Liv Gallardo was born on Friday and passed away early Saturday morning.  Here are the thoughts I shared at the service on Wednesday.

Liv Emery Gallardo was born at 6:19pm on August 2^nd, 2013. She weighed 4lbs 1oz and was 14 1/2 in long.

When a husband and wife become pregnant, we as believers are very excited. We have a natural tendency to create a vision for the future. We think of learning to walk, and talk, and riding a bike, learning to read, the list goes on and on.

The bottom-line is that being a parent can be extremely rewarding and it is personally exciting to mom and dad.  God gives us the pleasure of parenting.  The love of a child. The hug and kiss of a tender, little one.  It is so invigorating that it leads some to continue having more and more of them.

When there is a difficult diagnosis, then we as friends and family suffer a loss or death.  It is not the death of the child, but the death of these dreams and expectations.  All of this heaviness and fear and darkness and failure that resides around diagnosis is directly associated with our thoughts of the future.

Think about it.  The truth of the situation existed before we knew and we didn’t suffer.

After we found out about the diagnosis, the pregnancy really didn’t change.  Erica continued to be pregnant. In other words, the reality of the situation didn’t change when we got the diagnosis.  But there was a death in our minds and in our hearts. A death of the dream. A death of the future.  However, LIV was simply living.  Liv had no idea that everyone outside of the womb was struggling.  Not only was LIV living. But God was still God.  God wasn’t weakened or confused.

We often look at life and a situation like this and subconsciously only consider what it means to us.

We get pregnant and think about momma’s body changing.  Daddy will save money for a college and a wedding. We start thinking about all the good and positive that will happen but the truth of the matter is that every life is between the individual person and GOD.

This death and shortness of life is really between God and Liv.  That is it. Much to our confusion and dismay, God doesn’t have to answer to us.

We rest in the several facts today.

1.   God is Still God and has everything under control

Jeremiah 32:17 Ah, Lord Jehovah! You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and stretched out arm. Nothing is too difficult for You.

2.  We are sad that things didn’t turn out in a way that would have been very rewarding for us.

2Samuel 1:25 “How the mighty have fallen in the midst of the battle! “Jonathan lies slain on your high places. 26I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; very pleasant have you been to me; your love to me was extraordinary, 27“How the mighty have fallen, and the weapons of war perished!”

3.  LIV is still LIVING and we WILL see her again. 1 Corinthians 15:42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body… 50 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” 55 “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.57But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

4.   Until we SEE her and JESUS, We keep moving!

1 Corinthians 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.