My heart
still hurts.
We lost our son.
My son died.
I've shared this story before,
here on 'Your Time of Grace.'
My wife and I,
she was pregnant with twins.
We were so excited.
We had a boy and a girl coming.
We already had three daughters.
Excited to have this
added blessing into our life.
And suddenly our,
our son died.
So in the course of one day,
I, I hold my son
for the first
and last time,
while his sister is clinging,
his twin sister is clinging to life
in the NICU unit
She, by God's grace,
survived.
But my heart still hurts for him.
There are some things I have used,
some techniques,
um, coping methods that have
very much helped me.
And I want to share those
with you.
Because if you
or a loved one of yours
had a child die,
there's a lot of ache,
there's a lot of hurt that's there
because you just almost had,
or you had that child for just
a little while, and how do you get through?
First of all, if you have a child that dies
in the hospital, there's an amazing organization
known as 'Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.'
And for free, a professional photographer
will come in, take black and white pictures
of you with that child.
Because you only get to hold that child once
but for an hour or two and that is it.
When my wife
gave birth to our son, M.J., Martin Jonathan,
and to our daughter, Maggie,
she did a C-section.
So she's on drugs,
she doesn't remember that very much.
But those pictures are there,
something tangible
for her to hold onto
that gives her and gives me
an added peace.
Another thing that you can do
is to realize that a person who's lost a child,
they tend to like
to talk about that child.
It, it seems strange.
It was strange to me, too,
before I lost my son.
But a lot of them realize
they want to keep that,
that legacy,
that remembrance of that child alive
by talking about it.
And so for me, I love to talk about M.J.
Because it makes me realize
and helps me to realize he
was and is
in a very unique way a part of our family.
Another thing you can do
is to find a way that you can honor
or remember that child that was lost.
A buddy of mine,
on that day that his daughter died,
has a kickball tournament.
On her heavenly birthday –
that's what they call it –
a heavenly birthday,
when that loved one went to glory.
They have a party with their family.
For my wife and me,
my son died, our son died on November 28.
And so on that day,
we all wear Superman.
We were going to do the nursery in
Superman and Superwoman.
We were sure that
our son was not going to be a wussy boy,
even though he had all these sisters around him.
He was going to live in sports hero stuff
and super hero stuff.
And so we all wear Superman on that day.
And it was hard at first.
And actually now, the 28th of every month,
you're going to see me,
I'm always wearing Superman.
And that helps me
to feel closer
with the loss that's there.
And you might be hearing this now
and going, "Well, Pastor Jon,
you haven't shared one religious
thing with me yet.
You haven't shared God's word with me yet."
You're right.
But that doesn't make this not good.
When you share these stories of
how someone could cope
with the loss of a child,
you build a connection with them,
a rapport with them, a bridge with them.
So then you can share them
the peace that will actually comfort them:
God's love,
Jesus' forgiveness.
As God promises to them,
to you, to all who are hurting.
In Isaiah 41,
and man, you need that when you lose a child.
There's no strength left.
That's a gift
that you can give to them
after you build a bridge to them.
Sharing ways that they can have
peace in this world
and the greatest peace
that comes from Christ.