Funny answers to prayer?
Sometimes they are NOT so funny.
Especially if His answer was no,
or wait,
or something very very different.
It was the summer after we got married.
We were sitting in church and I noticed a couple a few rows ahead of us obviously mourning.
The husband was comforting his wife.
She was crying.
They were going through something ROUGH.
Yet, they were going through it TOGETHER.
Neil and I had yet to experience anything HARD in our marriage.
I'm not sure why I did it or what I was thinking, but I prayed:
"God,
please do whatever you have to in order to solidify our marriage early.
To bring us close together through an experience.
Take us through something that requires us to rely on you TOGETHER."
A few weeks later I found out I was pregnant.
Unexpectedly.
We were ecstatic!
The news spread FAST as we couldn't keep it in.
God has answered my prayer!
Raising a baby was going to be hard - especially as newlyweds with limited income.
But God surely gave this to us to bring us closer together.
Two days later I started bleeding.
The pregnancy was over before it ever began.
Neil and I sat on the couch.
Worship music playing LOUD and I WILLED the bleeding to stop.
Tears were spilling from both of our eyes.
We held onto each other tight.
Chests heaving and convulsing behind the water.
Chests heaving and convulsing behind the water.
We prayed.
We begged.
We loved.
We grew closer together than ever.
The pregnancy WAS God's answer to my prayer.
but it was NOT the answer I wanted or expected.
He does this sometimes {answer prayers differently than I prayed or asked} and I just have to trust that He knows better than I do.
He KNEW that a miscarriage would draw Neil and I closer together than a baby would.
He KNEW that we needed to go through this first.
He KNOWS.
Wow...thanks for sharing your heart. That's a brave thing to pray, but it's what truly trusting God is all about.
ReplyDeleteThis could have been my own story, Rebecca! I am a recent follower, and so glad to have found your blog. Thank you for your transparency. My Handsome and I came to this very realization after experiencing 2 miscarriages this past year. God has a plan, and while His answers to our prayers aren't always what we expect or want, the comfort and peace He provides through those times and the fact that He walks through them with us gives me faith and confidence that His plan is best and hope for what is in store and what He is preparing us for. God used the trials of our miscarriage to bring us closer to each other and to Him.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your post! The past two years, we have experienced 3 total miscarriages. Just like you, I found that to be the goodness of the Lord because during this time I have known His love, grace, and my total inability to do anything on my own! What a hard, yet beautiful lesson that I could not have learned any other way! Praise the Lord, we are pregnant again and heading full speed ahead into the second trimester- for which I am so thankful- and even in this just learning to Be Still and know that I am in His hands!
ReplyDeleteI also totally agree it is a beautiful time to grow in your marriage. I am so blessed to have my husband!
-Sarah
Rebecca,
ReplyDeleteDuring those times, we feel like we are the only ones that have ever experienced that pain. We draw closer to our husbands but we are also molded as vessels to be used for others who are going to experience the same thing.
Later, if we are blessed to experience children, we will see that we experienced a small amount of that pain by having to watch a friend lose a child born to this world. Then we see a different group that was molded to help them. We, with our pain, are all usable vessels if we will only let Him.
I sat in a doctor office yesterday waiting on a IV for a massive migraine thinking I couldn't stand it any longer only to get to the infusion room and be humbled by the people around me that could hardly move due to their MS, Parkinson's, etc.
God is so gracious to surround us by the one's who so love and that we can comfort each other together. We are blessed. Thank you for the reminder oh wise one!!