Encouragement

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The doctor asked if I wanted him to tell her. “No,” I said. “I need to be the one to tell her. I don’t want her hearing it from a stranger.”

She was waiting, still on the emergency room bed, for the doctor to tell her to go home and take it easy a few days. But somewhere beneath the denial, I believe she already knew. I could see the fear that coursed through her veins. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry. The baby is dead.” There was no easier way to say it.

She curled up on her side and cried loudly. Her young husband sat still at her bedside, silently weeping. I struggled to see through my tears and breathe through the knot in my throat as I watched my own baby’s world turn sour. Finally, when the sobs subsided, she turned to look at me, her beautifully hazel-colored, doe-like eyes filled with pain, “Mom, why? Is it because I’m bad?”

“Oh, no. No. No. I don’t know why. And we might not know for a long time why the baby wasn’t supposed to be born. We might never know. But I know that God had a reason. And it was a good reason. Maybe the baby would have been really sick or something awful might have happened to it someday. And God took it out of His mercy. But I promise you, it’s not because you’re bad.”

My first grandchild would have been approximately six and a half years old now if it had survived. It was too early to tell whether it was a boy or a girl. I wondered for a very long time about the gender, what the baby would have looked like, what kind of character it would have possessed. Would the baby need to wear glasses like its Dad? Would it take on its mother’s doe eyes? Would it be crazy about its grandmother like its younger siblings are today? Would it have the sweet nature that I was blessed to witness in my daughter’s growing years? So many unanswered questions. But the greatest of those questions began with “Why?” Why did my daughter have to hurt that much? Why wasn’t her womb blessed to carry the baby full term? Why did she become pregnant in the first place just to lose the baby? Why?

The story of the loss of my first grandchild is a tiny drop in a huge bucket full of tragic events that have left me, more times than I like to count, shaking my fist to the heavens and shouting “You’re ALL powerful, ALmighty! You formed the whole universe with simple words out of Your mouth! You can do ANYTHING! And You could have easily, easily, easily prevented this! But You didn’t! Why? You swore never to leave or forsake me! You said You loved me enough to lay Your life down for me! And YET, You allowed this to happen to me! Why? Why? Why? WHY?”

Ah, I sense a few who shake their heads and whisper “tsk tsk” beneath their breath. “Where is your fear and admonition?” I’m not the first and I’m sure I won’t be the last of those who’ve at some point become angry enough with God over circumstances they don’t understand to shake their fists. But we have a Savior that is so patient and so understanding, having suffered beyond our comprehension Himself, that he waits until we are done reacting to prove Himself to be our Comforter. He identifies with our suffering. He feels every one of our pains as though He were the One suffering them. And with that being so, it doesn’t take Him by surprise when we react out of deep soul pain. I’m sure He’s had a million or more fists shaken at Him and not one of them takes Him by surprise. If you happen to feel condemned for doing the same thing at some traumatic point in your life, shaking your fists and yelling at God, forgive yourself. Friend, He already forgave you, even before you did it.

“Why did my father abandon me at age three? So You could be a Father to me ... ‘a father to the fatherless’? There are millions of people out there who have fathers and they still know you as Abba Father anyway. You could still have been Father to me! I NEEDED him! I needed his protection! I needed his love! Why?”

“Why did my mother wait twenty-eight years of my life to say that she loved me? Why did my grandmother die so young? She could have loved me and comforted me! Why was I abused over and over and over again, bruised and broken and made to feel to blame? Where were those angels You promised to put around me to guard me? Why did I have to watch my only son, my little, innocent baby be repeatedly disfigured by hundreds and hundreds of grand maul seizures? Why did my marriage fall apart? Why did my only son, the only child I had left in my home decide to move in with his Dad and leave me all alone? Why did You let me fall to pieces? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why was my friend born with her spine on the outside of her body, limiting her from living the kind of life the rest of us take for granted? And why did You allow her peers to tease her so cruelly?”

Oh, the list just goes on and on and on. I still haven’t scratched the surface here, but I’ll save you the drama.

