Is God still good?
I asked this question to myself many times in the last few months. I’ve had a few moments when I fell to despair, and it is a place I never want to be in. It’s like a dam. My whole life the dam had been filled with God’s many blessings, but the minute I began to doubt His goodness felt like the dam had been opened and all of His blessings rushed out of my mind and what was left was nothing but emptiness.
How can one horrific life experience make me ask the question is God still good?
After my miscarriage I went to my YouVersion app and found several miscarriage Bible Plans, I didn’t want to replace my normal daily devotions but I thought maybe when I’m having an evening of tears I could read some of them and be encouraged. There was one plan I found and the first day mentioned a child’s book called, “Going on a Bear Hunt.” As a teacher, sadly, I had never heard this book and as the author of the plan explained why this was comparable to grief whenever I read this book it reminded me of what God was calling me to. About the book, these two children are searching for a bear and as they come to different obstacles they say, “we can’t go over it, we can’t go under it, we must go through it.”
We must go through it.
I must go through it.
As the days passed by I constantly said to myself, “I must go through this.” The grief. The sorrow. The tears. Watching others give birth. Seeing more baby announcements. I must go through it.
A few weeks ago I was scrolling through social media when I came across a meme that made my angry. There was a cartoon basketball player and he was “shooting,” but instead of shooting a ball he was shooting a baby. The author of this meme wrote how much he regretted having one child, and his wife felt the same way. I felt my face getting hot. In one of the many screaming matches I had with the Lord, this was one of them. This man and his wife hated having their one child, and you took away the one Luke and I wanted? To make matters worse the person who posted it put the caption, “remove toxic people from your life.” Speaking of the baby. It made me sick.
Is God still good?
With all of my pregnant friends my life filled with fear, will I ever be pregnant again? Can I be happy for those who are? I’ve fallen in despair more than once; fear, frustration, and so much anger. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this much anger before, and then there was shame. It wouldn’t be right for me to be angry with the God who has given me so much, but like I said in the beginning, once the dam has been opened we forget all the good things.
I told myself, Lord willing, when I do get the hold my second child I would feel so much shame if I looked into their eyes and said I had given up on God and believed He didn’t love me. I want to be able to say in this season that I stood firm, but I quickly found out that I cannot stand firm without Christ holding me up.
In the beginning I kept saying to myself, “I should’ve been this far along by now” or “my stomach would be this big by now,” but that’s all wrong. This is where I should be right now. On Wyatt’s due date I should be home with no baby, but praising the One who allowed him to die. What a blessing his little life was to Luke and I, we did not have him for that long but we loved him. I made a habit of praying Psalm 139 every day after my devotions, and what a chapter! I’ve always been intrigued by vs. 16-17 “Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them. How precious are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them!” Right after the Psalmist mentions the days God has written for us, he immediately talks about how precious His thoughts are to us. As I read this each and every day it was comforting to know that God does love me. He wrote out my days for good, not for destruction.
That’s it. God wrote each day ordained for me, and each day His thoughts for me are astronomically pure and beautiful and I am ill-equipped to understand His mind and thoughts for me.
God is good.
He does love me, and He always has. Even thought He allowed little Wyatt to die, it wasn’t a mistake, it wasn’t by chance, it wasn’t a punishment, it was God’s plan. How blessed are we as believers that we have a God who will not allow His children to boast in the many blessings they believe they deserve, that only He gives, but rather He gives us blessings as gifts, and He takes away to grow us to be like Him.
I was so blessed with my firstborn, and I can’t wait to tell his future siblings about him, and of God’s grace in those hard times. I’ll never know why he was taken so early, but I do know that Luke and I have a duty to stand firm in our faith, live for God’s glory; in whatever way He chooses, and continue to look upward for Christ’s return.
Dedicated to Wyatt Ebenezar Pass, we miss you and we love you.
–Sarah Pass
Sarah Skepple 