Learning to Trust God
Today is my daughter’s first birthday. But instead of watching her dig into her birthday cake or seeing the way her eyes light up as she opens her presents, I’ll be taking flowers to her grave and making a donation in her honor. Meanwhile, she’ll be celebrating in heaven in the presence of Jesus with two of her older siblings.
In 2021, while my husband and I were on a trip to celebrate our wedding anniversary, we had a pregnancy scare. At the time, we already had five children and growing our family more was nowhere in our plans. We were content and considered ourselves done having children. So when I thought I might be pregnant again, I reacted by having an emotional breakdown. (Of course, I’d move past that and love that baby, but I needed time to deal with the shock first.) Once I calmed down and decided to take it to God, I very clearly heard him say, “Trust me. Be still and know.” In that instant, like the flip of a switch, my heart concerning having another child completely changed and I somehow knew that whether then or later, we would have another one. In a later conversation with my husband, he revealed that he felt the same way.
I turned out to not be pregnant then, but from that point, we did start actively trying to conceive. One day, I prayed about what our baby’s name would be. I’m not sure what led me to do so as I didn’t do that with our other children, but I’m so glad I did because God answered, and the meaning of that name is so perfect and beautiful. For months, we tried, and we prayed…and we were consistently met with disappointment. And for months, I questioned why God gave me the desire to have another baby and then wouldn’t allow me to become pregnant. But through my dreams, he continued to make that promise and to tell me to trust him, so I clung to the promise in those dreams and in the name he had told me.
After eleven months and fifteen days, we finally got that positive test result. For our next anniversary, we scheduled our first ultrasound. We also bought a stuffed animal and outfit for our little one. A few days later, I awoke one morning from a dream in which I’d had an ultrasound that showed three babies, two in one sac and one in another. It had felt so real that for the first few seconds after waking up, I thought it was.
At my first doctor’s appointment, we learned that something might be wrong, but it was too early to say for sure. We spent the next twelve days in fervent prayer, hoping that when we went back, everything would be okay. But when we went back, they couldn’t detect our baby’s heartbeat, and we were told that I’d had a missed miscarriage, meaning that our baby had passed away without my body actively miscarrying. One week later, I did miscarry.
I was angry at God and blamed him. I yelled at him, asking if that was his plan all along, to give us a baby only to take it away. But despite my angry and grief-filled words, he responded to me with patience and understanding. He gently reminded me of all the dreams I’d had over the previous year. In every one, I was pregnant. In the one dream in which I gave birth, it was at home (where I later miscarried), and in that dream, I passed out right after giving birth, so I never actually dreamed of life after having the baby. He had promised I would become pregnant again, and I did. But what really got me was the profound love I felt from him. In my angriest moment toward him, he poured his love out to me in a way I had never felt before.
After the heartache of losing that baby, I never wanted to risk going through that again. But I still couldn’t shake the desire that God had placed in my heart, and I was reminded of his words to trust him, so we decided to do just that and try again. To our surprise, we got pregnant the first month (almost three months after losing our other baby). We thought that God would surely let us keep that one. We thought about when and how we would share our news. We looked at baby items online. We picked out a (gender neutral) name after our two best friends, which also has a perfectly beautiful meaning. We were so full of hope. But exactly one week after that positive test result, we had to say goodbye to that baby too.
Despite that some healthcare professionals say that it’s okay to conceive right away after a miscarriage, we later learned that others advise waiting longer because you’re at a higher risk of miscarrying again if you conceive within the first three months. Maybe that was why we lost that baby too. After that loss, I thought we had to be done. But that desire just wouldn’t go away. I prayed and prayed that it would, but instead of God taking it away, he reminded me of the triplet dream. It felt like there was a promise in that dream—that the two babies in the sac together were the two we lost, and the one in the separate sac was one who we would actually get to meet. So we once again decided to put it in God’s hands and trust him.
