Beeson podcast, Episode 466
Hayden Walker
Oct. 15, 2019

Announcer:          Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla.

Doug Sweeney:       Welcome to the Beeson podcast. I'm Doug Sweeney, the Dean of Beeson Divinity School, here in the podcast studio with my cohost Kristin Padilla. Today is our second episode in a three-part series on grief. We'll be talking in particular today about grieving the loss of a loved one. Kristen, would you please tell our listeners about our guests today and about our conversation?

Kristen Padilla:    Yes. Welcome everyone to the Beeson podcast. Our guest today is Hayden Walker. Hayden is one of our outstanding Beeson graduates. Having earned a master of divinity degree in 2013, she also was the recipient of the James Earl Massey Preaching Award in December 2013. She is a gifted preacher and she has served with our Robert Smith Jr. Preaching Institute in a number of ways. Hayden has also previously served at Mountain Brook Baptist Church as its youth minister. Hayden is a full-time wife and mom, and continues to preach and teach God's word frequently.

Kristen Padilla:    And if I may, I like to say just a personal word. Hayden and I both graduated from the same university, Ouachita Baptist, four years apart. And when I learned that Hayden was moving to Birmingham to come to Beeson, I was thrilled and we quickly developed a friendship. Hayden has been such a blessing to me and I know she will be a blessing to you all through this conversation.

Kristen Padilla:    We have invited Hayden on the show today to share with you all about the life and death of her daughter, Zoe, as well as to talk to us about walking as a Christian with grief. And we may get emotional today and that's okay, but our prayer is that even through sorrow you will see the hope that we have in Jesus Christ.

Kristen Padilla:    And so, Hayden, let's begin by having a fuller introduction into who you are. If you would tell us about where you come from, your faith in Jesus Christ, your family, your call to ministry, anything that you'd like to share.

Hayden Walker:      Thanks, Kristen. I'm from the tiny but mighty town of Arkadelphia, Arkansas and have a long history, a lot of roots there. All my grandparents grew up there. So I grew up with a really rich kind of family life and I'm very grateful that my parents raised me in the church, and it was really in the church that I came to know the Lord. And I really can't remember a time that I didn't love Jesus.

Hayden Walker:      But it was probably when I was in junior high and high school that my faith really grew and developed. I had some college girls that mentored me and really poured into me, and I was a part of the Healthy Student Ministry and my faith flourished during those years. And I went to do my undergraduate work in biblical studies at Ouachita Baptist University. And it was at OBU that the Lord really unfolded my call to ministry in ways that I didn't expect or anticipate. I went majoring in biblical studies, but I didn't know how the Lord was going to use that for a vocational calling.

Hayden Walker:      In hindsight, I can see that the Lord is doing work many years before. When I was 13, I preached on Youth Sunday. But it was a dozen years later here at Beeson that I kind of connected those dots and saw the Lord's hand from the years earlier and how he was shaping my call to ministry.

Hayden Walker:      Another huge gift during my time at OBU was meeting my precious husband, Cody. We met our freshman year and then got married three weeks after graduation. And shortly after, we decided to move to Birmingham. I wanted to pursue theological education and felt like Beeson was the place that I wanted to do that. So we saved every penny that we made for a year and moved here in the summer of 2011, and then I graduated with my MDiv in 2013.

Doug Sweeney:       Hayden, we want to share with our listeners about your daughter, Zoe, and your experience as her mom? Would you mind starting out by just telling us a little bit about what you call the first phase of Zoe's life and the time when you came to know that you were pregnant with her?

Hayden Walker:      Yes. Cody and I had been married for five years when we began asking the Lord to expand our family. And a little over a year and to that season of prayer, the Lord heard our prayer and I was pregnant, and soon miscarried that baby, which was just a shock honestly. After having prayed for so long, it felt like the Lord had given us this gift of this child and then to miscarry was just a heartbreaking loss. But Cody and I both can see how the Lord's hand was involved and redemptive in that miscarriage. Because a few months later when I became pregnant with Zoe, we just knew what a gift it was, not only to be pregnant, but to stay pregnant. And so we knew early on that every day with Zoe was a gift and not a guarantee.

