Time stood still. I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced that or not. But you seem to be stationary while everything around you is moving. People and things become a blur and you are having trouble reconfiguring this disorienting moment.
When my first son was born, this was my experience. It was odd. First, my wife and I never really thought about having children. We are young professionals that were focused on furthering our careers and not concerned with starting a family or rearing children. A year before Holly found out she was pregnant with Benaiah, she had a miscarriage. She had called me two weeks earlier to meet downtown to show me the positive pregnancy test. We cried and hugged each other. We were genuinely surprised and authentically excited. Fast forward two weeks and I am holding her in the bathroom as she is in tears apologizing to me.
I was pissed, for lack of a better term. This was a high and then an extreme low. My beautiful bride was apologizing to me for something that was beyond her control. I was pissed that I had started to change how I felt about having a family and what it would look like for us to raise a child. I was excited. Stoked to see how wonderful of a mother Holly would be and up for the honor of being the father to our child that we didn’t have. Then it was gone. In a moment, just gone. I wanted to run and grab a 6-pack and an ounce and drown my sorrows. I really REALLY wanted to do that. Because that is how I used to handle these things. I would numb myself and stuff down the emotions. I couldn’t do it this time. I was constrained by Christ. But I didn’t respond to it well, nor did I deal with it correctly.
Fast forward to April 30, 2017. My wife is having to be induced because she found out that she is high risk and baby Benny was at risk because of a condition called cholestasis. Pretty much because of the pregnancy, bile was getting blocked and potentially getting into the bloodstream. She had to be induced 3 weeks early. We were at Winnie Palmer in Orlando. Excellent hospital and staff. It was, however, 30 hours of hell for my bride. Let me pause here to say that any woman who has given birth (in any form) you are a true miracle. The sheer amount of pain and what the body goes through is amazing. Holly explains giving birth like you are on the cusp of death. I felt useless. All I did was get ice chips and pace around.
11:30 PM and she starts to really push. After being in active labor for around 30 hours, she’s exhausted. She sprained her ankles during these last few minutes. 11:40 and my first born, Benaiah Zane, enters the world. He was perfect. Half of me and half of her. This little human that I didn’t even want is now all that I want. To raise my son with my wife. But there was a problem… and this is when time stood still.
I was holding him and the nurse came and grabbed him from me. He wasn’t breathing. Or had stopped. I’m not exactly sure. They took him to the table and did what is called an APGAR test. His was zero. They start to resuscitate him in the room. Holly was now spiking a fever of 106 and going unconscious. Everything was moving so fast around me, but I was still. It was like I couldn’t really understand what was going on. I was trying to gather myself, but I couldn’t. People were moving, things were beeping, and people were talking to me, but I couldn’t comprehend what they were saying. I was existing in a surrealist painting. I became angry again. This time, I was justflat-outt mad at God. Full stop. I was fully ready to walk away from Christ.
My thought process was something along the lines; “if God knows or knew this would happen and yet allowed it to happen, then that isn’t the God I want to be a part of or affiliated with.” The whole motif of ‘God is in control’ or ‘This isn’t a surprise to God’, just pissed me off even more. We don’t see the problem with that? We are willing to chalk up suffering and death of innocence to the appeal to heaven that ‘God knows’? No. I’m not buying it. And if that is in fact true to his character, then I will no longer follow him. I couldn’t, with good conscience, do so. 5 years earlier I had sworn my allegiance to Christ. Dropped everything and started to be radical in my pursuit of Him and the life He was calling me to. Now, I was ready to leave it all because I couldn’t rectify suffering in light of his sovereignty.
The next morning, I walk into the NICU with Holly to see my son for the second time. He is hooked up to wires in his head, a feeding tube, IVs, and oxygen. I lean down to touch him, and he starts to have a seizure. His little body, just shaking and convulsing. I lost it. Not only was I in tears, but now I am associating my touch with causing him pain. Again, I know the truth, but when we suffer things, we don’t think in terms of the rational. I think I just left the hospital. I don’t remember. I know my mother and Holly’s mother were there, so I just left. I went and bought a pack of cigarettes and just sat out on some bench in downtown Orlando and smoked half a pack. Just one right after the other.
I started to question my faith. Truly and deeply question my beliefs. I started to wrestle. “Is this who You are? Can You not or will You not? Either way, You’re not worth it.” This was the moment where I quit on Jesus. I couldn’t pray anymore. Honestly, I didn’t want to, because He obviously wasn’t hearing, or if He was, He wasn’t answering. Either way, I’m not wasting my time. The silence from heaven was deafening. I would open up scripture and just become angry. This child that I didn’t even want…now that I loved more than I even thought was possible, was on the verge of being taken from me. Once again, the high and lows. It was too much man. I couldn’t even go see my son. I didn’t want to hold him. I didn’t want to be near him. Why should I? If he was just going to be taken from me anyway. What did it matter? It was all bullshit. All of it.
It was in this silence that I heard the whisper in my conscience. “Do you really believe this about me?” I don’t know if it was the voice of God or just the Holy Spirit…or just my heart not willing to let go of what I knew to be true… but the question remained… and I had to answer it.
"And so, I believe in Christ and confess Him not like some child; my hosanna has passed through a vast furnace of doubt."-Dostoevsky
So, I gave Christ one more chance.
The conclusion that I came to, was that Christ is just simply there. As Romans states; “Working all things to the good for those that love him”. While I have concluded that God doesn’t cause calamity and suffering in order for him to be seen as greater than all of it. He isn’t the author of suffering. I am still on the fence if He knows with detail all the things that will happen or if it is more that he knows all possibilities. What I have come to conclude, is that Christ is with us. First and foremost, He is incarnational. God become flesh to be with us. To share and take part in our suffering. Emptying himself of everything that would separate him from us, to take on and become what and who we are. This doctrine is called ‘kenosis’. Jesus emptied himself for us. To become us. To experience what we experience.
While I still don’t know what it all means, nor do I assume that I ever will. I do know that Christ is with us. I now have a beautiful and brilliant 6-year-old son that lights up the room when he comes in. He is my miracle. This very real and present expression of the blessing of Christ in the darkest moment of my life. I try to remind myself every day when I look at him, that Christ was with him in those first moments. And in being with him, Christ was with me.
I don’t know how to explain the assurance I have in this. This confidence. Perhaps it’s the true meaning of faith? Maybe it is the expression of the belief that I can trust Christ with the things that I value most in life…and the simplicity that I really can trust Him in the face of the darkness of the world? I am a theologian by training. I don’t know the answer to this. To be honest, I don’t want to. I just know, with full confidence, that though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, that he is with us. That when we go through suffering, he stands with us and suffers alongside us. That Christ, in fact, stands in our place to redeem us in the valleys of our lives. First and foremost, before anything else, Christ has emptied himself so that He could be with us in every experience and aspect of our human existence.
When time stands still, He is there with us. Not so much to answer our doubts, but to comfort us in our suffering. Because in the stillness, He loves.
Luanne Walsh Artwork
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