God is All I Need

In his book Future Grace, John Piper says that “suffering helps us see that God is all we need.” Before we lost the baby I knew that conceptually, but didn’t fully grasp it. I see things differently now. When the life you want so desperately is taken from you, all you are left with is Christ. Before we got pregnant I thought I “needed” this baby. I wouldn’t have admitted it to you. But all of my actions and talk would reveal a heart that was banking all of my joy on whether or not I could get pregnant quickly. I don’t feel that way anymore. I do desperately want to have another baby. But I don’t “need” a baby like I thought I did. Sadly, it took losing our baby for me to realize the idol having a child had become.

The removal of the “need” for a child doesn’t lessen the pain. It’s been a little over 2 months and I still feel like if I let myself I could cry at any moment. There are still moments where the sadness just will not lift. But each day is better and I am a lot farther along today than I have been every previous day. That is progress.

Like Pastor John says, suffering has a way of purging unnecessary needs from our hearts. It’s true that I don’t need a baby to be complete or whole in Christ. Do I long to know my baby and feel him kick? Of course I do. But I don’t feel the need to control every aspect of my life in order to ensure I have another.

I fully recognize that God did not have to feel near to me during this trial. I know many people who have gone through deep suffering and also felt God’s absence. So it is a mercy of the Lord that we felt him nearer to us than we have ever known before. The resounding theme of our lives right now is that he has not left us. We are grateful for that.

I have been given eyes to see that he is all I need more through this loss than I ever have seen before. There were moments immediately following the miscarriage that I didn’t even know what was going on, but God carried me. Somehow I got up, went to work, and still loved Jesus and my husband at the end of the day. I remember thinking to myself, “this is what it feels like to be carried bythe prayers of the saints.” I truly believe we were.

Jesus is sweeter to me now than he was 2 months ago. Are there days where I wish I could have the sweetness of this fellowship and my baby? Absolutely. But I do know that this is my baby’s legacy in my life. I will be a better wife and mother for it. Our baby’s siblings will hear of the greatness of God from parents who have seen him magnify his glory in their lives. Those things cannot be taken from us. We see Jesus as more valuable and great today because of the brief time we had with our baby.

We love Jesus and each other now more than we did before. We still ache. We still grieve. But by God’s grace, and his grace alone, we can say that all we have is Christ—and he is enough.