Faced with a life and death circumstance, would you have assurance of faith or question if you’ll really see God after you die? Author Scarlet Hiltibidal had to answer those questions in the midst of two life-threatening miscarriages. But through those difficult times, she was able to grow in her faith and ultimately use an impossible situation to share the gospel with a family member.
The entire video is above, and the complete transcript is below.
I had two miscarriages. Both of them scary and life-threatening. And I responded to both of them very differently.
The first one, I didn’t understand why it happened. I was angry with God. It was really scary. It was an ectopic pregnancy that ruptured, so it was, like, emergency surgery, blood transfusions. And it just kind of left me shocked and confused.
I just remember being in the hospital and they were wheeling me in. And I knew I had ten seconds. I had to count down from ten. And the last I thought, “Ok, I might die right now. So what am I going to say to God?” And what I said was, “If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” Which is just crushing because it just showed me that I was not sure if I was saved.
And I woke up from the surgery with blood transfusions. It was just kind of this realization. Why am I still questioning? I’ve been a Christian for years. Why am I still questioning if I’m going to see God when I die?
That was hard to walk through. And, you know, that whole experience, I don’t understand all of why it happened, but God gave me assurance of my faith through spending time in His Word, talking to counselors and pastors.
Then a few years later I had another miscarriage. It so amazing the difference spiritually, how they affected me. Because my second one was years later and I had an unsaved family member who was going to come see me.
And I found out I might have this basically baby that was turning into a cancerous tumor. It’s a thing. So I was, waiting on these biopsy results and I was going to cancel the trip with this family member that kinda made me nervous. And I just felt this overwhelming peace and the Holy Spirit wanted me to have him come. And he came and he was waiting with me to find out this news. Then we found out it wasn’t cancer.
And during the waiting time, I was so full of peace when I shouldn’t have been. It just didn’t make sense. And people who know me know that fear is like what I’m known for.
And so this unbelieving family member was like, “Why are you so peaceful?” And I was able to share the gospel with him.
It was just so cool because in the first instance, the first miscarriage, I was trying to live in a way that earned God’s favor. I thought the gospel will save me, but I better a good job after that. So I was never sure if I was good enough.
Then once I had realized it’s the gospel. Once I had realized that Jesus died knowing all my sin, and that I can never do anything that makes Him stop loving me or love me more or less. Then I was able to just rest in this really scary experience because I knew that He is with me and He loves me. I was able to be used by Him rather than just kind of shutting down in grief.
