You've Been Asking God "Why?" Here's an Answer
Miscarriage, a year later
“I cannot explain why God allows us to go through tragedy in this world. But I can explain that He loves us enough to save us from ever going through it again in the next.” - Pregnancy After Miscarriage and Jesus
I remember writing this line in the midst of my “Why”. The Lord gave me peace in a season wrought with spiritual warfare, with grief, with anger, with anxiety. He wasn’t answering my “Why”, but He was reminding me of the cross, of His great and powerful steadfast love for me, of the promise of a perfect paradise in Heaven.
I mentioned in Miscarriage, Wrestling with God, & Staying Off the Internet that suffering seemed to saturate my entire life starting from my earliest memories, that while the Lord did His good and redemptive work in making me a therapist and public speaker for mental health, I still found myself asking the Lord the same question I had thrown at Him since childhood, “Why? Why me?”
When I was in college studying psychology and the doors to public speaking opportunities were opening all around me, I thought the answer was that God wanted me to help others. All my pain and suffering were really so I could be a proper vessel to be used by God to help the world. Like many Christians, the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis gave me encouragement and reminded me of redemption.
“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” Genesis 50:20
And while that answer seems to tie a nice bow over a rather sad sob story, it is also one that made me feel like a pawn in God’s game of life. It is a conclusion that skips over the character of God’s heart, the nature of a loving, compassionate, good, grieving Father and Friend who weeps and mourns with us. And when I encountered tragedy once again in my adulthood, that answer left me exhausted and bitter at Jesus.
Reader, I don’t know what you’ve been through. I don’t know what has kept you awake at night, what has brought you to your knees, what has made you shake your fist at the Lord, but I do know that to be in the world even when we are not of the world means we will suffer as the world suffers. This is not Heaven. And if you know the sting of pain, well, we have that in common. I hope this read will encourage you to pray and ask God for an answer to your “Why?”
“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33
There is still an ache in my chest, in my spirit, from losing that first little life. Whenever I hear of a woman or friend who becomes pregnant for the first time, I first rejoice, and then that ache comes back. And a whisper of a prayer, “God, why did my first pregnancy have to end? Why do they get to go through pregnancy with joy and excitement and I didn’t?” Videos on social media of couples seeing positive pregnancy tests and announcing their pregnancy to their partner or friends and family are ones that I scroll past for the same reason.
Since I went through revival, I’ve enjoyed going on long prayer walks with God before or after reading the Word. They usually last about an hour. And as the one-year anniversary of our miscarriage, my first pregnancy, was approaching, I walked in the hot Florida summer sun, not crying out but still whispering to the Lord, “Why God?”
And this time, I did get an answer.
Your faith has been tested.
My faith has been tested? What do you mean?
As the days passed and my prayer walks continued, this word from the Lord continued to be dropped into my spirit. I had been reading through the New Testament books in order. That same week I started the book of James and by no coincidence the Lord used His Word to speak to me.
“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” James 1: 2-4
“Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love Him.” James 1:12
Then after reading James, I started the next book, 1 Peter, and the Lord spoke again.
“These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.” 1 Peter 1:7
I told my husband, “Ryan, I think Jesus is trying to tell me something.”
Honestly, this wasn’t the answer I was hoping for. In my time in prayer, the Lord made me realize something. We have idolized comfort and ease. We want a comfortable life, an easy life. Our knee jerk definition of “blessing” is favor. But God cares so much more about our faith in Him than He cares about our comfort. Our comfort does not get us into Heaven, but our faith does. Our faith is what gets the Father His children back. And what loving parent wouldn’t want to be reunited with their child?
As Peter writes, our faith is more precious than gold. It is more precious than money, than our earthly life and all its delights. The saying is true, what we believe about God is the most important thing about us.
The truth is that trials, when endured with Jesus, make us look more like Christ. We are purified, refined, and layer by layer, we look less like ourselves and more like Him. More and more we see through the lens of the Holy Spirit, through the wisdom and compassion of Jesus, than we judge through the eyes of our flesh.
When I was asking God to help me write this, He told me this. Our goal in life is not to look back and say it was a good life. Our goal is to get to the end of life and ask, “Was God glorified? Did I help in advancing the Kingdom? Do I look more like Christ?”
Do you want to know something that has comforted me through grief? One of the things that has helped me fight off my offense at God? The fact that God hates death. Death of the soul from sin, death of a marriage, death of our loved ones, death from sickness and war and tragedy, death of the little life in my miscarriage. He hates it. In Heaven there is no death.
How has Jesus met you in your questions? What scripture has He used to speak to you amidst your trials?
Lord, help me glorify you when it is easy and when it is hard. Remind me of Your steadfast love. Thank You for producing in me a steadfast faith. Just as I learned through miscarriage how much a parent longs to keep their child, so too did I learn how much You long to keep me.
Katie Donohue Tona
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Thank you for sharing this. Today has been another 'why' day. Christianity is hard, but He hasn't left me, and I haven't left Him. And we pray for one another and cherish the hope He gives us. God bless!
Hi Katie, ran across this article and bookmarked it. Amen. It is my desire to have my life reflect the three goals you stated. With my heart in my throat, I say, Not my will-yours. I’ll take what you give.
I love the paragraph about God hating death. Actually, I loved it all. Thank you.