OUR STORY
October 2nd, 2021, my pregnant wife said while cooking dinner, "I haven't felt our baby boy kick today." I told her to go to the hospital after we ate and that I would put the boys to bed. I was nervous, but thought it was probably fine. I played a little extra with the boys, just to enjoy the good days, in case our world was going to flip upside down again. During playtime, I got a call from Megan and just before answering, I gave one last prayer for good news. She was crying...my heart sinks. She said that they are struggling to find a heart beat and that I should be there. We hung up and first thing I did was call her mom and say, "Megan is at the hospital and they can't find our boy's heart beat. I need to get to the hospital. Please come over." I hurried to get the boys to bed and set them up for the night for when her parents would arrive. Once they got there, I left for the hospital and I was crying, begging for my son's life. I was praying "God, please let them find his heart beat." I got to the hospital and entered into the saddest, heaviest room ever. In sadness and fear, I was speechless as the nurse walked into the room. She pointed on the ultrasound showing me how there was no color to indicate blood flow, as my pregnant wife was laying there crying. She confirmed our greatest fear as we learned there was no hope, no words of comfort. Only the feeling of a shattered heart. I won't lie to you, I prayed for a miracle. I so desperately wanted some radical amazing story to unfold, however I had to face reality as well and that reality is one we still live with today and always will. I cannot describe the pain and quite honestly the horror of our next couple days, but I will share with you how this turned into Hezekiah's Ministry.
In the hospital, we had four amazing nurses that all had compassion, care, and love. They also had four unique attributes that have become four very important things in our hospital visits for Hezekiah's Ministry. Our first nurse, Christine, represents being real and dealing with the tough questions. Our second nurse, Sarah, represents the importance of doing whatever you need that is special for you and the compassion and empathy she had from the loss of her own child. Our third nurse, Tanya, represents gentle normality. She would just come in and talk about how cute Hezekiah is, like you would any living baby, and talk about life. Our fourth nurse, Ciny, represents experiential insight. She had resources and knew what to do next and helped to prepare us to walk out of the hospital doors without our baby boy. Despite our hearts being shattered, we knew God had something planned through Hezekiah's short life. Our nurse Ciny asked me to be a speaker for an event at Kaiser for child-loss. While we grieved so hard, we would have these moments where God used us to be a light to someone. Honestly, at this point, I didn't care too much about this impact because I just wanted my son. After being home for a couple days, Megan and I had to get out and recoup. We went to a hotel for a night. My wife fought very hard at not being angry at God, but I gave in.
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I kept saying, "I thought God is near the broken hearted! But where is He?" I thought there was no way I could go back to being a Pastor. In perfect timing, the next day, I had an appointment to meet with Pastor Steve West from Calvary Chapel Golden Springs. He and His wife, Valerie had lost their baby, Aiden several years prior. To summarize, I went into that meeting with so much pain and left with so much purpose.
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The turning point was when Steve and I reached a point in our conversation and it was said, "This is Hezekiah, the strength of God to bear a heavy pain and do what is right." I started to feel a call to rise up and be a better father, a better husband, friend, and pastor. My wife Megan got to meet with Valerie (Pastor Steve's wife) when we met all together. That meeting really helped us learn that while we will always feel the pain and loss of our son, we will learn to manage through this life and build our lives around our pain and grief. As these were changing points for us, we believe they are also for others experiencing the same or similar types of loss as us. These counseling meetings are at the very heart of Hezekiah's Ministry. Another aspect that is a part of Hezekiah's Ministry comes from what our friends, our family, and our church (Calvary Chapel Corona) had been doing for us in that time. They set up meal trains, took care of the mortuary and memorial service costs, and helped us put together a beautiful service. A week and a half later after meeting with Pastor Steve (2 weeks after losing Hezekiah), our whole house flooded. As we had to grieve and try to plan our son's service, we also had to fight with insurance that was complicating, delaying, and not wanting to pay to repair our house. We had to move in to my parent's house as we waited for months, even after Hezekiah's service, for our home to be repaired and live-able. It was like our grieving got put on hold while we wanted to give our son, Hezekiah, the best service we could give.
Our church, family, and friends really rallied together and organized a beautiful service that you can view here. I led the service, preached a message that I wanted to make my son proud of me for, and Megan sang a special song for Hezekiah that you can view. You can watch the full service at this link. An amazing thing happened after the service! A lady approached me and said, "I don't normally do this, but I have a prophecy that Hezekiah's Ministry started today." I'll be honest, I was skeptical. Then the next person to approach me was our friend Janet. She asked me if I could send her my notes from the service because just a few days before, a man at her church came to her asking for prayer because he had lost his baby. I told her, "Of course, anything I can do!" She reached into her purse, pulled out a phone number on a piece of paper, and said, "Do you want his number to counsel him?" I took his number and replied, "I think this is an answer to prophecy." I met with that father over coffee and it was like watching myself. He had so much pain in his heart like me and he was angry. When we left from that meeting, he was a new man, motivated with purpose. I had to do that again! I knew this was the direction for Hezekiah's Ministry.
We then started a Hezekiah's Ministry Instagram to reach out to more hurting from infant loss. We felt a call to be a Godly light to others and Instagram was the easiest way to start. We have been able to be a light now to several more families, all while still learning what God wants us to do. We know there are many hurting! The divorce rate after infant loss is extremely high. We want to change that! There are not many resources for men on infant loss and the need is greatly there. We want to provide those resources. Many hurting families feel isolated and don't know how or where to get help. We want to offer them hope and provide the help they need. There are not many Biblical resources on dealing with infant loss. We want to create those resources for hurting mothers, fathers, and siblings. There are many hurting parents that we can be God's light to! What you see today comes out of our vision to give God's strength to hurting parents who have lost a child. To help them to rise up and do their call in life! What you see in the future will always come from that vision! Today, we still grieve, wish we could have our son here with us so bad, and we also want to see how God will use our son! Thank you for taking the time to read our story!
A LITTLE BIT ABOUT US
Pastor Nathan Tyson
Works at Calvary Chapel Corona as an assistant pastor and high school pastor. He has been on staff there for almost 10 years. In the past, he ran a Bible college and taught Galatians at Calvary Bible Institute. He is the strongest, most compassionate, and hard working man. He loves God with all his heart. He has gone through so much pain and heartache in his life, yet still he has the joy of the Lord and seeks to enjoy each moment. He is a man of great character and an incredible leader. At home, he loves to play wrestling with the boys and teach them new things! His number one goal is to raise his family in loving God and loving others. His favorite things to do are play the drums and play fantasy football with his friends. His favorite football team is the Rams. Also, he thinks he makes the best steak and hotdogs ever too!
Megan Tyson
Is a stay at home mom and wife. She is the most compassionate, strong fighter you will ever meet. She has gone through so much, faced so many pains (physically, spiritually, and emotionally), and she still has so much love and compassion to give! She loves to make others feel loved. She loves to get out of the house and make memories with her family. She loves getting to raise her boys and spend time with her husband. She loves the Anaheim Ducks hockey team. Her hobbies are songwriting, embroidery, jewelry making, and taking care of her plants, fish, and frog. Her favorite place is the beach, but is at home wherever her family is. She leads worship and helps Nate with high school ministry whenever she can!