Baby Three

Friends,

We are very excited and very thankful to announce that the Lord has blessed us again with another little boy. At 1:05 yesterday afternoon, we received Brendan James Wessman into the world. Both Brendan and mom are doing very well. Brendan weighs 8 pounds, 9 ounces, and is 20 ½ inches long.

While the jury is still out, early indications are that he looks more like his oldest brother, Micah, then his other brother, Owen. While a bit uncertain at first, Owen seems to be taking to his new little brother quite well. (See attached picture). We are certain that Micah is rejoicing with us now, in heaven, over the birth of his second little brother.

In the past two years since Micah’s death, the New Testament book of James has been a source of tremendous encouragement to us in our grief. James 1:17 says, “Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” We worship a loving and sovereign God who is accomplishing all that He intends through us and our children. Today, we rejoice in the good gift given to us in the little life of Brendan James.

Thanks for your friendship, prayers and support. We look forward to introducing Brendan to you personally.

Cory, on behalf of Heather, Owen & Brendan.

Yearning to See Micah

Over the past few weeks, Heather and I have tried to put into words our emotions as we’ve passed the two-year anniversary of Micah’s death. Heather has repeatedly shared with me that she can’t seem to find the right words to describe her emotions. Certainly we “miss” Micah. But the gray heaviness in heart that is felt in grief is more than just “missing” our son.

We most often use the term “miss” in normal, even mundane, life circumstances. We tell others that we “missed” a sale at the store or “missed” the end to a great sports game or we “missed” a friend while away on a trip. To “miss” is defined by Webster’s dictionary as “to notice the absence or loss of” or “to regret the absence or loss of.” The word seems to connote pain in separation without, necessarily, the suggestion that the person exhibiting the feeling has any hope of any future reunion with the object of their affection.

While Heather and I are agreed that there doesn’t seem to be a word in the English language close enough to our emotion, I have settled, at least for now, on saying that I yearn for Micah’s presence. “Yearning,” is defined by Webster’s dictionary as “a deep longing, especially when accompanied by tenderness or sadness.” Yearning suggests an intense desire for the object of affection. With yearning, one would not have the desire if one did not at least hold out hope that one’s yearning will eventually be satisfied.

In Philippians 1:8, Paul tells the church at Philippi that he “yearns for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.” According to a blog written by John Kitchen, the original Greek word translated as “yearn” in this passage is a compound word. According to Kitchen, “…the root describes desire, anxiety, a wish for or to strive after something. The prefix intensifies the meaning so that the resulting word describes a deep, earnest affection for or longing after someone.” Just as Paul yearned to see his flock in Philippi, we yearn to see our oldest son Micah again.

I think the temptation for some parents who are in our position would be to take any means necessary to avoid the pain of “missing” your child. That is, to focus our energies solely on our other children or other sources of distraction in order to minimize the pain of “missing” their child. If life were lived outside the control of a sovereign and loving God who controls and directs everything in our lives, then the logical course of action would be to physically bury your dead child and then, for the rest of your earthly existence, take whatever means necessary to mentally bury the memory of your child as well. The pain of “missing” your child would be so great that the best course of action would be to bury all of our memories in a black blanket of repression, and to pretend, against all reason, that one’s now-deceased child never existed. One would need to reject, as a mistake, any fleeting thoughts of the child.

But rather than repress the memory of Micah, we daily keep our memory of Micah alive not only because we treasure the time we had together on earth, but also because we know we will see him again. In thinking about how to properly honor Micah on his “home-going day,” a counselor encouraged us to do those things as a family that we would be doing now if Micah were still with us. Rather than seeking comfort “outside” of our grief, I appreciated how our counselor encouraged us to enter “inside” the grief. Christians can enter into grief boldly and fully, knowing that despite the pain associated with the present separation from our loved ones, we can look forward to how life’s story will end. The pain of “missing” our son is great, but the yearning for him seems to grow deeper every day.

Appropriately, the Greek word used in Philippians 1:8 is also used by Paul in the fifth chapter of 2 Corinthians. There, Paul is referring to the believer’s hope in Heaven. “For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked.” (2 Corinthians 5:1-2).

Like Paul, we are yearning for heaven, where we will be clothed with our heavenly bodies and where we will see our son again. As Christians, we don’t just live in the present, living our lives in ways to repress painful memories of the past. We can honestly enter into the painful grief of remembering the past because we know what is to come in our future.

2nd Anniversary Video

Hi Friends,

We've been told that copyright restrictions are precluding some from seeing the music video I made in honor of Micah on this, the second anniversary of his homegoing.

If you wanted to view the video and had trouble viewing it, here is a link to the video without music, which was "Blessed be the Name" by Matt Redman. Thanks, friends, for your continued prayers and support.

2nd Anniversary of Micah's Death

No Words

Following Micah's death, we greatly benefitted from the care and concern of all our friends and family members. Without exception, we were knew that we were cared for by everyone who reached out to us, whether by word or by deed. Some friends and family members felt compelled to try to say something. Certainly, some words were more encouraging and hope-filled than others. But now, nearly 2 years later, I am still appreciative of the honesty exhibited by those friends and family members who, in wanting to empathize with our grief, apologized for failing to find any words to say to us.

In the nearly two years since Micah’s sudden death, Heather and I have corresponded with a number of other grieving parents. Even though I have experienced the death of a child first hand, I find that I am similarly at a loss for words when trying to comfort grieving parents. Ironically, even as I continue to write and post this and various other blog entries, and write letters and emails to other grieving parents, I can honestly say that words are not enough. Even if I could write like Dickens or Shakespeare, no set of words strung together would ever be enough. No words can assuage the sorrow of a grieving parent.

