Paul Junior

Whenever I introduce myself, whether in my personal or professional life, I always tell people that I am married to my wife Lisa (which is a very good thing!) and that we have four children – Jacob, Audrey, Kyle and Dominic.But, what most people do not know about me is that I am the father of another child – and, don’t be scandalized, it is not by another woman. My other child is our oldest, from our first pregnancy. In what was certainly the biggest hurt of our early marriage, my wife Lisa had a miscarriage after being pregnant for just a couple of months.We had been extremely excited, and so full of hope and enthusiasm for this new life, for our first child. And then suddenly and without warning, the doctor took an ultrasound and could not find a heartbeat. Our child’s life was over, way too soon. We were hurt and confused, with many questions, and no immediate answers.Thankfully, God knows us and loves us, and He chose to reveal His love to our broken hearts in a couple of really cool ways, which I want to share with you.First of all, we discovered that more people than we could have imagined have had the same experience, and these amazing people prayed for us and offered some much-needed words of comfort and advice.Second, there was a song that touched us a lot. The song is called “Sad Face” by a band called The Choir. It is based upon a rather obscure Scripture passage from Ecclesiastes 7:3 which reads, “Sorrow is better than laughter, because when the face is sad the heart grows wiser.” I’ll bet you haven’t heard too many people preach on that verse…but it is exactly what we needed to hear. It is a powerful verse, and a powerful song, and it gave us a special kind of permission to grieve and be honest about our broken hearts. For a while, I listened to that song over and over. It still moves me with emotion whenever I hear it.Third, we were able to meet with a counselor. Her name was Suzanne, and meeting with her really helped us to sort through our feelings. If you are ever going through a hard time, I cannot encourage you enough to talk to a counselor. Counselors are a gift from God to struggling people.Fourth, our counselor referred us to an awesome resource that was put together by the offices of Worship & Pro-Life here in the Archdiocese of St. Louis. It is called “The Order for the Naming and Commending of a Child Who Died Before Birth”, which is a big name for a little booklet. What it is, though, is a powerful prayer service that a couple can either pray with one another - or with a priest or deacon – in which they prayerfully give their child a name, and then commit that child (whether that child was miscarried or aborted) to the Lord. Through prayer, Lisa and I decided to name this first baby of ours Paul, Jr. He is our son, and we believe with all of our hearts that he is in Heaven and that some day we will meet him face to face.In the meantime, because of a beautiful Catholic teaching called the communion of saints, we are convinced that Paul, Jr. prays for us. And we think that right now he is even praying for you. How cool is that?