Emilia Rae Collins
We have something to share with our dear friends and family. It isn’t easy to share. And yet we believe in the healing that story and transparency provides, simply in the act of doing them. We decided to tell our story through the form of a personal message we sent to the amazing woman we filmed in Haiti. Her name is Yvrose. She runs a school in Haiti that provides free education to 700 kids; she has taken in 36 kids to become her own. She worships her God along with her entire family at first light and before bed. When Hurricane Matthew hit, she extended her food and supplies to surrounding neighbors and those in need even though there was no guarantee of accessing food in the following days for her own family. She has also had 12 miscarriages. Without needing to fill in every blank, we just invite you to be a part of this intimate exchange because it is within the context of personal relationships that we all live our lives.
Dear Yvrose,
We think of you and your example of a created one praising her King so often. Your example through the hurricane was such an awe-inspiring display of God’s glory and presence woven into the midst of the brokenness of our world. God can and does do miracles. He can evaporate hurricanes. He can heal diseases. He can do the impossible. And sometimes he does. These miracles are amazing for sure; they are little moments of heaven, the way things “should be,” free of the curse. But when we look hard to see how God chooses to reveal his beautiful glory, how he chose to reveal it in his son, what captured the hearts of the world the deepest and the longest was not all of the miracles but instead the humble sacrifice of a holy and pure King. The beauty of the suffering servant took our breath away because we know what it means to be human, we know what it means to suffer. And who would humble themselves and choose to suffer just for the sake of love? Only a beautiful God. And so it is with his people that Jesus best reveals his true self, his deep deep beauty and love. And we see that in your life so thoroughly. It even caused us to pray that we were willing to be co-sufferers with Christ, to bear the suffering of the world and be lifted through it so that the world might see the light and hope of Jesus. It was scary to pray that, but we believe it was Jesus planting in our hearts his desire for how we would see life and preparing us for what would come.
Soon after we arrived in Mexico, we learned that we were pregnant and had conceived in Haiti. We were opened by God to his creating more life through us even while we were in Kenya. There, he convinced us that children are his way of planting himself into future generations, that he is a generational God continuously sewing goodness through people, that our children were for him first and that they were not about ourselves. So when we learned we were expecting, the news came to us with so much joy and anticipation! One evening, though we hadn't learned the gender, we felt Jesus give us a name, Emilia Rae, which means “Work” and “Grace.” Along with the name, I was given an image of wild lilies first alive then set into stained glass. We believed that she would be on the front line of the depths of people’s pain. Providing grace to them while also walking alongside of them as Christ does his work of healing through their grief and loss. We never dreamed that we would become the first recipients of her little purpose.
A couple of weeks ago, I began having anxiety about the pregnancy. My spirit knew something was not right. I thought I was just feeling worried about what others might think of my pregnancy overseas. I thought maybe I was dealing with some old shame from my past and simply needed to work through it. Whatever it was, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong. A week later, I started bleeding a little. I had a lot of anxiety and feared I would lose the baby. I remember praying “Oh God, I know the fullness of heaven is so much better than earth, but there is still a beauty in seeing you break into our midst. Please allow Emilia this chance.” In response, I saw Aslan from the first of the Narnia books singing perfect creation into existence. We went to the doctor and she said the baby looked good but was too small to hear the heartbeat. She guessed I was 7-8 weeks when I should have been 9. She said the spotting was normal. I believed her and felt more relieved, but over the next couple of days my spotting became heavier and I had a serious moment of panic. I remember feeling like I was dying and not being able to breathe. We went to the hospital where they told me I simply had a UTI which is normal in pregnancy and can cause a little bleeding, that there was nothing to worry about. We also looked at the baby with an ER doctor who was not a specialist, and yet still when he said “your baby is vital” my heart was filled with hope again. On Sunday while Derrick went out to film, I spent the day on bed rest, trying to be positive and cheerful, but secretly warring so much anxiety and fear. That night Derrick bought me flowers at a local vendor. They were the most beautiful collection of roses and lilies I had ever seen. Later that same night my body gave way to a full miscarriage. Driving to the hospital felt like an eternity. I remember begging God to spare her life. The only response I felt from him was his hand on my head and the words “I’m so proud of you my daughter.” As we walked into the hospital, I felt something large pass out of me. I buckled in terror. When we looked to see what it was the doctors confirmed it was only part of the placenta, no baby. I laid in the hospital bed getting pumped with an iv for almost two hours before we could check to see what was going on inside of me. The whole experience was painful and scary but probably the worst part was looking for the baby in an ultrasound, praying somehow God would have held her in, only to be told “Your womb is empty. The baby is gone.” In that moment are hearts literally broke. We were and still are very devastated. And yet even in the hospital, God filled our hearts to know that our little Emilia’s life on earth was complete. That he would still fulfill all of his purposes through her because of her impact on our lives. That he wove himself into this common story of miscarriage so that he could lift us in the midst of it for the sake of others. That she is worshipping and dancing before him even as we speak. That allowing her life to change ours, aiding us in our work of meeting people in their suffering, will become the fruits of her sweet life summed up into one beautiful little crown that she will one day get to present before her King.
