Four Years and God’s Goodness

Four years ago Simon was born, small and purple and silent. My pregnancy with him was the closest thing to despair that I have ever experienced. From the moment we learned he could not live outside of the womb at our 20 week appointment to the moment of his birth, I battled intense fear, anger and depression. I felt isolated and confused and utterly alone. I thought often, “I am walking around with a death sentence.”

I remember the doctor saying, “Your baby will die. This is not a viable pregnancy,” all while he kicked and squirmed inside of me. I remember almost vomiting because the experience was so grotesque, so disturbing, and so unfathomable that I felt physically ill. I remember saying to God, “You cannot expect this of me. I cannot do it. It has to end. I cannot go through with this pregnancy,” Only to feel the crushing truth I already knew in my soul, “I must.”

I will not lie and say I never once considered aborting my son. Those first hours were a torment. I couldn’t breathe for crying. I didn’t want this to be my lot. I looked at my pregnancy stretching ahead of me, five long months left. How could I do it? How could anyone do it? I didn’t understand how I could give birth with no hope. How do you prepare for birth when birth brings death?

Oh, friends, that was a dark day and a desperately dark season.

But praise be to God who held me fast. Praise be to God for writing the truth so deeply on my heart that I could not ignore it: life and death belong to Him alone. I would not interfere.

We sought multiple opinions from different doctors and practices but were only ever presented with one option: termination of the pregnancy. No doctor encouraged us to look deeply at our choices or presented us with the option to carry on with the pregnancy. I don’t believe this was done out of malice, but out of a misunderstanding of pain. They didn’t want me to suffer or be sad, and abortion was their solution to that pain. But what I realized was that I would spend the rest of my life wondering if perhaps the ultrasounds had been wrong. What if things weren’t as dire as they seemed? What if there was something that could have been done after he was born? What if he could have lived, even for a little while? There were too many stories of such things happening for me to ignore.

I wanted peace and I realized it would not come through an abortion. Peace meant no questions, no wondering, no uncertainty. Peace meant choosing five months of desperate sadness so that I could have a lifetime of certainty.

What the doctors didn’t understand is that sometimes it is better to choose present, temporary suffering than a quick fix followed by lifelong doubt. Many women do not know that this is an option; they are not told what a gift it is to know that death, even if it was imminent, did not come by your hand; that there are no lingering questions because you allowed the answer to come to fruition in its own time.

And when Simon was born, small and purple and silent: I had my answer. He could not have survived and there were no procedures that could have saved him. But, oh what freedom and what peace I have now. How greatly I can rejoice at his tiny, enormous life. How soundly I can sleep because I stood back and let God lead me through that horrifying wilderness.

Praise be to God! “He must increase and I must decrease!” Oh Christians, we are to be living sacrifices! Our plans and desires must never come before the commands of our King. He is the only Good ruler. He alone has wisdom and understanding. He alone knits us together in our mother’s womb and calls his creation “good.” And He promises to work all things together for good for those who put their trust in Him.

I marvel when I see the good he has worked for me out of the loss of Simon, my son. I am marveling now as I recall my utter terror and distress in that season because, friends it is gone, GONE! Entirely! I am free. I have peace that cannot be shaken. My son is dead and I rejoice all the same because God is faithful and trustworthy and He keeps His promises to His children: that our “light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”

Oh what I would give that all grieving mothers and fathers and families could have this assurance. Oh what I would give to shake this world from its slumber and tell it to look plainly in the face of truth and see that life is not ours to take. What peace there is for those who surrender such an awful power to Him alone who wields it rightly.

And there is peace for those who have taken that power upon themselves only to be desperately hurt by it. There is no thing in our pasts too big for God to redeem.

Turn, trust in Him. He is Good.