When Loss is Gain . . .

I woke up before my 5am alarm this morning and lay coverless in the dark of a warmer-than-usual winter morning. It had been another one of those my-brain-won’t-turn-off kind of sleepless nights. So I rolled out of bed, pulled on my Nikes, and drove to the gym in Jon’s little green Geo.

As I pulled my sixteen week preggo body onto the treadmill between college girl running six minute intervals on my right and 85 year old Dick hunch-walking on my left, I pressed buttons and started moving my feet. As my feet flew faster, I looked down at my baby-belly, remembered my OB appt. in a few hours, and I wondered, as I’d been wondering all night long:

 Will God-grace keep little heart beating, or does He have other plans?

Over eight years ago, when I was preggo with #1, I never wondered if God would take un-named baby Home. Back then I didn’t fear loss because, for the most part, life had gone as I thought it should.

Then REAL life happened and I learned the hard way: life doesn’t always follow my plans because God’s ways are not my ways and His thoughts are not my thoughts. And in the midst of real-life-sorrow I asked myself for the first time: Is God good when he allows loss and pain? How on earth can I live God is Good when I don’t see any good?!

And as I ran this morning I asked myself—What if good is taking baby #7 Home at sixteen weeks? Will I know this loss as God-grace, God-goodness?

 In morning light, I realized this: my sleepless night revealed my heart’s struggle to rest in God is Good—all the time!

 And in morning light God whispered soft: in moments of doubt, of fear—remember.

 Remember how I showed mercy, turning loss into gain—

♦giving you and Jon mentors—Dawn and Mike—when you’d lost family and church and reputation and thought the weight was too heavy to bear;

♦blessing you with Shari—that rare kindred-spirit friend—who listens and loves with her life;
♦freeing BOTH you and your sister Rachel from the pain of the past, freeing you to love each other unconditionally as blood-sisters.
♦protecting you and Jon—just last September—from hell-bent-on-hurting-you family members.
♦blessing you and Jon with three wild, healthy boys.
♦revealing to you—again and again—the true nature of your wandering heart so you can turn to Me.

And so much more . . .

So when dark clouds gather in my brain—when self-pitying what if’s and if only’s  threaten to drown God is Good I echo the Psalmist’s words:

Will the Lord cast off forever? And will He be favourable no more?  Has His mercy ceased forever? Has His promise failed forevermore?  Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in anger shut up His tender mercies?  And I said, "This is my anguish; but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High."  I will remember the works of the Lord; surely I will remember Your wonders of old. (Psalm 77: 7-12)

And I claim this promise as my own: “I remain confident of this--I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the Living.” (Psalm 27:13).

And this afternoon, as Jon and I and our three blond-headed boys sat still in tiny Dr’s office, praying for the swoosh-swoosh of baby #4’s heart beat, we heard the goodness of the Lord in the land of the Living:

 Swoosh-swoosh, swoosh-swoosh, swoosh-swoosh.

Only 14 and 1/2 weeks here--need a new photo! But you can see the belly!

And we sang out loud: Praise the Lord! He is good!