A day of remembrance . . .

One year ago today, our family experienced its greatest day of loss.  We were expecting our first son to go along with three wonderful girls.  It had been a trying pregnancy -- we spent a night in the ER with a torn placenta, thinking we had lost him.  Wendy was on bed rest to try and get the placenta to heal, which made things difficult around the house.  On the evening of August 19th, after a wedding rehearsal I was performing for two dear friends, we came home to get the girls ready for bed.  Faith (our then-8-year-old) came hollering for me through the house, telling me that Wendy needed me.

We didn't know it at the time (well, we probably DID know it, but didn't WANT to know it) but Wendy's water had broken.  At 17 weeks.  We called a sitter over, loaded up in the car, and headed to triage.  A friend flagged us down on the way and jumped in the car with us.  When we got to the hospital (they put us right into a birthing room -- should have been our second clue), there was no heartbeat.  For whatever reason, Wendy's body had gone into labor. At 17 weeks.  She delivered Warner Josiah a few hours later.  He was 5 ounces, perfectly formed, and fit in the palm of my hand.  I remember being completely worthless to Wendy during the delivery.  I just couldn't look.  I sat in a chair in the delivery room and just stared straight ahead.

Once he was born, we began to have to do all kinds of things we never thought we'd do.  They asked us if we wanted to hold him.  They asked us what kind of casket we wanted for him.  They asked us if we wanted to have him buried with other stillbirths or of we wanted him in a place of his own.  We had to go and sit at a funeral home and talk about arrangements.  We had to buy a plot of land in a cemetery.  We had to decide which grave marker we wanted for him.  We had to make arrangements for a memorial.  We had to ask one of our dear friends to perform the memorial -- something only a true friend or a complete stranger would ever do for someone.

We weren't sure we were going to try again for another child.  We had three wonderful girls and the stillbirth had been a difficult turn of events.  For a while after Warner's birth, I could hear Wendy lying in bed sobbing as she held her now-empty womb.

I don't know that we ever had a formal discussion about it, but we eventually decided to try again.  If you've met our four-year-old, Tinsley, you know that the LAST thing she needs is to be a part-time only child.  The girl needed a sibling.  So we were excited when we found out we were pregnant again.  Excited, but cautious.  When we found out we were having another boy, we were delighted.  Delighted, but apprehensive.  When we got past the 17-week mark where we had lost Warner, we were relieved.  Relieved, but anxious.

I don't know that Wendy and I really believed it was going to turn out well until last Saturday.  At 4:53pm, we welcomed Blanton Caleb Drake into our family.  A healthy 7 pound, 7 ounce baby boy.  At 21 inches long, he might be able to be something other than a point guard on the basketball team.  Up until the time he came out, I don't think Wendy and I were sure that this would work.  But he is healthy, has a great appetite, and is doing amazingly well.  We are blessed.

But today was the one-year anniversary of Warner's death.  We have this little community of people that we call "church" that meets in our home every once in a while.  Since we don't really have a set "church schedule" (which is GLORIOUS, by the way), we decided that the Drakes were going to have church out at Warner's grave.  And we invited our community to join us.  And they did.  Thirteen of us stood and sat around a grave, reading Scriptures about confusion and loss, about redemption and restoration.  We sang songs about a God who knows what it is like to experience the loss of a Child.  We cried tears of hurt and tears of confusion.  We took communion together as a family.  We took pictures of our little family of seven.  We took pictures of our church family gathered to celebrate redemption.

Redemption's a strange thing.  When something is redeemed, it doesn't mean that the pain of the first experience is taken away.  It doesn't mean that all (or any?) of the questions are answered.  It doesn't give us back Warner.  But redemption is a beautiful thing.  It's a healing thing.  It's a powerful thing.

And it's going on all around us, if only we're willing to see it.  Even (especially?) on the anniversary of our darkest day.

A Place at the Table, day 8

I could never be a writer.  The thought of writing everyday in this blog sometimes terrifies me.  It doesn't seem like much, but the everyday-ness of it can become daunting.  One of my favorite writers, Donald Miller, makes it seem so easy.  I'm sure that the real story is much more messy, but he makes it seem like he's weeks and months ahead on his blog, just waiting for the right time to post those life-changing thoughts that he planned out weeks before.

As I am sitting around throughout the day, I have all of these "brilliant" thoughts about what I'm going to write about.  Then, when I sit down at the computer to write, something completely different comes out.  Sometimes it has a little bit to do with the thought I had before, but most of the time it becomes just whatever thought pops into my head at the time.  SQUIRREL!

