Magdalena

The Lord blessed us with a healthy, beautiful little girl on August 4^th.  From the moment I first held her I was overcome with awe at what a miracle life is.

I would like to share her name with you and what a special meaning it has.  A few weeks before we lost our son my husband came across a series of letters by Martin Luther that he wrote before and shortly after his thirteen-year-old daughter passed away.  This brought much discussion between us about how painful it would be lose a child. We had no idea that God was using Luther’s example to prepare us for what was to come

"The Death of Magdalena"

 “The beloved child, Magdalena, is sick. Her portrait, painted by Cranach, is seen still in the room where she was lying, a lovely child, with large eyes, clear and deep. Near the bed is now Luther, he prays: "I love her a lot, but good God, if your will is to take her, I will give her to you with great pleasure. Then, addressing her: My little Magdalena, my little girl, soon you will not be with me, will you be happy without your father? The tired child tenderly and softly answered: Yes, dear father, as God wants. Soon, we put her in the coffin. Luther looked Ah! Sweet Lenchen, he says, you will rise again and you will shine like a star, yes, like the sun! I am happy in the spirit, but my earthly form is very sad. You have learned, he wrote to Justus Jonas: I believe the report has reached you that my dearest daughter Magdalena has been reborn into Christ's eternal kingdom. I and my wife should joyfully give thanks for such a felicitous departure and blessed end by which Magdalena escaped the power of the flesh, the world, the Turk and the devil; yet the force of our natural love is so great that we are unable to do this without crying and grieving in our hearts, or even without experiencing death ourselves. The features, the words and the movements of the living and dying daughter remain deeply engraved in our hearts. Even the death of Christ... is unable to take this all away as it should. You, therefore, give thanks to God in our stead. For indeed God did a great work of grace when he glorified our flesh in this way. Magdalena had (as you know) a mild and lovely disposition and was loved by all... God grant me and all my loved ones and all my friends such a death - or rather such a life.” (Source)

Although we did not get to enjoy our son for thirteen years, the description of Luther’s pain displayed how we felt.  The truth that someone who was famous for his bold and strong faith could feel so greatly the sting of death then certainly, it was not because our lack of faith that we felt such pain.

The day we found out we were expecting a little girl my husband told me that he would like to name her Magdalena. The name also means tower. She will always remind us of her brother, I will always remember the painful road that brought her to us, but more than that I want to remember that God has “been my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy.” (Psalm 61:3) Our sweet little Maggie is a living display of God’s grace and mercy, not in just giving her to us but also in sustaining us through the earthly pain of the death of our son who just as Luther’s Magdalena “has been reborn into Christ’s eternal Kingdom”—and that is the truth we cling to.