To The New Parents.

Congratulations! You might not feel like celebrating right now, and that's ok. But I want to congratulate you anyway, onbecoming parents, and on this precious bundle of life your child. 

I'm sure this isn't imagined how your birth announcements would be. I'm certain you didn't expect your early weeks to look like this. And I don't underestimate the heartache you're going through as you try to work out what kind of a future you're going to have. 

I want to say this. You have a future, and it is bright and glorious. If miracles happen, then alleluia, praise the Lord, and I know all Heaven will be rejoicing with you. But you know what? If miracles don't happen, then alleluia, praise the Lord, and all of Heaven is still with you. 

Whatever happens tomorrow, next week, next year, you are on a journey that is going to be unimaginably awesome. Does that sound tactless? Possibly, and that's why I hesitate to send this. But I think maybe I still need to say it. 

You will see life more clearly than ever before. You have already tasted that clarity - that first precious unassisted breath, followed by another, and another, and another. They took too long, and maybe you weren't able to be there when they finally happened. But they did happen, and they are worthy of huge celebration. 

I need to tell you, that taste for celebration; itss addictive. All those milestones parents take for granted; they are going to be so infinitely precious to you. But I want to talk about the inchstones. The first time that tongue sticks out, the first time those eyes track a light, the first time fingers twitch under your touch. And there will be hundreds of those. And whether your child shakes off this early start and becomes one of those "this exact thing happened to my friend's son and he's just got a first from Oxford" children, or whether your future looks more like my past, you will find things to celebrate. 

And it will be ok. It will all be ok. Even when it's not - and there were many times in Imi's life when things were very very not-ok. But our God is bigger. And He has this. And there will be a rightness to this wrongness, a peace to this panic, and asense of wonder even in the wrongness. 

I could tell you things which might be helpful. I could say that Amana had a feeding tube until she was 9, that I was told she would never talk, sit up, support her own head. I could tell you her brain damage was so severe that she wasn't expected to survive infancy. 

I could tell you that Imogen's cerebral cortex was destroyed at birth, that she should not have been able to see, think, communicate, understand.

I could show you so many of our friends, with so many varied and complex lives, in the hope that you could find some resonance with some of them. But I'm not sure that's what you need right now. 

And so instead I'll just say this. You're going to hear a lot of things from a lot of different people. Some of it might be helpful. Some of it is going to be horrifically hurtful and insensitive, and I wish I could spare you that. You will learn to dance again. It's a different kind of dance. But it's beautiful. 

Congratulations on your precious, precious child. It is going to be ok. Our Daddy says so. 

Here and Now

My mind was wandering during the sermon this morning. Don't judge me; there were reasons. The passage? The beginning of 2 Corinthians 5. I was struck by the first verse; "For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands."

I don't think I quite followed all our preacher was suggesting. It seemed very complicated. Whereas, to me, it's very simple. I've put one of Imi's favourite songs below us here, together with the lyrics she loved (she preferred the Downing Family version, but I couldn't find that online). Glory to God I'll have a new body, changed in the twinkling of an eye, when I wake up to sleep no more. 

Walking with Imi, particularly in her last month, was to walk with her as she walked towards Heaven. She was absolutely certain that's where she was going, and I'm equally certain there was a measure of Heaven already present in her room. She slipped between here and there, between here and eternity. The canvas of her earthly tent became a burden to her; we patched it and tended to it, but she was so keen to shed it. 

And I am certain that she took her final not-really-a-breath-because-it-was-just-too-shallow once she was already standing on Heaven's shore, shedding this tent as she stepped into eternity. She was not left unclothed, not left suspended, she is not currently somewhere in a state of waiting, but is fully completely and perfectly Imogen, whole and new and forever praising. She is with her sister.

Our God is the Lord of time (Potentate if you will; ineffably sublime. I have hymns in my head tonight). He rules time; He is not bound by it. 

Time matters immensely to us. We measure not just the days, but the seconds; I get twitchy when my kitchen clock is two minutes out. It matters to us, because we know these lives are short. Because we know they are finite. But in an infinite eternity, how can time have any relevance at all? 

Heaven touches Earth; we all have moments when we know this. Times when the curtain is thin, where we can almost glimpse the angels and archangels and all the company of Heaven. Where echoes of joy ring out across our souls, moments of true deep happiness. It's there in the wonder of an infant's first smile, in a true belly laugh with a trusted friend, in the bliss of a beautifully crafted sentence in a truly lovely book, in the glorious rainbow after the darkest storm, in the galaxies shining on the darkest night. 

And it is entirely possibly I totally misunderstood what our preacher was saying. My mind was wandering. But on the offchance that what I heard was what was actually said, I'd like to reject utterly the idea that all our dead are simply waiting, waiting until the gates of Heaven open on that last day. Because there's no way at all Imogen was trudging towards a waiting room; she was running to her King. 

Tia

What a glad thought some wonderful morning 

Just to hear Gabriel's trumpet sound 

When I wake up when I wake up 

To sleep no more (to sleep no more) 

Rising to meet our blessed redeemer  
With a glad shout I'll leave the ground  
When I wake up (when I wake up) 
To sleep no more (to sleep no more) 

When I wake up some glad morning 
To sleep no more jewels adorning 
How happy I'll be over in glory 
On the beautiful shore telling the story 

With the redeemed of all the ages  
Praising the one who I adore 
When I wake up (when I wake up) 
To sleep no more (to sleep no more)  

Glory to God I'll have a new body 
Changed in a twinkling of an eye 
When I wake up (when I wake up) 
To sleep no more (to sleep no more)
 
Leaving behind all troubles and trials 
Bound for the city up on high 
When I wake up (when I wake up)
To sleep no more (to sleep no more)