Look at God Working: How God Can Bring Goodness in Your Season of Struggle

Shirley, Bridget (my mom), and Me!

**The following contains events and discussions that may be triggering to some. Please read with discretion.**

Not long ago, one of my closest friends and I were discussing the hardships going on in an acquaintance's life. She is going through a season of struggles that, I am sure, she feels could be her downfall. I am a Christian, but I am not a perfect one— I am actually a pretty bad one. I still have a lot to learn and I have a whole lot of growing to do. With that being said, I would be lying if I said I like this girl; I actually very much dislike her (Not Christian of me, I know). "Wow, look at God!"—I said. My friend was immediately taken aback, "Ashley! Oh my gosh! I don't think God wants her to suffer! That's terrible," she took it as cold-hearted as possible. Which, listen; I don't blame her. It sounds cold. The audacity to say something like that when someone is being kicked, right? What the heck is wrong with me?! (A lot actually). How heartless can one be? Bear with me! I can say it because I have been there. I say it with warmth. I say it WITH my heart. I say it with the purest of intentions. God IS in the struggle and the beating you or someone else is taking. Have you ever read the Bible? The Old Testament? Look at what happened to Jesus. Look at the suffering his mother endured. LOOK AT GOD. JUST LOOK!

I began doing Bible Study a solid three years after running from God. However, I bargained with Him, and I am a woman of my word—so Bible Study I have continued to do. I was so mad at Him. How could a GOOD God do this to me? How could a GOOD God allow so much pain and suffering in a world full of people He supposedly loves? I didn't believe in Him anymore (or so I would say). I was spiraling, and I no longer had any idea who I was. The weak foundation on which I once stood had been swept away by the raging waters of life. With it, I was cast out in the middle of an uncontrollable ocean with a tattered lifeboat that was only as strong as my morals, self-control, and life tools I had gathered before the Hurricane of Destruction made landfall upon my heart (and let me tell you, they were shit). I didn't believe in Him. But, did I really not believe in Him? I was a "non-believer" who would sit in the shower crying silently to a man in the sky I believed was made up. If anyone has ever thought I was an evil POS to them during my life, they should have been a fly on the wall as I talked to the God that I didn't believe in when I would cry in that shower. The hate I would throw at Him followed by the desperate pleas for mercy. I put God to WORK. My therapist THINKS he's seen bipolar. If only he knew!

Karma's a bitch. That's what we all grow up hearing, even normalizing. Someone is going through heartbreak after heartbreak, and we don't like them, or maybe we don't agree with things they have done to get to that point, and what do we revert to? Karma. Karma's a bitch, right? That's where the true coldness lies. In the belief that karma is dealing someone the cards of suffering they deserve. We rid ourselves of the joy we get from their suffering and we call it karma, so that we aren't the bad guys. However, if you have ever been truly broken down and beaten, you wouldn't feel that way. You couldn't. I don't believe in karma anymore. I believe there is evil in this world, evil that has been welcomed in by sin and the gift of free will. Free will is a beautiful thing, but damn it if it can't be a dangerous double-sided sword. I believe there are very few truly bad people in this world. I believe at their core, most people are good. What our simple human minds see as the bad in them is just their hopelessness, their hurt, and their loss of sight. I can't name a single person that I have or have had issues with that I can confidently say are bad or evil people. I can't say it because they were made to be good. It's our own stubbornness that has made that goodness hard to see in one another. At a base level, forgiveness is hard and grudges are so easy to hold onto. Dig deeper than that and you will see it is truly the opposite. Forgiveness is so freeing. Grudges will drain your soul. If you could watch a preview of the worst times of someone's life, and feel what they felt in those moments, you would probably have a hard time holding grudges toward them. Now, back to the point. The point I have now made very long—very on brand for me.

I have complex trauma. I had complex trauma before any of the trauma and heartache happened that made me face my demons. I won't lie, I still struggle with those demons. I will probably always be a bit of an asshole. I don't think the crazy bitch in me is going anywhere anytime soon. What was it that finally broke me down completely to lead me to the views I have now? What was my category five hurricane that ripped every part of me to shreds?

