Remembering and Looking Forward: Come, Little Jubilee

O come, little children, O come one and all,

To Bethlehem haste, to the manger so small,
God's son for a gift has been sent you this night
To be your redeemer, your joy and delight.



I've avoided taking a family photo this Christmas.
Partially because I'm behemoth at this point, and our usual "jammie picture" would not end up being excessively flattering.
Partially because we don't know if Jubilee will be here for Christmas or not, so we might as well wait.
And partially because this will be our first year with a forever-on-this-earth-incomplete family picture.

I've waited for a day when I wasn't feeling hormonal or excessive amounts of self-pity to type that, because I really want to give people an honest picture of miscarriage loss and not just a lot of words driven by emotion.

This loss is odd.  Because it's so intertwined with our expectancy of Jubilee.
We couldn't have our Jubilee if we didn't have the loss.

At the very base of her name, it means joy or celebration.  But the reason we chose her name was because it was a time of remembrance, a time devoted to freedom and restoration in the Bible.

And as we expect our Jubilee, we remember our other child.

We also remember that we weren't promised an entire lifetime with our kids.  We've known that from the very beginning, having missed part of Million's life.  But death kind of sinks it in differently--especially death when there are constant reminders of the lack of a person's life.

We remember that our lives can be filled with joy and that grief doesn't have to imprison us.

We remember that the one that binds up the brokenhearted and sets the captives free is the one who tenderly leads us through the various seasons and stages of our lives.

We remember as we look forward.  We look forward to the day when heaven and nature will truly sing.  We look forward to hopefully years with our new little one.  We look forward to excitement and adventure and living our lives with intentionality.  We remember and look forward to walking in the grace and freedom we have inherited as children of a King.

So come, little Jubilee.
Grace our house with your life....however long it may be.
We will live lives of joy.  We will walk in freedom.
We will celebrate the gift of life.