All of us at some point in our lives will go through a time of suffering. But how do we respond in a Christian way in the midst of hard times? In this video, Pastor Noe Garcia tells the story of when he and his wife experienced a miscarriage and how they were able to get through it and come out on the other side.
The entire video is above, and the complete transcript is below.
How do you respond in the midst of your suffering as a believer in Christ?
In 2014, I’ll never forget, my wife is pregnant. We have the nursery ready, we’re picking out colors, we’re thinking of names, we’re buying everything that’s on sale at Target. It was glorious time. It was so exciting. It was a beautiful thing.
We go out to dinner one night and we’re driving. It’s a late night and she begins to have complications. And several hours later she miscarried in our car. It was a very traumatic moment.
We didn’t understand. All kinds of feelings came across us both. There was feelings of anger. There was feelings of entitlement. There was feelings of bitterness, not towards each other, but—to be transparent—towards God.
There’s a piece of me that felt like He was so sovereign, so powerful that He could have stopped this and He didn’t. And I couldn’t understand why. So we went through a time of suffering.
Frustration of Emotions
I’ve got to be honest, during that year we went through a roller coaster of emotions. From knowing that God is sovereign and finding peace to all of a sudden being bitter and angry if we saw another couple that was pregnant who we maybe felt like didn’t deserve it to be honest with you, if I’m being transparent. We were everywhere. We were all over the board.
I remember that my wife was so hurt and she was so pained. She was afraid to get pregnant again. It was hard to go to church. It was hard to be in church on Mothers’ Day. It was hard to be in church on parent dedication day. It was hard to read the Bible to be honest with you.
I remember my wife laying there and she went through a time of slight depression. She was depressed. It was frustrating. I was depressed. I was frustrated. She couldn’t read Scripture. She couldn’t read Scripture because there was a frustration towards God and it was a real frustration. And yes, she was a believer, yes, she believed in Jesus, yes, she loved God, but she couldn’t help her emotions in the moment.
There was a real frustration that opening up the Word of God reminded her that God didn’t stop the miscarriage. It was a hard time to reconcile that here’s a loving God who allowed something so horrid and so painful. We couldn’t quite unite those two thoughts together.
1. Find a Safe Place
I remember her laying in bed and her asking me to do several things. One, I just need to listen. I just need to listen and let her share without being judged how she felt. Let her share her emotions about God, about me, and about things she was seeing in this world. I had to let her share everything.
So, to be a good listener was unbelievably important, but to be able to allow her the safe space to be transparent. So, if you’re walking in the midst of suffering right now, there’s a good chance you’re going to have all kinds of emotions everywhere. Let me just encourage you, the first thing I would say is find a safe place and safe person to be transparent with. You have to share what you’re feeling. It’s not wrong to feel these things. Just share them. Share them. Get it out there.
2. Find Rest in God
Number two, what she had me do for her because she couldn’t do it for herself at that moment was read Scripture over her. Literally, she could not read the Bible in that moment. And so she would lay in bed and I would just read verses and I would read verses. Sometimes it’d be two sentences and she’d say, “That’s enough.” Or sometimes she would say, “Keep reading.” Because her flesh and emotions were saying she was angry at God. Her spirit was saying take rest in God. We had to fight through her emotions so that she could take rest in God.
So, the first thing, find a safe place. Be open. Be transparent. The second thing, fight to find rest in God. Now hear me clearly, it’s going to be a fight, but fight to find rest in God.
3. Find People to Walk With You
The third I would tell you is surround yourself with people who aren’t going to tell you to get over it. Surround yourself with people who aren’t going to ask things like, “Aren’t you over it by now?” Surround yourself with people who are going to walk with you. Maybe who’ve walked through this already so they understand what you’re going through. But that’s going to be unbelievably important.
How long is it going to take? How long, I don’t know. But the overarching theme I would tell you is to invite God into your suffering. You don’t have to divorce God from the midst of your suffering. He’s not only a mountaintop God; He’s a valley and suffering God as well and He yearns and He desires to walk with you.
I hope this encouraged you. I hope you would do those things that I’d encourage you to do and I hope you find life in the midst of those. I hope you find rest in God. And I hope you can truly see God’s fingerprints all over this pain when you’re able to look back. God bless.