You may know that I’m a fiction author. I write fantasy and women’s contemporary novels, all of which contain Christian themes and values. Four years ago, I published my first contemporary Christian novel,  Armor for Orchids, and have since published two of the three remaining books in the series. I finished writing the final book three and a half years ago and hadn’t looked at it again until last month, when I opened up the manuscript to begin the editing process. When I got to chapter two, I read something that made my heart skip a beat:

“Wilbur and I tried to have children,” said Poppy. “But after three miscarriages…” Her voice trailed off as her fingers turned the delicate turquoise bracelet on her wrist. “My heart couldn’t take any more breaking. We stopped expecting, but part of me never stopped hoping. Not for a long, long time.”

Eighty-four-year-old Poppy McAdams is one of the series’ main characters. She serves as spiritual mentor for the three young women whom she calls her orchids. I had forgotten, having written three other novels after this one was completed, that she had, like me, experienced the pain of not one, not two, but three miscarriages.

“Last night, I was visited by the ghost of my younger self, my pre-menopausal self. I couldn’t wait to be a mother, especially as our siblings started having kids of their own. Their lives were chaos, to be sure, but it was a happy chaos, swirling with sniffly noses, scraped-up knees, sleepless nights, screaming toddlers, all interspersed with blissful moments of purest joy. I babysat any chance I could –  not for the money, but because I knew I’d need the practice.”

When I wrote these words, I didn’t want to have kids (a subject I could devote an entire blog post to), nor did I know anyone personally who had had a miscarriage. But as “chance” would have it, the days I am rereading the story I felt inspired to write back in 2017 happen to coincide with a season in which not only I, but several close of my friends and family, are grieving the loss of our unborn babies, and trusting the Lord to guide us through this valley.
The following is an excerpt from chapter four of Orchid Unfading, which I edited yesterday:

And then one morning, I went at sunrise to my quiet place on top of the hill, looked up at the sky like it was the face of God, and called out with outstretched arms, “Why? Why did you let this happen?”

I felt frightened at first, like I’d just blasphemed the name of God and was due to receive a lightning bolt at any moment. But then, I felt a strange peace come over me. Nothing dramatic, just a stillness deep in my spirit, a whisper of His presence as the sun peeked over the trees. It was if He was giving me permission to lay my heart and all its frustrations before Him.

And so I did. For a solid hour (it would have been more had Wilbur not come searching for me), I made my grievances known – as if He did not already know them. Like David, and Joshua, and Moses, and Abraham, and Elijah, and Job, I asked God why. Why us? What possible good could come of three innocent babies perishing in my womb? Why did He allow me to become pregnant at all if I wasn’t meant to be a mother? Why, God? Why?

These questions, I should note, did not flow from a rebellious spirit, but a searching one. I trusted God through and through. I knew that He loved me, that He would have sent His holy son to suffer in my place even if I was the only human being on the face of the planet. But I couldn’t make sense of it. I wanted the answer to the age-old question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”

“Seek and you will find,” said Jesus. “Knock and the door will be opened unto you.”

I sought and I knocked. I knocked and I sought. For weeks, maybe months, I was in this otherworldly limbo, living life like a shade in Dante’s Inferno. The only difference between me and the habitants of Dante’s fictitious first circle of hell was that, well, I wasn’t in hell, of course, and I wasn’t dead. But I didn’t feel fully alive either. I wasn’t my normal self, full of spunk and joie de vivre. Every day was a battle, a tug-of-war between my spirit’s desire to turn a new leaf and rejoin the living, and my mind’s insistence that I weep and withdraw a little longer.
Seek. Knock. Wait. Listen. That was the rhythm of my life until one day I received an anonymous card on my desk at the church. It had a watercolor orchid on the front, and this message inside:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

To this day, I don’t know who left the note. Perhaps it was an angel. All I know is I thank God for the messenger, because it reminded me of an all-important truth that we are quick to forget: There are some questions that will never be answered, at least not in the way we want.

Sometimes we don’t get as much information as we’d hoped for. Sometimes we hardly get any. And sometimes, the answer is almost unbearable because it reveals a truth we’re not ready to accept, a flaw in our character we’re not ready to address.
I don’t know entirely why the Lord allowed our children to be taken, but I know that, true to His word, He worked them together for His good (Romans 8:28). He used the tragedies to mold me into a more compassionate person, someone who could look in the tear-filled eyes of a woman who’d just lost her baby, or buried her teenaged son, and know just how she felt.

Heaven knows, I’ve met with and counseled countless women throughout my life whose husbands have been unfaithful and whose children have passed away. Had I not endured my own fair share of heartbreaks, I know I could not have comforted them in the way I did, or do, when God sees fit.

Even so, there is a part of me, as I learned last night, that still aches for what was never granted to me. It’s times like this I must remember what has been granted to me, and that is the unwavering, absolute assurance that God is in control. And as long as I trust that His unknowable ways are holy, loving, and good, then that is enough.

“Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.” – 2 Corinthians 1:4

Throughout these tumultuous past six months, during which Ben and I have had to say goodbye to three babies before glimpsing their precious faces, the Lord has provided gift after gift of comfort, peace, grace, and assurance, each one uniquely designed and wondrously crafted to be recognized and received by the two of us alone. From timely Scriptural reminders, perfect, pink bouquets, and merciful preparation, to a dear five-year-old’s jaw-dropping drawing and the testimony and wisdom of a fictional woman of God, our heavenly Father has proven Himself not only sovereign over our every trial and circumstance, but also inexplicably loving, compassionate, and faithful to “meet all [our] needs according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

It’s my prayer that my stories have helped encourage you to look expectantly for the hand of God reaching out to you during your own storms and struggles with gifts made to uplift you, strengthen you, and remind you that He is always with you, there to heal your broken heart, bind up your wounds, and trade your garment of despair for one of praise (Psalm 147:3; Isaiah 61:3.)

 “Whenever His hand is laid upon you, it gives inexpressible peace and comfort, and the sense that ‘underneath are the everlasting arms,’ (Deuteronomy 33:27) full of support, provision, comfort and strength.” – Oswald Chambers