As I studied I realized the thing I lacked at that moment was hope. As I've said before, it's my nature to see life (mostly) as glass half full, so to feel so hopeless about the future was almost as devastating to me as losing Tobi.
As silly as it may sound to anyone else, from the moment they told us she was gone I felt our future of having a lot of children and even having anymore children biologically was gone. Yes, there was nothing wrong with me physically and there was nothing that caused what happened to Tobi that would make a rational thinking person to think they were no longer able to have children, but in my despair that was what it felt like. Grief, and more than that, the enemy, makes you think some crazy things. All I worried our future held was years of trying without success, miscarriages or more stillborn babies.
And so that night, a few days before Memorial day, I asked the Lord to teach me about how to hope in a way that was truth and not false hope that leads to bitter disappointment. And among many other things He told me, He brought me to the scripture that says "My soul, wait in silence for God only, for my hope is from Him." One commentary I found said this of hope; "He is the God of hope, therefore He is the SOURCE of hope. If we are going to have hope it must come from Him, for He alone has the power to give it." I ended the Bible study asking the Giver of hope to give me hope again.
And then Memorial day came and I had one of the hardest days I have yet experienced through all of this. I sat and told Carey every question, every doubt, every angry thought I had been fighting those few days leading up to it. I told him that after all the times I had said over and over these last two years of how good God has shown Himself to be, that I could not, in that moment, remember one thing that was an evidence of what I meant when I said He is good.
It is a devastating thing to feel like two years of spiritual victory after spiritual victory has been stolen from your memory. I knew that I had not just said those things without having good reason to say it but I simply couldn't remember what they were. So many times growing up I would hear someone say that the Lord is compassionate, or He is faithful or He is good and I would secretly think to myself, "They're just saying that to sound like a good little Christian but I bet they couldn't give any evidence of how He has specifically shown Himself to be any of those things to them personally". And on Memorial day, as I sat talking it all over with Carey, I was devastated to realize that I was right back to that place of doubting because I literally couldn't remember a single thing He had taught me and shown me of His character.
In my journal around this time I wrote "One way I remembered He is good… He answers when we seek Him and ask Him. Maybe not quickly or right away, but I know He will answer me. I can thank Him ahead of time for the answer I know will come."
A week later I was thinking about how much I miss Tobi's name being used every day, many times a day, in our conversations with each other. I loved her name, not just because I thought it was pretty, but because it meant so much to us that the Lord had given us her name and that it meant what it did.
I've made a habit to go into her room, or rather the nursery, just to stand and face the special pain that comes when I'm in there because my logic is that if I face it enough times it will either lessen the pain over time or I will become desensitized to it and not feel it as much. I stand and look at all of Piper's hand me down clothes that still hang in the closet ready for the next girl that might come along. I stand and think how I want so badly for the Lord to give us another baby, any baby, right now. I tell Him every time that I'm ready whenever He wants to give us another. And I'm even honest with Him and say I want to know when that will be.
So that day when I was thinking how much I grieve losing Tobi's name and everything it means to us, I realized the obviously thing was that all I have to do is ask Him to name the next one for us. I got in the car with Piper to run errands and I very quickly told Him how much I'd love it if He'd give us another name with equally meaningful meaning and I even asked Him if He could tell me the name now so I could at least know that. I'll be honest, I walked away from that prayer and assumed that was probably not something I would get right now.
That night I fell asleep on the couch while watching a movie with Carey. As I lay there I had a dream that we were in a situation where we had a baby but we had to name the baby RIGHT THEN and I was panicked because I wanted the Lord to give us the name but He hadn't yet. Carey woke me up to go to bed and as I fully woke up the name Tabitha Hope was almost literally ringing in my ears. I paid attention to it because I couldn't remember the last time I had heard the name Tabitha - besides that being the name of the little girl on Bewitched. It was odd, too, because in the moment it wasn't one that I would have liked and picked on my own.
I went to bed but turned on my phone to look up what Tabitha means because I was curious. The first thing that came up on my google search was that Tabitha is a Hebrew name and is best know from a woman written about in Acts 9, also known as Dorcas (the Greek translation of Tabitha). I looked it up and found that she was a disciple who was always doing good and helping the poor. In the passage, Peter was summoned to her house because she had died. He went upstairs where a bunch of widows were and they showed him all of the cloaks she had made them while she was alive. Peter sent them all out and kneeled beside her and prayed. He then turned to her and said "Tabitha, get up" and she opened her eyes and got up. He then called the widows and all the disciples in to see that she was alive. It ends saying that many heard her story and believed in the Lord because of it.
At something like 3am, I sat reading that passage with my mouth open. I saw so many different levels of meaning in it, many that I'm sure some cynical or jaded person might say is me just search for ANY meaning from a silly dream but that I know was anything but just a silly dream. The next day, I was telling my aunt the story and trying to put into words what I thought about it and she interrupted to say "He raises hope from the dead".
This, friends, is what I mean when I say the Lord is good...
He hears the prayer of a brokenhearted mother who just lost a child that she had prayed for and wanted so badly before she even knew she was pregnant. He hears a timid request of a child of His who just wants to know that there will be another little girl to wear those clothes that hang so neatly in the closet.
And because He is a mysterious but exceedingly gracious God, He decided to give this child the exact thing she asked for in this one thing because He knows it will remind her that He is good in ways that effect us in deeply personal ways.
And although I realize it could be years before He gives us this little girl, He has given us the very precious gift of knowing her name in the meantime. And I remind myself that my hope is not in the little girl who He has already named but in the God Who is kind enough to give such a gift.
And I will now forever testify that while He did take Tobi, He also gives us Tabby. Tabby Hope. Because He is the God Who raises hope from the dead.
"I am still confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the Lord."
Psalm 27:13&14
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