What If I Feel Anger at God: Rechab & Brittany Gray

So, our daughter got sick. She starts complaining of chest pain. We show up to the hospital and they start telling me, I think we're going to have to intubate her. By this time, I'm like realizing it's worse than I recognize. So, I hit up Britt like, hey, this just took a major turn.

This ain't looking good. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson. And I'm Dave Wilson. And you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on the Family Life app. This is Family Life Today.

Recap and Brittany Gray are back in the studio. You guys like being here? You look like you do. Yeah. You're smiling. We're together.

No, we hate it. What else are you going to say? If you didn't listen yesterday, go back because that was just powerful. You shared about how you met your family, memorizing the scriptures and discipleship and why that matters. And by the way, if you didn't listen yesterday, you're like, oh, I memorize scripture.

No, you don't. Not compared to recap. He's talking books of the Bible and he recited some of them and that's so, so powerful. But one of the things you mentioned yesterday was your story and your family. And we know something our listeners don't is you had quite a journey with one of your daughters. So take us on that journey.

Yeah, I can lead up into the journey. So our two oldest kids have sickle cell disease and it's a disease that primarily affects black folks, literally Africans with also Indians, I believe is a, yeah, yeah. So it's a small portion of population that's actually affected from even the black population though.

Me and my wife share the trait, but then our two oldest actually got the disease. The way it affects them is what is called like crisis where the blood cells start to sickle, which means they start to form like a weird V shape. And then when that happens, there's like intense pain in that place. So it's not like a sore or dull pain.

It's more like a stabbing, like a particular spot. So in arms or legs or anything like that, it creates crazy pain. In organs, it could be very serious and even like fatal. So when our kids were younger, living in Philly, one of them were hospitalized at least like monthly or bi-monthly. It was all at the time we were in the hospital. And they had already been diagnosed? Already diagnosed. Okay. It's part of the newborn screening now. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I think even for Aaron, I think one of the ways we knew something was off was he had what's called dactylitis where his hand swelled up. And so... Three months old. It was his first crisis when he had the swelling of his hands.

Brittany, like take us back to that. Even when they had the diagnosis. As a mom and dad, this is just, you're living out your fears. How did you deal with that? I remember the day we found out about Aaron.

We were shopping for baby gear in Target and I got the phone call and I was absolutely devastated. We were 22 years old, still in school. So you're babies. We were. We were. And this is... We look like babies too.

This is a heavy burden for... Yeah. And no one in our family had ever had it. So it's not like we knew anyone with the disease.

We just learned about it in science class. And so of course we had prepared because we knew we had the trait. The doctors will ask you many, many times, are you sure you don't want to get your baby tested before they're born? Make sure you're prepared. And we absolutely said, no, we're going to have this baby and take care of this baby. You're going to keep that baby? Absolutely. Right. Absolutely. So we were undoubtedly sure we were going to have our child and if that baby came with sickle cell, we would know early and we would be prepared. So we had done a lot of research and things like that.

And amazingly Children's Hospital of Philadelphia is one of the best hospitals in the country and one of the top research hospitals for sickle cell disease. So God orchestrated that. Well, take me back. I'm thinking of myself as a young mom. You're already feeling vulnerable.

You're feeling out of sorts because you have a baby. Take me back to your prayer. When you first heard and how you guys process that as a couple. Do you still remember that time? Oh yeah. Yeah.

I remember when we got the call. I remember breaking down. At Target? At Target. At Target, yes.

Really? Just broke down? Yeah. Yeah. Just sat on, they had a little bench by the pharmacy section.

I just sat down and cried and I remember getting home and then I knelt beside the bed. I think you were sitting on the bed and I wept deeply and we prayed together that Are you mad at God? Hmm. That's a good question. Yeah.

Why you do what you do. I honestly, my first thought was that it was a punishment for our sin because we had got pregnant before we were married. So I think that was my first thought like, Oh Lord, you're punishing us for the sin.

And I had to let that go quickly because he was such a blessing. So yeah. So I think that was my first thought. I don't know if you, do you think other people think that, you know, when a baby gets sick or they wonder like, is this because of my sin or something in my past?

