Reading An Aspiring Professional Everything

When our lives go well, it is easy to be thankful. If we know God, and we accept that it is by His will alone that things have gone well, we of course give Him our thanks, as is His due. Being thankful is easy.

What about when things do not go well? Here the road becomes pitted and treacherous, indeed. Even if one can refrain from "blaming" God for something that has gone wrong, the next – and hardest -- step is to trust that, through God and the sacrifice of His only Son, we will have happiness, perhaps during but without fail after our time on Earth.

This is a platitude (regardless of its inherent truth). When we face a tragedy or even an inconvenience, we and those we love say, "It's all part of His plan." That it is true does not make it more helpful to say or hear. It is worthy of being said, but until things have actually improved somewhat, we -- or at least I -- have trouble believing it. Then there's the matter of believing in a "plan" in the first place, but that is an entirely different subject. Suffice it to say that I have come to believe that He does not have a pre-plotted checklist of individual events that He will cause in our lives, but rather I believe that He knows every decision we will ever make and every consequence that will ever follow, and that His plan is, in truth, the method by which we may be reconciled to Him through His Son, which He would have each of us follow. The greater purpose for this discussion, though, is trust, more appropriately called "faith."

Gratitude is easy; faith is hard. Graciousness is the natural response of one who lives in love to the presence of goodness in his or her life. Faith is what's required of that same person even -- if not especially -- in the absence of goodness. Let me give an example from my own recent experiences.

My wife and I have been talking about having a child for years. It's something we've been excited for since we first began talking about sharing the rest of our lives together. On June 22nd, we found out we were 5 weeks pregnant. What joy! I talked to God routinely, giving Him my praise and thanks for this blessing of blessings. We met with the clinic on our Air Force base to begin the process of finding a doctor or midwife and start getting ready to welcome a new life into the world. Life was good. We were happy, and I was thankful to my God for His work in my life.

On June 30th, my wife called me from work and described pain so severe she couldn't drive home. The ER doctor confirmed a few hours later that we had miscarried our first child at no fault of our own -- it was just a natural termination of a pregnancy that was not healthy for one reason or another. That it was outside our control did nothing to ease the pain in our hearts.

What should my response have been? I can't imagine that I should be expected by God to be happy or grateful (except, perhaps, grateful for the sake of our child that he or she was not born into a painful, unhealthy life). Certainly, I think it is reasonable to mourn. Anger, however, is not a reasonable reaction: to whom should I direct anger? My wife and I did nothing to cause the miscarriage. No one but God Himself could have caused or done anything about it, but we know that God does not cause His children pain, and allowing pain to occur in nature or as a result of our own choices is not the same thing. It is entirely unreasonable therefore and, indeed, a profound display of a lack of faith to be angry with God -- He did not cause our pain.

I believe our only course of useful action here is to practice and observe true faith in our God. Not faith that next time will be the time, or that there will ever be a day in which we conceive and bear into the world a child of our own. Certainly we hope for that day and that the next time will be it, but hope and faith are not the same thing. No, I believe our faith should be in the promise of eternal life and happiness given to us by the death for our sins of Jesus Christ.

Now there's a thing easier said than done. It doesn't exactly address the problem at hand; in the midst of one of the most horrific events of our lives thus far, we are supposed to turn entirely to faith in the promise of the next, eternal life?

Yep. Here's why.

I said before that hope and faith are not the same thing, but they are related. My faith in eternal happiness in the presence of God is what allows me to be hopeful here on Earth in the first place. Because I am free from worrying about the part of me that will endure (one way or another), I am also free to enjoy the hope of happiness in this life. This means I am able to be hopeful that the next time we get pregnant will be the right time, but it also means, because I have faith, that even if we are never able to have a child, I am still able to be happy (after all, plenty of God's children are in need of a home through adoption, etc.). That's pretty neat, if you ask me.

To summarize (and probably clarify -- I have a tendency towards rambling): thanks is easy, faith is hard. Thanks is easy because there is almost always something real and concrete that we are thankful for. Faith is hard because it requires that we rely on a promise (albeit a great promise). It is because we have faith, though, that we are free to be happy and thankful in the first place.

May your faith be unshakeable, your hope profound, and may God bless and keep you always!

Permalink

Posted in: Child of God

John, I am so sorry for your loss.  I am married for 23 years and have two children now.  Mathhew is 19 and Megan is 16.  Early in my marraige, I ended up in the ER.  The doctors thought I miscarried a baby.  It was very early too.  % weeks or so.  It was painful physically and the emotional pain was worse.  I aited five more years to start my family.  I wanted four children, but God gave me two.  I was not a woman who could have many children.  I was lucky to have the two I have. So I doted on them all their lives.  They are a blessing.  After my second was born, I could not have another child. Too risky.  Had some uterine surgery.  I guess I am tryin g to comfort you with my own personal story here.  I will pray for you.  God`s plan is often difficult to understand. I love children so much I would have had more.  But God gave me what he thought was best for me.  I accept that now.  So many people who should have children can`t and other`s who shouldn`t have them, get them. It doesn`t seem fair.  I do know that there are a lot of unloved and unwanted children in teh world.  Sometimes, we miscarry a child because there was a problem in the development.  God will have more gifts for you.  You have my sympathy and I empathize with you.  Stay strong in your faith and don`t blame God.  Amen

Hey man. I still have no chance of understanding the pain you have gone through, but the fact that you can hold to faith so strongly is a fact that you are a stronger man than I. Faith is somewhat difficult for me at times, but I know, I will pull through with His help. You are one of the few people I look up to, a small handful. You are strong in faith, and indeed, a blessed man to be able to contain such faith. People say how much I am like you, but this is one thing that sets us apart. I know I believe, but I will need time to find that kind of faith. Worry not that I won`t ever find this faith! I know, through the grace of God and His Son, I will find it in me. We are family, after all. Know that you both have my love, my sympathies, and will be in my prayers. I love you both so much, and may God bless you with a beautiful child, as i`m sure the time will come. We say he works in mysterious ways, and so he does. I tell you now, that will be the most beautiful boy or girl imaginable. Love you, so very much.