Billy would be 11 today. So many unanswered questions and broken dreams? What would Billy be like? Would he love sports or school or music? What kind of big brother would he be? Would he be a mama's boy or daddy's little dude?

I wish I could remember 11 years and 1 day ago when stillborn was not a word in my vocabulary. Back when pregnancy ended with a healthy baby.

I wonder how many people have been touched by Billy's short life. I also wonder how many would have been touched if he lived a full life. I wonder why God allows this to happen. I wonder how a loving God allows this to happen twice to a family that seeks to follow Him.

I thank God I have come through depression, heartache, and tragedy making it through another day. I thank God for my wife because we suffer together which is much better than suffering alone. I thank God for community that support us. There are many days I am fine and others that I question everything. There are days that I am fine and break down in tears for seemingly no reason. There are days that I just want to stay in bed and not face the world, but I still believe there is a God of love and redemption so even if I feel let down I want to redeem these broken dreams for His glory (even though I hate it has to be this way).

Do faithful and obedient people suffer?

People have praised my honesty. Honestly yesterday was a terrible day. I was off work to recover from the drive home from Tennessee. For the first time since Joey died, I had worked up the motivation to do some work around the house. I got out the pressure washer which my dad had kindly loaned me. I sprayed for about 20 minutes kicking up caked mud off my driveway and retaining wall. It was okay because i would wash it off once I got all the mud up. The mud did not get washed off before the pressure washer broke. It just fell apart, then I fell apart. 

What caused me to fall apart? I suppose it is being in a fragile place. I tend to get stuck in thought of worthlessness. This time I was stuck on a recent series of Bible studies. A major point of the Bible study that I attended was obedience always leads to blessing. This was preached time and time again across multiple weeks, sometimes with qualifiers and other times without. I could not help but think about how disobedient I must be and how God did not want another disobedient failure like me in the world which is why every son Alice has been pregnant with has died. Four males in utero . Zero live births. My only thought was that God must have been protecting the world from people like me. Obedience always leads to blessing so not being blessed is only logically a failure to be obedient. 

Let me acknowledge that I am not perfect and not completely obedient to God and His word, but who is worthy of the blessing that comes from obedience. I'm pretty sure none of us so I don't get the point of preaching obedience leads to blessing. In fact I think it can be quite harmful. Does God want our obedience? Sure does. Does obedience lead to blessing in many cases? Yes. Does it always coincide? Nope!  If our mere obedience always leads to blessing, then we could control God. He would have no say in the matter.  He would have to bless us.  The caveat may be that Jesus says to love Him is to obey his commands and thus in proclaiming our love for Jesus through obedience we are adopted into a covenant of salvation, then I agree that obedience leads to blessing. However fixating on obedience and blessing beats down those, like me, that are already brokenhearted and grief-stricken in a way Jesus never intended (I am sure the preacher did not intend this either).

My point is not to beat down another preacher. My point is that grief and depression are real. I am not sure which effects me more or that they can truly be separated. All I know is that I'm left a shell of myself more times than anyone will ever know. I fixate on all my shortcomings and hate who I am. 

Now the response of many lovely people is to quote scripture and tell me not to be so hard on yourself. These are truth, but what if sometimes we are not called to a quick fix. What if sometimes it is healthier to sit in the pain? I don't think it is healthy to go there by myself, but one of the things I have appreciated about facebook is hearing how hard my situation is. It is healing for me to know that others think it is hard. I know we are not meant to face this hard world on our own. I need to know that although others do not completely know my pain, at least they see it and say it is okay to hurt. You have given me permission to not feel okay. My greatest comfort is the knowledge that this torture was not a direct result of my failings and whatever my failings are they are covered at the cross. What if Jesus bought me and my babies eternity in heaven and they never have to know any suffering outside the womb? Then this temporary struggle is worth it all.