When your prayer goes unanswered.

I don't think I will ever forget our circle of prayer in the hospital on Tuesday, February 24, 2015.

I still remember laying on the hospital bed, holding onto Ryan's hand as if my life depended on it.  I remember bits of the prayers going up on behalf of our precious son, and ourselves.  I vividly remember my husband declaring God is still good, and we will still praise Him, no matter what.

I have never had so much faith or believed so hard in something before.  I truly thought our baby was going to live.  I remember praying fervently, pleading with God.  I waited and waited for Emmett to move, I was so certain I was going to feel him flip in my belly, that we were going to be those people with the miraculous story…but nothing happened.

As my nurse and midwife began the process of induction, I felt sick, but sort of peaceful, because again I thought we were going to experience a miracle.  I thought to myself, I'll just have him, and he'll be okay. He's going to come out kicking and screaming, and everyone in this room is going to be blown away, there'll be no denying the power of God!

The induction process was supposed to be a long process.  The first round of medicine was supposed to take at least 12-24 hours, then they would proceed to see if I had even dilated.  After a few hours of round one of the medicine, I began contracting.  As labor truly began, I kept thinking, Our miracle is coming…I know you can do this, God. Please. Let our son live, let this be a testimony.  Seriously.  Beyond the painful contractions and my inability to sleep (it was around 6:00 AM at this point), all I could think was how our baby was going to be a miracle baby.

At 6:41 AM, my water broke.  Throughout my pregnancy, everything I read said, "Oh when your water breaks it won't be like the movies, a big gushing crazy thing!"  Wrong.  The exact words I used with my nurse were, "Umm…I think my water just broke…it was like a big explosion."  And honestly, if the contractions hadn't hurt so bad, I probably would have laughed at the extreme way it happened.

Things progressed so swiftly, I was hardly able to think or comprehend what was happening.  All I knew was I had to push the baby out.  At 6:45 AM, I began pushing, and by 7:23 AM, Emmett Austin made his entrance into this world.  I waited for him to cry, and forgot he wasn't actually alive.  I was practically holding my breath, waiting for the moment when the miracle would happen, and my prayers would be answered…but nothing happened.

Throughout the day, I would periodically look at Emmett and intently stare, waiting for him to take a breath.  I kept praying and thinking it was going to happen.  My faith was hanging on by mere threads, but it was there.  It was real.  After the whole day went by without seeing my baby live, and when Mary (my sweet midwife) came to take Emmett (per our request…the cooling cot can only do so much, and we wanted to remember him while he still looked like our baby), my heart began to sink.  My baby was dead.  He hadn't come back to life.  He was just gone from my body, and from this world.

Over the next few days, while we made funeral arrangements and so on, I kept waiting for the phone call.  I would pray that somehow, Emmett would live.  That we would be the ones to baffle the doctors and the scientists.  I waited for the phone call with someone on the other end, "We don't know how this happened, but your baby woke up."

Even Monday, at the funeral home, when I saw the tiny casket, I sobbed and felt my heart shattering all over again, but it wasn't until I walked away from his gravesite when I realized he was really gone, and not coming back.  I held onto hope, thinking my prayer would be answered, thinking we would get the unthinkable, that somehow we would have this great, unexplainable testimony, of a baby who was dead and came back to life.

Seriously, I know it sounds crazy, but that's the kind of faith I was feeling.  Crazy faith.  I thought we were going to hear our baby crying from inside of his casket, because he was alive again.  I thought somehow that was going to happen.  That's what I had prepared myself for.  Some may want to call it denial, but I'm sticking with crazy faith, because I know God is capable of even greater things than that…but it never happened.  Our baby was buried in a beautiful cemetery, on a cold but sunshiny day.

I wrestled for days following the funeral.  How could God not answer all of our prayers?  There were so many people praying for Emmett to live…how could God deny us?

Did I not have enough faith?
Did I not believe hard enough?
Why?

Six days after the funeral, Ryan and I decided to go to church.  We snuck in a few minutes after service began, and hid in the front row.  (Which reminds me, why is everyone always so afraid to sit in the front of the church?? :)

It was so refreshing to be in the presence of God, with our church family, and to know there there were other people around the world doing the same thing, in one way or another.  I sang with as much strength as I could muster, and found myself rubbing my belly a few times during worship, waiting for the response of my baby, who had loved when I sang.  (He always danced for me.)  Then felt the painful stab of reality…my baby is gone.

We sang about how God is good, how he is faithful, how He is great…and I wrestled.  I found myself on my knees, asking again, Why didn't you answer my prayers? Didn't I have enough faith? Because if that wasn't enough…I don't know if I truly know how to do this thing!

Throughout Pastor Mike's message that morning, I felt restless.  Funnily enough, he was talking a lot about faith and prayer, or asking God for something.  As he was talking, I felt myself getting very fidgety, because all I could think of was my baby boy, and my unanswered prayers.  It was right around that moment when he said, "I feel like I need to also mention this: just because we pray and believe for something, doesn't necessarily mean we're going to have our prayers answered, but God is still honored by our faith and belief. And if you're praying for something, with faith, and He doesn't answer that prayer, that's on Him, not you."

Suddenly it clicked.  Maybe God didn't answer our cry for a miracle, and maybe we'll never know why this happened on this side of eternity, but He is still worthy of our belief.  He is still honored by our faith in Him.  Things didn't work out the way I had anticipated, but God still heard me, and He still cares about my requests.  At one point, Pastor Mike asked a question that is still ringing in my ears:

"What kind of faith honors God?" 

I want whatever kind of faith that is.  Faith that honors God…crazy faith.  That's the kind of faith that says, "God, we still choose you."  The kind of faith that my husband displayed, faith that stands in a hospital room, knowing our baby is dead in my womb, and still declares, "God we will still trust you, no matter what the outcome."

Crazy faith.

God, give us crazy faith.