Over the last couple of months, two friends have had miscarriages. Two friends were expecting to welcome their sweet babies in the fall only to be left with broken hearts and empty wombs.
I continue to try and make sense of things that have no explanation, no reason. Even if there was a reason, would we really accept the reason? I mean, what would be an acceptable reason for a mother to not have the child she longs for in her arms?
Reconciling my own pain of loss, and the pain I see on my friends’ faces, with my faith is something that I am still struggling with five years later. How can the God of love and hope allow such pain? How can I see Him as anything but destructive as I watch mother after mother go through the devastation of losing a child?
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It’s so hard to believe that there is a purpose for this pain.
That there is some master plan, a bigger picture that I just can’t see from here.
Part of me clings so tightly to that hope of seeing my son again in Heaven. Another part of me is still screaming at God telling Him how unfair He is. I try to let go of the anger and that hurt. Then I see another friend crumble at those words no parent should ever hear: “there’s no heartbeat,” “there’s no cure,” or “we tried everything we could…” All that pain, all that brokenness, all that anger floods back in. It is not fair.
Nothing about these losses is fair.
I read these news stories of parents who abuse and even kill their children and wonder how they were given the chance to be parents when I know so many would give anything just to hold a baby of their own. The rain falls on the wicked and the righteous. I know this. Sunday School lessons from my childhood have taught me this. I have lived this scripture. I have watched the storms rage and I have seen the sunshine (and rainbows), and yet it is still so hard to understand.
To see good people, those I know would be amazing parents, end up month after month looking at negative tests and suffer miscarriages and stillbirths and losses of children that I know they love beyond measure while others effortlessly have children they don’t even want…
Where is God in this? Where is God in the brokenness and the pain and the hurt?
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It is so hard to continue to have faith and hope and to believe that God is good even when it hurts.
Even when you see nothing but storm clouds above, to know that God is there holding us. To know that God doesn’t find pleasure in our pain but rather His heart breaks along with ours. To know that He knows the pain of watching His son takes his last breath. Knowing that He weeps along with me and every one of us who are hurting.
And yet, despite my pain, despite my anger, I still believe.
I still believe that God does have a plan for my life. That there is the hope of seeing Joshua again in Heaven. I still believe that God will use all the brokenness for something good. I choose to believe that He has been holding me up for the last five years and will continue to for the rest of my days.
How has grief or loss affected your faith?
Feature Photo by Victoria Denney
Victoria is a wife and mom of two amazing children – Joshua in Heaven and Madeline, their rainbow that they get the joy of watching grow-up here on earth. Victoria blogs about raising a rainbow, anxiety, and life at www.lifewithmadeline.com.
After we lost our son to SIDS 8 years ago, I wanted nothing to do with God. Or the people who used religious platitudes as a way to make them feel like they’d offered some great insight & support in my grief. I don’t know that I ever stopped believing, I just stayed angry, & I would periodically tell God about how angry I was at him, about how I didn’t understand why Will had been taken from us, how it wasn’t fair, etc. And then about 5 years ago, I was invited to step in as an interim pianist for a church whose pianist/organist had unexpectedly quit. My rainbow daughter was a year old when I started, so of course the questions started about children. It took me a long time to trust the people at this church with my story, for fear that they’d offer the same meaningless platitudes I’d come to associate with religion, but they didn’t. One by one, when I would talk with people about my experiences, they would empathize with me & validate all the angry feelings I had experienced. We would have conversations about how there is no timeline for grief, & for the first time since the loss of Will, I started to come back & embrace my faith. On Will’s birth anniversary this year, the rector & choir director sent me flowers, & the deacon brought by a good care package. June 4 marked Will’s angelversary, and the Sunday before, I received big hugs from all of them, with assurance that if I needed anything from them, to reach out to them. Over the years, I’ve found that my experience with grief has greatly increased my capacity for caring & empathy. While I’m grateful to be able to see some positive come from such an awful experience, the cost will never be worth the outcome.
It’s 37 years. For me. I STILL wrestle. I feel I need to trust God has a plan, and I really DO believe that to be true. But on the days when pain overwhelms me, Matthew’s death seems so senseless. WHY give him to us for 7 hours, and then take him? I’ve concluded there ARE no answers, this side of Heaven. So, I can CHOOSE to trust, or NOT. Neither affects the outcome.