Hayden Walker:      In fact, I can remember being on the phone with my spiritual father and telling him that I was pregnant and telling him that exact phrase. "We know that every day is a gift and not a guarantee." And the Holy Spirit just imprinted that on my mind. It became a banner over her life in a way that we had no idea how that was going to unfold, but we were certain that every day with her was a gift. And so there was just an incredible joy to be pregnant with her during that first kind of... It was the first 18 weeks of pregnancy was just a lot of joy and gratitude.

Kristen Padilla:    Tell us what happened then on Maundy Thursday. How did the event that unfolded in Zoe's life that week affect the way you experienced Holy Week? So it's a two part question. What happened on that Maundy Thursday and then what followed the rest of that Holy Week.

Hayden Walker:      Maundy Thursday in 2016 fell on March 24th, and it was that day that we had our anatomy scan scheduled, just a routine procedure. Quite honestly, we were most concerned to find out if we were having a boy or a girl. But it was during that anatomy scan that we had learned Zoe had some severe problems with the way that her bones had formed, and learned on that day that she would die. And the gravity of that new found knowledge while still very much feeling her life move and kick inside of my body was just a paradox. It was impossible to wrap our heads around.

Hayden Walker:      But we got home that evening, just heartbroken, just absolutely crushed. And as we opened the text to read the Lord in the Garden of Gethesemane, and to see him there praying, "Lord, let this cup pass from me." That was our prayer. We wanted that cup to pass from us, for the Lord to heal Zoe, for her to not die. But that's not the way the Lord finishes his prayer in the garden. He says, "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will." And we had prayed those things before. We had prayed for the Lord's will to prevail, as believers. But to pray it with that gravity of the life of your child being at stake, was the new gift of grace from God that we were able to pray those things that day. And to trust that no matter what happened, that Jesus was going to be with us.

Hayden Walker:      And so kind of to the second part of your question, Kristen, because it happened on Maundy Thursday, the whole Easter weekend has kind of been the paradigm of the way that we've processed our grief. Because we knew this incredible deep sorrow that she was sick, and that there was impending death, and that it was going to get worse, and that our Good Friday was coming and that Zoe was going to die. And then, that we would live the remainder of our lives, we're living in that Holy Saturday moment, even now, three and a half years later. But we know Sunday is coming, and we know that the resurrection is real, and we know that because Jesus got out of that grave one day, Zoe will too. So the Easter weekend has shaped the way that we think about our grief.

Doug Sweeney:       Shortly after you received the diagnosis, you started blogging about your experience. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Why did you do it and in what ways did it help you as you were grieving about this?

Hayden Walker:      I really began the blogging process as a way to disseminate information. As a minister, there were concerned people in our congregation that wanted to know what was happening. All of our family and friends back in Arkansas wanted to know what was happening, and to repeat the conversations was just too much. So it really began as an opportunity, a platform, to be able to connect with our family and friends, to be able to tell them what was happening. But the Lord kind of unfolded it, and for me, it became a really healing place to process. And it was really cathartic for me to sit and pray and to write the things that the Lord was teaching me.

Hayden Walker:      And then kind of as a real gift that we didn't see until later, I think was that when I found out I was pregnant with Zoe, we began praying. Even those early, early weeks, we prayed that this child... We didn't know if it was a boy or girl, we didn't know anything. What we prayed that this child would be an evangelist. And we can see how God used the blog to make his story great. He used Zoe's story to make the story of Christ known to people truly around the world, and so we can see that the Lord did answer that prayer for her to get to be an evangelist, just not in the ways that we anticipated.

Kristen Padilla:    Speaking of your blog, you blogged on March 25th specifically about Zoe's name in light of her diagnosis. Can you tell us about that realization? The paradox, I guess, between the diagnosis and her name, Zoe?

Hayden Walker:      So we found out on March 25th that the specialist told us that her diagnosis was thanatophoric dysplasia. And having been a student here at Beeson, I took Greek. I immediately recognized the word "thanatos", death in my child's diagnosis, which was just like an iron clamp had been put around my heart. To see the word death was paralyzing.

