My friend and I sat in the donut shop, basking in the glory of warm, freshly made donuts slathered in toppings of our choosing. The sweet smells of dough and chocolate and various other forms of sugar filled the air. Conversations from other patrons spilled over all around us as they waited in line for their own delightful donuts. My friend sat back in her chair, hands cradling her swollen belly - all 34 weeks of it. We spoke of baby gifts and nurseries and the wonders of pregnancy. Her face was as expectant as the rest of her body. A baby set to arrive any day, at any moment. It was just a matter of time.
I distinctly remember us talking that Friday morning - Good Friday, no less - how so often in life we can have seasons when it seems things couldn't get any better, seasons when it seems we are sailing along, anchored in our faith, confident in the character and nature of God. But those seasons inevitably are followed by the storms, the trials, the heartaches, the crucibles. The two often go hand in hand, don't they? We both knew from our own life experiences how true that dichotomy was.
We polished off our donuts and I hugged her, her belly creating space between us. We parted ways that morning feeling light, hopeful of the day when her baby would arrive and we would celebrate.
I wished our conversation hadn't been so prophetic.
The next morning I woke early to a text message from her, a plea to come to the hospital as soon as possible.
The baby's heart had stopped beating sometime in the night.
Thirty-four weeks of hopeful expectation.
Dear Jesus, no. Not this.
I rolled out of bed, changed clothes, gathered my things and shot out the door. As I drove, the questions and thoughts and prayers tumbled around in my brain, like rogue waves breaking against the rocks on a shoreline, one after another after another.
She's so close to her due date. How could you let this happen now?
Maybe it's just a fluke and the ultrasound equipment malfunctioned.
What if the doctors are wrong and the baby really is still alive?
Jesus, it's Easter weekend. This would be a good time to perform another resurrection.
How do I not be weird or awkward or say the wrong thing?
What is the right thing to say anyway in moments like these?
And, of course -
Why?
There is often the danger in Christian circles with feeling like we aren't allowed to ask this question in our moments of deepest pain, that it's too taboo or too blasphemous or quite frankly, just plain ol' too honest and too raw. So we paste a smile on our faces, keep a stiff upper lip, raise our hands in a show of worship and count it all joy when the bottom drops out in our lives. And in all things, we give thanks and we don't dare ask why.
As I drove to the hospital, wondering what I would find when I entered that room, I just kept thinking one thing over and over and over again, the mental waves still crashing against the shorelines of my mind:
Just because we have faith doesn't mean we can't ask 'why?'.
But because we have faith, we can walk on - even if the answers never come.
I parked my car, fervently praying with every step that took me closer to my friend that somehow God would give me the words - and the wisdom to know when perhaps silence was needed more than words. But still that thought that had bounced around my head while driving lingered. I crossed the threshold into that hospital room and I could feel the weight of the atmosphere change in a very visceral way as I stepped into the hushed silence. I pulled back the curtain shielding me from the view of my friend and her husband. As soon as I saw her face, the tears flooded our eyes. Weeping might have been an understatement on account of all parties.
I sat next to her bed, holding her hand, her husband on the other side. I don't know what I said, what they said, what the doula said. I don't know if doctors and nurses came and went. I don't remember any of it.
But I do remember praying, out loud, there in that room, holding my friend's hand, asking God one question unabashedly, with tears streaming down my face:
"Why?"
Why, God, in all your sovereign ways, would you bring my friend and her baby this far and then allow his heart to stop beating? It doesn't add up. It doesn't make sense. Our finite minds desperately want reasons and explanations and logic and rationale thought to fill the empty spaces.
Tish Harrison Warren wrote in her stunning book Prayer in the Night*, "It is better to come to God with sharp words than to remain distant from him, never voicing our doubts and disappointments. Better to rage at the Creator than to smolder in polite devotion. God did not smite the psalmist" (48).
God did not smite the psalmist nor did he smite us in that hospital room for asking why. He's big enough to bear the weight of those three little letters.
But we have to be prepared for either an answer we don't like or an answer that never comes.
And we have to decide what we will do in the face of either of those responses.
I can assure you my kindhearted and tender friend did not smolder in polite devotion. She came to God with her sharp words in the face of an answer she didn't like. She came with her doubts and disappointments. But I also watched her in the days, weeks, months and years that have followed since that not-so-good-Good-Friday decide one day at a time what her ultimate response was going to be:
She was still going to walk on, choosing to shift her focus to the answer to the question "Who is God?" rather than dwelling on why.
Because the answers to why have never come for her.
The baby was perfectly healthy. The autopsy report reveals no abnormalities. The doctors don't know why.
There are no reasons, explanations, or rationale thoughts.
Warren went on to share in Prayer in the Night of a friend whose son underwent surgery. While her friend sat in the waiting room, "she committed herself to deciding whether God could be trusted, regardless of the result of the surgery." Warren reflected,
[My friend] was not simply ratcheting herself up to affirm the goodness of God in spite of contrary evidence. She did look to evidence, though not the evidence of her life, nor the tally of the total amount of good in the world versus the total amount of evil. Instead, she looked at the life of Jesus. It's on this story that she anchored her decision about whether she would trust God, without knowing what would happen next (29).
I watched my own friend look to the life of Jesus rather than merely ratcheting herself up to affirm the goodness of God. I watched her ask why, and I watched her anchor her life to something greater than both the question and the answer - or lack thereof.
I watched her walk on, even when the answers never came.
Because her faith was built not on the question of why.
Her faith was built on the answer of who.
In your moments of deepest pain and loudest lament, you can ask God why.
But determine now to walk on in faith, trusting in who he is.
Even if the answers to why never come.
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*Seriously. Read this book.
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