Profound things that happen in our lives have an effect on our lives and the lives of others long after they occur. Those kinds of events change us and our perspective. It’s our choice as to whether  that will be a good change or a bad one.

Yesterday we met again with the women at HOPE.  This was our sixth week of seven of meeting with women who have been incarcerated and are working towards getting well, transforming their lives and heading back into the real world.  They were pretty giddy yesterday as it was our “tea party” day – a day where they dress up, we give them playful, fancy hats and then offer them food and tea, complete with real china tea cups.  They were all smiles and giggles until I asked the question, “Where’s Davina?”

Davina was the young gal in the group who was pregnant.  For the first few weeks she was wary of us, did not want to participate and clearly wished she were somewhere else than our class.  But in recent weeks we had seemed to gain her trust and she began smiling and sharing with us her excitement about this baby she was carrying inside.

Last week she and I were teasing back and forth.  Her due date was this week and I had joked that she better wait until after Tuesday to have her baby so that she didn’t miss the tea party.  She laughed, gave me a hug and went on her way.

For some reason, she was on my mind for the rest of the week.  Little did I know that those thoughts of her would correspond to the untimely feeling of sadness that I was experiencing “randomly” about my son Mitchell’s death 15 years ago.

“Where is Davina?”  As soon as I said the words, the room went silent and every smiling face fell.  At full term, Davina had just over this past weekend delivered a stillborn little girl.  Every woman in the room felt Davina’s grief.  Women marked by callusness were compassionate and soft and teary.  They truly felt Davina’s pain.

They showed me a pictures of the sweet baby.  She was perfect with a full head of hair. Beautiful.  Davina named her Mevaeh – almost heaven spelled backwards.

Davina had just become part of the exclusive club that no one wants to join.  The loss of a child.  The upside down reality of outliving your child.  So opposite of how things should be.

“By chance” I had brought the hardcover version of my book that had just come in the mail.  Tamera had asked me to bring it yesterday to shared some love poems for Valentine’s day.  As Davina’s housemates stood with us, hand in hand, in prayer for this aching soul, I knew what I needed to do.

I knew this girl’s pain.  I had been right there.  I needed to extend myself a little further into her new, frightening, uncharted territory.  She needed hope.  Hope that she could one day see her precious Mevaeh again.  Hope that she would be able to eventually breathe again.  That the throbbing ache in her chest would one day be soothed.

I took out my pen and wrote her a note  in the front of my book that tried desperately to tell her that I was there for her.  I knew there were no real words that could comfort her right now.  All I could do was to tell her that she wasn’t alone.  And hopefully, she will read a few pages of the book and will catch a glimpse of the God who loves her and holds her in her deepest, darkest times.

We only have one more week with these women.  I don’t know if I will ever see Davina again.  That scares me because I don’t know where she will go from here.  But I do know that God loves and cares for her infinitely more than I do.  He has her future in His hands.  And I was lucky enough to be able to share just a few moments of her life and a common bond of life-altering proportions.

This is one of the “smaller” stories of how God has used Mitchell’s too-short life to impact the lives of others.  There are numerous other stories over the last 15 years that are so miraculous they are almost hard to believe.  Stories of God bringing people across my path at just the right time that I could be there for in their grief.  And each and every time, I have found a little more purpose in that great pain.

Nothing that comes into our lives is without purpose.  Though we may not see or understand it at first, there will come a point when the pain we’ve experienced will allow us to help others at a level that no one else can.  Everyone has a story and every story worth sharing has impact.

What’s yours?

2 Corinthians 1:4 – He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.

Romans 8:28 – And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.