Hayden Walker:      The Holy Spirit later on that day was so kind to show me that that was her diagnosis, it was not her destiny. And reminded me of Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is the thanatos." It's this death, but the Karis [inaudible 00:12:15], the grace gift of God is Zoe, eternal [inaudible 00:12:20] in Jesus our Lord. So this picture of life as a gift of grace from Jesus, that that is her destiny and not death. And we believe that she's living into that even now.

Doug Sweeney:       Will you tell us a bit about Zoe's actual birth and death, and then the events that followed with her funeral and her burial?

Hayden Walker:      The Lord is really kind because on March 24th, 25th when we were told that she would die in the womb and very eminently, but the Lord just sustained her for three months. And I went into labor on June the 23rd, which interestingly enough, 6:23, which we had named her from Romans 6:23. She was born early in the morning on June 24th, a beautiful, precious, little baby doll. And shortly thereafter went to be with the Lord.

Hayden Walker:      And her death, as anticipated as a death is when you're in the face of a terminal diagnosis, there's still a shock factor that it actually happened. And that shock was very real and the pain was very real, but equally real was just the peace of God. Now I mean, just almost palpable in the room. And we had memorized portion of Philippians 4 while she was sick, Cody and I had, and we had truly experienced that piece that passes understanding. I mean, it's indescribable. And I think if you don't know, if you have to question if you've ever experienced that or not, you haven't because it was just an unmistakable piece of the Holy Spirit. And we had close family and friends around us, and they got to meet Zoe and celebrated her life with us and grieved with us in the days that I was still in the hospital.

Hayden Walker:      And then we went back to my hometown of Arkadelphia to bury Zoe. There's a cemetery there where six of my eight great-grandparents are buried, just a rich family, beautiful place. And we buried Zoe there in the presence of many, many friends and family. And that was an incredibly hard day to bury Zoe but really beautiful too. Just to bathe ourselves in the promises of scripture and to recognize that this is not only her burial place, but this is her resurrection destination.

Hayden Walker:      And even in the months that followed, as we intentionally crafted her headstone with Romans 6:23 on it, and we have this at the bottom, it says, "Waiting in hope for the glorious resurrection." And we had had opportunities to talk about the hope of Jesus so often because of Zoe.

Kristen Padilla:    A year and a half passed between Zoe's birth and your son Rhett's birth. Please, if you will, tell us about that experience in that in between time walking through the absence of Zoe's presence and the grief that followed. And then secondly, the challenges and joys that came with having Rhett following Zoe's birth and death.

Hayden Walker:      That was a really very hard season. Grief is not linear and as much as you think that you can prepare yourself for something like the death of a child, you can't. You have to live it, and you have to wake up every day and trust that God is going to give you the manna for that day or for that five minutes, and that he's going to do it again and again and again and again.

Hayden Walker:      And so that year and a half, and really even beyond when Rhett was born, in the thick of grief, the Lord just sustained us even in the messy places. And it was messy and it was really hard, and the holidays were really hard. And Cody and I needed to grieve alone quite often. We just missed her so much and missed what we were missing with her. And then when I became pregnant with Rhett, actually I had a miscarriage between Zoe and Rhett. There was just a long season of hopelessness and a lot of ways, and just having to go back to the word and back to the promises and back again and again and again.

Hayden Walker:      We have a lot of spiritual amnesia, I think, or I do. And just to be reminded of what is real and that God's goodness was not ever contingent upon us having a living child. But we are grateful when I became pregnant with Rhett and we're so grateful on his many ultrasounds to see healthy, growing bones. And we're grateful on November 20, 2017 when he was born healthy, and he is a vibrant toddler now.

Hayden Walker:      But you know, our grief has changed in many ways. It's still there, but in different ways. We miss being a family of four. We miss Zoe being with us at the dinner table. We miss Zoe on every occasion, cooking scrambled eggs in the morning. So it doesn't go away. One child in no way replaces another. In just the way that the Lord's heart can be for all of his people and he knows all of his sheep by name, there's always space for Zoe. The joy and the grief coexist.

