How in control is God, exactly?

I’m long overdue to share. And I just have to rip the bandaid off.

The thing that has been keeping me from posting has really just been … not knowing what to say. Do I write about my miscarriage? Do I share the whole story? Do I just … wait for inspiration to strike again?

As of yesterday, I’ve been married for six months. It’s been wonderful, relationally. And very hard circumstantially.

I have intended to give a good, in-depth update on here at many points along the way.

But before I knew it, I was pregnant, and my energy was sapped, and I hated all food. And, I was trying to fix up my book proposal so I could get a book deal in time to turn in a whole manuscript at the end of the year before my baby was born.

Then, at 12 weeks, I had a miscarriage. The baby hadn’t lived past 6, but it took 6 weeks for my body to catch up. (I wrote a longer piece about my whole emotional process through the pregnancy, and the miscarriage, but I think I’ll save that.)

It took another month for them to realize that my natural miscarriage wasn’t sufficient and I had to get a d&c to have the retained tissue removed, then another two months of bleeding. I literally stopped bleeding last week.

Nearly the whole 6 months of marriage, I was experiencing either a morning-sickness-filled pregnancy, or a long, drawn out miscarriage.

Mike really had to take care of me. And he really did. First physically. Then emotionally. While he was also grieving. It really put this marriage thing to the test, pretty quick. And he has been amazing. Another thing I can talk about another time.

However, my point today?

I completely dropped the ball on the book. (It was actually very hard to figure out the structure, and I’m kicking the can before I … open the can again.)

And, I completely dropped the ball on here.

I am completely and utterly unmotivated and uninspired.

I don’t know if it’s fair to blame it all on grief. Maybe originally, but not anymore. I don’t spend my days sad.

It’s more an issue of focus and clarity and motivation. What should I write about, now that I just write about God, and my life. Should I really share every single thing? And, if not, what do I share?

I really miss having a clear project. The F*ck It Diet was actually so pleasing to work on back when it was a business I was trying to optimize with email sequences, and a book that I was trying to market and incentivize people to buy. Yes, there was the creative aspect of writing, but then there was the “how do I make this work” thing.

In the absence of another clear project to work on, I have begun to work on our marital budget. You may already know this if you follow me on instagram. I input all of our bank accounts into a budget app. We both gasped when we saw how imbalanced our income vs our expenses are, and I’ve been trying to optimize ever since — getting rid of subscriptions, getting rid of the majority of our eating out, buying almost nothing besides food, and figuring out how to consolidate and organize our accounts.

It’s … good? It has to be done. But my approach is also kind of overkill. There were a couple weeks in a row where I spent HOURS a DAY in the budget app, just categorizing and organizing and optimizing everything. Calculating by pen and paper how much we need for this and that. And making flow charts.

Anyway, it’s been a distraction. A nice distraction. It’s felt fruitful. And looking at our base expenses has been sobering, for the both of us. And for me, a bit obsessive. But at a certain point I’m realizing, ok I can try to organize and optimize these budget categories even better, and optimize a theoretical flow of cash from income to checking and savings, or I can spend time actually creating something, like I used to.

If I were to guess what God wants me to do, it’s to keep writing. And to keep writing about God, specifically.

But the problem is, I haven’t known what to say about God.

How do I write consistently about God, when I mostly have questions?

Like:

Our grief has brought up old questions that I always circle back to.

Mike was initially praying for a miracle resurrection baby, and I was not. I was praying for a fast, easy miscarriage without complication, and to be pregnant again immediately.

Neither of us got what we prayed for.

Navigating God’s will in death is very hard. It brings up my constant questions about God’s providence.

…How in control is he exactly?

Is it God’s will that a good person dies?

Does God kill us? That doesn’t sound quite right. But is it? Does God give and take life? That sounds right…

Or is sin and death the consequence of the fall? And God has promised to redeem it all? And reconcile us to himself through Jesus?

Or is death no big deal because we can live forever with him?

Or is death a big deal because… God cares about our grief and death was never the design? Jesus wept at the death of his friend.

