After my first pregnancy loss, I was afraid my other children might die. 

After my second pregnancy loss, I became convinced they would. 

I’d kneel by their beds at night and beg God to let them keep breathing. I’d watch the steady rise and fall of their chests far longer than normal. Every gust of wind or shift of weight had me rushing to their rooms to make sure God wasn’t taking anything else precious from me. 

Nothing felt safe. 

In the early months following our losses, grief refused to be linear in the way Psych 101 had taught me. Rather than progressing through each stage and checking the boxes—There’s denial. Check. Now on to anger. Check—grief presented itself as an unpredictable ocean. One moment the sea was calm and the next the storm raged inside me, driven by gusts of fear and waves of anger. 

During this storm, questions rose to the surface that scared me.

Why did God allow this to happen? Can I still trust Him?

The questions felt like a thorn was buried in my shoe, forcing me to walk with an awkward and painful gait. Every time I tried to push through the discomfort, the thorn lodged deeper and deeper until I couldn’t ignore it. 

RELATED: God Actually Does Give Us More Than We Can Handle

The thorn became unbearable one evening as I drove home from work. I pulled into our driveway, put the car in park, punched the steering wheel, and screamed.

And screamed, and screamed. 

I screamed to God that I was tired of the platitudes. That I was afraid. That I didn’t feel like He could see me. That I was angry. That I didn’t understand. That I wanted to trust Him but felt like I couldn’t. That I feared my faith was never as strong as I believed it to be. That I’d never felt so alone. And that if I lost another child, it would destroy me. 

And then I was silent. 

I will forever look back on that evening as a turning point for me. There were no audible words from Heaven or angelic lights shining down onto my minivan. But as the silence settled around me, words from Scripture I’d been meditating on for the past several weeks rushed to mind. 

“Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us” (Psalm 62:8).

Pour out your heart before Him. It sounds so poetic, doesn’t it? I tend to picture David writing these beautiful words while simultaneously strumming his harp, lounging in a green pasture, and gazing at nearby still waters. 

I’m beginning to think I’ve had it wrong all this time. 

David endured dark days and asked dark questions. As he penned these words, what if David’s posture and countenance were different? What if his fists flew? What if his screams echoed through the night?

Maybe “pour out your hearts” looks messier than carefree, angelic harp playing.

Maybe “pour out your hearts” looks more like questions, anger, tears, doubts, and frustration. 

For me, it looked like banging my fists against a steering wheel and screaming into an empty minivan. It looked like admitting to God the deepest, darkest questions and doubts I was afraid to admit to myself. 

RELATED: Father, Do You See Me?

David asked why and how and when. But he also always, always affirmed God’s complete and absolute sovereignty over every part of his life. 

Including the painful parts. 

The question of why is relentless, and in my darkest moments, I find myself looking to my pain for the answers to hard questions instead of to the One who keeps all His promises and has proven Himself trustworthy again and again. 

If He is trustworthy, I don’t need to know why—because I know Him. 

And He is good. 

God has been near to me in my sorrow and kind to me in my doubts. He’s held my broken heart and loved me through my questions. Even on the hard days—especially on the hard days—He is good. He is faithful. He is trustworthy.

And He is enough.