Doug Sweeney:       And you've talked about how being a Christian, being a serious Orthodox-believing Christian has made a difference in the way you've grieved, and some of this has come through just in the way you've answered the questions we've been asking you so far. But would you share with our listeners what you think the difference is that serious faithfulness as a Christian believer can make at least in the way people experience grief and deal with it?

Hayden Walker:      I think that something that we heard so often when Zoe was sick from very well-meaning people was, "Why is this happening to you? You and Cody are just model believer servants of the church. You're a minister. How is this happening to you?" And it would be so easy to let this kind of quid pro quo idea of our relationship with God come into your mind of, "I'm doing these things for you, Lord, and you had better act appropriately towards me." And that is not the way that God works and his goodness is not predicated upon his gifts in our lives or upon his working of any sort of a miracle. He's good just for the sake of who he is.

Hayden Walker:      And I think that that was probably the most tempting thing that is combated about orthodoxy, that could destroy your faith, I think, in the face of suffering. I think in the face of suffering, if you heard that so often and you began to believe it, it could truly make you crumble in the face of deep suffering.

Hayden Walker:      I think also just the idea that we, as believers, are free to grief. And we grieve, but not as those with no hope. But it doesn't say that we don't grieve, and we felt a lot of freedom to grieve. And Tim Keller says in his book, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, "That as believers we have greater sorrow but greater hope." We have greater sorrow because we know that it is not supposed to be this way, but we have greater hope because we know it will not always be this way. And I think that that narrative of the sorrow and the hope dancing together gave us a lot of freedom in our grief. Whereas otherwise, if we felt like we had to fit within sort of a particular model, I think that that would've crushed us. But you read the Psalms, you see all of the emotions being poured out before the Lord and I think that that really gave us a lot of freedom in our grief.

Kristen Padilla:    Ten months after Zoe's death, you preached in Hodges chapel during community worship. And I'm just wondering, Hayden, hearing you speak, what was that experience like when you were still in the midst of such grief, and in particular, standing underneath the dome of the saints that are pictured there.

Hayden Walker:      In many ways it was a redemptive time for me to be in a place I love doing what I love, preaching the word of God that the Holy Spirit's preaching to me. So that was a healing experience in many ways. And I can remember on that day, the sadness and the heaviness of what life with a 10 month old should have been like and what my reality was in fact. But I can remember looking up at the Cloud of Witnesses painted and the dome surrounding Christ, and there is one little face, one particular little face that looks just so much like Zoe, an uncanny resemblance. And I felt just the presence of the Cloud of Witnesses. That even though she was not there with us in the chapel that day, that she was somehow present with the Lord and the communion of saints throughout time and space was very hopeful to me.

Doug Sweeney:       Hayden, in conclusion, I'm imagining as we're talking that there are people listening to the podcast or people who will listen to the podcast when it airs, who are experiencing grief even now. And I'm wondering if we could conclude with just a few words of encouragement for them based on your own experience.

Hayden Walker:      Everyone grieves so differently, but I think that the importance is to grieve and to feel the whole range of emotions. The Lord has created emotions and that it's okay to feel permission to grieve, but to sort of always grieve with one hand on the Bible. And to feel the freedom to pray even when you're angry at the Lord, but to always remain in scripture to make the choice. The real choice to keep on reading and to trust that the Holy Spirit is at work even if you don't feel anything after you have spent time in the word.

Hayden Walker:      To keep the lines of communication open, not only to the Lord through prayer, but in friendship with one another. Not to isolate yourself. To have people that you can talk to is so important. Then I would just remind anyone who is grieving, no matter what the circumstances are, that if you are in Christ, Sunday really is coming and there really is hope and there really is a joy because of Jesus.

Doug Sweeney:       You have been listening to Beeson alumna, Hayden Walker, telling us about her experience of the life and death of her daughter, Zoe. We thank you very much for being with us and we'll see you soon. Goodbye for now.

Kristen Padilla:    You've been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquerilla. Our cohost are Doug Sweeney and myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at beesondivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.