How do I introduce Emily? I thought about listing her talents, but I got a little worried I might forget some. If you want to be amazed by the scope of her accomplishments you can visit her website here. Emily is always an honest writer, not afraid to show her soul and bare her secrets. She is an encouragement to me and one of the sweetest women I’ve ever encountered. Ever. You can read more of her words on her blog, Imperfect Prose.
Thank you Emily, for sharing your heart here.
Weak voices of a congregation singing Great is Thy Faithfulness on a Sunday, and it’s the quiet chorus of farmers and families made humble by the death of a young mother to a brain aneurism, and sometimes the stained glass seems to mock for all of its color.
Thank you Emily, for sharing your heart here.
Weak voices of a congregation singing Great is Thy Faithfulness on a Sunday, and it’s the quiet chorus of farmers and families made humble by the death of a young mother to a brain aneurism, and sometimes the stained glass seems to mock for all of its color.
The words are dry, and I’m remembering another. The baby who flailed her arms, this daughter of friends who waited eight years to conceive. The doctors have no answers, and I thought I did, but they become nothing in the face of a child suffering. Nothing compared to tears leaking helpless from eyes so young and I wipe them away but I cannot erase the seizure.
And I have no voice for hymns that have no heart, and where is God’s heart?
It’s a question age-old. I’ve never truly asked it, but I do that night. If God is good, how can he allow such bad? I speak into a kitchen emptied of friends and wine glasses and cards. Even watching Mum battle brain cancer, I’d still sung the hymns, for she’d lived a full life and though it was hard, she’d danced, but this: this watching a baby die who’s known no life—no bike ride or Sweet 16 or diploma or pay check, I cannot. So how can He? The One who claims to be good, to be love? How can he not reach cosmic hand to wipe the pain away?
I don’t expect an answer, don’t want one, but it is given. My husband says he believes God selects these child-souls special, offers them a choice: To go through life and live a long one, full of health and joy, but then, to end in hell for not knowing him. Or, for their time on earth to be a fast blur of pain, only to return to heaven to live for eternity…
This, he says, is the only way he can keep on believing.
I remember the words of another wise man who said, it isn’t why a good God allows bad things to happen, but rather, why do good things happen at all? We are, after all, so undeserving.
The stained glass reflects across bent shoulders of a town singing faithful, and though weak, the voices are in tune. It’s a song we’ll be singing long after we’ve returned to heaven, a song we’ll dance to with children and mothers whose lives have been cut short only to last eternal…
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)
Beautiful. 🙂
LikeLike
i love you joann. i'm so, so honored to be here. and so thankful to you for daring to ask the hard questions. xo
LikeLike
Sweet loveliness… ❤
LikeLike
Visiting from Emily's…so much grief and mystery here…
LikeLike
God is good, all the time. Thanks Emily, I love your husband's way of trying to understand the incomprehensible. Thanks for you writing. It moves me.
LikeLike
smiling at your husbands thoughts…lovely write as always the stain glass on singing shoulders is a great image to end on…
LikeLike
With tears and no answers I write, as a mother of a little babe myself. Somehow your words find that light though Emily :)Drawing it through that stained glass of every colour and hue, illumimating the terrible darkness.
A beautiful post.
LikeLike
glad to visit here this morning . will have the hymn in my head as i go about my day . and the loss .
LikeLike
i love this so much. it is going in my keep file to share again and again. i have been one of those parents who asked why and God loved me through it. thank you my friend for sharing. i love Emily's writing.
LikeLike
Another reminder of how life is truly fragile. And not ours to begin with.
LikeLike
my friend died of a brain aneurysm in her early thirties, leaving behind three children. i was having life-saving surgery at the time. i don't honestly know why my life was spared and hers taken. sometimes, in this world of troubles, there is only faith to carry us through… and some day God will wipe every tear from our eyes. (i'm so very sorry to read of the loss of baby savannah, as well… i didn't know. prayers for both of these families, today…)
how He does love us all. how He weeps for us in our pain, and longs to enfold us in His arms and make us whole again…
LikeLike
“Why do good things happen at all?” This is what I need to remember; this is what I need to cling to. JoAnn and emily, you are both God's goodness to me.
LikeLike
Why do good things happen at all? I will need to repeat that over and over in good and bad times.
LikeLike
Such beautiful grappling Emily. Your faith is evident both in the wrestling, AND in the resting. Thank you for this.
LikeLike
Beautiful words. I have been struggling in this area as I have watched three friends lose their babies this year.
LikeLike
You are brave to ask the questions Em. I don't believe He is the least bit unhappy when we do. For some reason, He chooses not to answer, but rather to ask us a question in return. Do you trust Me? Do you believe I am who I say I am, and will you leave Your questions with Me for a while. There will come a day when it will all be made clear. In the meantime, I think (it has taken me so many years of doubts and fear and anger and bitterness to come to this place)we simply take His offered hand and trust.
LikeLike
This is timely for me today. As I read Ecc. this morning, I was trying to comprehend HOW it really could be better for a baby to be stillborn rather than live life. And I think your words have helped me work through that idea a little more today. Thank you…
LikeLike
From Imperfect Prose. Yes, I believe…we choose, like husband thinks…before birth, where we will be be.
But funny, I think, how often the weak are strong and the strong here….often weak.
So, who knows…why some go. Others stay. The order. Any patterns. Or how life robs days…
But I appreciate this wonderful expression of, in our confusion…these questions…we all ask.
When bad things happen to good people. And why…why does it happen, this early parting…in this upside down Kingdom.
LikeLike
excellent post
LikeLike
My hearted needed to read this–to be reminded of His goodness…especially when things seem less than good.
LikeLike
why do good things happen at all? a wise person said this to me recently, as well. and i had never thought it. believed we *deserved* good….
LikeLike
Hard questions…and I'm OK in saying I don't know all the answers to hard questions…but I do know, really know, that in Christ, nothing can separate me from His love. XOX
LikeLike
I love that truth – “why do good things happen at all”? I struggle with your questions here, lately. I try to wrap my brain around the fact that we humanly long to remain here on earth even though what awaits is puts all of this right to shame. I know God understands our grief, but I can't shake the feeling that he's also saying, “Trust me – it's way better HERE.”
LikeLike
*love* I came to a similar conviction as your husband after my second miscarriage. It occurred to me that heaven is populated by millions of souls who've known only the goodness of God in its fullness, my two included. I just love this thoughtful piece. Thank you, Alyssa
LikeLike
two of my favorites together—sweet!
such a touching post, miss em
as i still struggle with the loss of a young mother nearby.
love to you both.
xo
LikeLike