A Little Girl Named Sophia

I heard of Sophia through a friend. She fought hard for life, but sadly was only alive on this earth for 47 days.

47 very short days.

She passed away a week ago.

We went through 11 hard days with our son in the NICU, but he came out of it. He's home now. He lives. It blows our minds.

Seems so unfair.

It's hard to comprehend. To understand.

I've kept up with the blog of Sophia's life and then their Facebook page. 

Anything for updates on her. I felt so connected to them. So compassionate. So full of love and prayers for them as my heart broke apart for their pain. 

I've tried writing multiple emails to them, but the words just fall so flat. I feel like I can understand-- and yet I really can't. 

Because our son is alive and well. He's got digestion issues, concerns that we've talked to the pediatrician about, and things we're still trying out and working on. 

But generally he's fine. He's perfect. He's our son. He's here. We can hold him, love him, snuggle him, smell him, console him, change him, feed him, burp him... all without those crazy monitors and wires that he had for 11 days. 

And yet, we know these people now who cannot hold their baby girl. Who long to hold her again.

Her parents knew that something was wrong during pregnancy. And yet, little Sophia fought and lived SO much longer than expected. Yet another testimony to how great our God is -- how much HE knows and how little the medical community can really estimate about life. 

I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed when I read Sophia's mom's latest post.

And I held Elijah a bit tighter. I stared at him a bit longer. I looked into his eyes a bit deeper. And I praised God for his little life over and over and over again, until I just couldn't see through the tears anymore.

It just doesn't make sense.

It gives us another perspective on our childbirth reality. My moanings and groanings. Feel sad or sorry for myself about how things turned out. Hating the 11 days he had in the NICU, but learning to also relish in the fact that it wasn't longer and the outcome was so good. 

We truly have nothing but gratefulness to God for our little man. The hard stuff makes you soak in all the little things you may not have before. It makes you focus on how much you have to be grateful for.

And it makes your heart simply break into even more pieces when you hear stories like little Sophia's. Because you feel so closely like it could have been us.

Hits pretty close to home.

May God bless Sophia's family as they mourn her loss and celebrate her short little life. Surely something amazing will come from all their suffering and pain, and God will yet redeem the hard in their lives.

The Lord your God is in your midst,

a mighty one who will save;

he will rejoice over you with gladness;

he will quiet you by his love;

he will exult over you with loud singing. (Zephaniah 3:17, ESV)