Constantly Amazed

I don’t know how He did it. I really still can’t figure it out.

After Amy and I had been here in Indonesia for 90 days, we looked at each other in despair and said, “The last three months has been so hard, how will we ever make it three years?” After six months, we still weren’t comfortable here in this country, but at least we were much more comfortable with our job. Then we had the miscarriage. With the hopes of seeing our first child gone, we both devised fantastic plans for escaping the country (such plans seemed necessary considering the school keeps our passports locked up for just such a circumstance and exit visas take time to obtain and require approval by the government). We projected our anger, grief and sadness onto a country we already disliked. Add to that the discouragement and difficulty we were already experiencing and you can understand why we very badly wanted to leave Indonesia and never return.

But then something happened – somehow, without us even noticing. Only two months later, we found ourselves saying things like, “I actually feel at home here now.” Or even, “It would be good to go home and visit, but I don’t think I could ever go back to stay.” It surprised us to hear those statements in our own voices. Even stranger, we both attributed our new attitudes to the miscarriage. In some bizarre heavenly exchange, God took tragedy and pain and turned it into peace and joy. How does something like that happen? I wish I could tell you, but I don’t understand it entirely myself. Perhaps that’s why Scripture speaks of the “peace of God which surpasses all understanding.” I suspect it has something to do with our response to the miscarriage. While we had the initial burst of anger that comes with trauma, we quickly turned to God for comfort. One of the wonderful things about the isolation of this place is that we have nowhere else to turn but to Him. We quite simply felt we would no longer be able to handle our circumstances in this place unless God took care of us. And He did.

A turning point occurred when we remembered the prayer we made when we first became pregnant. We told God that this child belonged to Him – we were only stewards – and therefore He may do with this child as He pleased. While it grieved us to lose our child, we realized it was God’s right to take His child into Paradise early (imagine going straight to heaven without ever having to experience the pain of this world). Somehow, in the great scheme of things, this was what was best. At this realization, our anger vanished and our pain disappeared. It was…miraculous. We had submitted ourselves and our child to God and He had responded by guarding our hearts and our minds. But it didn’t end there. God was strengthening our faith as He also stretched it. For only through sorrow can we really know God’s faithfulness. Without it, our knowledge of His faithfulness is only academic. To truly “know” something means to experience it for yourself. And so, we came to understand that losing our child truly was best for both us and the baby. If I had not experienced this myself, I would not have believed it even possible to say such a thing.

As it turns out, God’s promises are true. He is faithful through adversity. There really can be rejoicing in the midst of pain. It is possible to patiently endure suffering. He always provides exactly what we need, though not necessarily what we want. Sometimes God’s desire is to carry us through our circumstances rather than change them. But we can be sure that though He may not grant us our wishes, He will be faithful to His character – and His character is good; so completely, wonderfully good.