Choosing to Trust God

I really didn't even feel like writing this, but figured it might help to get my feelings down. What a roller coaster I've been on the past few weeks.

I think we, as mothers, know deep down--it's that maternal instinct--when something isn't right about a pregnancy. From the moment I got that first positive pregnancy test with Hannah, I was so excited, and so at peace about it. I just "knew" that everything was going to be fine, even in moments of doubt as I got further along in the pregnancy.

This time I didn't have that same excitement. Rather, something didn't feel quite right from the very beginning. I didn't want to admit it at the time, though. I was hoping that the feeling was wrong. As the pregnancy progressed, my body was telling me by the way it was acting that something was up. Even when I got the news that my beta number had risen back up and I had that first initial surge of excitement at the possibility there may be some hope, after a couple of days I just "knew" it wasn't going to end well. Sure enough, at the ultrasound yesterday--at 8 weeks, 2 days--we saw a still-empty gestational sac, with no heartbeat. And the sac had begun to collapse on itself even more and was very irregular in shape. It didn't surprise me at all. Deep down I already knew.

It has been a hard pill to swallow. I waited so long to finally be pregnant again with a second child, and endured several very early losses - the kind you only find out about if you test before your period is due, and now this one--that lasted for several weeks--only to have it end as well. And yet, as painful as this is, I refuse to get bitter or give up hope. Instead, I will say: "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." That may be hard for some to understand, but I know that I serve a God who is faithful and true, who only has our best interest at heart. How can I not trust Him? Just because things don't go my way? Just because life seems so cruel and unfair sometimes? We live in an imperfect world, in imperfect bodies, and our finite minds struggle to understand the mind of an infinite God.

Sometimes we do get a glimpse of the reason. We might look back on a particular trial and say, "Okay, that's why I had to go through that." Maybe we came to a new understanding about something, or learned a particular lesson. But many times we do not know the reason. I choose to trust God with the reason. He is, after all, more trustworthy than I am.