The Unchanging Goodness of God

"Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress; my eye is wasted with grief; my soul and my body also. For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing." - Psalm 31:9-10

I read this psalm, through tears, on April 1, 2011. I still remember exactly where I was sitting when these words ministered to my soul. It was a rainy spring night. Daniel was at a bachelor party for a friend. I was sitting alone on the couch in our living room. It was the exact same place I sat weeping over our miscarriage seven and a half months earlier. And now I was faced with the due date of our precious baby and my womb was still empty. I was overcome with grief and pain. The sorrow surprised me. I thought I had come to terms with our loss, and yet here I was again grieving the shattered dreams and trying to pick up the pieces.

My womb would continue to stay empty for another year and a half. In those months and years following God showed up in ways I never could have imagined. I learned things about his character, his goodness, and my sin in ways I never would have known had everything worked out the way I planned it to be. For that I will be forever thankful. Miscarriage and infertility changed me, but it didn't destroy me, and that is all because of his amazing grace.

On August 1, I read that psalm again. It wasn't intentional, I was just reading through the psalms of the day. But just a few minutes before I read this psalm my life changed drastically.

I was pregnant.

I still have to pinch myself when I write those words. I am pregnant. It feels so surreal. As I read Psalm 31 again that morning I saw a little note penciled next to verses 9-10. A very different Courtney wrote, "My prayer. 4-10-11." It's been too long to see the dried tears on the pages of my Bible, but I'm sure they are there. For two years the psalms have been my comfort in my grief. They have carried me and reminded me of the faithfulness of God. They have given me hope that God will keep his promises to me, namely to give me a future with him forever. They have been my lifeline.

And they still are, just in different ways.

It would be easy to claim God's goodness in our unexpected blessing of twins at the expense of seeing his goodness in our miscarriage and infertility. But I assure you, his goodness has not changed. God is the same God today as he was on August 11, 2010 (when we lost our baby). He is the same God today as he was on October 25, 2011 (when we found out we needed more treatment for my endometriosis). In fact, it has only become clearer to me. God is over our sorrow and our joy. He is sovereign over our barrenness and our fullness. He is God in the lean years and the years of plenty. Circumstances do not dictate his goodness. And that is our hope.

The reality that God is unchanging in every aspect of his character is what carries us when our souls give way to sorrow and when the wave of blessing overwhelms us. Isn't that so comforting? We live in a world where devastating changes can happen in an instant. But we serve a God who never changes.

This has been my constant companion throughout this pregnancy. God is over every detail of our lives and he is always working all things for our good. Even when our circumstances cannot be trusted (which we all can attest to that), we can trust in the God who never changes.