whether we might be having twins, I wondered whether something might be wrong with this new baby. But above all else, I sensed God saying not to fear because He would be with us.
He was saying it didn’t really matter what He was letting me in on, that we were to trust in Him and not give into fear. “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
I told only a handful of people about this strange experience during my retreat because what do you do with that kind of information? It could have been anything God was preparing us for and it’s always a good thing not to fear, right? We had an early ultrasound that looked normal, we heard the baby’s heart beating at every appointment and even saw her moving on the big screen at our 18 week ultrasound.
It seemed like maybe God was speaking about something else or maybe that I had not heard Him correctly.
In November, I was able to go on another spiritual retreat and felt God bringing me back to this Psalm, but it was so different. It was snowy and cold and unlike the warmth of September. As I took a walk in the snowy woods, reciting the psalm out loud, I came upon a creek – “you lead me beside quiet waters”. I felt like God was telling me He was with me.
Even though it was so different than how God was speaking back in September, it was a good reminder that God is in the warmth and the cold, the green grass and the white snow, the days when we feel like celebrating life and the days we don’t understand life.
In our December ultrasound we got to see our girls limbs moving and heart beating when we found out the news that would crush us. Our perfect little baby was not developing correctly – her neural tube hadn’t closed very early on, her skull was not formed and her brain was severely underdeveloped. She had anencephaly and would not survive outside of the womb. We were completely devastated. I didn’t even remember the time back in September right away. But God brought it back to mind and it gave me peace over and over again in the next several weeks as we were making decisions no parents should ever have to make. I am convinced that the reason God spoke so clearly through this Psalm in September and November is that we needed to be reminded of the truth that God was with us. We truly had nothing to fear.
As Adam and I have processed what it means to have a daughter who doesn’t get to grow up in our home, we have had a strong sense that God didn’t take Kate from us, He gave her to us.
He could have saved us all that pain by not giving us a baby at all, but we are grateful that we had her for a short time, even if we hoped, prayed and expected it to be much longer. And even though this has been the hardest month of our lives, God has been so present and so real to us – in comfort, in peace, in suffering, in grief and in Psalm 23.
~
Dabney Robinson is the wife of an amazing man, mom to a 15 month old girl and to 2 other children who they won’t be reunited with until heaven. She is a fundraising coach and trainer with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA and loves that she gets to work part-time and be at home part-time. She is from the south and so not totally at home in Pittsburgh, PA where she currently resides but it’s growing on her. Dabney facebooks here.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In