And If Not, He Is Still Good

You’ve probably seen it on a coffee mug, a wall print, or maybe a T-shirt. And if not, He is still good. It’s one of those phrases that gets passed around so often that it can begin to feel like something pretty we say when we don’t know what else to say. But for those of us who have buried a baby, these words aren’t decoration. We have had to wrestle with whether we really believe them.

Is He really still good when our babies die?

I don’t believe in the prosperity gospel, the lie that says if we love God enough, pray hard enough, or live rightly enough, He will give us everything we hope for. Scripture never promises us a life untouched by suffering. Jesus Himself told His disciples, “In the world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33).

But I do believe that “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above” (James 1:17). I believe God is good, even when the life unfolding before me does not feel good. And I believe His story is moving toward an eternal kingdom where death will be no more, where every tear will be wiped away, and where the One seated on the throne says, “Behold, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5).

But that day is not today, and so we ask:

• Is He good when your womb carries death instead of life?
• Is He good when another pregnancy feels impossible or terrifying?
• Is He good when the grief is so deep that no one around you seems to understand it?
• Is He good when everything you thought you knew has been ripped away?
• Is He good when the suffering won’t stop and the uncertainty won’t lift?
• Is He good when life feels completely broken and nothing is going the way it should?

He is and I don’t say that lightly. I don’t say it because I can explain why some babies live and others die, or because I believe there is an easy answer that will make any of this hurt less. I say it because Scripture tells me who God is, and because sometimes faith means trusting what is true even when our circumstances seem to tell us otherwise. 

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”  Hebrews 11:1

This is not a new wrestling. In the book of Daniel, three young men named Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were commanded to bow before a golden statue or be thrown into a fiery furnace. They knew God was able to save them, but they did not know whether He would. And still, they stood before the king and said, “If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up” Daniel 3:17–18

But if not.

Even if God did not spare them from the furnace, He was still their God. He was still worthy of their worship, and they would not bow. They were willing to die rather than worship another god. That is how deeply they trusted Him, not only to rescue them from death, but to remain faithful even if He allowed them to die. And God did not spare them from the furnace. They were bound and thrown into the fire. He did not keep them from being carried there or from being thrown in, but He met them in the middle of it. When the king looked into the furnace, he saw four men walking around, unbound and unharmed. They were not alone. The same king who had demanded their worship was humbled by the faithfulness of their God, and the faith of three men who refused to bow became part of a story that still points us to Him today.

Mama, you are not alone in the fire, either. When you are walking through grief, your arms are empty, and your heart is holding the pieces of a life you thought would look different, you can cling to the truth that “when you pass through the waters, I will be with you” (Isaiah 43:2). God does not promise that we will never pass through deep waters or fiery furnaces, but He promises that we will not pass through them without Him.

His goodness isn’t measured by whether He gives us everything we ask for. It isn’t proven by answered prayers, easy pregnancies, or babies who come home from the hospital. Goodness is part of who God is, and who He is does not change when our circumstances do. And when we struggle to believe that, we can look to Jesus. Jesus is not distant from sorrow. Scripture describes Him as “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). He entered suffering, wept beside a grave, and gave His own life to defeat the death that has wounded us so deeply. And because He rose again, death will not have the final word over our babies or over us.

I still can’t tell you why God allowed my baby or yours to die. I can’t explain why He sometimes answers the prayer we begged Him to answer and sometimes He doesn’t. But I can tell you what Scripture says is true.

If He does not answer as we prayed, He is still good.

If He does not spare us from the fire, He is still good.

If our lives look nothing like the lives we once imagined, He is still good.

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.