**TRIGGERS TO FOLLOW. PREGNANCY LOSS, TBI, MENTAL HEALTH STRUGGLES. **

My husband and I made the decision to leave Louisiana, the only place we had ever known, to relocate to Fort Worth, Texas, with our son. My husband's personal demons were breaking our family, and it couldn't continue, or there would be no family left. My parents had moved to Texas about a year prior, and we decided moving away from the issues at bay and still being near family would be the best course of action for us. Not a day passed that Greg (my husband, for those of you who don't know) didn't remind me that he HATED it there. Our marriage was fragile, so fragile. He was miserable. I wasn't happy either. Direction? We had none. I got pregnant again, and I was terrified to bring another child into the dynamic we had, and I didn't rejoice in the life inside of me. I wept over it. By the time my first appointment came around, the happy butterflies of love and excitement fluttered inside of me. I was in love with the life inside of me. And then, just like that, I miscarried. My body betrayed me right there in a bathroom stall of the men's restroom. Alone. Just me, the man I forced out of my way when running in, and an automatic flusher. The primal scream I let out telling him to get out as I watched what I couldn't save slip away from me in a whirlpool of water is something I can still feel in my womb.

I can say without a doubt, aside from the Lord Himself, in my most fragile seasons of life, it has been women who carried me through. He Himself made women that way, we truly are such a heartfelt and thought-filled fixture in His creation. As a mother, when your children hurt, you hurt. They are you. They are your heart walking outside of your ribcage—only they are far more fragile to the blows of life. My mom was the first person I called. My mom was the first person I ran to. My mom was the first person to start carrying me (don't believe for a second my dad wasn't in that driveway waiting to lay his own eyes on me, though). Then came my grandmothers. Followed by my friend who sent me care packages and held me close though she was far away. We were planning to announce our pregnancy at our wedding, with Stone (our son) by our sides. Now the anticipation of an announcement was stolen and replaced with the guilt of wondering if our child ever felt loved while inside of me. Greg and I had planned and canceled and planned and canceled our wedding for a good four years because if it wasn't one thing, it was another. Now, we were faced with a wedding that was less than a month away and fully planned—no refunds optional. So, we decided the show would go on.

Most women worry about Aunt Flo visiting on their wedding day. That would have been the least of my worries compared to the pain of still bleeding from a horrific miscarriage just a few short weeks prior. Every time I went to the bathroom, it was like a personal scarlet letter of a stain glaring at me to remind me of what I had failed to do. I thank God we opted out of a videographer for our wedding every year on our anniversary. The night before, following the rehearsal dinner, I called the best man's wife (who was also my bridesmaid) a "See You Next Tuesday." Why? Something completely minuscule. Somewhere deep in my psyche? Probably because she and her husband had just had their beautiful, healthy baby. Jealousy masked as hatred, perhaps. I then proceeded to tell my now husband and the best man that they could "both go effing die." The pure chaos only came to a pause because my other bridesmaids and my children's uncle, James, managed to shove me into a car to sweep me away for drinks away from everyone. Despite ending the night with me calling the wedding off, things proceeded come morning. Chaotically, but they proceeded thanks to a whole lot of help from everyone around us. The best man's speech? "I just want all of y'all to know Ashley told me to go die last night. So yeah, let us all pray." Did I deserve the jab? Yeah, it was valid. Was the whole night a bust? No, it actually turned into a pretty fun and memorable experience. I can tell you one thing, those Texas folks WERE NOT ready for how we Louisianimals party. We were "escorted" off the property in our party buses via about seven patrol units.

