God’s real love in my real suffering

our precious baby John

Each night at VBS this week we’ve focused on a characteristic of God’s love: incredible, faithful, invincible, unconditional and real.

Last night the 4th and 5th grade girls in my group learned about the realness of God’s love. Both their craft-time and Bible-time teachers asked the girls if they could give examples from their own life of how we know God is real (even thought we cannot see Him). Several girls had stories to share, and they all went something like this:

My cousin’s baby had a hole in his heart but everyone prayed and now that baby is eleven.
My mom’s stepsister’s baby was sick before it was born and it was really scary but she’s okay now.
My sister’s extension umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck and she almost didn’t live, but she did.

Goodness, was it ever tough to sit there and hear those stories.

When the doctor listed off everything that was wrong with John, it made sense that he would die. But I believed God could make John whole. I believed (and still believe) God could have done some crazy heavenly fetal surgery and the doctors would have been speechless, and I could have gone on to birth a healthy, living baby, and people around the world who had been praying for us would have been able to point to John as an example of God’s love. He could have healed John, but He didn’t.

When I became pregnant with Jane, I battled fear constantly and I prayed constantly. I believed God was blessing us with a life after our loss. I believed God would rejoice in giving us a healthy baby, and I prayed that He would. He could have, but He didn’t.

God didn’t show His love to me by giving me what I prayed for. The evidence of God’s real love in my life does not look like what I thought it would (but it is still there). There have been many dark days when the choice to recall to mind God’s love and goodness has felt excruciating, but I HAVE that choice because His love IS real.

"I cry out, “My splendor is gone!
Everything I had hoped for from the Lord is lost!”

The thought of my suffering and homelessness
is bitter beyond words.
I will never forget this awful time,
as I grieve over my loss.
Yet I still dare to hope
when I remember this:

The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
His mercies never cease.
Great is his faithfulness;
his mercies begin afresh each morning.”

-Lamentations 3:18-23

We need these stories of real love during real suffering.
We need to remember God’s realness isn’t only found in “success stories” and prayers answered “yes.” We can experience God’s love throughout our times of trial — not just when the trial is over.

My story is not "God is real! He healed my babies."
My story is "God is real! He is healing me.”