The God Who Stays. For Real


I thought I had learned so much and done so much healing after Nate died. It took time, but I could see where God had been during my ordeal. I had a testimony. I wasn’t bitter. I was ok. 


And then I lost another pregnancy. Earlier this time. It was a missed miscarriage. Around 8 weeks, I went from lightly spotting to heavily hemorrhaging. I had emergency surgery to stop the bleeding. It was a very traumatic event. Traumatic because I had lost another baby, but I think even more because I lost a lot of blood. 


After I got home and I was going to be ok, I began to wonder why God didn’t stop this from happening. I do not believe that He “did” this to me. He doesn’t make bad things happen. But surely he can’t stop them? Surely he can miraculously save a situation. He’s God after all. And all I had asked of him was that this pregnancy was healthy. That this baby was safe. He could have breathed life into my baby, he could have prevented the pregnancy if it wasn’t meant to be. There were so many things that could have gone differently, and yet there I was, suffering this great trauma. 


I sat with this for weeks. Wrestling this question. Why was it so hard for Him to just do me this one thing? I don’t understand! 


But it suddenly became clear to me what the answer was one day. I was driving alone in my van on my way home from having lunch with a friend. I can a lot of thinking and reflecting in my van alone. I had been talking with my friend and we had discussed my struggles and my questions. As I mulled over the words we had exchanged, I suddenly understood. 


God is not a puppet master. He doesn’t control our lives. He gave us free will so that we would freely love him. And who was I that I was so much more important than everyone else? Why should he control just the things that happen to me? And if I am not so special, not in that way, then he would be answering and controlling little things for everyone that asked. And then free will would be lost. 


Did I want my children to say they loved me because I did things for them? Because I bought things for them? No. I want them to love me because they choose to. Because I am their mother and they are my beloved children. If we are made in our Father’s image, how much more are we beloved to Him? How much more does he want us to love him because of who he is to us, and not what he does for us? 




The nature of life with humans who are imperfect and who live in a fallen world with free will is that bad things are bound to happen. Traumatic things are bound to happen. Sad things are bound to happen. We will stumble and we will struggle and we will endure hardships and sorrows. The nature of God is such that we will never have to do those things alone. He doesn’t control our lives and the things that we encounter. But he does stand with us and equip us to walk through them and survive them and grow because of or in spite of them. 

Location: South Carolina, USA

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