Growing In Grace Part 1: Did my Faith Fail me?

            After my miscarriage, I ran through every possible cause in my head, did I drink too much caffeine? Did I eat too much sugar? Did I not rest enough? Did I not exercise enough? Did I just not want the baby bad enough? Did I not have enough faith that God would provide for that baby?

We all have heard people say, “You just gotta have faith.” People say it in both simple and complicated situations, they throw it out like you can just reach into your pocket and pull out some faith, or maybe you can stop by the supermarket and pick some up- you just gotta get it because “you just gotta have faith.”

            I have heard people claim “faith” over people on life support saying that if they just have “faith” the person would rise up and walk out of the hospital-and then they died. Did the people praying for them just not have enough faith?

            When my son died I did not even have a chance to exercise “faith” I did not even find out he was dead until he already had been for days. How does faith play in a situation like that?

            When we treat faith like something we can just muster up and use to get what we want, we are forgetting where it comes from.  “The measure of faith that God has assigned.” (Rom 12:3) God is not waiting for you to prove your faith in him so that he can lavish you with blessings. Any faith you have comes from him to begin with; He is assigning it to you!

            If we are looking to ourselves for more faith, we will always come up empty handed. If we look to who went as far as the cross to bear our burdens, he will not leave us without faith, he will sustain us. 

            There is no amount of faith that can change the path that God has sovereignly laid out for you, but when trials hit and winds of grief are blowing over you, and clear skies are nowhere to be seen, “look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith”  (Heb 12:2) he will bring you through this to the end he will “finish” our faith.

             Do not ever wonder if your lack of faith has brought trials into your life, that is not how our loving and merciful God works. Sometimes the trials are the blessing. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1) Our faith is not in what will come to pass in this life, but what God will accomplish in eternity. He will one day make all things new. Although there is pain, anguish and death now, by faith we can look forward to when “he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Rev 21:3). 

       Have faith, ask the Lord to give you faith. Do not expect your faith to spare you from trials, but with it you may endure trials. In faith, we may suffer in such a way to glorify God, but more on that next week.

Growing in Grace and Knowledge of our Savior

           I had another post to share with you this morning but I decided to put that on the back burner and instead introduce a series of posts that I hope you will find helpful.

            Here at David’s Hope we believe that the greatest comfort in tragedy is knowing and understanding who God is and his purposes.  I do not want to placate you in the hardest time of your life with silly Christian clichés that provide no real lasting comfort for you and may just leave you with more questions. The truth is the bible is more than sufficient to communicate God’s desires for us amidst tragedy. I am well aware that it is not hard to find a sad story online about how someone overcame their miscarriage and were stronger in the end. That may be true and those stories have their place, but here – I don’t want you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, fight through it, and get over it. I want you to have your hope firmly planted in Christ, the author and finisher of our faith.  You have not sinned your way into this situation, you are not being punished, and God is not looking the other way. I hope that you will check back next week as we begin to unpack some of the harder questions we might have when dealing with miscarriage and infant loss. 

Has my baby become an Angel?

            When Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden there was an angel set on guard to make sure no one entered the garden again (Gen. 3:24). When Balaam’s donkey stopped on the road, it was because an angel blocked his way (Num. 22:24). Angels ministered to Elijah (1Kings 19:5) and Gideon (Judges 6:12); they stretched out their swords and halted entire armies (2Chron. 32:21). An angel appeared to Mary and told her the good news that she would bear Jesus (Luke 1:26). When Christ was born an entire host of them sang in the sky (Luke 2:13). In the book of Acts and angel led Peter out of prison (Acts 12:7). In Revelation angels are seen pouring out God’s wrath (Rev. 16:2) and locking Satan in the abyss (Rev 20:1).

            Certainly Angels are very powerful creatures, set apart to execute God’s will. They are focused on bringing God glory and being carriers of His message.  They are busy at work even now in an unseen world beyond our comprehension.

            We know that not all Angels are good; some fell with Satan and are now for eternity bound into his service (Rev. 12:4). They sinned, and there is no hope of redemption for them.

