To Jesse:
Friend of angels
Tall fair,
Laughing eyes.
Strong heart.
Playful soul from my womb.
So tiny so quiet.
The angel
come for you.
In heaven’s crib you grew,
her breasts your sweet milk,
her tender song your lullaby.
Have you swum in an ocean?
Can you see the moon?
Do you paint,
or write or sing?
Are your eyes of blue?
One day I will come,
We will kiss, touch and laugh.
And walk a million miles, upon a sea of glass.
~ Christine Pringle
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SINGAPORE, 20 NOVEMBER 2008 — IN THE DARKENED, hushed hall, Christine Pringle exuded compassion and love as she whispered those words. She had written that poem for her first child, Jesse, whom she had miscarried.
Pringle shared deeply about dealing with the loss of an infant, a small child through miscarriage, termination or still birth.
Her own personal experience was when she was a young woman, barely 20, pregnant with her first child. Pringle (and her husband Phil Pringle) ran a home group for youth in their own home at the time. She was about 15 weeks pregnant when she found herself bleeding one day, a day of her home group. Before the youth group arrived at her house, Pringle decided to head home and rest. As a young Christian, she thought only good things happened to Christians, so she did not think the bleeding was anything serious. But the bleeding got worse, and “I still remember, the youth were singing praises in the next room, and I was in my bedroom, bleeding, losing my baby.”
Pringle drew no comfort from people telling her “Maybe it is for the best” or “It is going to be all right”. But peace and assurance came upon her when someone told her, “I believe that God is flushing out your body of all the drugs,” in reference to her previous lifestyle before she came to the Lord.
Many, many years later, a friend showed Pringle a video of a vision of heaven. After watching the video, she went into her room. There she heard praise and worship, and felt two arms envelope her. Up to that point, she had not grieved for her lost child, but she started crying now. It was as though she was in this incredible bubble where she could just weep and everything was still. She received a vision of a tall, handsome young man with longish hair — and the Lord told her it was her son, Jesse. Heaven, shared Pringle, that’s where the babies go when they are lost on Earth. They are rescued by angels and brought into Heaven, where they grow. When she saw Jesse, he was 23 — exactly the age he would be if he had lived.
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| PHOTOS: Elvis Chiu, Michael Chan |
As Pringle shared her experience, tears started to well up in the eyes of the audience. The atmosphere was one of comfort and peace, even as women (and men) who had lost their babies wept and grieved. For them, Pringle had opened the door to a room which has been closed for years, so that God can bring healing. Her vision is to share her story with the women in China — and at Asia Conference 2008, that was the first step to fulfilling that vision.