In case you are unaware, when you miscarry, your doctor's appointments do not halt. Instead, you are tasked with blood draw after blood draw, making sure everything tapers off as it should. A week after our wedding, I got a call. My labs were not dropping off correctly. I needed to come in immediately. I sighed and felt a slight panic knowing I would have to be alone. COVID rules. At my appointment, they began by taking me to the ultrasound tech—that felt odd. I questioned and pried. She kept her answers short, avoiding my questions with the monitor screen turned away from me. After that, I was taken to a room to wait. Odd again, I thought. I was supposed to be getting more blood work. I wasn't waiting long; my doctor came in, "Hey Ashley, are you still bleeding?" She wasted no time getting to the point. "Um, not really, just very light spotting now," I replied. She proceeded to tell me that I was pregnant, either again or still. TIME STOPPED. Panic set in. How could that be possible? I was just absolutely plastered a week ago. What if I just hurt this baby too? What if my body failed me again? I was panicked and I was ecstatic. My pregnancy was rough. I had appointments every other week, it seemed. When I didn't have a routine appointment, it felt like I was spending hours in the hospital getting hooked up to an IV for being so dehydrated. I was so sick. I would puke from the time I woke up until I could finally fall asleep. They couldn't even get a normal IV in me half the time. They would use child-sized. It was every bit a labor of love growing our daughter inside of me.

I was at the end of my pregnancy. I was exhausted. I could hardly get out of bed anymore; it was like there was no life left in me. My mom wanted to give me a break before baby day (because you know, moms). She and my dad decided to take Stone on a trip to California to hang out with his cousins and see family. A big brother vacation, one last hurrah as an only child before his sister came, they told him! One night, I got a call from my dad. My confident, head-always-held-high dad was on the other line, voice shaking. "I'm so sorry," he let out. Stone drowned. My heart dropped and landed somewhere in my ass. The world stopped. Everything was still. My little boy needed me, and I couldn't even be with him. My dad's training kicked in immediately, and he began performing CPR. My mother prayed over my son and my father. She prayed over them, pleading. She told God that if He allowed Stone to live, she would go in his place. She told Him that she had lived her purpose, she was content. Stone was only just getting started. He woke up. That's all that really mattered. He woke up. He came home to me, and he slept in our bed for a good two weeks. What was already traumatic was made more traumatic when CPS opened an investigation into the ordeal. I was ready to welcome our daughter into the world, and now I had to worry about one coming into the world while my other could be taken away. It was again women who carried me through. My best friend, whom I had blocked on everything after going full Teresa Giudice flipping a table over on her, was relentless. She mailed me and mailed me, and called my mom and texted my mom. She didn't have to; it probably would have been easier for her to just walk away. Yet, she chased me down until I let her in to hold me through it. It seemed like as soon as the investigation closed in our favor, labor came knocking.

Vivienne Estelle was born strong and looking every bit like her father. She was my rainbow in all the storms. It was like she was a sign of hope and promises of new beginnings. The dark clouds were gone—mostly. Then, and still to this day, I catch myself feeling like I am missing one. Vivienne's birth story was so different than Stone's. I went into labor naturally, I labored at home for two days until I was admitted to L&D. You know who told me I was in active labor? My mom—from day one. Vivienne didn't tear me apart from one end to the other like her brother did. I didn't need stitches from my lady bits to my rear end. There was no pain this time around. My little family was meshing, we were vibing. We were fully enjoying the bliss of adding a new life to our home. I didn't for a second take the miracle of two lives I had created for granted.

Two months passed, and we decided to make a trip out of my brother, the baby of the family, leaving for college. My parents rented a place on the water for all of us to stay. We moved him in, got him situated, fished, and explored his new city. It would be the last time we would all be together and we didn't even know it. Gosh—the things I would do differently if I had known. It is the kind of thing that still keeps me up at night. I got in a HUGE fight with my mom at the end of what was an amazing time with her. I didn't hug her goodbye when we left, I am not even sure if I told her goodbye.

A week later, she would be gone. I talked to her on the phone, and I remember our last conversation was full of laughter. But the next time I would touch her again, she would be cold. An empty shell. You never forget that kind of cold. You never forget the sound of static in your head that lasts for weeks. You never forget what someone looks like, straight out of the morgue after an autopsy has been done and they haven't been made up yet. You never forget what the weight felt like, worrying if you made the right choice in having an open casket. I must have googled how much a mortician could do to make someone look normal with makeup a million times. Her passing was every bit the straw that broke everything for me. I would NEVER be the same again.

