By Merin Minch

"I'm so sorry. It looks like the baby stopped growing. I don't know why these things happen to good people."

My husband and I both wept as the nurse delivered these words to us. For the first time in my life, I was angry at God.

We were at our eight-week ultrasound appointment, and I felt an overwhelming sense of devastation I'd never felt before.

After graduating from pharmacy school, I began my residency program. It was around this time that we learned that we were also expecting our first child. I remember feeling a sense of awe and joy but also fear.

How am I going to complete residency with a new baby?

I was so afraid to go through the pregnancy during my program. Still, I dreamt about what this baby would be like, what our life would look like with this new addition, and even started looking at baby clothes.

All of that dreaming came to a halt the minute we learned that I would be miscarrying.

It just didn't seem fair. Why is it that after finally healing from childhood sexual abuse twelve years later, I now had to deal with a miscarriage?

“Maybe you weren't ready to be a mother."

"Maybe it's because you didn't have enough respect for the pregnancy."

"Maybe you ate something you shouldn't have?"

The voices of friends and family echoed through my head.

Even if any of those things were true, that doesn't explain why there are babies in the NICU being born with withdrawal symptoms from maternal alcoholism, I angrily thought.

My body held onto the pregnancy for another three weeks until it was time to take my pharmacy law exam. I started to bleed right before the exam, yet I took the test anyway. The tears streamed down my face, and I could barely read the questions.

The next day, I experienced hard contractions at 2 PM. I thought I knew what to expect, but nothing prepared me for what actually happened.

I had waves of painful contractions that became stronger and stronger until I gave birth to what should have been our baby at 2 AM.

For the next week or so, I felt like I was in a daze as I soon discovered that I had also failed my law exam and could not continue with the residency program.

I was not only childless, but now I was jobless.

It wasn't that I thought I was a good person and, therefore, undeserving of going through something difficult. Instead, I wondered why I needed to go through ANOTHER difficult trial after already dealing with one.

I've experienced hurt and betrayal from people throughout my life, a fact I knew was due to humans being fallen people plagued by the consequences of sin. However, God showed me how to forgive people and shrug off offenses since I am also a forgiven human.

But this felt like it was entirely out of human control. I had done everything right so why did this happen? I diligently ate the prenatals, researched all the things I should stop doing and start doing, and yet, I still miscarried. In the back of my mind, I knew the possibility of miscarrying was always there, but I naively thought God would spare me from walking that path after everything I’d already been through…and He didn’t. As a result, I felt betrayed by Him.

I watched as friends and family members gave birth to beautiful babies. I felt happiness for them but sorrowful for myself. I also remember how much it stung to sing Christmas carols about a baby after our loss. It seemed as if anything baby-related caused sadness.

I could theorize all I wanted about why this happened, but one thing was certain: all I had known about God's character now stood in question. So I sat with God for months in my pain and bitterness and began wrestling with everything I thought to be true about Him.

Slowly and painfully, He showed me how tightly I was holding onto things I should be ready to let go of at any second. That included my children, my husband, my job, my home, and anything else.

Was God truly enough for me more than any of these things?

And as I was processing through my shame and questioning my faith, I received an answer.

"For He gives His sunlight to both the evil and the good, and He sends rain on the just and the unjust alike." -Matthew 5:45

As I continued through the day chewing on these words, I realized God didn't necessarily betray me by giving me another trial. Good and bad things happen to us regardless of a person's character or effort outside of the consequences of personal choice.

As I wrestled, God continued to show me how much He cares for those who have lost little ones.

He revealed to me through His word that King David specifically stopped mourning when his son died. Here was David's response:

"But now that he is dead, why should I keep fasting? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he cannot return to me." -2 Samuel 12:23

How merciful it was for God to let us know that our children are indeed with Him in heaven! He didn't have to include that, and yet He did.

Then God showed me something I'd never seen before. I saw that seven couples in the Bible struggled with infertility. SEVEN. They are:

Abraham and Sarah
Isaac and Rebekah
Jacob and Rachel
Hannah and Elkanah
Manoah and his wife
The Shunammite woman and her husband
Elizabeth and Zachariah

What I noticed about each of their stories is that they, too, faced the bitterness and loneliness of being childless. Their emotions were real and some made unwise choices due to doubting God. Yet their emotions and faith co-existed together. And God, in His perfect timing, answered in a way that would give Him the glory.

Once again, God didn't have to include their stories in Scripture, yet He did.

Their stories permitted me to grieve bitterly but that wasn't all.

Their stories didn't end with just grief. I, like them, have a choice to put my hope in Someone greater than myself. It is a choice I have to make daily. They chose to hope in the Lord even when He didn't answer their prayers, and now I had been given the opportunity to do the same.

By the time we experienced our second miscarriage, through my sadness, I felt a strange sense of peace that I didn't have the first time. I didn't feel abandoned by God.

Having walked through the pain of miscarriage and coming face-to-face with life’s fragility gave me a deeper understanding of God’s love for myself and for those who have also walked in this pain since the beginning of time.

As much as I wish those babies were with us today, I am thankful for the certainty of knowing that they have gone directly into the arms of my Savior from my womb without knowing the pain and suffering this world brings.

And how true it is that apart from Christ, many will find themselves at a crossroads of choosing between a life of eternity with Christ or an eternity of separation from Christ?

How sweet it is to know that the God who promised to walk with us through life’s sorrows also transformed death into a gateway to an eternity with Him that is free of pain and suffering for those who believe in Him.

This same God offers a life of eternity with Christ that is also for right now. Because of this, I can walk through this life presently with joy and an abundance of hope for what is to come because the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead lives in me and is with me also. (See Romans 6:10-11).

Because of this, although I may have been struck down again, I was not destroyed.

It is for this reason that Job was able to say:

"Naked, I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away, but blessed be the name of the Lord." -Job 1:21

I finally learned to treasure Him more than His ability to give me what I asked of Him AND be okay, even if His answer was "no," because I have Him.

The truth is that there is no hope outside of Him.

In the end, He is all I will ever have.

He is enough.

"My heart was saying,

'Lord, take away this longing, or give me that for which I long.'

The Lord was answering,

'I must teach you to long for something better.' "

-Elisabeth Elliot

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