When Life Hits Hard

(Trigger Warning)

We packed up ours and the three boys’ suitcases, three car seats and three bicycles on a plane and headed for a three-week camper-van holiday around the South Island of New Zealand. It was a bucket list dream. My husband had taken care of all the details. Carefully planning the route, leaving space for choice, and picking places we would want to see.

We both had broken hearts after having a funeral for our son, who was born still at thirty-three weeks old. Samuel Max, our very much wanted and prayed for, first born son. He had unexplainably passed away in my womb.

Yet we still had our three older fostered boys to care for. They were the very reason we kept getting up in the mornings. Kept digging deep into God to get us through the tough feelings of utter grief.

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In Joshua 4:1-8 God commands the Israelites to cross the Jordan River which he has parted miraculously. Joshua leads the twelve tribes to remove boulders from the riverbed, which they erect in the Promised Land in a place called Gilgal. These twelve stones of Jordan were a memorial to God’s love and miraculous assistance.

In Hannah Hurnard’s classic book “Hinds Feet in High Places”, her main character “Much Afraid”, also collects stones on the way to the “high places” as spiritual reminders of her journey. Each time she learns a lesson, Much-Afraid picks up a pebble or stone lying around as a reminder of the truth she learned.

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We travelled around the South Island and day-by-day I found myself picking up rocks and shells. The ones I found particularly meaningful or beautiful were at the places I felt most close to God.

One of my stones I found in Christ Church. This was after the 2011 earthquake, when they were rebuilding. We went to visit the Cardboard Cathedral, parking our camper van on the rocky stone parking lot. I was amazed by the beauty and light of the Cathedral. After we returned to the van, one of my boys passed me a beautiful gray rock off the ground, in the shape of a heart. I paused for a moment, unable to believe it. God was showing me through this stone, that his very heart was with us, even in all this devastation. I could feel how his heart longed for his Church and his people and knew he could see my heart and my pain.

Another destination we stopped was Tekapo, at a famous place called “The Church of the Good Shepherd.” It was a stunning stone church that sat alongside the Tekapo lake with waters as crystal blue as they come. It was here I found a dark black rock naturally etched with a white cross running through the centre. Here was my rock to say Jesus was with me.

Every time I picked up a rock or shell alongside a secluded lake or the raging west coast, I would stop and consider—and thank God—not that my baby Samuel had died, but that God was with me on my journey. He was on the path. Like the psalmist says, “he goes before me he goes behind me. Where can I flee?” (Psalm 139:5-7)

The scenery was so healing. The Remarkable’s at Queens town, Fox glaciers and the Blue lakes. I can’t even express how stunningly beautiful our trip was, it hardly rained and around every corner would constantly overwhelm my soul, it was a healing balm to my weary heart.

I believe that when life hits hard when you must face a reality you never believed possible, you can put your hope in God.

For Samuel’s funeral we had blue balloons that said, “His Promises Never Fail.” I know that these glimpses of beauty are glimpses of heavenly places. One day it will be the real thing.

In Eternity I will have my baby boy Samuel in my arms again. While I’m here, in this day, still so very sad, yearning, God is so very present and shows me his love and how he isn’t afraid of my grief. The stones remind me of his goodness here and now. They guide me through the landscape back to him.

The boys are older now. They don’t remember much of the three-week journey or the significance it holds for me. What they do see are the jar of rocks and shells I keep on full display. So, when they ask if I can show them my rock with the heart, or my rock with the cross, I tell them that God walked right alongside me.