Page 28 of With All My Heart, Joy

She examined her nails. Dark green with red dots. She’d done her nails during a livestream last night. “I don’t know about that. I think it’s because I wasn’t planned. I was never meant to be, so I don’t have a purpose. I shouldn’t have been born.”

Why did Mr. Miller look so personally wounded by her statement? He scooted to the edge of his chair, his right foot tapping. “Do you think every child who is a result of an unplanned pregnancy has no purpose? No value? What about the children of rape? They had no say in that. Are their lives a waste?”

“Well, no, of course not,” she stuttered.

“All the children that are born into single-parent homes from an unplanned pregnancy? Are they purposeless?”

She saw his point. “No, they are not.”

“I’m glad you don’t think so. You know what? My own daughter…” Emotion deepened his voice, and Joy peeked at him to see his eyes glittered with intense feelings. “She wasn’t planned. She shouldn’t have been. Do you think I love her any less for that? That I don’t want her? That she doesn’t matter to me just as much as if I had planned to have her?”

Joy couldn’t blink as she stared at her counselor. Never would she have predicted such information from him.

His eyes closed, his shoulders falling. “I apologize. I should not have shared that. I’m just trying to make you see how wrong your thinking is. Haven’t you read in Psalms where it says God formed you in the womb? ‘For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.’”

The words rolled out his mouth with such ease, Joy knew the passage must have been committed to his memory for many years.

“There is no such thing as an unplanned child, Joy.” His eyes opened, pinning her into place. “Even when a child is born under the worst circumstances, God ordained that life. That life is sacred.Yourlife is sacred. And God has a purpose for you, whether you have discovered it or not. You were planned byhim. Believe me.”

She wanted to with all her heart. Especially when he spoke with so much passion, as ifshemattered to him. Tears slid down her cheeks. “You’re right about my spiritual life.” Her voice came out hoarse. “I’m a total fraud as a Christian.”

“And why do you say that?”

She spoke for a long time then, sharing about her last ex-boyfriend. She hadn’t told anyone the reason for their breakup. Not even Lucy.

It was her Junior year. Charlie was a biology major, planning to go to med school. He was a dedicated Christian, heavily involved in his church. His father was a minister. Joy had felt safe confiding in him about her depression one month into their relationship. She expected understanding, prayer, and counseling—not judgment. He told her she needed to strengthen her walk with God. If her faith were stronger, she would have no reason to be depressed, he said.

As her depression worsened, Charlie said it indicated a problem with her relationship with God. He told her she should stop posting devotionals if she didn’t have her walk with God right. Ultimately, Charlie broke up with her because he said she wasn’t a strong enough Christian for him to consider as a life partner.

“I’ve felt like a failed Christian ever since.” Joy slipped off her ballet flats, tucking her feet underneath her in the armchair.

“Charlie was an idiot,” Mr. Miller muttered, his eyes flashing.

“I’m sorry?” She’d never heard him speak so forcefully.

He raked his fingers across his cheek, messing up the hairs of his beard. “He was wrong, Joy. So, so, so wrong. Nothing makes me more upset than when Christians blame depression on a lack of faith. There is no correlation there. Please get that through your head. Your struggle with depression isnota faith issue. It’s a humankind issue, plain and simple. Some people have depression due to a chemical imbalance. Some have it from trauma. Some people simply have a personality prone to depression and there isn’t one specific cause. But chronic depression isnota sign of a weak relationship with God.” His eyes begged her to believe him. “Please don’t ever think that.”

If anyone else said those words, she would brush it off as mere encouragement. But coming from him, in his earnest tone, she actually…believed him.

“What makes you so certain?” she asked in hardly more than a whisper.

He jerked his chin at the phone that balanced on the arm of her chair. “Look up Psalm 34:17 and 18.”

Joy read aloud, “ ‘The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles.The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit’.”

Hope and peace spread through her chest in a way she hadn’t felt ever before.

“Wait, there’s more.” A soft smile lit his face. “Psalm 6:6 through 9.”

This time she read silently, her eyes growing wet by the end.

I am worn out from my groaning. All night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears. My eyes grow weak with sorrow; they fail because of all my foes. Away from me, all you who do evil, for the Lord has heard my weeping. The Lord has heard my cry for mercy; the Lord accepts my prayer.

She looked up.

“Lamentations 3:19 through 24.”

I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”

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