I’ve had a song running through my head all week that I barely remember. It’s been years since I sang this song in youth group, hands raised high in invitation for God to invade my whole life and make me completely His.

You can listen to the whole song here, but some of the lyrics go like this:
(“Everything” by Tim Hughes)

Since those youthful years singing this song, I’ve experienced a lot more “everything” than I bargained for. I’ve battled a life-threatening chronic illness. I’ve watched my family torn apart in divorce. I’ve fallen in love and married the love of my life, and learned that “happily ever after” isn’t as simple as I thought. We’ve endured long seasons of unemployment, financial hardship, spiritual apathy, and fear. Most recently, I’ve been learning about the joys of pregnancy, followed by the heart-wrenching pain of miscarriage.

Today, this song is reminding me that God’s presence–His intimate involvement in each minute detail of my life–does not remove me from pain, hardship, or loss. If you became a Christian because you thought He would protect you from the hard things in life, I’m sorry to be the one to break the news, but you picked the wrong God for that. It’s written all over the pages of Scripture and it’s painted all over the years of my own life–God doesn’t steer His people away from trouble, but He walks with them through it.

Hardships, trials, and pains mold us into the people He needs us to become. Pain is the side effect of growth. He won’t remove us from that. But He went to extreme lengths to be able to feel our pain alongside us. He became human–walking where we walk, feeling what we feel, hurting the way we hurt–so He could truly meet us where we are and be with us in our Everything, not as an outside observer but as an empathetic friend.

God was there when I conceived my twins. He was there when we cried tears of joy at the prospect of being parents. He was there when their hearts stopped beating. His arms were open to receive their little souls. He was there when we learned that our babies were gone.  He’s with me each day as I still wait for my body to let go of this pregnancy. He weeps with us each time we feel the pain of this loss. And He will be there when this season passes and we encounter new joys and new pains.