Thinking out loud

I read the comments on my last post, and one of them really resonated with me. Melissa over at A Familiar Path said she thought that maybe she had had her miscarriage so that she could identify with other women who had gone through the same thing. She said that she thought that maybe it was so that she could feel, and not just imagine, the pain of it.

Yes.

An answer.

At last.

One that makes my heart quiet down a bit. One that makes the questions whisper instead of shout in my mind.

Supposing that God wanted me to be able to minister to women who've gone through loss like that is a lot more gentle on my fragile heart than supposing that taking my babies away is His way of saying "Okay, you guys are done, no more babies, too bad!"

I know in my soul that the God I serve is not a cavalier, flippant Father Who crushes and does not build back up. I know that my God is not a Father Who casts down and does not raise up again. I deeply know now that my God is not a Father Who allows His daughter to live without filling my heart with that longed-for love of a Daddy.

I know that He isn't One who arbitrarily takes without replacing. He knows the beginning from the end and knew how we would walk this path. He knew, as He brooded over the vast expanse of nothingness, before the world was even spoken into being, that the past four years would happen to us, and He knows just how we will come out in the end.

I know that He chose me to be the mom of a stillborn baby and two other angel babies because He saw how it would shape me. He foreknew how it would force me to prostrate myself at the foot of the cross for my daily sustenance along this road. He knew that it would be a tremendous facet of my becoming.

My Father knew that, at times, the anguish would nearly steal my breath. He saw the nightly dreams of being lost in a strange place, filled with despair and tangible sorrow. He knew that the pain would cut like a newly sharpened sword, when I least expected it. He saw, before time, that the grief that I denied would wrench me from sleep, in the dark of my bed, drowning in agony. He saw the path that each hot tear would take as they track down my cheeks, and He would bottle every single one, calling each by name.

My Father knew that I would have no recompense but to throw myself at His mercy. He destined me to have no place else to go but to His arms.

Ultimately, it's all conjecture. In the end, nobody really knows the concrete why's of the curves our paths might take. We can never know the mind of God, or ever be His counselor. Romans 11:33-36 echoes this: "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and His ways past finding out. For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who has ever been His counselor? Or who has first given to Him and it shall be recompensed to him again? For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Whom be the glory for ever. Amen."

I may never know, on this earth, His reasoning for taking my babies to be with Him before I got a chance to inhale them, to hold them, to see their smiles and touch their hearts.

But I can hear speculation, and I can listen to wise thoughts, and sometimes, the speculation and wise thoughts resonate within me. Maybe God sends those wise wonderings my way as a poultice for my open wounds. Perhaps. And yes, it's all conjecture, but I'm blessed with a measure of sought after peace in mulling over the many reasons. I think that's okay.

So Melissa, if you're reading this post, your comment ministered to me. It brought me much needed peace and quiet in my soul and mind today. You were the hands of Christ to me, binding up and easing. And maybe you and I won't know, this side of Heaven, why our babies aren't here, but conjecture leads us to the Lord. We have no place else to go, for He knows all the answers. I don't.

And that's okay with me.