Yeah, for sure. And I mean, we had so much reason to feel that way. We, we had gotten off to a horrible start. She wasn't a believer that whole time. I got the opportunity to treat her to Christ in spite of me, not because of me.

And I don't know how real these podcasts get, but I guess y'all can edit this stuff out. But like, you know, we, we had sex long before she became a Christian, took this long break and then she got curious about Christ. And I was like, man, we can't do this friendship thing anymore. And that day almost on some like, I had all tried Jesus. She prayed to receive Christ.

Hit me up. You remember what she said? Jesus is real. Yeah.

He's real. My eyes were opened. It was like the lights came on and for her, that was such a big deal because I remember how much she had gotten to like the point of hating the Lord. So God restored all of that. I remember her taking like communion the next Sunday and that was like a big deal. Immediately became a worshiper.

I saw somebody go from darkness to light. And we had this long season of like almost a year and some change where we didn't only like not have sex, but we didn't like touch. Didn't like hold hands.

Like we were so afraid of crossing the line. We weren't together every day though, because we were in the same classes in school. So we were studying together every day.

We were working together every day, but we did not touch each other at all. And then it was like my birthday. I think I just went to her crib because of my birthday.

I felt I can give her a birthday kiss. And we went right back into sin. So for us, it really did feel like, man, it would be a rightful punishment because you redeemed us, you restored us and we decided after you did this wonderful thing to go back to what we knew was vomit. But even when we're faithless, like God remains faithful. And he gave us a gift we didn't even know we needed through sin though. And that might sound so weird, but the cross is that picture. It's that amazing grace. Yes.

Yes. Like every other God, that's why I don't mess with no other gods. Like every other God is like the good guy. And he has to work around the bad guys. Our God says, I'm so good.

And so in control, I can use the bad guys to pull off good. And that's the cross. Like the worst thing that ever happened in human history is killing the innocent son of God. The greatest thing that ever happened in human history is the son of God dying on the cross for our sins. He doesn't have to work around sinners.

He works through it. And he worked through sin to put sin to death. That's sovereign control right there, but it doesn't absolve the sinner. The sinner needs to come to the same grace that he used in order to overcome that sin. And I just thank the Lord for his redeeming hand and redeeming us from that pain. And then the double pain of feeling like we were being punished because God gave us such an incredible gift in our firstborn son, Aaron. So he wasn't punishing you. He came to that realization. No, no, no. It took a while for us to realize it, but man, when I say like we realized it, he's like mini me. Yes.

I'm pretty sure you're a general, yes, mini me. I will share one story though that was really hard. We were in the hospital. He had to be two or three. They couldn't figure out why he was sickling so much. Then he started like sickling his head, complaining of a headache. And then his head physically started swelling up. And you got to imagine like a two, three year old, like your child sitting there swelling up.

This was the moment I was like angry because I'm like punish me, do something to me, let me suffer. Like it's too much for him. And he can't talk.

He can't live this anything. So in my anger, and this is what's so good about our God. My mentor says all the time, we have this like saying in Christianity that he like hates of like, I'm not sure if you should say that to God.

He said, every horrible question you could possibly think of is actually an inspired scripture. Just go read the Psalms. Where are you? Are you there? What's up? What are you doing? What are you doing? How long are you going to have us go through this?

So we can ask hard questions in pain and agony. And so I went to the Lord, I'm like, yo, I don't get this. You have to show me something. And I just opened the Bible.

I literally like just put it on the bathroom sink. And he led me to a Psalm, I believe it's Psalm 34, but I just can't remember. But I walked through that Psalm and I remember walking out of the bathroom, feeling so much peace, even though I'm looking at the back of my son's head and it's still as big as it was. I come around to the front and oh man, in that moment, he just cracks a smile. And it was like his cracking of a smile was like the father's touch on his dad's shoulder.

I already knew he was good. Within the hour, within the hour, the swelling completely went down. And yet it was like the peace came before the healing, which was such a like major, major moment in our lives. And that moment taught us to trust the Lord through the valley of the shadow of death, not just before and after it.

