I believe in God. I know He is there, and part of my life, and I know that He interacts with me. When I hear Him speak to me, directly or through others, I rely on the words and pictures He gives me. I don’t ever want to stop doing that. But I nearly did.
In October, I went to the Filling Station (relaxed “church” on a Friday night). Someone prayed for me and gave me a word – the word was fertility, and during his prayer he told me that I didn’t need to worry because it was done. 5 days later, I had a positive pregnancy test. I knew the joy of discovering I was pregnant, coupled with a reassurance that came from my belief that this pregnancy was from God. He had told me not to worry; He had spoken about my pregnancy before I knew of it. So I didn’t worry and I trusted that it was part of God’s plan and that this pregnancy was protected by Him.
That made the miscarriage really difficult. All miscarriages are hard, and ours was no exception. We couldn’t understand why God would tell us we were pregnant and not to worry, and then take it away.
This isn’t a post about my recovery, so I won’t go into that, but eventually, through more encounters with God a little while later, I worked out what I should have understood a long time ago. God is not a fortune teller. He doesn’t tell me what my future holds. He doesn’t promise me that my life will be wonderful if I will only be obedient to Him. God asks me to trust Him. It’s that simple. Not to trust Him to make my life good, or to trust Him that I will be happy. Just to trust Him.
Sometimes my husband surprises me, by taking me out to do something I’ll enjoy. I always ask him where we are going or what we are doing, and he tells me to trust him. I struggle enough to trust that he has planned something that I will enjoy, even when I know that’s what he has done. How much harder is it to trust God when we just have to trust Him that what He has planned for us is necessary and part of a plan we don’t understand, rather than that it is something that will make us happy.
Pain makes it harder still to do that, because we can’t understand why God has asked us to trust Him, and has then allowed us to get hurt. I don’t really have a satisfactory answer to that. What could God possibly have in mind that would make a miscarriage OK? What could we possibly be expected to learn, how could God’s plan possibly be furthered, through a miscarriage? I have no idea what the answer is, but I do know that I still trust Him. And that trust goes deeper now, and is a little more grown-up I think. I make the decision to be obedient to God with a clearer idea of the sacrifices that it might entail, but willing to be obedient to Him regardless. Maybe that’s what I had to learn.
And I still listen out for Him, and I will still rely on the words and pictures He gives me. I won’t assume that I understand them fully every time, and I know that He will keep on surprising me. And I don’t need those words or pictures in order to be obedient to Him. God has given us the Bible, and other Christians, and the structure of the Church – all these things teach us how to be obedient to Him, and teach us of the sacrifice and pain that sometimes comes to us regardless. We are not obedient to Him in return for something else or because that guarantees us happiness. Instead we are simply obedient because He is God, and He is worthy of it, and so much more.