I think the first week of March will forever be one of heartache for my family and I. Not only was Aiden originally due on March 4th, but my mom's birthday is March 5th and it had been a date that she had forced us to memorize early-on by utilizing the all-numeric version of it (i.e. mm-dd-yy). Even my first bank card pin number used to be her birthday, not my own birthday. It makes me laugh to think about the genius behind it. We will never forget her birthday, ever.
For those of you who know my family, we lost my dear mom in September of 2019 to cancer. Her struggle was a long one, even before the cancer. This picture of our family was the last one that I remember taking with all of us together - taken in 2017. My mom hated having her photo taken. However, this day was different. Earlier that year she had been given a second chance for life. She received a liver transplant and the hope for a new life. Going to the pumpkin patch that day was her idea and we were all excited about it because it really was a rarity for our family to be able to go out and do something fun with my mom. I was on top of the world - I was pregnant with Aiden at the time and we finally had our mom back. She had her life back and the hope of many more family events like this one.
Fast forward only a few months later, Brad and I lost our Aiden in the 8th month of the pregnancy. Around the same time, we discovered that my mom had stage 4 cancer in her throat and it had spread to her lungs. We were all devastated. We had thought she was finally at a point where she was going to be able to move on from her suffering but we were wrong. After the liver transplant, we had thought we were going to be able to raise our children with all of their grandparents present but suddenly that was no longer the case. Unfortunately, God had other plans.
God had other plans. A phrase heard often by anyone experiencing grief and loss. Death is unnatural to us because we were meant to live. Losing a son in 2018, and a mother in 2019, I have become fearful of loss. Nothing has been more painful in my entire life and I am terrified of losing someone else that I love. Sometimes, it is difficult to remember that we all belong to God. My family belongs to God, not to me.
"For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities - all things were created through him and for him," (Colossians 1:16, ESV).
Ultimately, God desires us to be with Him. In John 14: 2-4, He talks about having prepared a place for us so that we may be with Him. Though we may not understand why He takes some people sooner than others, we must trust that He weeps with us during our loss and He hears our heartache.
I love the way Lee Strobel writes about it in his book, "The Case for Faith." Lee Strobel, an investigative journalist, set out to ask the tough questions that many people struggle with when it comes to faith in God. One of those being, "Why does a good God allow people to suffer?" During one of his interviews, a philosopher named Peter Kreeft is telling him a simple story of a father watching a daughter try to thread a needle. Over and over again, she ends up pricking her finger - even to the point of bleeding. However, instead of interfering, he lets his daughter continue to try on her own until she is victorious. "Now, certainly God is much wiser than I was with my daughter. So it's at least possible that God is wise enough to foresee that we need some pain for reasons which we may not understand but which he foresees as being necessary to some eventual good. Therefore he's not being evil by allowing that pain to exist," (Strobel, 18).
God doesn't promise that life as a Christian is going to be easy, but he does promise to love us and to counsel us. "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose," (Romans 8:28, ESV). Take Job, for instance. Job was a good and godly man that God actually chose to allow Satan to pour out unimaginable suffering on. Though Job was "blameless" and "upright," Satan did all but take Job's life. Job lost his sheep, servants, his 10 children, and even experienced terrible skin sores all over his body. He became bitter, anxious, and scared but still persevered and finally acknowledged that God's power is unlimited and that his human knowledge is limited.
We must choose to persevere even during the hardest of times.
"Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us," (Romans 5:3-5, ESV).
Jesus personally knows the pain of loss and suffering. He can be our guide and our peace when we experience our own pain and suffering. We just have to let Him.
For those that are currently experiencing some Job-like pain, I would encourage you to check out Lisa Harper's study on Job; A Story of Unlikely Joy. I feel it has helped me in this season of my life and I hope that it will do the same for many others.
God bless,
Strobel, Lee. The Case for Faith, Student Edition. Zondervan, 2001.
Strobel, Lee. The Case for Christ, Student Edition. Zondervan, 2001.
Harper, Lisa. Job; A Story of Unlikely Joy. Lifeway Press, 2018.
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