Lovely now her life shall be

It has been a while since I blogged about the here and now. I'm so happy to have shared with you all the story of our sweet Abigail's short life with us, and I feel blessed to have heard from so many of you how you have been touched by it. But now, there is so much life that happens each day in our home, and I hope to be able to share that too. Our struggles, our joys, and our sorrows go on.

I'd like to leave you with the words of one of my favorite poets, who also knew too well the pain of losing a child:

As We Prayed
by Edgar A. Guest

Often as we watched her there
From our lips there fell this prayer:
"God, give us the pain to bear!
Let us suffer in her place,
Take the anguish from her face,
Soothe her with Thy holy grace."

Then the angels came, and they
Took her lovely soul away
From the torture house of clay,
As we'd prayed, they brought release,
Smoothed her brow with gentle peace,
But our pain shall never cease.

Ours is now the hurt to bear,
Ours the anguish and despair,
Ours the agony to share!
When our hearts with grief were stirred,
Thus we prayed and thus were heard,
Shall we fail to keep our word?

Was our promise all in vain?
Would we call her back again
Just to spare ourselves the pain?
We are hurt, oh, that is true!
Desolate and lonely, too,
Suffering as we pledged to do,

Lovely now her life shall be
Safe through all eternity,
Always beautiful to see;
Now the pain is ours to know,
But we prayed to bear this blow
That she need not suffer so.

We love you Abigail. We miss you terribly. But we take comfort in the understanding that you live on, made whole and perfect in the presence of the Almighty. Your pain is now ours to bear, and we know that we will be with you again someday. We praise God who granted you the ultimate healing rather than to leave you living in the agony which mortal life afforded you.