Throughout the years, I’ve had a lot of well-meaning Christian friends and more than one or two preachers say things like “It’s a result of sin, secret sins or otherwise, in your life.” If we’re not careful, that can be quite condemning. See, the last time I checked, I was pretty sure that God meant every Word when He said that He’d forgiven my sins, not a few, not the worst ones, but all of them. My sins, past, present and future, all of them, have been thrown into the sea of forgetfulness, never to be remembered by Him again. Besides, how can you tell a three year old girl that she is being abused because of sins that she’s yet to repent for? I’m in Christ. Christ is in me. And there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ. So, it still doesn’t answer the why.

“Well, it’s a generational curse.” Ah! So THAT explains it! Not. I know God. And I know Him to be a GOOD God, the God whose mercy endures always and is new every morning. I understand the concept of iniquities being passed down from generation to generation. In fact, the Bible says to the third and fourth generation. It also says (paraphrased) “They have born the iniquities of their fathers. And their fathers are dead.” I understand pleading for the soul of my grandmother’s mother. But my God is not vindictive. He didn’t cause my grandmother to die at age forty-three after a ten year battle with the pain of cancer eating away at her because of something like her own great grandmother being born illegitimate. He’s far, far, far too merciful for that! And the why is still not answered.

“Maybe we aren’t supposed to know why. Maybe, just maybe it’s for our good. After all, God says that He works all things together for our good.” Really? Yes, He does say that. But now tell me, how can being beaten be for someone’s good? He works it all out together for something good to come out of it when it’s all said and done. That doesn’t mean that it happened in the first place for our good. So the why question still goes unanswered.

I finally sat down in fellowship with the Lord one day and asked, “Lord, will You show me why bad things happen when You’re all powerful and able to intervene, why those things happen when there’s no apparent reason for it?” He led me to read John chapter nine.

1And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.  2And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? (Sound familiar?) 3Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.  4I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.  5As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.  6When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay,  7And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.

"Sent"? SENT? Sent ...

I asked the Lord, after having read the story of the blind man, “How are You glorified by the events that have taken place in my life? How is it that Your works are made manifest in me?” He didn’t give me an immediate answer. In fact, I struggled with putting all these things together in written form by faith for several days before I finally got an answer. The Lord led me back here, back to FaithWriters, in search of evidence that His works have been made manifest through the events in my life.

And it was here that I found that evidence. Though well-meaning Christians do often have a habit of saying things like “It must be a result of sin or generational curses,” I have Christian friends who proclaim the evidence of God’s works in me, leading me to believe that my testimonies make a difference in people’s lives. I stood AMAZED as, here, there are comments after comments after blessed comments confirming my Holy Spirit inspired pen, comments that encourage me over and over again to keep allowing God to be glorified in me. I wish I could list them all here in this article! There are so many! God has blessed me more than I could have imagined with your encouragement, your friendship, and your love.

“Your life, your faith and your testimonies bring great glory to God.” That, I firmly believe, is what Jesus would say to me. Or perhaps it goes like this: "Well done, good and faithful servant." I suppose that means His works are also made manifest in YOU too, because you all touch my heart so deeply and encourage me to walk a path that is worthy of the Lord. Thank you. I thank God for you. You are a great encouragement to me. May the Lord continue to be glorified in and through us all.

Someday, when I’ve gone on home
and this day has faded away,
the Lord will show me all I’ve done,
every word I’ve had to say.
What cannot be burned will remain.
The rest will burn up in fire.
Let it be, Lord, unto me,
that my works bring on desire,
desire to know You, Abba Father,
God of my destiny, Lord of Grace,
so that I may stand boldly before You
and worship You face to face.

I had a dream one night that Jesus had laid my foundation for my house. But I was building on that house by putting, rather than shingles or bricks or siding, newspaper around it. For nails, I was using ordinary household tape. If someone had dropped a match on that thing, it would have went up in flames quickly. It’s important that we take heed to how we build on the spiritual house called The Church. It is my prayer that you will find a few gems within the pages of my penned heart, nuggets of hope and wisdom and joy and encouragement that will endure through flood or flame. God bless you all with His abundant grace.
© Joyce Pool

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