Does God decide that your baby will die? Or does your baby die because this earth is fallen, and broken, and nothing is the way it was supposed to be. And God will redeem everything, and will mend your broken heart?

On a slightly different topic, Mike and I have a difference in belief. He is calvinist, and believes in predestination — that God has predestined who he will save (and by deduction, who he will not save), and that we are 100% wicked without God acting in us, and that we have absolutely no role in our salvation.

Originally, back when we were temporarily just friends before we started dating, I actually thought, “there is no way we will ever date. I could never date a calvinist, that’s so whack.” I’d just learned all the reasons I did NOT agree with calvinism. I felt like I was on my way to becoming catholic again. Which, I haven’t become, but I’m very catholic adjacent, with my calvinist husband.

I believe, while we do not save ourselves, and can not save ourselves or change our hearts without God, we do have to respond to his grace and respond to his gift. We must consent. We have the power to turn away. God gives us this free will. And God designed it this way.

Mike thinks the idea that we could deny God’s grace, and turn him down, is implying that we are stronger and more powerful than God. (Calvinists believe God’s grace is irresistible and he just chooses who he will save, without any cooperation from us at all.)

I understand his view, because it certainly does seem random, who God reaches and who he doesn’t. When you listen to people’s stories, it does sound like God chases people down and shows them who He is and changes them, whether they want Him to or not. So, why some and not others? Or, why do some respond and not others? And, next question is, do we get to take credit for responding, when other’s don’t respond? I think that’s the slippery slope that Calvinists are trying to account for: never ever ever take credit for what God alone has done. Though I think it’s an overcorrection.

Thankfully our disagreement doesn’t get in the way too much, except a recurrent debate that comes up whenever I point out anything that supports my beliefs. Just this Sunday I nudged him and raised my eyebrows during the sermon, as if to say, “See, the pastor just said we have to cooperate with God!”

Once, before we were engaged, during a week where Mike was very busy, and had lots of things happening all at once, I decided to bring up this topic on a phone call. I went on and on. …“God wants everyone to be saved” so saying he chose some and not others makes no sense, I think what “predestined” means in that context is that he forKNEW who would respond to him and who wouldn’t but that doesn’t mean he CHOSE. I went on and on — and Mike listened patiently and then responded, “Look, I don’t claim to know how exactly God works through space and time. We can debate this once I have more time. Like, when we’re retired and our children are grown and we can just sit on a porch and talk about this.”

Where Mike and I do agree is that we do need to participate in our own sanctification, and that our call is to deny our flesh daily.

Practically, our walks look similar.

But I believe the crux of it is free will. God has given us free will. God could do whatever he wanted. Save whoever he wanted. He could control us completely. But he doesn’t. He has chosen not to. He has chosen to give us, and the angels that rebelled for that matter, free will. That’s how we ended up falling in the Garden of Eden to start. If we didn’t have free will, that never would have happened. And if God caused it to happen, then God is responsible for sin, which is counter to the faith.

God has chosen that we should have free will. And he allows us to respond to his presence, and accept his gift of salvation and a changed heart, or not.

God can and does redeem everything. Every fallen thing he can redeem.

I know that God is in control. But … how in control?

How much free will do we have?

How much control does God have?

When I had the miscarriage, there were two ways of looking at it:

1. It was not God’s will that the baby should live.

That’s what Mike sadly came to after praying fervently for two weeks that we would go back for another ultrasound, and the baby would be alive, two weeks farther along that it was in the previous ultrasound. I know you can resurrect the dead, if it is your will, please save this baby. The baby was dead, so it was not God’s will. Is that right?

2. Or, as I said, what if it was God’s will that we all live. But in this world there is sin and death. God is grieved with our grief. God promises to comfort us. God promises to redeem all.

I believe, I believe, I believe in God. I believe in our good God because I have experienced his goodness. But I will have to accept the mystery. I will have to accept what I will never understand in this life. Because I also know God can heal anything and anyone. But I also know that he often doesn’t.

I know that God is in control. But … how in control?

I don’t know. I don’t know how God works within space and time.

But I know that we can trust God. I do know that God is good, and is close to the broken-hearted, and is in the business of redeeming all things. Now, or in the life to come.

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