In the eighth chapter of Romans, Paul emphasizes that even in the midst of the great trials in our lives, when the sufferings are beyond anything we can handle or even be able to describe in words, the Holy Spirit intercedes on our behalf to God. Romans 8:26 says, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”

Even though words are not enough, God is enough. When we pray for the grieving parents, the Spirit is able to go to the Father on our behalf for the needs of the parents. The very same God who knows what the parents need can, through the Holy Spirit, help us pray. I think the best we can do is seek God’s help, in prayer, for the comfort of our grieving family and friends, and to let these parents know what we are doing.

I told one parent recently:

“I don’t have any words to use right now to express how sorry I am for the loss of your child. You are experiencing a level of pain and loss that most people can't imagine and will never experience. I don’t know what to say other than I am so sorry. But please know that I am praying for you, that God would bring you and your family comfort.”

Losing Memories of Your Child

We recently received a thoughtful and honest letter from another grieving parent. The parent retold her very sad story of losing her child while the child was sleeping at a day care provider. The parent recounted to us how, a few weeks following her son's sudden death, she "lost it" when she realized that she was beginning to forget all of the “little things” associated with her son. Whether it was the smell and feel of his skin, the color of his eyes, or the sound of his voice, all of these things were becoming lost in her memory.

We can relate to this unique aspect of grief. Over the past two years, Heather and I have similarly struggled with not merely losing our son in death, but losing bits and pieces of our memory of him as well. Once your child is gone, it seems that you begin, almost immediately, to forget those “little things” that make the child unique. I’m glad that Heather and I made it to a point to sit down together soon after Micah’s death and write down everything we could remember about our son, so that as years pass and new memories compete for the same neuron space between our ears, we will never forget all of the unique traits of our first-born son.

Last year, we attended a grief group at a local church. One of the leaders of the group told us that, as we have more children, the memories of Micah, our deceased son, would "merge" into the memories of our subsequently-born children. While the leader meant to comfort us with this promise, it was not comforting. Why would we want our memories to merge together? Is it because we want to dull the pain of what we have lost? To avoid squarely face the truth that we have lost a son, a child who God uniquely created and whose attributes will never be duplicated? No, I think parents do better long-term in their grief when they can remember and recount what makes his or her child unique.

As I have previously discussed on this blog, all of the parents I know who have lost children appreciate the opportunity to talk about their deceased child. Perhaps our appreciation for the opportunity to talk about our deceased child comes from this underlying desire to never forget what makes our child special. Regardless of whether the child was old or young, big or small, a good sleeper or a night wailer, a talker or a watcher, we want people to know and understand the beauty that God displayed in creating each of our children. We want to remember everything about our son Micah that God chose to use to make him unique.

In the end, Revelation 21:5 tells us that Jesus will “make all things new.” I’ve wondered what Jesus will do with our memory when He “makes all things new.” Will the restoration of our memory be part of God's restoration? Will he give us full memory, or only selective memory? Will Heather be able to remember every single sweet moment with Micah, and not have to deal with the terrible memories of giving Micah mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and then to watch him die? Or will we be so transfixed in the present act of worshipping God, face to face, and overjoyed with the presence of lost loved ones like Micah that we will have no need to rely upon memories of the past to add to our worship of him? Speed that day, Lord, when faith becomes sight.

Trusting God for the Salvation of our Infant Children

At various times over the last two years, I have struggled with the issue of Micah’s eternal salvation. While there is strong Biblical evidence for the salvation of infants (the subject of other future blog entries), most of these references are only indirect references. There are no direct, unambiguous promises in scripture that children who die in infancy are saved by reason of Jesus’ death and resurrection. I’ve struggled with God over why He did not say anything directly about this issue in scripture. God, could you have not spared just one sentence somewhere in scripture to give us certainty on this issue?

Gradually, God has given me confidence that He has saved Micah. This confidence did not arise out of a new interpretation of passage or a clever argument. God has impressed upon me the importance of simply trusting in His goodness and mercy towards us, his elect.

Obviously, an infant doesn’t need to know whether or not scripture says they are saved. The Bible doesn’t need to include a promise for these illiterate children in order for God to save them. For us parents, I have come to believe that the issue is not whether there is enough “proof” in scripture, but whether we will hold on, in faith, to the promise of God’s goodness to us, even through the storms of doubt, despair, anger and pain. I believe that even if there was an unambiguous promise in scripture about the eternal destiny of our children, many parents might still question the goodness and mercy of a God who allowed an infant child to die. Therefore, the battle is whether those of us who would otherwise question God’s goodness will submit in faith to God’s demonstrated attributes of justice, love and mercy.

The issue of our child’s eternal salvation is a specific example of what all of us are called to do—to submit, in faith, to the ways of a loving and merciful God. For those of us who have lost our children, we place our hopes for seeing our children again squarely on the goodness of God. As the Psalmist says about God, “Though art good and doest good.” Psalm 119:68. We place our lives, our hopes our dreams, everything about the future in the hands of a sovereign God who only does good for those who love Him. Romans 8:28.

Too much of my life has taken the form of unfaithfulness. Whether it has been demanding a specific response from God, or questioning His ways, I have acted unfaithfully towards my God, a God who has always loved me and orchestrated my life for my ultimate good. To demand a specific response from God explaining his ways, whether about my son’s seemingly premature death, or any other trials we might face, is a lack of faith. It means we are requiring God to fit his behavior into our beliefs of moral righteousness and justice. Instead, we should be living in faith knowing that ALL that God does is good.