It's just God--doing it.

My child is gone. There is a lot of hurt left ahead of me.

For the moment I am at peace with the outcome. I had so many phases in these last several days. Earlier in the week I was hopeful and also scared. Later in the week when I started bleeding I became angry, because I did not want to give up my baby. And now I am blessed because God turned the outcome in a way that I needed in order to be at peace.

I am a sinner. When I sinned I invited death into my physical body. That is the consequence for sin. Now in terms of the spiritual my death has already been made up for because of Jesus hanging on the cross. But the physical--even though later He will fully restore all life and all sicknesses and infirmities because He has overcome death, for now it still reigns in our lives.

God sometimes answers prayers for rejuvenation of life--resurrection; healing. But most of the time He does not. He largely and ultimately allows death and pain to happen. He wants me to know that our hope should not be in amassing perfect conditions here in this world but in the qualities and realities of a Kingdom that is alien to our world.

Sometimes God is plainly merciful, because He steps in and does not let us suffer by reaping what we sow. Other times He does not interfere with this spiritual rule of cause and effect. Which is why I was so terrified. In the general sense, I am to blame for my baby's death, I realized. Because, when I first entertained sin I gave permission for death to enter into me. And as my LDS friends would remind me, God has given me free agency--I must take full responsibility for that choice; it is not God's fault nor was it his work to see me fall. Now it is very tempting to think that my relationship with God is cause and effect; imput and output, like some cosmic vending machine. You do this, He does that. You don't do this, He doesn't do that. If it is really my missteps which cause me to suffer, then how can I ever stop blaming myself?? I'd never be free from guilt. I knew I had to rip myself out of this depression and guilt by rejecting the idea that I am earning my blessings, that I am earning my righteousness and protection. Really it doesn't make any sense. If it were true that God protected the righteous from suffering, then there would be no poor believers, and there would be no sick believers, and there would be no dying believers. But that's not true! In fact it is these very suffering groups of people who God says He comes to defend and abide in power with.

It also says that God disciplines those He loves. It says that Job was a blameless man who obeyed God, when calamity struck his home and family. The bible has told me that the Lord has appointed sufferings for me to carry in my body to display Christ to the world. He wants me to count it joy when He allows suffering and trial, because He is producing wisdom and love in me that will enable me to offer Christ to those who walk through it after I. If God has these things foreordained for us, as He knows all the days of my life before I live them and He knows the words I will speak before I say them, then does it not matter at all what I have done wrong? Are my sins unrelated whatsoever to my sufferings? Are sufferings simply blessings (disguised by trial and work) randomly and unassociately applied to my particular life??

This also I cannot believe. Not because it doesn't feel good to me, because it does. But I don't think that this is completely balanced either. Why? Because deep in my own conscience I know the things God has set out for me as I am marching on in life, and to me there have been too many instances where it has been uncanny that I am reminded of my sins as they relate potentially to my sufferings, *in a way which causes me to be repulsed and never return to that way of life again.*

As I have said before, it is a gift of the Holy Spirit if we find ourselves able to obey the commandments of God because we have been made sober or newly minded about our sin.

God does want to use my sufferings to remind me of the destructiveness of sin. God does want to point out the horrible ways of living which lead to death in its kinds. God does want sin to become so utterly sinful through an examination of how I measure up to His holy law, in a harsh, honest light.

Can I really be held and protected by grace, completely forgiven, completely absolved of my guilt, yet also made sober in detest for my sins and a corrupted way of living?

Is this what a balanced perspective looks like??

I am finding right now that once again it all comes down to relationship. He just wants my heart! He uses blessings and He uses sufferings in the perfect amount at the perfect moment, to draw me closer in reliance on HIm. To give me a defense and a strength to walk a righteous life. He knows exactly what I need to turn and believe. And He delivers it through my circumstances. Just as He uses prayer and the answer of either a Yes or a No (or wait), to build a deeper reliance in myself upon Him, He is doing the same with my conscience about my sin or my innocence in sufferings.

It is true, then, and it is proven, that my religion is not man-made but God made, for He is *not letting me get stuck* at any moment for any reason to walk away from Him:

"I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. You will live in the land I gave your forefathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God. I will save you from all your uncleanness. I will call for the grain and make it plentiful and will not bring famine upon you." Ezek 36:25-29

It's just God--doing it.

His salvation is so real.

Somehow what I do matters somewhere mixed in with everything. But in the overall picture I am completely and utterly reconciled. It's absolutely not my yoke, to see myself become clean.

I love my baby. And I love the Lord.

I dedicate this post to all the people who have prayed for me. The Lord knew best to bless my heart by giving me a little window in on wisdom, and also giving me the wisdom of some godly counsel, because that's my personal way that I receive healing and rest in Him.