The only thing more intense than my cries that afternoon were my prayers.

I was laying on my bed, crying out to God, when I abruptly stopped and realized that what I truly wanted could literally never come to pass. I was less than one week postpartum with our first child, a stillborn son. I was home and he was not. What I wanted was for him to be out of the grave — in my womb or in my arms . . . it didn’t matter.

The visceral emptiness I felt sunk deep into my heart. Then came the intruding thought: “If I can’t have what I really want, what am I even praying for?”

This spiritual and emotional precipice was terrifying. Did I really believe Jesus was enough, even if I couldn’t have what I wanted? I had been taught so many ways to pray over the years, including prayers of letting go. You know? Those prayers of releasing what I hoped could be. However, those “letting go” prayers still held within them the hope that God would give back to me whatever I had entrusted to Him.

This could not be the case with our son, however. Because, regardless of what well-intentioned folks would say, this was not a scenario in which God could give back to me that which I had seemingly released. Our son was gone, and I didn’t want to simply “have other kids” as others had suggested. People don’t replace people. I wanted him back; I wanted my son back.

My wholehearted answer to the question I asked myself was, “I don’t know.” I was no longer sure that Jesus was enough, though I was certain I didn’t want Him to be enough. At that moment, having my son back was the only thing that would be enough.

Admitting this felt like flinging myself over the precipice in a reckless and irreparable way, so I prayed something else instead. My new prayer sounded more like, “God, I really want what I can’t have — and I can’t even begin to imagine what You can do with this prayer, but I am open to You doing something I don’t have the imagination or emotional wherewithal to even consider at the moment. That’s all I’ve got. Amen.”

Then I fell asleep and escaped my little world for an hour or so.

Unsurprisingly, I awoke to the same reality — the same bed, the same feelings, and without my son. Even still, I had made it through that utterly terrifying wave of grief. I also made it through what felt like the lowest faith prayer I had ever spoken. That was nearly a decade and a half ago — and we are now three kids deep. The answer to my prayer, however, didn’t come in the form of my three children, though they are a joy and bring great life to our home. The answer, in fact, is ever unfurling.

Though that particular precipice was a one-time cliff, the experience of looking into an abyss with only a darkened imagination is not. Eight years ago, my husband left his Christian faith of thirty years. The faith that held us when we buried our son and the same faith our other three children have been symbolically buried and risen into through the waters of baptism. The faith that once held us both but now only holds me. . .

The truth is, we all face our particular precipices — looking into a situation that either feels impossible or literally is impossible. Friend, I know this place all too well. So, in what manner of faith do we approach this kind of abyss? I would offer you Ephesians 3:20 (NIV), where the apostle Paul is writing to his friends in the faith, and he tells them, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.” Full stop, right there — this verse lights up the darkness in my thoughts and prayers.

The unfurling of God’s work in our lives doesn’t come from our own imagination. It doesn’t come from what we can see or even ask for. God’s work doesn’t come from a plan we can concoct and pray for. We don’t have to have much of anything, really. We come, simply with a willingness to be shown something outside of what we could literally “ask or imagine.”

This abyss, this precipice you face may be awful. There is no escaping that reality. Your lack of faith may frighten you, as you may feel you need a resurrection so far beyond this death you are experiencing that you struggle to even know what to pray. This is the place Jesus knows. He knows how to let go into the Father’s hands. The only path is to believe, even if ever so slightly, there is a life beyond your imagination, a world where God himself establishes you in His love.

Indeed, God will “work His power” in you in ways so big you have yet to consider asking. This, this is truly good news.

Now, to Him who is able . . . amen.

Leave a Comment