            Angels are creations of God, but it does not say anywhere in the bible that they were made in the image of God. Image Bearer is a title reserved for humans alone (Gen 1:26). In the same way Satan fell from heaven, Eve ate the fruit in the garden. The difference is that when Satan and his Angels desired to be like God their fate was sealed for eternity, Satan’s final resting place will be a lake of fire (Rev 20:10).  Eve on the other hand, set in motion a glorious plan of redemption, for all who might put their trust in Christ.

            In today’s culture angels are often viewed as babes sitting on clouds playing harps, or shooting arrows of love down upon unsuspecting individuals. People refer to their beloved family member who has died as their “guardian angel”.  Women often refer to themselves as “the mother of an Angel” when they lose a child. So much of these phrases are thought to be comforting, and they are at first thought-- our babies flying around keeping us out of harms way. Angels do keep us out of harms way and they do help us-- but they are not our children. The truth is no matter how short your child’s life, God created them and placed in them His image. More so than that, He paid for their soul on the cross with the blood of His son!

            “I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10 ESV). The angels look upon us and marvel. They have not forgotten when Satan and the demons fell; they know that there was not a sacrifice offered for them. When they see God’s plan laid out for us, and they watch the Holy Spirit draw a sinner to repentance-- they rejoice, they celebrate, they sing of the awesome redemption that could never be offered to them.

            You are not the mother of an angel, but the mother of a child who God knit together in your womb in His image, who He graciously redeemed on the cross, and who He brought to Glory to live eternally with Him.

God's control in our pain

           

           Sitting in church on Good Friday next to my sister in law, as  she bounced her five month old on her lap I was hit with thoughts like “I should be bouncing my four month old, I should be taking my crying baby out of the service, this would be my son’s first Easter”.

            It is hard to wrap my mind around missing someone you never actually met, someone that you don’t know a thing about their personality. I miss my son. I miss all the things I did not get to experience with him all the smiles and kisses that are lost, birthdays never to be celebrated. 

            The verse that is famously quoted by every Christian mother when she is pregnant was never so precious to me as is it was when I lost a baby. 

“For you formed my inward parts;

you knitted me together in my mother's womb.

 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

 Wonderful are your works;

my soul knows it very well.

 My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;

in your book were written, every one of them,

the days that were formed for me,

when as yet there was none of them.” Psalm 139:13-16 (ESV)

            The truth is our children are not “lost” at all.  In eternity past God wrote the exact number of days each one of them would live. They did not live one day less or one day more than he intended or that they should have. This should not have been my son’s first Easter with me, I should not be holding him right now even though I desperately want to be.  God is good, my friends, he knows the pain you are enduring and he allowed it anyway. His purpose is to give you more of HIM.  God is an unending fountain of grace and mercy and he is willing to pour it out to you now.  We are locked into the perspective of time, stuck for the rest of our lives with a missing family member, but God holds eternity and he sees the end of the story where we are restored and made new, having forgotten the sting of death forever. He has your child, secure and with him—we are waiting for eternity, our children are already there.

             

           If you struggle with wondering where you child is now, please take the time to listen to John MacArthur’s sermons on the subject. 

               https://www.gty.org/resources/sermon-series/269/what-happens-to-babies-who-die

Strength of my Heart

     “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Psalm 73:26

            In the moments, days and weeks after hearing the painful words “ I’m sorry there is no heartbeat.” It seemed that simple living was painful. Simple walking and talking, I remember getting through each day and collapsing into bed in tears because life, and grief were just exhausting. 

    After hearing about his son’s death King David “arose from the earth, and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his apparel, and came into the house of the Lord, and worshipped: then he came to his own house; and when he required, they set bread before him, and he did eat.” (2 Samuel 12:20)

   On those hard days, that did not quickly pass and- yes that still show up. I can take a note from David: Rise, Wash, and Worship the Lord.  As hard as it may be, life goes on. Days turn into weeks and months, we must go on. There is not a magic formula to take our pain away, rising and eating did not take David's pain away, and it will not take ours away, neither did worshiping. Worship however, does give us perspective and shows us that we can look to the Lord and call upon Him in our distress, he will be our portion and our strength.  God was faithful to bring David through that trial, and more importantly he was faithful in being with him in the trial.
  A good friend reminds me often that we are to “run the race” the child we have lost—their race is done. Ours must go on, let us cry to the Lord at our moments of weakness—he is will give us endurance for each day until our race is through.