In 2008, I was blissfully naïve about miscarriages, infant loss, and infertility.
I was pregnant with my first child at the time, and I was that pregnant woman. You know the one.
She posts “belly pics” every month of her pregnancy. She can’t contain her excitement.
That was me then…before loss.
Now, four miscarriages, hundreds of tests, and thousands of dollars later, I’m not so naïve. I know a lot more about pregnancy loss and the battle of infertility that thousands of couples face each day.
After scouring websites, books, and pamphlets for months on end, I learned way more about the female reproductive system than any person who is not a doctor ever needs to know.
The most important thing I learned, though, wasn’t something I learned from a doctor’s office or from a website. It wasn’t something I learned from our infertility clinic or from my ob/gyn.
The most important thing I learned came from God’s Word.
Before our first miscarriage, I knew some of what the Bible said about pain and heartache.
But somehow, even though I went to Bible college and spent four years studying the Words of God, I missed one of the most important things the Bible says about pain.
The Most Important Thing the Bible Says about Pain:
The most important thing the Bible says about pain is that even though pain is inevitable, defeat is not.
2 Corinthians 4:8-9 says this: “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”
I read that verse shortly after our third or fourth miscarriage, at a time when I felt completely abandoned by God and alone in my suffering.
Even though I had read it before, it hit me differently this time.
This time, I think I finally got what Paul was talking about.
Pain is inevitable, but defeat is not.
We don’t have to sit by and watch helplessly as Satan throws punches at us in the form of hardships, deaths, sicknesses, broken relationships, and more. We can fight back.
We don’t have to allow our hardships to define us, control us, or break us. Pain is inevitable, but defeat is not.
What do you think are other important lessons about pain the Bible can teach us?
This post is part of Lindsey’s blog tour to celebrate her new Bible study and devotional, Unbeaten: How Biblical Heroes Rose Above Their Pain (and you can too).
To celebrate her book, she’s giving away a HUGE bundle of books! Leave a comment on this post to be entered to win. You can get more entries by commenting on other blogs in the tour as well. Get a full list of participating blogs here.
About Unbeaten:
Why does life have to be so hard? If you’ve ever asked this question, you’re not alone. Difficult times often leave Christians searching the Bible for answers to some of life’s most difficult questions.
Questions like:
Does God hear me when I pray?
Why isn’t He doing anything?
Does He even care?
In Unbeaten: How Biblical Heroes Rose Above Their Pain (and you can too), Lindsey Bell walks with readers through the stories of men and women in the Bible who went through difficult situations. In this 10-week Bible study and devotional, she addresses many of these questions and helps readers learn how they too can be unbeaten.
About Lindsey Bell:
Lindsey Bell is the author of the Bible study and devotional, Unbeaten, and of the parenting devotional, Searching for Sanity.
She’s a stay-at-home mother of two silly boys, a minister’s wife, an avid reader, and a lover of all things chocolate.
Lindsey writes weekly at www.lindseymbell.com about faith, family, and learning to love the life she’s been given.
Lindsey Bell is the author of Unbeaten and of Searching for Sanity. She’s also a stay-at-home mother of two, minister’s wife, avid reader, and chocolate lover. You can find Lindsey online at her website: www.lindseymbell.com.
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