So I think that that was just a really, really, really big deal. But you had asked yesterday about our gap between our kids and it was because of that. Them both having sickle cell disease.

And there's 10 years between the two older and the two younger. We literally had decided we weren't going to have any more kids. You're done because- We're done because we don't want to put any other child through this. What changed? Yeah. What changed, baby? She's still crying. Brittany's still wiping her tears. I'm crying with you.

Yeah. So ironically, God taking us away from our comfort and the place we thought we would be forever in our home that we were at and place this in a new uncomfortable environment, but with some wonderful, gracious friends who knew how to ask those challenging questions. They didn't shy away from really asking us to inquire of the Lord because they kept saying, you guys sound like you want more kids.

You're not sounding like you're final in your decision. And we were just, yeah, but you know, we're good with what we have, but we would love some more. You know, we just kept going back and forth. And this was, our daughter was seven at that point and we were still struggling with the Lord.

What do you want us to do? And had they, had your son and daughter gone through some other experiences that were hard? So it's ongoing. Yeah. I mean, so I thought she lost her spleen. They had both gone through multiple bouts with like pneumonia. That's exhausting in every way.

Physically, spiritually, mentally. So you're wondering like, can we do it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So we were challenged to pray again, which we hadn't done in a long time. And of course God said, you're supposed to have some more babies. And we were excited to try again, but man, we were nervous.

We were really nervous. And so we did, we tried again and we got pregnant really fast when we tried again. And then we had a miscarriage. That first one, we lost Joseph eight weeks. So we were sad, devastated, but we said, Lord, you said you're going to give us another one. So let's try again. Once again, it happened so easily.

Man, this must be from the Lord. And then he took our next one. So we lost Ariella at nine weeks. And so that was all in one year, May and October, we lost both our babies.

And eight and nine weeks. That's really hard. Yeah. It's hard. And we've talked about this with another person. Once you have those experiences and you vocalize them, you realize this is happening to everyone around us.

We're just not talking about it. Multiple of our friends came around us and said, yeah, we had this happen. We were just, oh, this happens often, very often. And I had never really realized what that pain was like. And so we, we really learned, man, that's a serious, serious loss that a lot of our friends have dealt with.

And even our friends that were really, really close with us had had that happen. And it's amazing how she just knew. She knew what I was feeling before I felt it. She knew what you needed.

She knew what I needed. And she walked right with me and cared for me and recap cared for me in a very special way that I'd never seen him care for me before. So that was difficult time, but God really opened my heart to an emotion that I'd never felt before of feeling extreme sadness and extreme joy in a way I'd never experienced before.

I'd always been a very level-headed person, very even keel. I don't get too much joy. I don't give too much sadness, but that experience in losing, losing both of them really opened my heart. Now I can feel extreme joy, also extreme sadness, but that was a new, new adventure for us as in our marriage that he's walking with a new person. Now he was experiencing these new emotions that the Lord gave us through tragedy. So yeah.

It's funny when we talk to people that say, when I would say, well, why did you guys get divorced? And they said, well, he changed or she changed. Hello.

Yeah. That change really did need that change. Being able to experience emotions at greater levels has made me a better, you're more empathetic to others and I'm able to love better.

And so absolutely I needed that change. And being able to care for her through that told me what it's like to be a stabilizer because I'm so naturally up and down. And by the grace of God, we finally got pregnant again and had Jonathan right before COVID hit. And then our daughter experiences her worst crisis ever. After the baby's born. And how old is she at this time? She was nine.

Nine years old. It was tough because Aaron was experiencing a lot that year. I remember being in a hospital a lot more regularly.

I'm literally preparing sermons right beside his bed. And I remember her for a while, just not being herself. Got sick. She starts complaining of chest pain, but it's like, I think it's been long enough. Let's take her in. We show up to the hospital and they try to look at her oxygen.

It's already in like the 80% and it's declining like rapidly. So they put her on the mask and this reminds you COVID hit. So they test you for COVID and you're positive you go to that wing. If it's not COVID, you're in this other wing.