I think especially of you because I know you have been through this 12 times. I can’t imagine the deep pain you have experienced. But I am also grateful to God that your example to us has engrained in us the significance of worship. Worshipping in good times and bad. And it’s beautiful for us to realize that worshipping Jesus is a thing we can ALWAYS do with our daughter, because we see her constantly dancing in delight before her Maker. She teaches us how to be created. She teaches us the kindness of the Father because although death took her life, it didn’t take it forever. And she was transferred from the safety of the womb into the fullness of life, getting to be alive without having ever known pain or suffering or fear or rejection. She fills our world with beautiful grace, even as we work through the all-too-soon loss of her. She is a precious gift to us. And I see that God prepared us step by step to be ready to receive these gifts even though they come wrapped in grief and loss.
Thank you Yvrose for walking in your identity of being his created one, whom he loves dearly and through whom he fulfills his purposes. Thank you for teaching us that worship is essential, especially in the midst of darkness and suffering. You are a mother who not only teaches the physical children you’ve been given on earth to worship, but you are a mother of 12 beautiful worshippers who are constantly dancing and singing before the King. And my heart is full to see my girl among your kids dancing together, a whole crowd of beautiful children completely and perfectly alive in the love light of Christ, teaching us to be like them.
God has used your body to create 12 precious lives, 12 specific persons who he calls by name, who he loves deeply and who delight him with their closeness and purity of praise. They are alive because you said yes to Jesus creating life within you even when so many would have drawn the line. God is so honored by that. And you honor and teach us as well. Thank you.
We love you and are so grateful to know you.
Love
Christy, Derrick & River
❇ ❇ ❇
At this point in our grief, we are still wading through deep heaviness. We miss our girl so badly and long to hold her. What holds the hand of our grief however is the faithfulness of the Father.
One of my deepest questions was not “Why?” but “When?” I was troubled by the conflicting testimonies I received from the doctors the entire week leading up to the miscarriage and so it was desperately in my heart to know “When did the presence of our baby girl leave us?” I was crushed that since we had never gotten to hear her heartbeat or see her little form for certain, that it might have been weeks and weeks that I had been carrying around her empty frame thinking I was pregnant. I spent a full day in deep darkness and despair over this question. It felt like everything to me. Derrick had randomly snapped a few pictures on the Saturday hospital visit when the doctor pointed out our baby and said she was “vital”, just for the sake of a memory. I knew it was a long shot, but I forwarded those three images to my good friend Tiffany back in the States who has worked as an ultrasound specialist. A few hours later, she responded to me, sending back one of the images I had sent her but with a pink circle around Emilia’s little form. Oh my heart! How much I felt God’s grace in that moment! To see our sweet girl. And through talking more with Tiffany I was given a probable timeline for when our baby girl died in my womb. It was when she was about 7-8 weeks, which is why the first doctor guessed that, which is also around the time I began feeling anxious. The answers came to my heart with more pain but with even more peace because I believe my spirit knew even though my body, mind and heart could not accept it. The time she probably died was also right in the midst of the famous Mexican holiday, Día de Muertos, where the whole nation takes time to honor and remember their dead loved ones. It is a two-day holiday actually, the first day being a day specifically to remember the children who have died (Día de los Angelitos). We have chosen this day, November 1st, to be the day we remember our loss, because it seems kind of perfect and meaningful to do so.
We don’t believe God chose for Emilia to die prematurely. We believe miscarriages along with stillbirths and barrenness and all other types of reproduction issues are all a painful fruit of the original sin where we traded intimate dependence on the Creator of life for an existence where we seek to be our own gods and life-givers. No, God didn’t employ death for his purposes for Emilia. But because of Jesus, death is not the end. Because of Jesus, Emilia’s story isn’t over. Because of how he bore all of our suffering and because he allowed death itself to swallow him and still he overcame, she is restored to that original intention he has only ever had for his created ones, to live in his love light forever. Emilia very likely had chromosomal issues that would make living impossible. Could he have replaced all of the broken fragments with new and whole ones? Yes. Sometimes he does these things. But mostly I see that instead of replacing a broken, marred version of life with a brand new, perfect thing, he is loyal to that original creation as it is and weaves himself into every bit of it. He meets us where we are at and creates goodness from all that we bring him. He does not abandon his creation, he loves it. He IS the potter with clay whose form has become marred in his hand and so using that same clay, he forms it into something new and something good. The clay of us is riddled with death, but the perfect, creative potter will never run out of ways to form us into the wholeness of beauty, like Jesus, if we allow him. And so here our family is, marred by the tragedy of miscarriage, keeping our eyes fixed on the Father who will never stop forming goodness from this through the work of his hands and by the grace of his Son. †
