By Cindy Martin,
Contributing Writer
Some might say that from a spiritual perspective I have lived a charmed life for most of my growing up years – Sunday school, youth group, Bible college - it all seemed so black and white. God was good and the Bible said to trust Him, so why were people having such a hard time trusting Him?
It was in my 20’s and early 30’s that things seemed to fade from black and white into a thick cloud of grey. After being married for more than three years, my husband and I decided it was time to have a family, but God had other plans. After three confirmed,(but likely more) miscarriages, we underwent extensive testing only to be told that we had unexplained infertility.
During that time, my husband had started attending Bible college and part of my role as the Married Student Advisor was to visit new moms in the hospital after the birth of their child. With each visit I grappled with why God would not let me be the one being visited instead of always being the one celebrating with someone else.
My faith was further tested through the process of three failed adoptions – meaning the birth mothers chose to keep their babies - some of them at the last minute. The anguish of dashed hopes had me wondering if God really did care and what I had done to deserve all this.
In October of 1995 we entered another adoption scenario and this one proved to be very successful yet nothing like we expected or were prepared for. Arrangements had been made for us to be in the delivery room to watch our child be born in early January. However, Christmas night of 1995 we got a call telling us it was time. My heart raced with anticipation as we hurried to the hospital. I remember thinking as we walked through the doors of the hospital that this time people would be coming to celebrate with me. That did eventually happen, but not in that hospital and not for quite some time. The woman who would gift us with our son, suffered an amniotic embolism which means amniotic fluid got into her blood stream, causing her to become critically ill and putting our son in distress. As a result he suffered birth asphyxia, (lack of oxygen to the brain). He was flown by emergency medical helicopter to the Intensive Care Unit in a city two hours away and we were told that there was no guarantee that he would be alive by the time we got there.
I remember standing by the window as the helicopter took off, feeling so very weak and asking God, “Why does it have to be so hard to have a baby?”
God never did answer that question for me, but He did grant me the desire of my heart. Our son survived and after many difficult days we were able to bring him home.
By this time my husband and I had made plans to move to a city eight hours from our home in order for him to complete his internship requirements as a pastor. It was while we were there that I experienced the 'desert' of my faith journey and began to wonder if I could really stand any more. Hours away from family and friends, it felt like our lives were unravelling. Our son Randy was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy at six months of age; within a 12-month period five of my loved ones died or were killed in car accidents – the most difficult of those being the death of my dad at age 56. As I grieved the loss of him, I grieved the loss of my child’s grandpa. He would never get to play ball with our son, tell him stories, attend his graduation or be at his wedding. I wondered why God would take that away from us. Despite all the difficulty and sorrow in our lives, I was cognizant of the fact that I was a 'pastor’s wife' and with that came expectations of godliness. While I did the right things on the outside, my heart was empty, dry and full of pain.
As a result of carrying the load on my own, actually believing that I was doing the right thing, my health paid a huge price and I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis in October of 2000. It was very aggressive and by Christmas of 2000, I was unable to walk by myself if I was tired. My husband had to cut my meat and help me get dressed. For three months I was unable to care for our son.
As time passed, we moved to a city three hours from our home. I had undergone a successful drug trial with new medication to address my disease and we looked at adopting another child. Long story short, it was another very painful process in which we were introduced to a child that we began to give our hearts to - only to find out that she was not actually eligible for adoption. Our hearts were tired and we were ready to give up. At a time when we thought we just could not take any more, another gift arrived for Christmas 2003. The precious little girl who would become our daughter entered our home at age four. The next summer she would be diagnosed with Fetal Alcohol Effects.
While I have mentioned the concrete areas of struggle in our lives, please do not think there weren’t any relational struggles. We have experienced conflict and disillusionment with family, friends, church leaders and yes, in our own marriage.
Relational struggles are much harder to talk about, they are often messy and there is rarely much you can do to 'fix' them. While they may be invisible on the outside, they reach to the core of your being and leave you feeling all alone wondering if anybody cares, especially God. I, too, have wondered if God was worth trusting, after all why would He allow all this to happen to me. Did He not know how much my heart had been wounded?
As I began to allow God to change my woundedness to brokenness, He brought perspective I couldn’t find on my own. I was actually able to see, feel and clearly experience His attentive care towards me IN THE MOMENT despite still feeling overwhelmed by my circumstances. My life’s motto continues to ring truer with each passing year – Life is hard and God is good, but you don’t know how good God can be until you know how hard life can get! Our children are now adults and all I can say is ONLY GOD!
Our son has been living with a supportive roommate for 8 years and has had a part time job at Home Depot for 9 years. Our daughter serves on a church planting team working with immigrant youth in Germany and has just recently started leading the Ukrainian Refugee Camp Outreach.
Our marriage has weathered many storms and while there have been some pretty dark days, we are currently enjoying the gift of each other in fresh and life-giving ways. I actually bristle in my spirit when I hear people say, “Just trust God,” like it is some easy thing we just snap our fingers and make happen. Nooooooo, trusting God is hard, some days very hard. Yet harder still is trying to make life work without God.
Let me ask you a question I have asked myself often through the years, “Do I honestly have a better option
than trusting Jesus?” Of course the answer is “no” but the struggle to submit and surrender is real and like I said, some days it’s real hard. Soooo, if trusting God is hard and doing life without God is hard, I’m going to choose the hard that gets me where I want to go. If I play both of these movies forward, they have very different endings. As God writes your story, pick your ending!