Episode Summary: 

It’s human to have a picture, an expectation, in our mind of how life is going to go. But what do we do when our experience doesn’t match our expectations? My guest today, Julie Sunne, shares from her painful wounds of when life and parenthood didn’t go as she expected, having gone through five miscarriages and two children born with significant disabilities. But Julie also shares about the faithfulness of God and how she has seen Him redeem her pain and bring beautiful sacred scars from it.

Quotables from the episode:

• As a young wife, I experienced four miscarriages, and gave birth to four children, two of whom had disabilities: my oldest son was born with a disabled arm, our daughter was born with significant intellectual disabilities, and another son was born with learning disabilities.
• I expected my pregnancies and parenthood being textbook, and my view of God, since I viewed myself as a “good person,” I expected to have a “good life” so to speak.
• We often have this naïve expectation that if we do good, God will bless us. It’s not that he doesn’t bless us, but too often, we are expecting him to bless us in a certain way and it doesn’t always look like that.
• My wounds caused me to turn away from the source of all freedom. I was very angry and had a lot of bitterness which captured me and took me to a very dark place. I didn’t have peace, I didn’t have joy, and I didn’t know the freedom that Christ would give.
• My anger was largely toward God, although also toward my husband because we were grieving differently. We both needed to grow in our faith but were growing at different rates.
• I also had some guilt that I couldn’t save my baby, and that I had perhaps done something wrong.
• In my deepest depression, after a miscarriage, I didn’t want anything to do with God, and I didn’t want to get out of bed, I didn’t want people talking to me, and I didn’t want to hear from God.
• God exercises His sovereignty not based on what makes us comfortable but on what will edify and refine us.
• Looking back, I so clearly see how he used the most devastating things in my life to bring about such beauty and hope. I couldn’t be the parent I am now, I couldn’t be the caregiver I am now, without the trials I went through.
• One of the things I had to learn with my daughter was to accept the whole of who she is and not to separate her out from her disabilities.
• Looking to the future is a scary thing for us with our daughter, but I would be in a panic all the time if I didn’t know and had seen his faithfulness through all these years in the struggles and the valleys.
• God has allowed me to share my story to help others feel less alone in what they are experiencing. Since he has healed me, I’ve been able to draw strength from what I’ve gone through.
• I’ve been able to accept my daughter, draw strength from my daughter, and love her for who she is, and even learn from her. She has taught me so much like how to love and have compassion and empathy. Those are not that were inherent in me.
• The Lord used those wounds to make me a more beautiful person on the inside. I wouldn’t want to walk through what I walked through again but I can see so much beauty in what he’s done through it. He allows me to comfort others and reach out to others to make a difference and point them toward Him.
• Because He has created beauty on the inside, that is what spills over onto others when we get bumped and pressed.
• Whatever difficult situation we face, the God of the universe is in charge of it. Whether large issues or seemingly small ones, He knows what’s going on, and He has a plan.
• As the Sovereign, He is allowing the hardship in this season for a reason. We may not understand, but when we accept the mystery of the Divine Supreme Being, believing He has control over all and is never caught off guard, we can choose trust over worry.
• When something difficult happens in my life, God has to keep reminding me that it took me by surprise, but it didn’t take Him by surprise, and He already knows how He’s going to get me through it.
• What flipped the switch for me was taking my attention off my anger and putting it on the needs of my daughter; it gave me purpose and realizing apart from Him, I didn’t have the strength for that either.
• God showed me that I couldn’t fix my daughter the way I wanted to, and it made me put my eyes on Him. He created her, He knows her. When that realization came, that I had to surrender my strength to Him, surrender her, and surrender all my expectations to Him, I could begin to see that He was there all along.
• God is trustworthy. We can trust Him even when we can’t understand Him. He’s going to be there for you; He loves you. Just take it one minute at a time. He’ll meet you in that minute. You’ll look bac