When Everything Falls Apart

A few years ago, Mike and I were driving home from Atlanta, and as I read the first sentence of an email, I inhaled so sharply at the shocking words I scared my poor husband to death! It was utterly involuntary because the news was that difficult.

I sat there stunned and heartbroken at the words, not knowing how to respond. I have no touchstone for this. I thought I knew God’s ways, but I don’t understand how this happened. There was so much prayer, faith, and belief. 

My friend was going through a desperately difficult trial. One of her children was dealing with a medical issue, and the diagnosis and treatment were as difficult as any family should have to endure. This child’s life has been spared for now, but the family’s future has been altered forever.

I’d been praying along with many others and believing for months that God, in His mercy, would provide a miracle and wonderful testimony for this family.

But God, in His mercy, didn’t.

God allowed in His mercy what He could have prevented by His power.

They walked the path of irretrievable tragedy. My question is, why are our lives allowed to be devastated sometimes? Is God really merciful, or do I not recognize His mercy when it’s most severe? Romans 11:33 says, how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out.

I’ve had seasons where I felt God was completely unsearchable, and I couldn’t begin to fathom His judgments. He seemed so hard and mean and totally unmerciful.

When our daughter was 18 months old, I discovered I was pregnant with baby number 2. I lost the baby at 8 weeks due to an ectopic (tubal) pregnancy that nearly killed me and put me in the hospital for four days. I survived, but my dreams of a houseful of children didn’t. There was no repair for my messed-up insides, in vitro wasn’t an option, and three adoption attempts fell through. All signs pointed to raising an only child. And I didn’t like it one bit. I write more about our struggles with infertility here.

I’m the woman who always saw myself with five kids, crumbs, and chaos everywhere because I knew I could handle it. No one clued me in that just because you’re following God, He’s not obligated to fulfill your every desire. I learned early on that He’s not a genie in a bottle who is required to give me the life I want.

To say I was ticked at God is an understatement.

I’m ashamed to say how many nights I tiptoed out of the bedroom to go into a room across the house, cry my eyes out, and yell at God. “I’m a good parent,” I’d express through tears, “I’d never do that to my child!” Or, ‘How could you God? I thought you loved me?”

I’m a little embarrassed now to admit that was my attitude, but it was. I simply couldn’t see at the time why He allowed Mike and I to raise an only child. I didn’t know He was preparing her for the life He was calling her to. That reality was off my radar screen back then. It’s clear now that giving her the time, attention, and opportunities to walk fully into her calling would require our full focus while raising her. But neither of us could see it back then.

Eventually, I released my bitterness against Him as I realized the hard way that His ways are not my ways and His ways are much higher than mine. His mercy seemed mighty severe at the time and not much like mercy at all, but when the dust settles, the fog lifts and the years pass, it’s easy to see that it is indeed mercy. It’s just not in its nice Sunday wrapping. He transformed our understanding of mercy, and we learned,

His greatest mercy is sometimes wrapped in His deepest test.

Joseph went through severe trials that could make any person of faith falter. Yet after rising to the 2nd highest position in Egypt, he completely understood why God allowed the trials.

“ God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now, it was not you who sent me here, but God.” Gen 45:7-8a

Here’s what I’ve learned about mercy:

·       Mercy has a bigger purpose than our happiness.

·       Mercy has a plan.

·       Mercy makes itself plain in time.

·       Mercy is misunderstood.

When trials come that devastate, we can’t see the mercy, only the devastation. We can’t see God in it, but I promise you, He is there, and He feels everything we feel and sees every single tear. His mercy is absolute; no matter what we go through, we will eventually see His hand.

I know mercy is in the trial my friend is going through right now.

She can’t see it through the severity, the finality, and utter heartbreak, but I’m praying she will. Praying one day, she’ll see that in His tender mercy, God allowed what He could have prevented. He always has the bigger picture in mind. He sees the end from the beginning, and if He allows it, I can only bow in worship and remember that in it all…

…He is after not my happiness but my highest good.