Yesterday, I hugged a mama who stood by the casket containing the sweet form of her two-year old son. Then I hugged the baby’s daddy. They have spent the last year-and-a half in and out of cancer units at Huntsville Hospital, Vanderbilt and St. Jude. Baby Amos has spent more nights of his life in the hospital than out. They watched him suffer when Morphine and Ativan were no match for the pain. These parents were often away from their six other sons while keeping the bedside vigil for Amos. One of those six is severely disabled–unable to walk, communicate, breathe easily, or eat– due to complications at birth. This nine -year-old receives constant family care. The past year-and-a-half have been, for these parents, only survival mode. Last Tuesday, Baby Amos won the battle over the cancer and gained the ultimate freedom from all pain and sickness.
At what was appropriately termed a celebration of his life, his brothers, ages 3-12, led the family (and all of us) in singing “God is so Good”, “How Deep the Fathers Love”,“Jesus Loves the Little Children”, and “Jesus Loves Me”. His father talked about counting our blessings and letting our lights shine. He talked about baby Amos now being whole and happy and safe with our Lord. 
Some of the songs were sung in English first and then echoed in Samoan, the family’s native tongue. One song was sung completely in Samoan and the rich tones of that full and beautiful refrain from that broken-hearted, but faith-filled family are with me still as I reflect. They did not falter in praise. Amos’ uncles and his cousin also helped with the service.
Last night, as Eliza Jane said her bed-time prayer, she said “Thank you for taking care of Baby Amos when he died.” I could not have said it better. Simply profound. He is now in the infinitely better care of the Father.
That’s what He’s done for me, too. At Calvary, he took care of me for the time when I die. He empowered me to shout “Oh death, where is thy strength? Oh grave where is thy victory?” (1 Corinthians 15:55).
Amos suffered like none of us reading has endured. Yet during some of his hardest days, he was still giving out his favorite form of encouragement—fist bumping all around him “to beat the band” from that hospital bed.
Sunday night is often Eliza Jane’s night to come to Mammy’s. As I write it’s about 6 am on Monday and she has just come from her little bed to climb in and snuggle with me. As I look down at her little Bluey-tattooed arm and her disheveled dog-ears, her closed eyes and that ever-beloved paci, that we can’t seem to wrest away, bobbing up and down, I wonder why. Why is it that one family has lost their baby and my little grandchild is sleeping peacefully beside me? I do not know. But I do know that they really have not lost him. 
They know right where he is.
While the pain is excruciating and the sorrow will not ease for a long time, that sorrow stands in juxtaposition to the faith and hope that was so bravely displayed yesterday in that service. Their very lives, in this moment, are the battleground between despair and faith, between steadfastness and surrender to the awful pain that was initially inflicted in the garden by the devil himself. And faith and hope is winning in their lives. I have never seen a more potent display of faith. They came to Huntsville, Alabama almost ten years ago now, for many reasons, the immediate one being care for Melchizedek, their third son. They needed resources. They needed more current methods of health care for Mel. They needed a strong church family. But I think we needed them more than they needed us.
I am stronger today than yesterday, when I went to worship in dread of the sadness I knew the day held. God is good, like that. Yesterday, he gave Glenn and me four people with whom to study. He gave us three baptisms. He gave us a visitor who needed a little comfort over lunch. He gave us an extra 9-year -old friend at lunch for the children. He gave me two visitors to transport in my vehicle. On an infinitely grander level, He gave us His undeserved communion around His table and the privilege of study and praise. And then, just when I sat down to witness a family in their hour of deepest sorrow, He gave me, through the lens of a great Samoan ohana, the light at the end of a dark tunnel. I have long quoted Psalm 46:1:
God is our refuge and strength; a very present help in a time of trouble.
Yesterday, the verse was not merely quoted; it was on display. Trouble, in that verse, means a constricted place, in which there is no way to turn. It means between a rock and a hard place. Yesterday was a tangible picture of what His people do when between a rock and hard place and, in the most constricted of places. They realize that the Rock is Jesus and that, even in darkness, they can find a way to stand firmly on that Rock. Thank-you, Abraham, Diana, AJ, Caleb, Mel, Glenn, Gabriel, Zechariah, Pisa, Ruth, Junior, Retta, Malachi and Gideon. We are praying continually. Thank-you Amos, for leaving a little legacy. The God of more (Ephesians 3:20) can do more than we ask or imagine with a brief life lived in that constricted place.