When Life Is Not Fair

This one truth informs the way I view both celebration and grief, success and failure, acts of love and acts of hatred. The tension that hangs in between each one of those delicate emotions is real and tangible. Even still, what anchors each one of us at our core will determine the way we each respond when they come. And we know they will come.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Hebrews 13:8

I was just shy of turning 30, living in a Manhattan apartment too small to even accommodate a kitchen table. I had been initiated into life as a city mom a short two years earlier, and said goodbye to my full-time career in the corporate world. My days and attire, for that matter, were being redefined; I swapped heels for sneakers, suits for jeans, spreadsheets for sleep schedules, all while embracing this new role as a mom. Before I was admittedly ready, we received the wonderful news that I was pregnant again. Fighting back some feelings of guilt that I was not eager for yet another one in diapers, I grew in excitement to welcome this new addition, and embraced it for what it was… a gift. A life.

The announcement was made via email, and I responded to friends and family sending their well wishes of congratulations. The nausea had ensued in full force and the ride had begun, ready or not. Going into my ninth week, I went for a routine doctor appointment and will never forget the feeling of the doctor just uttering a brief stoccato “hmm”. It didn’t take me long to realize as he moved the ultrasound round and round that something wasn’t right, he was looking for something that couldn’t be found. After several minutes and a brief hiatus where the doctor left the room, he returned solemnly and let me know there was no heartbeat.

This was so routine, my husband wasn’t even with me, and so I was left alone to get dressed and meet with the doctor in his office to discuss next steps. I sat in the creaky, wooden chair set perpendicular to the doctor’s cluttered desk. He looked down, filling out paper work and looked up meeting my glazed over glance and said compassionately,

“I’m so sorry. Life is just not fair.”

I nodded in agreement, but inside I grew angry. I didn’t know at who or what my anger was directed, but it just felt good at the moment to be angry. I remember thinking, and am thankful for the filter that day to keep it internal, “Really?! Is that all you can say? That’s the comfort you give, is that life is not fair?”

It hit me. The world can only give so much comfort in times of deep despair. In the darkest days of suffering and grief, platitudes are whispered in our heads and across tables with tilted heads saying, “I’m sorry. It’s just not fair.”

While none of us would dispute the lack of fairness, there needed to be a deeper response for my heart to find rest, and so I began to research how the things I knew about God fit into my experience of suffering. How could I reconcile a loving God with deep suffering? One book that was instrumental for me was Suffering and Sovereignty of God by John Piper and Justin Taylor. Within those pages, I grieved. I processed. I wrestled. I vented. I cried. I journaled.

While the grief process of a miscarriage plays out differently for every single person, I didn’t expect this to be hardest on my husband. He had already experienced the joy of connecting with our little girl, so he strongly connected day one with this embryo in a way he hadn’t the first time around. One comment he would say often during that season, was that we must remember God is the same God with this baby as He was with our first daughter. He will be the same God with our next, if we should be so blessed.

There was nothing more comforting for me.

He is the same God yesterday, today and forever.

Central Park, New York City

I had to go back and tell friends and family that we lost the baby. My mind and body struggled for the next several months to process naturally. I was not prepared for the emotional and physical exhaustion that came, but I had lasting comfort in a God that was the same in the good and in the hard.

He is not just God over one and not the other. He is equally present and equally good whether our hearts celebrate or grieve.

His faithfulness to remain means he is the only one big enough to walk with us through each season.

Selah.