Even When I Can’t See

I got off the phone with my doctor, who had confirmed the news that my husband and I had been dreading the past few days. Our baby had stopped growing.

I honestly just felt numb. The tears, which had been flowing ever since the doctor first said that he could not find a heartbeat, stopped. The crippling anxiety turned into an all-too-familiar pain. My defenses automatically went up.

I deleted all of the baby reveal pictures off my phone, unsubscribed from the pregnancy website where I was registered, and then told everyone the news. I was determined to process this in a healthy way, but I also honestly had no idea what that really meant. I wanted to skip this whole purposeful season of pain that would mold me and just skip to the part where we felt better. Where we saw the good that would come from this.

Of all the things that my husband and I could do the day we got the bad news, we decided to go to Hobby Lobby and buy a paint set. I took an art class in the sixth grade, but I don’t think I had picked up a paint brush since then. For some reason, I felt that painting would somehow be therapeutic. I started painting every night, and surprisingly God used it to teach me. 

Sometimes I would just sit staring at an empty, blank canvas and have no idea what to create. It was almost like I was looking at my life. I knew I wanted to be something beautiful, useful, and fruitful. I wanted to help others and to be a light. I just didn’t know how to get there.

How could I take all of this pain, hurt, and doubt I carried and turn it into something good? I was then reminded of the verse that says, “O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are the potter. We all are formed by your hand” (Isaiah 64:8). Maybe it wasn’t up to me to figure out why, or how, or what this would eventually lead to. Maybe it was a good thing that I didn’t have all the answers.

As much as I longed for control and for things to go a certain way, I realized that just maybe I didn’t really know what was best for me. I would much rather have my future and plans in the hands of our all-powerful and good God rather than in my own hands. I was, after all, the clay. Maybe my job was not to figure it all out, but simply to trust the potter.

Oftentimes while I painted, my husband would look over and have no idea what I was painting. At the end though, he was always surprised at the beauty that I was able to create. Similarly, maybe we can’t see exactly what God is doing during the process, but we can trust that He will make it beautiful in His time. Maybe this process—as much as it hurts—will actually accomplish in us exactly what we need.

In this middle part where I can’t see the whole picture, I can still cling to and trust God. It’s where I will cry out and pray to God when it hurts. It’s where I will consistently look to His word for guidance and comfort, and it’s where God works to shape me into who He has called me to be. This is the part I wanted to skip, but it is actually the part that will bring me closer to Him and make me more like Him. Honestly, what could matter more?

Even though our hearts hurt because we never got to meet our baby, to see what he or she looked like, or to hold our baby, we can still find peace knowing that God knows. He sees our pain, and He understands. He is still good. He is our peace, our comfort, our everything, and we will continue to trust that He is fighting for us even when we can’t see. 

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