Remain... Let...

I am grateful for my husband.

Emily had to be taken to the pediatrician today, unexpectedly.

This wasn't the first time since Ethan went to Heaven, but that doesn't make it any easier, so I begged Josh to go with me. I just couldn't do it alone.

Because Emily's pediatrician is Ethan's, too.

When we got there, it was pure torture. All I could think about is all the many times we brought Ethan.

Josh even unknowingly sat in the same chair in the waiting room that I had on Ethan's last visit (Josh hadn't been able to join me that day)--- Tuesday, June 1st... just three days before Ethan went to be with Jesus.

I remember sitting in that chair and placing Ethan in front of me in his car seat... using my foot to gently rock him in it... getting a phone call from UAB while I was waiting, to tell me what time he needed to be there Friday morning and what time he needed to stop nursing so his little tummy would be empty... telling Emily she couldn't play with the other kids in the waiting room because we couldn't risk getting her little brother sick before his surgery...

The whole reason we were at the pediatrician that day was to get Ethan cleared for the surgery, to make sure his cold was gone (which it was). We were so careful with him...

And we lost him anyway.

Today was torture. So, before Emily was called back to an exam room, my sweet husband told his quietly crying wife to leave. That he would call me when they were done and I could come back and pick them up.

And I did...

Because I am a coward.

I drove around for a while, then ducked into our local library.

I stood in front of the displays of featured books, thumbing through them sadly.

Ethan's Life Verse is Psalm 37:5. "Commit your way to the Lord; trust also in Him and He will bring it to pass."

I read it almost every day of my pregnancy, when I was worried about miscarrying him or something else going wrong and us losing him in the womb. I wrote it out and brought it to the hospital for his birth, and taped it to his bassinet as soon as I could after he was born. It was there when he was diagnosed with the heart defect the next day. And it took on a whole new meaning when they put it in the helicopter with him when they flew him to the University Hospital NICU on his fourth day of life. (They transferred him there because they thought they might have to do an emergency heart procedure, but were wrong--- they just couldn't see things well enough). It stayed taped on his NICU bassinet until he was discharged a few days later. And when Ethan went to Heaven, we typed it on the special memorial bulletin we handed out at his service.

Then today, when I was thumbing through a book at the library, there it was.

With an explanation after it about remaining calm and letting God work.

Ethan's Life Verse... telling me how to live in the wake of losing him.

Remain calm and let God work.

Yes, God... I get it.

When I feel panicky about losing my son, I will remain calm and let You work.

When I long for good things to keep coming from his life, and for You to comfort me even as it doesn't seem possible that I can be comforted, I will remain calm and let You work.

Thank You for using my son to minister to me still.