Train For Greater

The Cup That Does Not Pass: Thoughts on Trusting God in the Shadow of Death

Three babies flown to heaven

Before I could kiss their faces.

Three in the space of less than six months;

But now, I can tell you what grace is.

Grace is the peace on your pillow at night,

When tears are the words you can’t find.

Grace is the pinprick of light in the darkness,

A North Star for the faithful to find.

Grace is the hole that remains in your heart,

A scar you do not wish to fade,

For it reminds you of the home up above you,

In which all your lost treasures are laid.

Sweet babies, I can’t understand

Why I’ll never know you this side of the veil.

But there exists not a doubt in my grief-stricken soul

That very soon, the just King will prevail.

For indeed, His grave is empty.

Indeed, He has conquered death.

And so I know one day I will join you

After I take my final breath.

Ben and I lost our third baby this morning (Hello, it’s me, popping in the day after I finished the post to inform you there’s a very important update at the end - please don’t miss it!) and it just occurred to me that today is Maundy Thursday, that is, the day when, 2000+ years ago, Jesus celebrated His last Passover meal with His disciples. The following day, Good Friday, is the day He was crucified, flawlessly fulfilling the prophecy given by the prophet Daniel in 538 B.C.

As I sit here and reflect on the Passion Week, my thoughts gravitate toward Gethsemane, the spectacular garden where Jesus prayed in the hours between the Last Supper and His fateful arrest. My eyes fill as I read these verses:

“He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.’

39 “Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will’” (Matthew 24:37-39, NIV).

When I began experiencing the early signs of miscarriage last night, I prayed words similar to those of my Savior: “Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

It goes without saying that a third miscarriage (not to mention a first or second) was a cup I did not wish to bear, and yet I have walked with God long enough to know that His ways and desires are infinitely greater than our own. He sees and knows things our limited beings could never dream of fathoming. He sees purpose within the bitterest throes of anguish and is wondrously able to create masterpieces out of ashes, and form miracles from the sands of our desolation.

Because we exist in a temporal world, experiencing every second within a material domain in which death and decay lay always before us, we naturally tend to fear death, and to despise it. And rightly so, for death is a cursed result of sin, and a loathsome reversal of God’s original plan for humanity. We resist it because we know, whether consciously or unconsciously, that it signifies all things agonizing and unknowable.

Of Christ’s internal struggle in the Garden of Gethsemane, The Pulpit Commentary says:

“Could not God in his unlimited power find another way of reconciliation? And yet beneath this awful agony, the intensity of which we are utterly incapable of grasping - beneath it there lay the intensest desire that his Father's wish and will should be done. That wish and will were in reality his own. The prayer was made and answered. It was not the Father's will that the cup should pass away, and the Son's will was entirely the same; it was answered by the gift of strength - strength from heaven being given to enable the Son to drink the cup of agony to its dregs.”

Throughout our lives, we find ourselves holding cups we pray would disappear, cups brimming with pain and grief, sorrow and uncertainty. Sometimes, God removes them, and other times, He gives us the strength we need to grasp them all the more firmly, not with terror and trepidation, but fortitude, and faith in the One allowing the daunting task before us.

“ … looking only at Jesus, the [a]originator and perfecter of the faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2, NASB; emphasis mine).

Whatever cup of suffering you are holding, I pray you’ll lift it to your Father in heaven and ask that His good and perfect will be performed in your circumstances, and that you’ll remember that all He allows us to endure has a perfect, purifying purpose we can trust will be revealed one day, perhaps only when we step into His presence and hear Him speak the blessed words, “Well done, good and faithful servant … Enter into the joy of your lord” (Matthew 25:23, NKJV).

“The strong hands of God twisted the crown of thorns into a crown of glory; and in such hands we are safe.” – Charles Williams

“One short sleep past, we wake eternally, and Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die.” – John Donne

UPDATE!

This post is already over 1,000 words long, so I will try my best not to be longwinded…

Yesterday afternoon, I called my OBGYN’s office to notify them about my miscarriage, and they asked me to come in this morning just to make sure everything was happening normally. I almost said no. After all, I’ve had two prior miscarriages naturally; I know how they go, what they feel like, how long they typically last, and didn’t particularly want to pay to sit in a waiting room for half an hour or more only to be wordlessly escorted back to an ultrasound room where I’d see nothing on the screen but a big, black, empty space.

But I decided to go because I had questions for my doctor, and because, well, something (Someone…) inside me told I should.

After telling the ultrasound tech about my symptoms, which included very heavy bleeding and pretty intense cramping, she assured me that my doctor would help me find answers regarding my recurrent pregnancy loss and promised the scan wouldn’t take long.

Not ten seconds into the ultrasound, she says, “Okay, I’m going to show you something here…”

My heart skipped a beat. I looked up at the monitor as she indicated a very clear gestational sac and said, “There’s your baby, and there’s the heartbeat.”

As I was busy trying to remain conscious, she explained that I had a subchorionic hematoma, which many times is reabsorbed, but occasionally causes women, like me, to bleed.

All I could think of, after crying and laughing and staring slack-jawed at my baby’s heart beating rapidly on the screen, was that this was indeed a very, very Good Friday. I thought of Peter and John running to Jesus’ tomb after the crucifixion, expecting to find His body, yet seeing only linen burial cloths. They, like me this morning, weren’t expecting a miracle from the God of miracles. They were already beginning to accept their loss, just as I was, as evidenced by the post I wrote yesterday.

1st Corinthians 13:7 tells us that love “always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

It struck me today that too often we operate not from a spirit of love, but from a spirit of fear and defeat. We don’t trust God to give us miracles. We don’t hope for the best. We don’t persevere in the manner of one expecting breakthrough around the bend.

Easter weekend is the perfect time for us all to reflect on the miracle of all miracles that occurred in a borrowed tomb in Jerusalem over 2,000 years ago, and to remember that the same Lord who raised Himself up from the grave, conquering sin and death forevermore, is still working miracles in the world today, displaying His goodness and mercy even when all hope seems lost.

“How quickly we forget God's great deliverances in our lives. How easily we take for granted the miracles he performed in our past.”

- David Wilkerson

“The devil, darkness, and death may swagger and boast, the pangs of life will sting for a while longer, but don't worry; the forces of evil are breathing their last. Not to worry...He's risen!” – Charles Swindoll