A story of our family's journey in faith.
Is God actually any good?
A taboo question
for sure, but one that many have asked through gritted teeth and with a tear
stained face. How can a God who causes hurt be any good? If he truly has the
power to help, heal, comfort, and save and then doesn’t how is that considered
good? …
It was a
cold fall morning. I don’t remember the year; I suppose I could look it up. It doesn’t
much matter. We had lost 2 babies to miscarriage at that time; maybe a third.
Hard to keep track. There were 4 miscarriages in all followed by a few years of
unexplained infertility. I was sitting at our dinning room table that morning
looking out our French back patio door. There was no patio just a 2 acre field
that backed up to about 40 acres of corn. That was my spot to sit, drink
coffee, and read my Bible. I’ve never been a marathon reader, but like to read
a passage or a few verses to keep me focused.
I don’t remember
what passage I was reading that day, but the events that took place are burned
vividly into my memory. Mid-verse with no ques taken from the passage that I
was reading the Holy Spirit abruptly carved into my soul the most abrasive and
cruel script that I could have imagined, “You need to thank me for taking your
babies.”
Thank him!
Thank?! I remember coming up short on my next breath as I shoved my bible back
and my chair out simultaneously. My heart raced, and I felt a cacophony of
anger, hurt, and betrayal. My mind raged and my ears pounded. I didn’t want to
finish my coffee. I simply finished putting on my suit for the day and walked
out the door to go to work.
I didn’t pick
up my Bible for the next few days. The most recent inscription on my soul still
burned like vinegar in a fresh wound. All the grief caused in miscarriage came
flooding back in crushing waves. The boxed up baby blankets given to us by
friends seemed to mock us with their emptiness. The simple and cruel comments
from well-meaning friends asking when we were going to start our family, and
why we didn’t have any kids yet stabbed deep and new. Somehow someway I was supposed
to thank God for this? There was no way. How could he even ask me such an
unfair question?
Days passed
and the inscription remained, “You need to thank me.” I did pick up my Bible again.
The pain gave way to more pain and confusion, but the anger somehow eased. Something
was happening to my heart, but I could not betray myself this right to hold
this, and I could not by any means betray the hurt of my wife by thanking God
for hurting us so badly. I cannot tell you how much time passed, maybe as
little as seven days, but I had changed. I wanted to thank him. I wanted my
heart to be thankful, and I had to tell my wife, but how?
Scared to abrade
my wife the way that the Holy Spirit did me, I walked up the half flight of
stairs in our split-level home where my wife was fixing her hair for the day in
our hall bath. Through a shaky voice and teary eyes I told her what the Spirit
had laid on my heart. She began crying immediately, but not in anger. With a
quivering lip she muttered, two words that I will never forget as long as I
live “me too” she said simply and quietly with a pure and trusting faith that was
truly humbling. We both agreed that we
were not ready but that we would tell the other when we were ready to thank God.
We parted ways that morning knowing what we had to do, willing to somehow do
it, but unsure how we ever could.
God kept working
on us each individually in the coming weeks. That morning did eventually come. I
was sitting in my chair, having coffee, and reading a passage, when I truly was
able to thank God for hurting us so badly. That still doesn’t make sense to me.
It’s bitter on my tongue even as I type this years later. I did not understand.
It took me a few days to work up to courage to confess this absurdity to my
wife. How do you even do that? Bewildered and unable to wait any longer, I remember
laying in bed next to my bride that evening. “Babe, I thanked God for it.” Her
reply was sweet and broken, “Me too honey” We held each other and cried.
That awkward
and cruel test lingered at the surface of my thoughts and emotions for several
years. Did God just want to toy with our hearts and see if we were surrendered to
his sovereign will? How can that God actually be any good? Why did he do that
to us?
Late in the
summer of 2014 we were contacted by a wonderful family asking us to adopt the
daughter’s unborn baby. We agreed not knowing that Julia was carrying a child. With
no guarantee that Aleah’s birth mom would sign adoption papers after the allotted
48 hours after she was born and no guarantee that Julia would carry a baby
full-term we decided to go for it, and sure enough we ended up with 2 beautiful
girls just 3 ½ weeks apart.
February,
2015 I was with my brand newborn daughter, Aleah. I had flown down to Florida
for her birth while Julia was late term with our second daughter, Anne back in
Colorado. I found myself swaddling a newborn awaiting a release from the state
of Florida so that I could get back to my wife in Colorado with our new little
baby. Sometime that week while I was getting to know our new baby, staying up
through the night with her, diapering, bottling, swaddling, and burping her, the
Lord spoke gently to my soul as he tenderly touched the old scarred inscription
he had left years ago, “If I hadn’t taken them you wouldn’t have accepted her”.
Sobering moment and He was right. It was all so clear now. I new that the four
children that we had lost were safe with the Father, and that the hurt that we
had experienced was not meaningless. 
I thanked
him again, and I do often. If he had to made our home and our arms empty then we
would not have the kids that we do. This year we are thankful for many things.
Among those things are countless tears, inexplicable pain, and confounding abrasive
faith lessons.
Whatever
your hurt; let God work in his own time. Let him lead you. Allow him to hurt
you. Understand that your pain is not meaningless. I wont ask you to thank him
for it. I’ll leave that to Him. I cannot promise that God will turn things
around and give such a quick answer as to the question of why like he did for
Julia and I. All I know is this, God is actually good, and we can trust him.
