So, there we were driving down the road to the hospital, but it felt bizarre. We have had four children before this. Every trip to the hospital has been similar: I can’t drive fast enough, Maile’s exercised, red lights look green… plenty of you have been there. This one was different. The reason it was different was that our baby was dead.
I’ve never had a dead baby before. At least six month before, the docs told us that Mahalani (“Baby Lucy” – we always name our in utero kids a Peanuts name) suffered from Trisomy 13, which doesn’t bode well for longevity. We didn’t know if Lucy would make it to term, be born alive, or live ten years. Turns out that she lived 37 weeks in her mommy’s womb. That’s 37 weeks of blessing. Now she lives eternally with Jesus, the Savior of God’s elect.
Anyway, so there we were driving to the hospital. I thought that some grizzly business was at hand. The prospect of my wife delivering a dead baby wasn’t pleasant. In fact, at that point, I was wishing I could be somewhere else. God, however, has not created us somewhere else. He’s put us where we are and called us to serve him in that place.
That place turned out to be not grizzly, but glorious. There were numerous prayers answered, numerous tears shed, and a wonderful time had. We celebrated life. We celebrated eternal life. We spoke of covenant promises. In a word, the experience was a blessed tragedy.
Mahalani was and is exactly what Yahweh wants her to be. Eph 1:11 tells us that God works every little thing (and Mahalani is one very little thing) in accordance with his own will.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him all creatures here below. Praise him above, ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen and amen.
Kane’ohe Bay… not far from Mahalani. 
Heidelberg Catechism #44
Let’s do an experiment. Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of our Christian brothers in Rome in the year AD 64. This was the year that Nero began 
Heidelberg Catechism #42
