Sustaining Grace

If you ever feel like you can't catch a break, or even catch your breath, you are not alone.

If you are constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop because you feel like it usually does, you are not alone.

If you feel an unexplainable sense of peace and hope in the midst of your fear and doubt, you are not alone.

Life is not easy. Losing David rocked my world. His loss made life's blessings sweeter than ever before, but it also made me keenly aware of my fear of losing those blessings. I guess that I used to think that God would never let that happen to me because I was His child. When this false idea of security was abruptly ripped away, I found myself living in a new reality, and sometimes it is really hard.

One day during a session with with my grief counselor, I was telling her about my fear that God might take Tom, Benjamin or Caleb. She looked at me and said, "Rachael, just because God took David doesn't mean that He will take Tom, Benjamin or Caleb." "You are right," I replied, "but it also doesn't mean that He won't."

And therein lies my daily dilemma of trusting in the goodness of God and enjoying the fullness of His blessings, all the while knowing that the only thing that my Jesus has guaranteed me is that He will never forsake me.

Thankfully, God has demonstrated His love for me in many tangible ways along this journey, and one of those ways has been through family and friends who have come alongside me to love and encourage me.

One of those dear friends is Tonya. Tonya and I met through Dr. Joe nine months ago. Dr. Joe knew that I needed a friend. I had had all I could take of physicians, geneticists, statistics and worst case scenarios. I was fed up with people referring to my David as a fetus. I was a mommy who was losing my baby, and I needed someone to care.

In came Tonya. She lost her baby boy Grady in November 2008. She knew what it was like to walk through this nightmare, and she cared. She cried with me. She said, "I know." She made me feel a little bit less alone.

At the beginning of the year, Tonya found out that she was expecting another baby, due the first of September. However, her little one was recently born seven weeks early. He has done extremely well despite his early birth, but it hasn't been smooth sailing. Against the odds, Tonya and her husband were told that baby Matthew has a brain bleed.

I confess that upon hearing this news, I was angry - angry with God. Who else could I be angry with? I did not understand why Tonya could not catch a break just this once. Of all people, I thought she deserved a break.

Well, the truth is that she did get break. She got a huge blessing in the form of a beautiful, alive baby boy. All things considered, Matthew is doing very well, and the doctors do not seem to be too concerned about the bleed. I think that Matthew even came home from the hospital on Friday. God is good.

Sometimes, I just wonder why it seems like some people get to coast through life while others go from one trial to the next. Why does it feel like there always has to be something that is hanging over our heads - some ticking time bomb that we are on edge about, waiting to see if it will detonate or diffuse?

I do believe, against my stubborn will sometimes, that this is an act of God's mercy and grace. If I am allowed the opportunity to coast, then believe you me, I will take every advantage of it. I like to be independent and self-sufficient. But God knows that my independence is actually rebellion, and as a gracious and loving Father, I do not believe that He will allow me to get by with it for long.

I am thankful for courageous friends like Tonya who continue to hope and trust in God in the midst of fear and doubt, and I am thankful for the hope and peace that He grants me in the midst of my angst. It is truly his sustaining grace.

What is sustaining grace?

Not grace to bar what is not bliss,

Nor flight from all distress, but this:
The grace that orders our trouble and pain,

And then, in the darkness, is there to sustain.

~John Piper