Nothing was safe anymore. Absolutely nothing. I could hardly even look at my children; it pained me too much knowing what they had lost. My husband and I grew to absolutely despise each other. We moved back to Louisiana, we were legally homeless, and then we bought a house all within months of each other. My grandma passed less than a year after my mother. I couldn't even process it. It took me months to realize she was gone. My dad had a massive heart attack, my relationship with my brothers and father crumbled, my moms best friend was diagnosed with AML, I had a cancer scare, then found out my heartbeat is kind of weird, was told my daughter's labs were concerning, got buried in debt, and it didn't stop there. I had to mourn the loss of friends I thought would be around forever, I had to watch my son mourn my mother. I had to watch him lose trust in me. I had to watch him mourn the loss of his relationship with someone who held a very important title in his life. All I could do was watch. I listened to nauseating accusations that weren't true, had my words twisted constantly, got told repeatedly how I should mourn (there is no correct way, fuck anyone who tells you there is). I even had to have my son's dog put down, and then had to watch him mourn some more. Everything really was one after the other. I was having the shit beat out of me.

It was women and God that carried me through. I particularly hope you all have a Shirley in your life when the storm comes knocking. I don't have sufficient words for what she is. If you think of all the good in all of the people you have ever known, she is that. I was a broken person before everything happened. I was a nonexistent one after. Empty, yet full of rage. Despair. Dread. Every single bit of my being was consumed by a fire that was so out of control, it left me nothing but ashes.

Between my showers where I was fighting with God and my till-morning conversations on the phone with Shirley, who was just there to meet me where I was, I started to feel the storm around me calm. And the more it calmed, the easier it was to swim toward the lighthouse on shore. In a desperate session of crying in the shower, I cried to God. I wanted Him to prove Himself to me. "If you're out there, please just prove it to me," I whimpered. I can't put any words to the meaning of the agonizing and desperate pleading I did in that moment. There was a girl in my town whose parents were being told to take her off life support, that there was no hope. She was GONE, they told them. "If you're really out there, let her be okay. Let her live, and I will be okay. Let her live, and I will be better. I will try not to question you anymore. I will try. Please. I promise. I'm so sick of this shit. What is wrong with you? You are evil. Why do you do these things to people?" It wasn't some rejoicing of Him. I wasn't kind. I was pissed. I was tired. Well, guess what? That little girl woke up. To this day, she is thriving. And just like she woke up, so did I. I began thriving.

I had three years of a catastrophic storm. Life is hard and confusing. I started going to therapy, and I let my friends who stuck around know how much they meant to me. God replaced one friend I thought would be around forever with two new people who get life and the shitty hand it sometimes deals. They spazz sometimes, I spazz sometimes, and all is well. The support is there, and it's real. I have so little anger in me these days. Less anger than I can ever remember having in my entire life. Forgiveness has become something I do easily, without a second thought. I don't look at what is going on at surface level with people anymore; I give them the grace for what is under the surface is probably hard. I truly try to throw all of the love I can into the people around me now. I'm so thankful. I'm thankful for the little things, the big things, and all the spaces in between. I don't think God punished me, I don't think He caused those things to spite me, I don't think He wanted those things to happen so that I would learn some lesson from it or that it was in His grand plan to make me suffer. What I do know, in my soul to be true, is that He can BRING GOOD out of any tragedy. It doesn't mean the tragedy didn't happen, and it doesn't mean the tragedy isn't traumatizing. What it does mean is that if you submit to Him, and allow yourself to have all the feels while looking ahead toward that lighthouse on shore, you will come out clothed in His strength, dignity, and love.

Not all things happen for a reason. No reason other than free will. There are an infinite number of ways your life can go. God knows each of them, and He gifts us with millions of choices along the way. When I say LOOK AT GOD, look at Him. Look at what He's going to work through you or this person. God doesn't interfere often in the ways that we want Him to; that's something my human mind still struggles to understand. I can surrender to knowing I may never know because I do know, without a doubt, He can make good grow from all of the broken pieces of you that have scattered like seeds. Look at God, the goodness is coming.

I dedicate this post to my Mom, my Grandma Donna, and MiMi. I hope you are all resting in eternal bliss.~ Ashley

"Jesus loves you and so do I."- Dale Heath Rizzo