Why believe?

A friend of mine who lost her son a year ago just miscarried her baby of 16 weeks. The more I think about it, the angrier I get. It seems so unfair to me, and it makes me wonder where God is in it all.

Another friend asked me the other day if I ever felt like I deserved to have things go right after openly offering up our journey with Sully and building his playground. The truth is, no. In fact, I feel quite the opposite. I feel completely unsafe. I feel like there are no guarantees anymore. I guess there never really were, but I once found security in falsely believing I had some kind of protection from calamity.

Everything feels so fragile, from the paycheck that pays our mortgage and bills to the hopes that the children we do have left will live long healthy lives. Sometimes this makes me so angry and bitter. It makes me question why in the world I am even hanging on to any kind of faith. I mean, why? If believing in God and Christ doesn't offer me any protection then what good is it? What happened to the "health, wealth and prosperity" gospel of my youth? It doesn't seem to hold up at all. And sometimes I think we believe that being a good person will give you some kind of immunity. But the scales are out of balance. Terrible things happen to "good" and "bad" people alike. So, why be good?

I look around but I can't find anywhere else to go. I'm just left with this broken faith that doesn't make very much sense. I can't make sense out of my friend losing another baby or out my overwhelming fear of a capricious god. Why do I now live waiting for terrible things to happen, waiting for what is good in my life to also be taken away from me?

All I keep hearing in my head is a song and I can picture my friend singing it:
"I'll remember the deeds of the Lord,
I'll remember all your works,
With your mighty arm you have redeemed,
You are Holy, Holy, Holy"

So I try to remember. I try to remember that even in the hardest days of carrying Sully there were people around us to love us and care for us. I remember my friends bringing us groceries when I thought I would never be able to walk into a store or do anything normal again. I remember how so many people responded with such generosity towards our plea for a playground and how in just four short months after its first mention, it was complete! I remember just a few weeks ago the gift of the feast brought to our door. I am remembering, and I am weeping. Is this who God is in truth? How beautiful he is and yet how hard it still is for me to reconcile the truth of him with who I want him to be. I want him to tell me I will never hurt again. I want him to tell me I will never suffer a loss like this again. I wanted him to make my third child perfect and whole and give him to me for this lifetime. How do I reconcile that he is not who I want him to be but that he is still good?

There is so much shifting and sifting and changing in my heart and mind...