A trip to the desert

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28

There's been a lot of stuff going on in the Biebighauser's lives this summer. Some of it has been really good, like finally starting to feel we're really getting plugged in at church. Some of it has been difficult, particularly with disciplining the girls, with lots of age/stage transitions. Some of it has been among the most absolutely heart-wrenching, fall-on-your-knees-and-cry-out-to-God, emotional times of our almost ten-year marriage. We have really struggled with how much of this to share, but Lee and I both really feel as though it is our responsibility and privilege. More on that later.

Several months ago, Lee and I seriously revisited the idea of adding a third child to our family. Together we have thought almost since Lily was born that our family just didn't seem complete yet. As Lee's cousin Jennifer put it when someone asked her why they decided to add another, "I don't know how to explain it. It just feels like someone is still missing." So after prayer we felt like it was time.

This time though, it was a very different scenario than it was when we decided to have the girls. For about a year now, Lee and I have both been very convicted about what it really means to fully trust in God's plan for our lives. Does it mean that you totally leave the entire issue in God' lap, with no intervention or "planning" from our human standpoint? Does it mean getting a "green light" about an issue, but then inserting our own "planning", and thus control, back into it? Is somewhere in the middle the answer? All these are questions that we as Christians ought to be exploring, and clearly the Lord is constantly refining our wisdom with this topic.

So for the first time, maybe ever in my life, and certainly within our marriage, we fully committed to God that we would trust in His plan for our family with absolutely NO parameters placed on it by us. If He intended for us to be a family of five then it would happen. If not, then that would be our answer. Simple, right?

And sure enough, in June, we were pregnant! Like with the girls, I was tired and hormonally cranky. Also like with the girls, within five minutes of that positive sign, I was running through names, calculating the February due date, scheming about how to tell Lee, counting to see how far apart Lily and the baby would be in school, and on and on. Anybody that knows me well knows that I get emotionally attached easily and hard. And everything was fine. Until I started bleeding a week later.

Now, I realize that any pregnancy can end in miscarriage. I understand that I am a little older than I was with the other two. I fully get that this happens a lot. All the time. But I never, NEVER, saw it coming. I remember particularly when I was pregnant with Grace, being very paranoid about miscarrying. But two textbook pregnancies later, I guess I just never thought about a third being any different.

Devastating doesn't even begin to cover it. I clung to some hope all that two hour drive to my ob-gyn. I prayed for acceptance in my heart for any outcome. I sat there bleeding in a completely full waiting room teeming with pregnant bellies and women feeding tiny two-week newborns.

I waited for them to tell me that my baby was dead. And I sobbed while I listened to them tell me it was.

This whole time I was thinking, so this is what it means to really put it out there. To really trust God and mean it. To praise Him during the downpour of the storm, with no umbrella, and not a shelter to be seen. We stumbled through the beginnings of the grief process and broke the news to our parents. We both prayed that God would show us how to weather these circumstances well and with an abundant faith. We agreed that nothing had changed with our mindset; we had said all along that God was in control, and we lived on the promise that God was and is. We hoped.

Less than a month later, we were pregnant again. I had a dream that morning, just like I did with Grace, that we were. That little tiny ray of hope that had been struggling in the shadow of our grief burst into the light. I get it, I thought in my internal conversation with my Father. We said we would trust you. You allowed the testing of that trust. Now we get the blessing that follows the trial.

So I started thinking about names. And I calculated the March due date. I schemed about how to tell Lee. I counted to see how far apart Lily and the baby would be, and on and on. I clung to that hope with fingernails dug in and every fiber of my being. And everything was fine. Until I started bleeding a few weeks later. Again.

I can truly not find the words to explain the enormity of the emotional response we felt this second time. If the first time was a blow, the second was a knife directly to the heart. In the beginning we were mostly just in shock. Surely there was no way this was happening back-to-back?! Surely it was just spotting!? Surely everything was fine?! Surely this was all just a bad dream?!

Surely God would not ask us to do this again . . .

And then they told me that this baby, too, was dead.

Two miscarriages in seven weeks. Two deaths in less than two months. Two precious children that we will never meet on this Earth. Devastating doesn't even begin to cover it.

Which brings me back around to the title of this post, and the "later" of my statement at the beginning of it. Ray Vanderlans, a teacher of the Bible from the Judaic perspective, explains why God puts such an emphasis on the desert in biblical text. (i.e. Jesus being tempted in the desert, the many Psalms about our Father the Sheperd leading us to water in the desert, and example after example.) Unless you have visited there yourself, he explains, it is impossible to grasp the nuances of what it means to be within it. There is no way to sustain oneself in any capacity. It is utter, complete helplessness, devoid of any hope. No book can school you, no class can prepare you enough, no amount of self-reliance or chutzpah can pull you through. Survival is 100% determined by one's total dependence on a shepherd.

This is our desert. God is teaching us what it means to have that total dependence. We are learning that our shepherd gives us exactly what we need, when we need it. We are learning that He cannot be glorified from our desert experience if we don't share it with others. We are learning that stepping out on faith seems easy, until you actually have to do it. We are even learning to thank Him for this suffering, because He is refining us according to His plan, which He promises is only for our ultimate good.

Already, we can see some of the "good". Some previously unimagined amazing events have come from this: being prayed over by a total stranger in the waiting room before that first sonogram; speaking transparently about my faith with my Christian doctor that cares as much about my heart as my physical well-being; being encouraged and counseled by many wise women that have traveled this particular desert themselves; learning that Lee and I can truly get through anything together as a couple. One of the biggest blessings has been a renewed sense of appreciation for the gift of our girls. Just today I overheard my Grace speaking sweetly to her sister and telling her that she was doing so because that's what God wants us to do. Only a few moments ago, I rocked my sunshine Lily as we sang together "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lamb!" It doesn't get much better than that.

So we grieve. We hope. I don't understand why we had to learn these lessons, this way, with one miscarriage, much less two. But we will trust that this is all worth it because it is serving His purpose. And we will hold our two precious "someday" babies in His time. For now it is enough to know that our shepherd is near.

And that the desert doesn't last forever.





"The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want." Psalm 23:1

"We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." Romans 5:3-5