Eliza Ray Bennett

This story starts years ago, with Christy (Ray's sister) and her husband, Corey... with the miscarriage of what would have been their first child... with that kind of loss the feelings of what-could-have-been haunt a mother for the rest of her life. Fast forward to last fall.... Christy is finally pregnant again with all of the beautiful signs of pregnancy. Then at 20 weeks, the doctors tell her there is no way that the baby can live and recommend she end the pregnancy. After lots of questions, research and soul searching, Christy and Corey decide to carry the baby as long as her body could.

What unfolds after that is a weekend I'll never forget. Christy is in labor at thirty one weeks and the whole family is rushing to the hospital. When we arrived we weren't able to see Christy because she had already started pushing. In a short time Corey came out and told us the baby had been born and had been taken to the nursery. We peeked through a crack in the nursery window and watched as the doctors and nurses worked diligently on this tiny little thing.

Eliza Ray Bennett entered this world in the dark of a cold wintry night in hospital with all sounds in a hush, as if the building itself knew her struggles to breathe on her own. She weighed 3 pounds 4 ozs and was shaped as perfectly as any baby could be. Watching her precious mommy and daddy hold her while she took her last breath, two hours after her birth, was one of the hardest things I have ever seen. I watched in amazement as grandparents, aunts and uncle held her and loved her.

After touching Eliza's fragile hair, I ended up spending the rest of the night over a trash can in the waiting room. My body has a weird way with grief... bleh. The next morning, while Christy was getting ready to leave the hospital, one of the sisters helped me hold Eliza. While I held her, the thoughts of what-could-have-been flooded my own heart. Knowing that while I held her tiny shell, her precious soul was already in heaven with those of mine I've lost but never held.

The funeral service was as hard as any I've ever attended. (And I'm a pastor's wife, I've attended a lot of funerals.) The girls did the music and even though there wasn't a sound system, I thought that they had never sung more beautifully. They chose hymns that were God honoring and that have ministered to our family in the past. Rachel, Hannah, and Sarah sang The Arms That Hold the Universe to the family then played the song I Will Carry You by Selah who have experienced these same deep pains. Ray had trouble keeping his composure while he preached, but honored God with kind words of hope to those who know Christ - we will see her face again. Jesus truly loves the little children of the world.

The grief that follows Christy and Corey now is something that can never be taken away, only comforted by a Holy and Righteous God. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. Isaiah 53:3