Peace in My Sadness

A little over a month ago, I took a pregnancy test at home because I was feeling dizzy, hungry, sick, and well, pregnant. The test was positive but things didn't seem quite right so I made a doctor appointment right away. After several tests and a couple weeks of waiting, the doctor told me that it was a "nonviable pregnancy" and I was going to have an early miscarriage. Then, I just had to wait. When you know something sad, a loss, has a high probability of coming but it's not there yet, what are you supposed to do? Do you start grieving and grieve until the loss actually happens and then grieve some more when it finally does? Do you sit in fear of what might happen? Do you close back all emotions and just wait? Do you go about life as normal and pretend nothing is happening? Or do you dare to hope? Do you hope that the inevitable doesn't happen after all? Do you hope for a miracle? If you dare to hope, are you just setting yourself up for worse sadness and grief later? If you start grieving or feeling sad then does that mean that you don't have faith in God that He can heal?

I think if we have faith in God then we must believe that if He chooses, He can heal and He can stop the loss from happening. But we also must believe that He may choose, in His infinite wisdom, to allow us to experience the loss. In our humanness and in our finite knowledge we will experience emotions with all of this. We will experience hope, peace, joy, sadness, grief, hurt, heartache and that's okay. God created us to be emotional beings. We must not allow our emotions though to control us or to cause us to be angry at God for these things that happen to us. He knows what's best. He has a plan. Somehow, our sorrow and grief, our hope and joy, our peace through it all, fits into His plan. His plan, this time, was for this baby to join him in heaven and not be here with us on this earth. Even though that makes me sad for the moment, I trust God that this is for the best in His big picture of things.

As I go through this loss, physical discomfort, and the emotions and uncertainty of the unknown then my prayer is that God would be glorified through it. My prayer is that somehow, through my pain and sorrow, someone that is far from God, can be brought closer to Him. If that is how God chooses to use me, then despite my human emotions and physical discomfort, I am honored to be used by God.

I believe through times like this, I can become more Christ-like. After all, isn't that what Jesus did for us? He came to this earth to experience pain, discomfort, and loss so that we could know that He cares for us and relates to us. Hebrews 4:15 says, "This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin." Maybe God can use my experience of sorrow, sadness, or physical discomfort to help me relate to someone who needs to know that God loves them. Maybe I can be a light to someone that otherwise I couldn't have connected with. Only God knows and I choose to trust Him. I pray that in my sad moment, I can be an encouragement to someone else.

Recently, a friend shared some scripture when she was going through a hard time. She didn't know that I was going through a hard time too but God used her to encourage me. The verse was in Habakkuk 3 verses 17 through 19:

"Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vines; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the LORD! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation! The Sovereign LORD is my strength! He makes me as surefooted as a deer, able to tread upon the heights."