The God That Shows Up
A journey through miscarriage, harmful theology, and the God who shows up in flesh.
The cruelest theology I ever heard came wrapped in concern.
My wife and I had just lost our second pregnancy in less than a year. We were grieving, confused, barely keeping it together. And a family member, someone who loved us, who meant well, told us that maybe we were “outside of God’s will” since the miscarriages happened shortly after we’d moved for a new ministry position. As if our geographic coordinates had somehow disrupted the divine algorithm. As if God was punishing us for taking a call we thought He’d given us in the first place.
I remember nodding, forcing a smile, trying to receive their words as the comfort they were intended to be. But inside, something cracked. Not my faith exactly, but my trust in the evangelical framework I’d spent my whole life building. Because if this was pastoral care, if “you must have done something wrong” was the best my tradition could offer in the face of unspeakable loss, then maybe I’d been taught the wrong theology all along.
