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As I was browsing infertility and miscarriage blogs and facebook groups the other day, I came across a question: What has been the most difficult thing about infertility or miscarriage so far…has it been emotional, mental, physical, or spiritual?
And as I absentmindedly scrolled through the 100 or so comments, I was (only slightly) surprised at the overwhelming amount of women who responded with: Spiritual. I was angry at God for my infertility or my miscarriage. They (and I) asked questions like: Why, God? Why does the drug addict and the child abuser get a child but not ME? How can this really be a part of your plan?
I think most people going through infertility for a period of time do have to wrestle with these questions of faith at one time or another. Personally, I could wrap my mind around God and infertility (most of the time, anyway). I rarely got angry. But when I had a miscarriage after waiting two and a half years for a baby, I was mad.
I felt just like the Shunammite woman who ended up losing her son after going through infertility. She demanded to know why God would even let her get her hopes up for a child if He was just going to take him away too soon. It seemed too cruel. God ended up bringing her child back to life.
But not mine.
We’ve always been taught that God is good. But sometimes, when we stop to look at the world around us, it sure doesn’t seem like it.
God’s Goodness
I do think that’s part of it — the comparison. The idea that God would give a baby to a child abuser but not to me. How can that be the work of a good God?
The other misguided question I think we’re asking ourselves, though, is this:
Doesn’t God want me to be happy? How can a good God — whom I follow — allow me to suffer like this?
And perhaps that is the heart of the matter. Somewhere along the line, we’ve subconsciously equated a life of following God with blessings and happiness. We’ve soaked up the prosperity gospel, believing that if we just follow God He’ll give us the earthly blessings we crave. We’ve come to believe that the goodness of God is dependent upon whether or not we’re getting any earthly blessings.
And so when we aren’t getting those blessings, or when we’re suffering through something like a miscarriage, we get angry at God. We begin to question His goodness.
Who is God?
Several months ago I was teaching my high school ESL students about the meaning of repetition. We talked about the reason repetition is used in literature: for emphasis; to draw attention to something; to reiterate something important that you don’t want the reader to forget.
That night, I happened to read the first chapter of Genesis. Seven times in Genesis 1 is the repeated phrase: And God saw that it was good. And I remembered the purpose for repetition: to reiterate something important.
God must have known that before we would read the Bible, before our lives would even begin, before everything, we would likely need to begin with a reminder that He is good.
God is good (Mark 10:18), just as He is love (1 John 4:8).
But the question still remains: How can we know that God is good when bad things are happening not only around us, but to us?
Only by faith.
Only when we choose to live by that faith and not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5:7)
When we’re busy asking “why me” and not her, wondering why God doesn’t seem to be good anymore, we’re living by sight.
But when we’re listening to God’s word, being constantly reminded of who He is, we’re living by faith.
The Bible — and our own lives — are evidence of God’s goodness. But we have to choose to trust Him.
But how?
I don’t mean to simplify this; it is not easy to be completely confident of God’s goodness in the midst of hardship. It’s not a simple matter to stop being angry at God and start trusting Him when we’re in the midst of miscarriage. But I think we’re forgetting one key detail:
Something that may be impossible for us to do on our own is always possible with God.
When the father of a demon-possessed boy asked Jesus to help him “if he could,” Jesus questioned him:
“‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.” (Mark 9:23)
I love the father’s response to this:
“Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, ‘I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!'”
Mark 9:24, NIV
Sometimes that’s all we can do in the midst of hardship, too.
Proclaim our belief in God, while at the same time asking Him to help our unbelief.
And He will.
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