He Replants the Desolate Places

The number seven in the Bible signifies completion.  Mother's Day, May 11th, marks 7 years since my son Elijah was birthed into Heaven.  They call it a stillbirth, and in the physical sense, it was very still...no heart monitor hooked up, no baby cries...and even the nurses were hushed, not quite sure what to say to me.  And in the spiritual sense, it was still.  There's just a place where God is all...the great I AM...and in that place, He speaks stillness into the spirit...peace that passes all understanding.  But in the emotional sense, Elijah's birth was anything but calm and still.  It was with fierce heaving of emotions...like an intense storm on a mighty ocean.  It brought me to sheer emptiness in a way that nothing has ever done before or since.   

But God is good.  And no pain is ever wasted.  Multiple blessings have littered the path that led out of that experience.  And today marks 7 years.  I feel a very real sense of completion in the full-circle of these 7 years.  

This little ornament was given to me by my friend Beth shortly after Elijah's birth.  Today it sits on my bedside table.

 "For the Lord will comfort Zion; He will comfort all her waste places, and He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord.  Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and melodious song." --Isaiah 51:3

"This is what the Lord God says: On the day I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the ruins will be rebuilt.  The desolate land will be cultivated, instead of lying desolate in the sight of everyone who passes by.  Then they will say, 'This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden.  The cities that were once ruined, desolate, and destroyed are now fortified and inhabited.  Then the nations that remain around you will know that I, Yahweh, have rebuilt what was destroyed and have replanted what was desolate.  I, Yahweh, have spoken and I will do it'." --Ezekiel 36:33-36

God is in the business of rebuilding, replanting, cultivating, comforting.  He sees the pain, even the hidden places that we cannot or dare not share with others.  He sees, and He knows.  And if we simply wait on Him, He will deliver us.  And in the desolate place, He will replant and will cultivate.  His melodious song WILL be in us.  We need only to see it with eyes of faith.