"So when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carrying the ark of the covenant went ahead of them. Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water's edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan, while the water flowing down to the Sea of Arabah [that is, the Dead Sea] was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho. The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stopped in the middle of the Jordan and stood on dry ground, while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground."
Joshua 3:14-17
A month ago I was standing at the river's edge. It was at flood stage as well. I had just miscarried our fourth child.
Miscarriage seems too soft a term; my baby had died in my womb. And when I looked out, all I could see was water rising. The shores on the other side of grief could not be reached on my own. I kept coming back to this passage in Joshua, praying that God would stop the flow and, not just let me slop through the mud and mire and barely reach the opposing shore, but that He, in His goodness, would allow me to cross on dry ground.
I stepped to the water's edge carrying not the ark of the covenant, but the New Covenant-- a covenant that was ushered in when my Savior rose and gave me new life. A Savior who knows all about prayers from the gut in the middle of the night that sound like "take this cup from me". I was carrying a covenant that was grounded in the hope of an empty grave. And with that new covenant in me, when my feet touched the water's edge of my grief, the water upstream stopped flowing. I was, in fact, standing on dry ground.
Grief is a process and it comes in waves, but those waves never broke the damn that He had built around me. Every so often, even now, it comes. It sounds like rain and I can let the fear of rising water choke out the truth. This time it will surely over take me, I think.
And then I look down.
Dry ground.
Just like the Israelites, I am so forgetful. And needy. They had faced a large body of water before, and God had made a way. They had wandered in the desert, and God had provided manna. And like them, when I face more water, I can forget of His previous faithfulness and His promised provision.
And, like them, I can taste the manna He generously gives me and wish it tasted more like donuts instead of lost dreams. But the dry ground reminds me I can trust His provision; it reminds me He will make a way.
I am writing this at a literal water's edge. Fish are splashing, water snakes are lurking, and a Blue Heron is perched awaiting its next meal. It's a small reserve of water. I can see the other side. But I couldn't get there without a boat, or without getting extremely wet and cold and filthy [not to mention, I'm no Michael Phelps]. To get an entire nation of people [about forty thousand!] to the other side? Forget it.
But God did not forget the Israelites, even though they repeatedly forgot Him.
And He made a way for them to enter the land promised to them.
When I last wrote about this, I was in the thick of it. But God kept pressing this story into my heart.
"When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, 'Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.'
So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the israelites, one from each tribe, and said to them, 'Go over before the ark of the Lord your God in the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, 'What do these stones mean?' tel them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.' "
Joshua 4:1-9
So Brent and I started collecting stones from the bottom of the river bed that, in His sovereignty and grace, were exposed. [Many of those stones have your names on them.]
We've always kept our children's names a secret until after delivery. It's one final surprise and joy we get to share with others. We had already decided this little one, if a girl, would be named Jordan. If a boy, Jordan would be the middle name. Jordan... after the river where the miracle of dry ground was seen. Jordan... after the river where Jesus was baptized.
The river Jordan flows into the Dead Sea, the lowest body of water on earth. I love that this is where Jesus chose to be baptized, a symbol of the old life dying and being buried, the new life being resurrected; a symbol of the very acts He would perform on our behalf later. The reason I think it's so beautiful that He chose that location is that when "the old life is buried" under the waters of the Jordan River, it carries that old life to the lowest possible point. New life has come. Resurrection indeed.
And for those reasons, we wanted our fourth child to carry the name Jordan, to remind him or her that we serve and love a God who provides and is faithful, who buries our old life and gives us new life in Christ.
Jordan.
God knew this child's story. He knew the name we would be planning, and He knew the story He would keep pointing me to in my grief.
He knew our Jordan, and He knew He would carry us to the other side when all we could see was water.
We wanted to do something in memory of this child, but also to remind us of our God who is always near and who tells us, "Your strength will equal your days" [Deut. 33:25]. We wanted to remember our baby we will never meet, but also to remember our God who promised He will never leave or forsake us [Deut. 31:6].
We decided we wanted a rock for our yard, the perfect reminder of our baby, Jordan, and our God.
I won't go into it here, but how we found and were given the rock was another one of those provisional stories so full of the things of God. This rock also came from the bottom of a river. And now it is in our yard, beckoning us to remember our dry feet, even in our grief.
We will always wonder what our lives with Jordan would have been like, what new rhythm our lives would have found with this baby in them. There are still a lot of unfilled in parts of the story for me. My body still feels like foreign territory. But I have to look at the manna that is straight from Heaven, even if it wasn't my first choice for a meal. Provision in the dessert. I have to look down at the dry ground I am standing on and remember I am walking forward into the promised land.
What do these stones mean?
They mean we experienced loss deeply.
They mean we love our Jordan we never fully knew, but who was known intimately while being knit in my womb.
They mean that the God of the Old Testament is the God of today.
They mean He is faithful and true and worthy of all our trust and praise.
These stones mean that no matter where we walk there is always hope and we can always rejoice, for we have a God who will get us to the other side on dry ground.
