Hills and Valleys

This was originally published with Round Farmhouse Ministries

Recently, some special friends shared an announcement. They were going to be grandparents… and not just one baby, but two of their beautiful daughters were pregnant. I was over the moon happy for them. This family has been special to us since our teenage years. We married and started families at the same time and cheered each other on over the decades.  Distance separated us, but keeping up with their growing family was easy with social media. This announcement of two babies to come brought me such joy for them.

It was fun to watch over the next few months all of their anticipation… Double everything… belly photos, gender reveals, and showers. Joy seemed to flow out of them from each post. Each time I read something, I always thanked God for this double blessing. I was so happy for this beautiful family .

When it was time for the babies to be born, they had them a week apart… like we had  28 years ago. The pictures took me right back to the sweet photo of our own babies, born a week apart, decades earlier. My excitement and love for them overflowed!

 I was so happy for them, but mixed in that happiness was the knowledge my heart carried… this will never be me. The joy I had shared a space with the jealousy my heart held. Jealousy that screamed God had forgotten me. Jealousy reminded me I was the mother of a prodigal and my loss would span for generations. The depth of this loss opened the floodgates of tears.  

Maybe you too have been there too. One minute rejoicing over amazing news and the next minute consumed with sadness over what you will never have. How could God be in both places of emotion at the same time?   

I quickly opened my Bible and turned to I Kings 21. I love this story of God showing us how he isn’t a one locational God. He is the God of the Hills and Valleys. The Syrians had been defeated by the armies of Israel and the King attributed his loss to the only thing he could think of… That God was a God of the Hill country. Surely, if they had a rematch on the plains, they would conquer this nation. He couldn’t be a God of both places.

That friend is the mistake we still make today. We assume God can only be a God that meets us in the perfect places. The minute things get hard, we ask God where he is. We don’t allow him to work in our pain because we automatically assume he has left us. That is a lie. I knew then that God knew my deepest desires, to one day be a grandma. He reminded me he was the God of the Hills and Valleys, the Highs and Lows and of Gain and of loss. He was in every emotion I could feel and just as he did for the army in 1 Kings; he was fighting my battle and victory would be his. 
Thank you, Lord, for being the Lord of the Hills and Valleys of my life.