Today I caught myself looking at my son’s Instagram account and all the wonderful things he had posted just a few months before he left for heaven. It made me miss him so. “I don’t want to spend my life missing.” I said to my husband, Todd. “Is this who we are now, people who live in a state of missing?”
Tristan is whole and healed, and with the One who made him. Complete. No more pain. But I am living a missing life while I wait to be whole and healed, too. It hurts! Why did God choose us to live life missing a son?
Whenever I find myself in this place I quickly have to run to the testimony of scripture. When I look at what God has asked of the saints that have gone before me, I realize I am not alone.
The apostle Paul is one such person I go to for evidence about suffering. One day I thought about the fact that he had a mom! Scripture says nothing about her but we know he had one at some point. It made me wonder if she had to watch his suffering the way I watched Tristan’s.
God ordained the days of the apostle Paul’s life and every bit of the good and the bad he faced. I wonder, was his mom a witness to it all like I was a witness to Tristan’s life?
Paul’s life started out great! His mom would have been so proud of all the work her boy had accomplished, training hard to be a Pharisee of Pharisees. He was the absolute tip-top of his class, studying under the most erudite and strict teachers of God’s Word.
He fought for what was right to the extent that he would hunt down anyone who tried to go against the Law. He thought the greatest threat was a new group that followed a leader named Jesus.
One day her son left for Antioch to hunt down Jesus’ followers, and when he returned he was a new man with a new name. Paul. I wonder how his mom found out? Did a neighbor tell her:
“Your son is back speaking in the temple”
“Oh, yes, that trip he took to round up all those enemies, those followers of Jesus. We’ll probably hold another stoning to punish their sins.” she might reply with pride in her tone.
“Actually, your son is using the scriptures to prove that Jesus is the Son of God.”
I imagine her jaw would drop as she envisioned what would become of her now. She’d be put out of the synagogue for sure, shunned by her whole community. Unable to buy, sell, or fellowship. She’d have no support. Her precious son, the one who had risen to such heights following the law to perfection, was now rejecting everything and agreeing with the other side! Their family would be ruined! How could she have gone from proud mother to outcast so quickly?
Perhaps her son would come home to explain himself and repeat what God had said about him…
God said …” he (Paul) is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.”
Perhaps Paul’s mom would think that didn’t sound too bad now, being chosen by God to speak before kings. But then her son would finish the command…
“For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”
This was not what she had signed up for. What kind of ridiculous plan was that? God was assigning suffering, for His name’s sake? This was not the God she knew! And this was not the son she knew.
Her precious son that once was so perfect, was now facing the kind of suffering that could get you killed. She may have watched as his life unfolded with:
24 Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; 26 on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers;”
This was too hard for a mom to witness, wasn’t it? Would God really ask that of anybody?
The apostle Paul did speak before kings. Now he is speaking before the King of kings. God used him to pen 13 books of our bible and millions of people have been brought to salvation through the Holy Spirit’s use of those scriptures. Paul was a unique individual that God used for very unique purposes, but I have learned a principle from him:
When God brings suffering into your path you never know how He is going to use it.
Most of us won’t be asked to undergo what Paul went through or to witness our children going through such things. But for us, the child-loss we are facing can take over and make our lives feel just as bad.
I now realize, the pain I am facing with missing Tristan is something God has asked of His saints all along. And I can be sure of one thing: like Paul, God had a perfect plan for Tristan that involved suffering and took into consideration evil and sin. What else does God have to work with? I will have to wait until I get to heaven to find out all the reasons why. For right now, my job is to trust the Who.
Dear Lord, I miss my Tristy-one so much. I can’t wait to see him in heaven. The loss of him feels like it has hijacked our would-have-been life, not like it was the life purposed from You all along. Keep me from imagining a life that never existed if Tristan was still alive because that was never Your plan. Only You can bind up these wounds and save me from all of the if-only’s. Thank you for giving me your scripture so I can see what You’ve asked of others that have gone before me. I am not alone. You didn’t forsake them, and You won’t forsake me. Save me from myself. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