This time we waited four months. I woke up from a dream one morning in which we’d had another baby. In the dream, I wasn’t pregnant but had already had the child. He/she sat on my lap as I watched our other kids, and I played with his/her locks of hair. Just like with the triplet dream, I felt a promise that we would get to know our next baby. Three days later, I found out I was pregnant again. At my first ultrasound, we heard our baby’s heartbeat and everything seemed to be going well. We got to announce our pregnancy and tell of God’s faithfulness to our family and friends. At thirteen weeks, we learned we were having a girl, and even did a gender reveal for our family…
But then we heard the word “anencephaly.” If you’ve never heard that term, like I never had, it’s a neural tube defect in which the top part of a baby’s skull doesn’t form, causing an underdeveloped brain. It has a 0.00% survival rate. But I believed with everything in me that God was going to perform a miracle and heal her. I prayed, and then I prayed some more. I had all the faith. And then I prayed even more. No part of me doubted. But I also prayed time and time again that not my will but his would be done. There was nothing I could do but trust him.
I dreamed that when I gave birth, she was healed. I dreamed that we got time with her. But none of it worked out in the way I was hoping for. We did get time with her. We got 41 beautiful weeks of pregnancy with her. That in itself is a miracle after my miscarriages and history of preterm labor. And I feel that, in a way, we got to know her personality so well. We got the most precious few seconds with her after she was born before she passed away peacefully in my arms. And you know what? She had the same hair as in my dream before I knew I was pregnant. I did hold her while watching her siblings. And she is healed and whole now. Though her life and the lives of our other two babies were short, they still had meaning and made a profound impact that has affected who I am and everything I’ve done since.
A couple of weeks after losing her, I had a vision that I was holding all three of our babies, but they were pulled from my arms by an invisible force. I sang the line, “Run up ahead, and I will catch up” (from Colton Dixon’s “The Other Side”), as they ran ahead of me. They were so happy, running and laughing together, and I knew where they were going. Then they went up to heaven on a cloud. Peering over the edge of the clouds, they looked down at me from so far away. I knew they missed and loved me too. I fell to the ground, sobbing, and Jesus was beside me, holding me as he wept too. I knew he understood my pain. He felt it too. I told him, “I miss them,” and he said, “I know.” I said, “I love them.” He replied, “I do too, and I will take the best care of them.” He didn’t mean it like he’ll take better care of them than I could, though I know he will, but like he will cherish and look after them for me until I’m able to join them. He continued to hold me as we sat next to each other, my head on his shoulder, and both of us crying. Though I was still upset, I was also filled with peace and comfort that didn’t make sense at the moment, but I knew it was from him.
I’ve learned that God doesn’t make bad things happen in order to test us or punish us or for whatever other reason. A God who is all good could never orchestrate such evil, and he is all good. He doesn’t need evil’s help in carrying out his will. He is greater than that. He is also the definition of love. A Father who loves us so much that he sent his only son to pay the price for our sins and to make us right with him, does not relish in our pain and suffering. I can’t answer why he prevents some things while allowing others, but bad things happen because the world is broken and rampant with sin. Jesus suffered too. God didn’t make my babies die. He hates death even more than we do. Jesus came and did what he did in order to defeat sin and death. When those bad things do happen though, God is right there with us. He gives us the strength to make it through when that thing should destroy us. He comforts us even though feeling comforted seems impossible. He gives us hope when all we see around us is darkness. He loves us even when we blame him for things that aren’t his fault.
I find comfort in knowing that when my pain feels overwhelming, when it feels isolating, at the moments when I feel like I can’t come up for air, God understands more than anyone else ever could. Our Father once lost his child too. Jesus wept. And he once felt forsaken after the Father didn’t allow the cup to pass from his hands. And because he gets it, he’s uniquely able to comfort us, drawing us closer to himself.
I’ve said that we “lost” our babies, but the truth is God didn’t fail us and they are far from lost. Because of what Jesus did, I know exactly where they are. They’re in his presence, living a life more beautiful than I could possibly imagine, and there is no greater victory than that. Even if I could, I would never take them from where they are now. And our goodbyes are not forever. I’ll see them again, and when that day comes, we’ll never have to be apart again. In the meantime, I get to spend the rest of this life looking forward to an eternity with not only them, but with our Lord and Savior too.
I thought I fully trusted God before, but I didn’t even know what that meant. I still tried to make plans. I wanted to know the answers. I wanted assurances. But he gave me a desire I couldn’t escape and then ripped all those things away from me, leaving me with nothing but him. If I was still the person I was before, I don’t think I’d be able to do this author thing. But there is something so freeing about trusting him completely.
“‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo.
’So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.’”