Sometimes, it’s good for me to stop and think about some of the lessons God has taught me throughout my years of being a Christ follower.
That includes lessons, at times, I’ve had to learn the hard way because of my stubbornness, and I wonder if maybe some of these lessons could help someone else.
Recently, one of those memories has come to mind that I haven’t thought about in years.
When Dave and I got married, he was 28, and I was 25. He had been in Vietnam and was back home, and I had been through college and was a social worker in Shelbyville. By that time, we had both been Christ followers several years.
After being married for a year, we decided we were ready to start a family. It took almost two years for us to conceive. During these two years of waiting, there were times when we got discouraged and wondered if God was ever going to bless us with a child of our own.
Finally, when I did become pregnant, I was so sick the first three months that I had to be hospitalized twice and stay in the hospital three days each time. I became dehydrated from vomiting so much. But we made it through the first three months and then my nausea ended.
We would get so excited at just the thought of becoming parents. I was feeling good, and everything was going well, or so I thought.
When I went in to see the doctor for my eight-month checkup, he listened for the baby’s heartbeat. Though he tried for minutes, he couldn’t find it. He told us to go directly to the hospital, and he would meet us there. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was already in labor.
A few hours later, I delivered our first child, stillborn. Katie Lynn Evans came into this world one month early and without us ever getting to hear her say, “I love you, Mom and Dad.”
We were in shock the next three days and then we had graveside rites for Katie at Columbus’ Garland Brook Cemetery. After leaving the cemetery, we spent the next couple of hours at our home with family and friends who had been with us through it all.
Finally, after everyone was gone, Dave and I were home alone. Dave decided the best thing for him to do was to pick up where he had left off a few days earlier, putting on a new roof. He needed to grieve and he told me later that he cried and cried while he was up there.
I, on the other hand, was fuming mad at God, and I decided I was going to go for a walk and let him have it. I remember, I was moving slowly because I had to have several stitches after delivery.
I then looked up in the sky and pictured God in a picture frame and I said to him in my head (not out loud), “After all I’ve done for you, all the Sunday school classes I’ve taught, time I’ve spent in your house, tithe I’ve given to you and after all I’ve sacrificed for you. Who do you think you are to do this to us?”
I blasted him as I gave him everything I thought. After he let me get it all out, there was silence and a pause.
Then he said to me, though not audibly (it was kind of like an earthquake in my head), “Who do you think you are telling me where to rain?” and he brought to mind Mathew 5:45 which says, “It rains on the just and the unjust.” Then he said, “I will rain where I need to rain” as if he was saying to me, “I am God, and you are not!”
He had just spoken to my very core and neither of us had anything else to say. I got it. He had left me speechless.
I turned around and walked back home in silence. After that exchange, I still had a lot of grieving to do, but the anger I had toward God was gone.
I learned that day that God is a big God, and he can take it when I express to him my honest feelings, even when I’m angry.
I also learned that “God is God, and I am not!”
Columbus’ Nita Evans is owner of Confidential Christian Counseling, focusing her work especially with ministry leaders and their families. She also is a Columbus Police Department chaplain and a national retreat and conference speaker. She can be reached at 812-614-7838 or by visiting specialspeaker.com.
