In His Hands

In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.
Psalm 95:4-5

Oh, Hope Mom,

There are so many mysteries that belong to God alone. While we can truly know Him through His Word, through prayer, through worship, and through life with His people, we will never fully comprehend the fullness of who He is or the wisdom with which He governs every detail of our lives.

After loss, that reality can feel especially difficult. When your baby has died, God’s purposes can feel impossible to understand. Questions come that have no easy answers. Why did this happen? Why this baby? Why our family? Why now?

In those moments, I want to encourage you to look at creation. Really pause and take in the vast, beautiful, mysterious world God has made. Perhaps that feels like a strange suggestion. After all, creation itself can sometimes feel painful after loss. Summer certainly did for me. It is the season when I was blissfully pregnant with Paige, dreaming about the little girl I would soon hold in my arms. And then, before summer ended, I delivered her and laid her body to rest.

In those weeks after her funeral, the world felt so alive while my heart felt so broken. Children on my street laughed and played in their front yards. Families packed up their cars for vacations. Gardens bloomed. The sun rose each morning as though nothing had happened. Meanwhile, I carried the weight of missing my girl everywhere I went. I remember wanting to hide away from the sunshine and all the reminders that life was moving forward while I felt completely stuck. Everything around me seemed full of life while I felt stripped bare and painfully empty.

Maybe you’ve felt that way too. Maybe you have looked out at a beautiful day and wondered how the world could keep turning when your world has fallen apart. Maybe you’ve watched mothers push strollers or children run through sprinklers and felt the ache of what should have been. If so, I understand. I’ve felt that ache deeply myself.

And yet, even in the middle of our grief, there is something creation can teach us about the God we love. Your baby died and your heart is broken, but the ocean tides still rise and fall. The sun still appears each morning. Flowers bloom in their appointed seasons. Birds are fed. All of creation continues exactly as God ordained and it’s held together by the word of His power. And friend, there is comfort to be found in that.

When grief has shaken everything you thought you knew, it helps to remember that nothing has shaken God. The mountains are still His. The sea is still His. The stars still answer to Him. The world is still held together by His power. Your circumstances may feel wildly out of control, but the Lord has not surrendered His throne.

Jesus Himself pointed His followers to creation. In Matthew 6, He told them to look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns, yet their heavenly Father feeds them. Then He asks a simple question, “Are you not of more value than they?” I love that Jesus chose something as ordinary as birds to remind His people of God’s care. If God notices sparrows, He notices you. If He faithfully cares for birds, flowers, mountains, oceans, and stars, surely He has not forgotten the mother whose heart aches for her baby.

One of the things I love most about the book of Job is that when Job was drowning in grief and questions, God did not give him the explanation he longed for. Instead, He pointed him to creation (Job 38). The Lord asked Job about the sunrise and the sea, the stars and the weather, the animals and the wilderness. He reminded Job that there were countless things He was governing every moment that Job neither understood nor controlled.

God was not dismissing Job’s pain. He was reminding Job of His wisdom. In essence, He was saying, “Job, there is so much that you can’t see and so much that you can’t understand, but I’m faithfully governing it all.” The same is true for us.

We may never fully understand why our babies died. We may never receive answers to every question our hearts ask this side of heaven. But we can know the One who holds every unanswered question. The God who keeps the planets in motion and tells the waves where to stop is not careless with your heart.

And though your suffering may tempt you to believe otherwise, your baby’s life was not small to Him either. The Lord who formed the mountains and filled the oceans also knit together every detail of your child. He saw every tiny feature, every day ordained for them, and every moment of their existence. Your baby was fully known and fully loved by God.

So today, take a few moments to look closely at something He has made. Sit beneath the shade of a tree. Watch a bird gather food. Notice the flowers blooming despite the summer heat. Feel the warmth of the sun on your skin or the welcome relief of a cool evening breeze. As daylight slowly fades and the sky begins to change colors, let creation preach to your weary heart. Let it remind you that the God who formed it all is still reigning. The God who sustains it all is sustaining you. And that same God who holds the depths of the earth and the heights of the mountains is the One holding your story, too. 

He is with you. He is with you. He is with you.

Jennie is the Executive Director for Hope Mommies. She and her husband Brian live in Oregon and have four children together— Trenton, Paige who has been in Heaven with Jesus since 2010, Mason, and Cora. If you were to knock on her front door today, you’d find her in something comfortable drinking a hot cup of tea, while trying to figure out how to balance all the things that make up a life. She enjoys spending time in God’s word, fresh flowers, board games with her kids, cooking, and evening walks in her neighborhood. She adores being a new creation in Christ and prays she reflects Him well on this earth.