I suppose that some of that has to do with the fact that I'm a little guarded in my thoughts.  I don't know if you know this or not, but the Internet is available to people all over the world.  And while I'm not arrogant enough to believe that the entire world is listening in on my thoughts, it HAS surprised me who is following these thoughts.  Just a few moments ago in the coffee shop I am working in today, I ran into a friend that I haven't really talked to in months, and he commented on the fact that he has been following this blog.

One of the interesting things about a fast is that it opens you up to what is really going on in your heart.  When you peel away the layers of facade that we put up in our daily lives, sometimes we don't like what we find underneath.  There's this insight that my Master had into the human psyche -- "Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks."  While it doesn't seem like too much of a profound statement, there is deep truth in this simple statement.  I have found in recent weeks (some even before this fast began) that I can have a relatively foul mouth.  Now, I've been around church and life enough to know when not to use those words in public, but I find myself saying things in my private moments that are just not "churchy."  As a matter of fact, I find myself inserting inappropriate words into the worship songs that I am singing in the shower.  And, no, I don't mean "sing your freaking lungs out." (Obscure "Words to Build a Life On" reference for my Raintree peeps.)  It would be easy for me to dismiss this as just Dave being Dave, but if Jesus is to be believed (and I kinda think He IS to be believed) these words give a window to what is going on in my heart.  So, if my mouth is speaking filth, what does that say about my heart?

I was just looking up the passage that I quoted above to make sure my memory was correct (it was), and what I found convicted me even more.  The context of this insight in Matthew is Jesus teaching about good trees and bad trees.  The indictment right before this quote in Matthew is "You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good?"  Not exactly the encouragement that I needed today.

Or maybe it IS the encouragement I need.  Because that's what the real life looks like.  When we open up the dark places of our souls and our hearts to the Liberating King, we might not like what we see there.  But until we're willing to open our wounds to let His blood cover those dark places, true healing cannot come.  One of the things I love about my Jesus is that He will not force Himself into the darkness of our lives.  But once we open up those places to His light, we find healing, freedom, and redemption that we never knew was possible.  Not that it's easy to get there, but I'm choosing to trust that the shalom that happens on the other side of this is worth the muck that we find ourselves in now.

A Place at the Table, Feast Day 1

Yesterday was one of my favorite days in a long time.  The way that this Place at the Table fast is laid out is that on Sundays, we are encouraged to feast with friends -- eat, drink, laugh, enjoy.  So I had been looking forward to Sunday all week.  It had been a long time since I had planned out my meals quite so fully.  I was going to eat a Reese's Peanut Butter Heart (or 2) at midnight, and then get up early for a bowl of cereal loaded down with milk.  Then, on my way to work, I was going to get a Cinnamon Dolce Latte (that girly coffee again).  Lunch would be large quantities of meat, and dinner would be a feast as well.  There was even a thought that I would squeeze one last meal in before going to bed.

Well, reality was less sexy.  The Resse's happened at midnight (glorious!), but when I woke up, the cereal didn't seem so appealing.  So I did the CDL from Starbucks and went to church.  The conversation at church was awesome.  Several of us chatted about what we had been learning about ourselves and our lives during this fast.  After church, a group of us went to Texas Land and Cattle and waited forever to get a table.  But it didn't matter (at least not to most of us) because the conversation was so life-giving.  I ate red meat for the first time in a while, but it was again the community that was being formed around the table that was the most fulfilling.  As a matter of fact, the burger and sweet potato were a little too much.  I felt a little bloated.

So much so that when our community gathered last night for table fellowship and discussion, I wasn't really hungry.  But I bought a chicken sandwich and a coke and was off to our meeting.  It was again the community that was life-giving.  It was our first gathering since we initially launched this lent fast, so we spent some time discussing what we had learned.  I was blown away that, since our first meeting, three of our families had begun sponsoring Compassion kids.  Our little community of 15-20 people had committed to changing 3 lives and bringing kingdom to earth in a tangible, food-on-the-table sort of way.  We then discussed things like contentment and overindulgence and appreciating simple things.  It was again an absolutely life-giving discussion.

We ended our time with some talk about healing and then we took communion together.  The last thing we did was feast on some cake for one of our group's birthday.  Not sure I've ever enjoyed birthday cake quite that much. I went home from that gathering, chicken sandwich in hand (I hadn't eaten it yet; I was still full from lunch!), very happy to have a community of faith that was trying to be intentional about hope and healing and redemption.

So now I begin the first full week of the fast.  I'm sure there will be days of hunger and anger, frustration and exasperation.  But, if week one was any indication, there will also be days of reflection, healing, community and shalom.  Stay tuned.