My Questions and His Comfort

I have had a bad month.

My due date for the baby we lost in November came and went and I chose not to mourn it. I remembered it, but it fell on the same day as my stepmom's surgery. As I sat in the waiting room with my dad I vividly remember telling myself there were more pressing things than my due date. Those emotions would have to wait. Also, sometimes when we are in the midst of a struggle we refuse to feel it. We cope by pushing emotion to the side, unknowingly saving them for another day.

Now is that another day.

For the last few weeks I have been sad. Very sad, that feeling where you are functioning and going through the day but right in the background there is a dull ache. That's what it has been like. Perhaps you understand this.


A few years ago I would have thought this state of being was a mark of an immature believer. I would have never typed these words to a friend, let alone people who don't know me very well, people who have only seen me when my hair is nicely done and I'm wearing a pretty outfit, attending their event as a speaker. In truth, even as I type this I wonder if I will have the nerve to hit "send." I hope I will.

With my sadness I have found anger also rearing its ugly head. I have been angry and surprised by the force of it. I have been sad knowing I have two little babies whose faces I have never seen but I have also been furious knowing that I don't do pregnancy normally, that I endured lots of illness in those two pregnancies only to be robbed of the pay off in the end. It seems senseless and it has made me angry.

As I said, a few years ago this would seem so sinful to me, so arrogant, so wrong. To be honest, I don't know which side of the line these emotions fall on, I just know they're mine and ignoring them just isn't working out.

Through them I'm also learning more about my God. I'm learning He's not shocked to find out I'm not perfect. I'm learning He can handle me, anger and all. Even better, I'm learning more and more that He really does love me. He really delights in doing good for me. This week, perhaps more than any other week, He has proven these points.

Let me explain.

We have new neighbors. We have said hello and traded niceties but we really haven't gotten to know each other. I've seen the man much more than the woman and have even wondered over the past weeks if she is still living there. She is.

This past week I met her mother-in-law and found out they are Believers. With tears in her eyes this older woman shared with me that her daughter-in-law (my female neighbor) is pregnant but very ill with a disease she can't remember the name of. She has been hospitalized several times in the past month and doesn’t know what to do. She has contemplated ending her pregnancy. I knew instantly what she was talking about, my neighbor has Hyperemesis, a very rare pregnancy complication only affecting about 0.4% of pregnancies. The fact that two neighbors would have it is a statistical anomaly. It shouldn't occur.

I told her I experienced the same thing and would be more than willing to talk to her daughter-in-law. After a few moments we went inside and I met, really met, my poor neighbor. She is very young and very sick. When I entered I could tell she was leery of me, afraid I was going to be another person to tell her to drink Ginger Ale or eat crackers, someone who had no clue of the extent of her illness. After her mother-in-law left I sat down, took her hand and simply said, "You are not a bad person, or a bad mom, if you just want this to end. I understand."

The words were not out of my mouth before she grasped my hands in hers and just started to sob. Her thin little body shook as she tried to explain how alone she has felt, how disappointed she is that the dream of pregnancy has turned out this way, how guilty she feels over the thoughts she has had. We talked for over two hours.

Toward the end of the conversation she asked me why God would let this happen, why He is putting her through this when she is begging Him to take it away. Her question was the very question I had been hesitating to ask, yet stewing over, being furious over. I had refused to ask it but God, my Gracious God, answered it for me. In that moment, in the midst of my bad attitude MONTH he answered.

Through tears I shared the answer I had just received myself. I said, "Perhaps you have this now so one day, years from now, you will be able to sit by the bed of a young girl you hardly know and hold her hand and let her cry. Perhaps you will be the one to help her along and let her know she is not crazy, she is not bad, she is not alone and she will survive it. Perhaps you can be that one person who says I really understand what you are going through, but look at me, look at the babies God gave me through this. It is worth it. It is worth it!"

As I spoke these words to her other words were sounding in my head, the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians where he says, "Praise be to the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of compassion and the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the same comfort we have received from our God." Well, Praise Him, is right! What a God who ignores statistics, who reaches out to His child in the midst of her anger and says, "Here you go, let me redeem that pain for you. Let me show you that I waste no hurt, I do nothing in vain. I know the plans I have for you and they are good. Now just sit back, my daughter, and I'll show you a tiny glimpse of my eternal plan."

I am in awe of this. He doesn't owe me a thing, He owes no explanation, yet He stooped down to whisper an answer in my ear. He could have simply said to me, "Because I am God, that is why you have suffered." He could have chosen to say, "Get over yourself, Jessica, there are people starving to death, people losing spouses, people with real hurt." I have to admit if I were God I probably would have said something like this to me, but in mercy He didn't say any of these, in mercy He gave me more.

What a God who will do all of this! A God who holds a young widow in his arms as she mourns the excruciating loss of her husband, and then years later uses her to comfort another young widow. A God who holds a woman during the still birth of her child so only months later she can hold the hand of her friend as she mourns her miscarriage. A God who holds a woman through a storm and then uses her as an umbrella for another as the rains fall upon them. Oh, Ladies, what a God.

I don't know if any of you are in a storm right now, if any of you are just plain mad. Odds are at least one of you is. If you are, I took a moment from typing this sentence and I prayed for you. I prayed that you would find comfort in knowing that God is not surprised by your pain, your anger. God has not left, He still holds you and He has a plan.

I will never understand all of His actions and I will not always receive the glimpse I received this week, but even when I don't, I really do want to live in the knowledge that my God has a purpose and that purpose is always good. This knowledge doesn't always lessen the pain, but it does redeem it.

Again, and again, what a God, what a Redeemer.