When Promises Hurt
“As sure as there is sand in the sea.”
These are the words I heard as I begged God for the millionth time for a daughter. Not to replace our first child Anna, no never! But to know the sweetness of loving and nurturing a little girl. I knew how healing it would be, for many reasons. One morning, with a near intolerable ache, I pleaded once again and this time I heard the Lord whisper, “Ask Me.”
It felt too bold, too demanding an inquiry of God, and yet before I even had a chance to decide, my spirit eagerly spoke for me. On rocking knees with a rapid pulse I prayed, “Lord do you have…”
Before I could complete the sentence, “a daughter for us” the answer came, “As sure as there is sand in the sea.”
I was confused at the Spirit’s words and yet a tangible power filled the room. It was nothing I could hold, but rather joy, strength and certainty that held me. It was a promise, I knew it, spoken with delight and I held it tight in my heart for twelve long years. Over those years the Lord blessed us immensely with four precious sons. Hear me when I say, they are each a complete and irreplacable treasure. Yet still, the ache for a daughter beat strong, right next to the place where I had tucked His promise. In June of 2017, we learned our sixth growing child was a baby girl. Just a couple weeks later, in the glow of promises fulfilled, my niece Beth took these pictures of me:
I am consumed with joy all over again as I write, thinking about the grace of sinking my toes into the sand and into the goodness and faithfulness of God.
On December 7th, 2017 we joyfully received, Vivian Joy Noelle. There are no words to describe the healing and the love that spread over us from God and through us to Vivi. There are also no words for the slap and sting of the next time God answered this same promise with a girl. In July of 2020, just a day after watching and worshipping God for a vibrant, wiggling baby girl, Violet Mae joined her big sister in eternity. Our book end daughters belonged to us only in longing. Anna and Violet were not ours to know or nurture and the grief was visceral and consuming. The day after my surgery, we drove to the beach with our five broken hearted children. I could barely emerge from my room, the emotional, spiritual and physical pain warring. My sister Kristen made her way to the oceans edge. There in the sand she “marked the moment” and brought this treasure back to me:
Tears flooded my eyes as the promise came rushing back on a wave, “As sure as there is sand in the sea.”
Aren’t promises fulfilled supposed to be good and kind? The God I praised for giving Vivian, I now wrestled with for taking Violet. How do we make sense of this God? How can we proclaim, “He gives and He takes away may the name of the Lord be praised.” I spent years giving this scripture the side eye, and now, it has my devoted gaze. What made the difference? What ushered me from prosecution to praise?
What I have learned over the years is that suffering stretches the soul like nothing else can, expanding the room in which God can fill us with Himself. In our agony, this might seem like a consolation prize, not a blessing. But when we know Him, truly and thoroughly, that means, the deepest part of us, the part that wants, is filled to overflowing with hope. (Romans 15:13). That hope is the only anchor powerful enough to hold us steady even as suffering beats upon us. This hope has a direct line to the throne room of God where every ounce of our pain has already been washed away, and more than that, has been redeemed. It’s the recorded and certain part of our story where praise, pleasure and satisfaction go on forever. It’s the exquisite answer to everything our souls beg for on this earth, both in and out of suffering. In heaven, pain will be exchanged for praise, and in ways we can’t presently conceive, we will eagerly require it and be shocked we didn’t harness its power and purpose every chance we could on the earth...especially in suffering.
Friend, are you hurting? Has your life known the depths of sorrow? Are you shaking a fist at the sky? Do you want to call Him Savior and yet feel He has betrayed you? Dropped you without thought into your current mess and misery? Right now, your anguish can be spiritually translated into the intrinsic need and want to know God and to worship Him. It’s the nucleus of who we are. Our very cells are thirsty for the Living Water. And joy of all joy, He suffered first, and the most, so we would never have to suffer without Him. Listen to His urgent and tender plea given to His beloved friends just hours before His death; “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace; in this world you will have trouble, but take heart, (have courage to live with expectation even as you suffer) I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33, NIV, emphasis added). Our champion, Jesus, has demolished every hurtful, hateful and hellish reason we moan and mourn in this world. This is why we can praise even as He gives and takes like the tide. The question is how? How do we worship Him even as we weep. For me grieving praise looks like this:
“God, I am doubting your perfection and love, but I praise you for giving me a faith deeper than my questions and accusations. You Lord, even in this horror, are perfect in all of your ways.”
“I praise you risen Jesus that you are present with me, even though I can see nothing but darkness. I praise you for the promise that You are close to the broken hearted and save the crushed in spirit. That means whether I see you or not, You are here saving me.”
“Father, I am angrier and more sad than I knew was humanly possible to experience and still live. But, I praise You God, for you do exceedingly, abundantly more than all we can ask or imagine. May your spirit imagine within me and may your peace and love come quickly.”
Praise is powerful. Praise is a weapon. Praise is petitioning the promises of God. Our Savior will answer…just as sure as there is sand in the sea.
