27

I see a woman who had no idea that in just a few short weeks, both her greatest joy and deepest heartbreak were waiting for her.

This is the year I experienced an unimaginable loss.

Miscarriage.

Just eight months into marriage, I found out we were going to be parents. If you could have been a fly on the wall when I saw those two pink lines. There was joy. Then disbelief. Then tears. Then laughter. Then anxiety. Then excitement all over again. I felt everything all at once. For months, I had been praying one simple prayer:

“Lord, I want to be a mom. I think I’d be a great one too. More than that, I can’t wait to see my husband become a father because I know he’ll be an amazing one.”

That was the final entry in my journal before I found out I was pregnant. Two days later, the Lord answered that prayer. We called our families. We celebrated. We dreamed about what was to come. Then, just twenty-four hours later, everything changed.

How could this be?

Life was growing inside of me…

Until it wasn’t anymore.

Nothing could have prepared me for that kind of heartbreak. I couldn’t understand why the very blessing I had prayed for had slipped through my hands almost as quickly as it came. The joy was real. So was the grief. In the middle of my sorrow, I found myself wrestling with questions I never imagined asking.

Would I still trust Him?

Would I still believe He was good when I couldn’t understand what He had allowed?

Would I still praise Him through tears instead of answers?

I wanted to be angry. I was. I wanted to walk away. I almost did. I wanted to stop believing that God was good because goodness didn’t feel like what I was living. But I did the only thing I knew to do.

I invited Him into my brokenness.

And just like He had before, He met me there. Again.

Not with all the answers I desperately wanted. Not by taking the pain away. But with His presence. He became my peace when my mind was overwhelmed. My comfort when I couldn’t stop crying. My strength when I had nothing left to give.

El Roi.

The God who sees. He saw every tear. He heard every prayer I couldn’t put into words. He stayed when the silence felt unbearable.

Twenty-seven, this season broke your heart in ways you never imagined. It raised questions you didn’t know how to answer and brought tears you didn’t think would ever stop. Yet even there, God remained faithful. He did not waste your grief. He sat with you in it. He carried you through it. And when you no longer had the strength to keep holding on, He held on to you.

And this is where faith was refined.