Today's Walk
by Jim Reynolds

Happy Baca Day

Words cannot describe the oddity of standing over your child's grave… of absorbing the inexplicable idea that she really is dead.  It's like hearing someone speak in a foreign language.  You know it makes sense to someone… somewhere… but to you, it remains a mystery. 

  Our second daughter, Nicole Grace, was born June 10, 2004. We felt like God had revealed to us, even before she was conceived, that it was going to take an extra measure of His grace to raise this child.  Shortly after settling on her name – which means Victorious Heart of Grace – we began to understand why we would need this “extra measure of grace.” We learned that Nicole had heart defects… holes that would require surgery after she was born. There was also a strong possibility that parts of her brain had not formed. Born early and by emergency c-section, she was in jeopardy from her first breath. Later tests revealed that the cause of the defects was a rare chromosomal abnormality called Trisomy 18.  The condition also left her with lung deficiencies; she never knew life without oxygen prongs in her nose. Nicole went to be with her “other Daddy” just five and a half months after she was born, succumbing to heart failure.  

I spent Father's Day, one year after her birth, staring at the impossibly close dates and the butterfly carving on her rose-colored heart-shaped tombstone. A few feet below the surface was a box – a “jewelry box” as one small child described the casket from another funeral.  In that box were the remains of my daughter – the same baby girl whose upcoming birth had filled us with so much anticipation… whose health challenges sapped and yet also fueled our faith.  The little one I called “Punkin Seed” because she was too small to be a “Punkin.”  The one who, in five and a half months, taught me volumes about my Heavenly Father and about being a father myself.  The one whose diaper I changed, whose feeding tube I cleaned, who never once looked at me with any sense of recognition, but who stole my heart just the same.  It was just strange.  She was so close in “space” yet a gulf existed between us that I am unable to cross, not yet anyway.  Just a few feet, but it might as well be a thousand miles… on my hands and knees… through broken glass.  Insurmountable.

I hope I don't sound morbid when I say I wanted to hold her again; even if it was her stiff, embalmed, doll-like body, I wanted to hold her again.  Beyond that statement is an even greater desire to hold her again – alive and whole.  Despite the reality of the separation, the vastness of the distance between our worlds, there is still so much love… so much longing… so much desire to have her back.  I would do anything to get her out of that box and back into my world.

I stood there, above her, thinking exactly that for several minutes.  To have her back, I would sacrifice in a myriad of ways.  I would give up my life-savings.  I would toss my “career” and all my dreams.  To bring her out from under the ground to life again, I would… (and I filled in the blank numerous times, numerous ways.)

Suddenly, it made some sense.  I will never understand all that happened… but my thoughts at least seemed… “familiar.” Matthew 13:44-46 -- The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.

I understand and respect the process of grief far too much to declare this with any certainty, but I feel like I have finally turned a corner in the past year or so.  I still miss Nicole… I still think of her… and the victorious heart work that God has done in me will no doubt continue.  But I feel… different… more like myself again… or, more accurately, more like my old self, but with some powerful modifications.  I guess I am more and more successfully folding all of our experience with her into the rest of my life.

Psalm 84 is a passage that God used to nurture this transformation.

1 How lovely is your dwelling place,
     O LORD Almighty!
2 My soul yearns, even faints,
     for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and my flesh cry out
     for the living God.

3 Even the sparrow has found a home,
     and the swallow a nest for herself,
     where she may have her young--
a place near your altar,
     O LORD Almighty, my King and my God.
4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house;
     they are ever praising you. Selah
5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
     who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.
6 As they pass through the Valley of Baca ,
     they make it a place of springs;
     the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
7 They go from strength to strength,
     till each appears before God in Zion .

It's a nice enough Psalm… a worshipful cry of satisfaction and contentment from one who has searched – and found – a home in God's presence.  But verses 5-6 are the ones that “jumped off the page.”  Blessed are those who find strength in this Presence.  And blessed are those who have set their hearts to continue on this pilgrimage… to those committed to “Walk With Jesus,” to use my language.  But, notice the blessing.  “As they pass through the Valley of Baca , they make it a place of springs.”  In an era when water was as precious to them as fuel is to us, springs represented a powerful help.  Scripture often uses rain and water imagery to symbolize our Lord's favor.  But the springs aren't as significant as the transformation of this Valley of Baca ; these “pilgrims,” those who are “walking,” make it a place of springs. 

Baca sounded familiar to me… I wanted to learn more… and was surprised to find that this Psalm is the only place in all of Scripture where this location is mentioned.  Even my Bible atlas was largely silent, and placed the city of Baca out in the middle of nowhere… miles from “important” spots like Mt. Hermon and Kedesh… Cana and Capernaum . 

And then I looked at what “Baca” means in Hebrew; it is one of the most common words for “weeping” or “mourning.”  Now, the promise comes alive.  Blessed are those who walk with Jesus and who gain their strength from their relationship with Him.  Even when they pass through mourning and pain, by God's power, it becomes a place of springs and promise.  I've seen – and preached – this truth from many places in the Bible, but now none seem so beautiful as this simple song.  Even as I read the description of Baca and as Holy Spirit worked out its implications deep in my heart, it was as if a healing balm ran over me… more accurately, into me… and through me… 

Verse 7 finishes the thought: those who experience this transformation will become stronger and stronger… right up until the day we appear before God in that city that lies ahead for all of us.   For the rest of my life, Father's Day will likely be a strange mix of joy and grief… hope and “what might have been,” contentment and “Baca.”  But our Father has power to transform Baca… to bring strength from mourning and blessing from pain; all I have to do is keep walking with Him and drawing on His strength.   And… He also promises to reunite me with my Punkin' Seed and with anyone else who beats me to His gates… where I will see Him for the first time.  This is the promise for all who will “walk WITH Him.”  And with such a tremendous transformation ahead, no matter what kind of heartache you are currently experiencing, let me be the first to wish you Happy Baca Day.

Walk WITH Jesus,

Jim

A shorter version of Walk WITH Jesus is actually published weekly, via e-mail.

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Jim Reynolds – John 14:1-6

Copyright May 08

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BIO

Jim grew up – and sometimes still longs for – the suburbs of Kansas City , but now has the privilege of serving as the pastor of a rural Midwestern church. He and his wonderful, beautiful, multi-talented wife, Deanna, have two children still with them and one “Punkin Seed” waiting for them in Heaven; she “went to see her other Daddy” at the age of 5 ½ months. Jim is thrilled, humbled, and grateful for the opportunity to write for this magazine.

At this writing, Jim is especially grateful for those around him who have loved him through difficult times… and for those who have helped him come through Baca intact.