So we're in the other place, but nobody can still visit because it's COVID. So I'm as a parent, the only one allowed, so she's not even able to be in there. And I see them put the oxygen mask on her and I think she has like a panic attack cause it's like on her face.

And so that only makes it go worse. So they rush her to another room because it's getting lower and lower, lower, lower, lower. And they start telling me, I think we're going to have to intubate her. So by this time I'm like realizing they're trying to help me be calm, but it's worse than I recognize.

So I hit a Brit like, Hey, this just took a major turn. This ain't looking good. So during the intubation, cause our daughter's a fighter. She like, she's like my dad, she's strong. And she ends up resisting the sedation. And so when they try to intubate her, she's not asleep enough. And so her gag reflexes kick in and she ends up puking into her own lungs, only worsening the already bad infection. So when that happens, I hit a Brit.

I'm like, Hey, I don't think this is going to happen. They tell me they want to life flight her two hours away, whatever y'all got to do. But I would get cold, cold, like, you know, negative 10, negative 15. So like when that happens, I hit a Brit and I'm like, they're going to have to life flight her on the coldest day.

Sickle cell already doesn't respond well to the cold. To take her from the hospital bed to a van, to a helicopter and all of those transitions outside. Like I just said, Baylight, there's no way she's going to make it even to Iowa city.

And so I said like, we probably need to just be preparing that. We're going to get the call on the way up that she didn't make it. So we make it there before the helicopter actually. We're like on pins and needles. Like, why haven't they called?

Why haven't they called? Finally get the call that she's made it. And she's like still here. Now she's intubated fully out, but she like made it. Her oxygen is so low, but she like made it.

So now it's like the roller coaster ride. Let me just say, they had moved her to this new location because they were going to put her on life support. And that was the only way they said she was going to make it. So they took her away to go down life support. And when she made it there, they said her numbers have improved.

She doesn't need to go on life support. Like the opposite of what you would have assumed would have happened with all the transits. Like literally astonished. Like shocked, like can't believe. And we find out later when you get on, it's called ECMO, when you get on ECMO, it's hard to get off.

And so often people are either on that for the rest of their life or they don't make it very far. And so we were astonished. We were amazed. Well, we're out of time today, but we're going to continue tomorrow.

Aren't you thinking this? Like I'm thinking of all the parents who have dealt with something that's just tragic for their kids, or maybe they're in it right now. How would you give them hope? I will definitely say that the most peaceful thing that happened in that time period was a reminder that this ain't it. And that does not sound very hopeful, but it's true. Meaning this life. This life is not it because the healing is either going to happen on this side or the next, but in Christ's healing is coming. And so for us, while we had given up hope that the healing would be on this side, the peace we experienced was because we knew on the other side of this, we were going to see our baby girl. And it just so happens that God had a different plan. It's hopeful in and of itself to know that peace can be found in the midst of really terrible, painful trials. When all we have to cling to is Christ, we have everything we need to cling to. And Rekab and Brittany have lived that out in a very practical way.

And I find hope in that. I'm Shelby Abbott, and you've been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson with Rekab and Brittany Gray on Family Life Today. It's been such an encouraging conversation and the conversation with Rekab and Brittany is going to continue tomorrow. But I really enjoyed them not only talking about parenthood, but what that can do to your marriage and how it can test it. Have you ever wondered how strong your marriage could be? We've thought about that question a lot here at Family Life, and we would love for you to join us at the weekend to remember marriage getaway and see the difference that one weekend can make. As one attendee shared, I realized marriage is a covenant, not just a contract.

That's an amazing revelation. So we don't want you to miss out on this opportunity right now to save 50% off on registrations for the weekend to remember marriage getaway until September 16th. So you can head over to familylifetoday.com and click on the weekend to remember banner and take the first step toward building a stronger marriage. Now coming up tomorrow, Rekab and Brittany are back one more time as they talk about navigating parenthood amidst crisis, enduring faith, and unexpected challenges. That's coming up tomorrow. We hope you'll join us. On behalf of David Ann Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a donor supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.