What do you do when the promises of God invoke pain, not comfort?
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At the heart of the Christmas story are two pregnant women: Elizabeth who is pregnant with John the Baptist and Mary who is pregnant with Jesus. But this is no fairy tale for these women. They never got their “designer lives,” the lives they had hoped and planned for themselves.
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I found out I was pregnant again. At this point, those two lines were more ominous than hopeful. Pregnancy had brought mostly disappointment. But, it was another chance at starting a family, nonetheless. I survived the first week. The second. The third. And suddenly something dangerous began to happen. I began to hope.
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Grief is the recognition that something has been lost forever. It forces us into an awareness that we have no control to change or fix the situation. What is gone is gone and can never be regained, at least not fully. Grief is an emotion we don't gladle welcome. We keep it at arms length pretending it will go away if we wait long enough. And sometimes it does, but are we really better off for avoiding it?
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Faith is not a warm and fuzzy feeling. Rather it is a willful choice to believe in the reliability of God even when that belief is lacking in physical evidence. It's easy to believe the promise that God works things for my good when good things have come to fruition; it's easy to believe that God is near when He feels near. But when my feelings and experiences tell a different story than the Word of God, faith isn't so fun anymore.
The test of faith comes when my feelings veer off to the left and God's Word goes to the right. Here I must make a willful choice to place my faith in what I deem most reliable—my feelings or God's Word.
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Miscarriage is the membership card to a club you never asked to be in; a union of women sporting badges of infertility, stillbirth, miscarriage, and even abortion. Women who share your emotions, questions, crisis of faith, and isolation, women whose desire to be a parent has been abruptly interrupted by suffering. This post is an effort to encourage those who are grieving and to help friends and family members trying to help.
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Two lines. I love those two lines. I hate those two lines. They have become welcomed friends and also hated enemies. I first saw them unexpectedly in the Fall of 2007, and then a second time with more anticipation in September of 2009. But it was the third time, around Thanksgiving 2009, which rocked me.
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Even more than just wanting children, I longed for restoration in my relationship with Him. I pondered the question again: "What do you want me to do for you?" I carefully and decidedly wrote in my journal, "I want the fullness of joy in Your presence. (Ps 16:11)"
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After walking in truth week after week, despite my feelings, it amazed me to see how my feelings began to align themselves with the Word of God. I began to ask God for what my heart was truly longing for: "the fullness of joy in His presence" (psalm 16:11).
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What do you do with God's promises when everything in your life says it's a lie?
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