“…So sick and tired of trying to make the pieces fit, cause it’s not what bearing witness is.” – David Bazan
“Being raised from the dead is never boring. Therefore every Christian has a stunning testimony.” – John Piper
Sealed. That’s the best way to describe the memory. Encased, unmovable, unchanging, locked.
It’s sealed in my mind.
The room was cool and bright as we walked in. Various brochures, diagrams and posters lined the shelves and walls outlining the stages of pregnancy, how to deal with morning sickness, you know, what to expect when and all that. A small black screen stacked on a cart sat just next to a small bed with anticipation. It was even equipped with it’s own wand, offering its own technological sort of magic. I saw a small printer underneath with a roll of white, glossy film.
The technician gave her a few instructions and then left while she removed her pants and laid back onto the bed, the paper sheet crackling underneath. I sat next to her so we both had a good view of the monitor that would provide us with the ongoing evidence of our child.
The technician reentered bringing a rolling chair next to us, taking the wand in her hand preparing it for its task. She described that there may be some mild discomfort, but neither of us cared. She had patiently just gone through an external exam that took the whole of 30 minutes, when this was really the only reason for us to be here that day. Strangely, at least to me, the lights were not dimmed. We clasped our hands together with anxiety and excitement.
The procedure started with the technician explaining what we we’re looking at. “This is the ovary, you can see the remainder of her ovulation here…” I grew slightly more impatient as surely she knew we hadn’t come to see her ovaries.
She pointed out the egg sack and I noticed that she stopped explaining after that. She rotated her hand holding the wand back and for, pushing a few buttons on the cart. All was silent except for the small printer cheerfully printing away.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t find a heartbeat,” the technician said, looking squarely at the screen.
Our hands clasped tighter. I quickly away from the technician and looked into her eyes, tears lining them.
Another two seconds went by.
“What?” She said. It was almost a gasp, holding more emotion then I thought one word could.
Our hands tightened even more.
The memory begins to fade at that point. The technician said a few quick words about how sorry she was and mentioned something about how this is unfortunately quite common. She ended up with handing us a brochure and saying she would give us some time alone. Almost as an afterthought she stopped, turned and ripped the most recent picture away from the printer showing a small round oval and placed it on the counter next to the bed and us. Then she left.
We sat in silence for a long time. She cried to herself while I looked blankly around the room. My mind was pulled towards another memory of five months prior.
We were in our car and I was driving. We were discussing what we should do since we hadn’t been able to conceive after a little over a year of trying. We talked about going to a fertility specialist and possibly her getting on whatever medications she would need to better our chances at getting pregnant.
“We should pray about it first,” she said.
I glanced at her and simply said, “Why?” While a basic question, the challenge in my voice was apparent and she said nothing.
“Why should we pray about it?” I continued. “He’s already said we should have children, we’ve already confirmed it with Him,” my voice rising in anger, “We don’t need to pray about it. We don’t need Him to say yes,” I hissed.
“I say yes.”
This memory flashed into my mind over and over again as I sat staring at the wall, listening to her cries. We left shortly after that.
We eventually did go to see the fertility doctor after that conversation in the car. He said my sperm had low motility. He said we had a 2-3% chance to get pregnant naturally. He prescribed the fertility drugs that we needed. We bought them and was instructed to begin taking them at the beginning of her next period. A few weeks after that, she surprised me at work for lunch and we walked to our car. When we got there, she bent in to grab something and turned around and handed me the pregnancy test that she had just taken.
It had two pluses next to the word “Pregnant.” We had planned on her starting the fertility drugs the next day.
Our little miracle.
We left the doctor after 30 life altering minutes and drove home. Her mother and sister were waiting there for the happy results. I immediately we down stairs to our room, the emotional capacity to discuss this with my in-laws non-existent.
My dog was there on the couch and I sat down next to her, grabbed her neck and sobbed into her fur for the next 20 minutes.
The next day I posed this to my Facebook: Hope bears despair. Faith tramples fear. Through trust I weather suffering.
At least, that’s what I hoped at that moment.
As I grieved I called out to God. I asked Him for help, for comfort. Awash in misplaced guilt, I asked for forgiveness and promised repentance. I clung to the scriptures that said that God is near to the broken hearted, that he draws near to those who draw near to him, that he binds our wounds, that somehow He would work out my grief for good and that I was blessed while I mourned. For I would be comforted.
And yet, as the weeks turned into months my prayers consistently seemed to fall on deaf ears. Instead of my wounds being bound, they felt open and raw. Instead of comfort, I felt nothing.
Empty.
Testimonies, I had been taught, highlighted our life before Christ, how we found Christ and how our life had been different since coming to know Christ.
As I increasingly felt more isolated from this God who comforts, I began to wonder what happens when the testimony does not reflect the God in whom I had believed and relied on for years? What does this mean about me? What does this mean about God?
Many people have gone through suffering, including my wife, and felt comfort in their faith. Her experience during that time was almost the exact opposite of my own. She felt God nearer to her than she had before and her pain focused her into taking a good, hard look at who she was. She experienced God in a way that she hadn’t before.
In a way, so did I. And yet, my story remained different. My testimony was not of God’s goodness, comfort and presence, but one of pain, loss and emptiness.
Before that I had often been frustrated while reading the Psalms as nearly all of them end with repeating God’s goodness or faithfulness. But that was not my experience. God never showed up. He didn’t eventually show me how this was for my good. My faith was not strengthened by this trial, even while I had endured. The result was a changed faith, one that had been tested. And in the ways I had hoped it to succeed most, it had utterly failed.
I’m six years out from the miscarriage. I now have two children conceived without the assistance of fertility medication. The pain still exists but it is well scarred over by time and distance. This story does not provide a complete picture of God in my life, but it is now part of my story.
I share it now to give you my testimony of God in my life, and how when I felt I needed him most, he was nowhere to be found.