Seeing God’s Grace in Pregnancy Trials
Allison Piercy | May 4, 2025
I was fortunate to grow up in a Christian home and saw my need for Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior in 1997. I was very involved in my youth group growing up in Birmingham, Ala. and was fortunate to have college friends that pointed me to Christ and attended church with me in Auburn, Ala. In 2012, I met my now husband, Matt Piercy. A year later I found myself moving to Bowling Green and we were married in 2014.
Just four months after we were married, I lost my dad to suicide. I remember the weight of the question “why?” being played over and over between myself and God during that time. Why me? Why my mom? Why couldn’t God have healed my father’s long-time battle with depression and PTSD? I trusted God to provide comfort for my family, but I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I allowed some bitterness to grow in my heart at the same time. I couldn’t shake the lingering question of “why?”.
Fast forward two years, and God was still working in my heart. Matt and I were blessed with our firstborn son in 2016, Colton. Looking back, I was going through all the motions of being a Christian and I was still seeking God, but the lingering bitterness and the questioning of God’s plan for my life was still present. In 2018, I experienced a miscarriage, and the question “why?” emerged again. I vividly remember crying out to God, “have I not lost enough?”. The following month after my miscarriage, I became pregnant again.
I had complications from the beginning and I was terrified during that time of losing another baby. I had some blood work done in the very early weeks of the pregnancy and after an appointment, I found myself in a gift shop walking around to kill time. I walked past a white sign with a cross and the word “grace” written on it. At that moment, I felt that God was telling me to buy that sign because I was going to have a daughter and name her Grace. I told myself that I was just being hormonal and left the shop, but I couldn’t ignore that God was telling me this all week and I finally went back and bought the sign. I held on to it for six weeks, until I got a call from my doctor that I was in fact carrying a little girl. The power of God that washed over me in that moment forever changed my faith. I went home and dug the sign out of the closet and told my husband what God had already told me, that we were having a daughter. We chose the name Chandler Grace.
I continued to have complications, and at one point I was having weekly ultrasounds to check the progress of Chandler Grace. I was leaning hard on God and his faithfulness. When I was five-months pregnant, my complications seemed to subside, and then we received the devastating news that my perfect, loved and very much wanted daughter had a rare birth defect and she would never live outside of my womb. I vividly remember getting home from the doctor that day and turning on my Pandora worship station. As I tried to make sense of what was happening the song “Even If” by Mercy Me came on. In the song it says:
I know You’re able and I know You can
Save through the fire with Your mighty hand
But even if You don’t
My hope is You alone
I know the sorrow, I know the hurt
Would all go away if You’d just say the word
But even if You don’t
My hope is You alone
That song became my mantra. I knew without a doubt God could heal my daughter, but I also made the choice that even if He did not heal Chandler Grace earthside, my hope would be in Him alone. That choice opened my eyes to the goodness of God and the peace that was supernatural. I realized that three separate ultrasound technicians had monitored Chandler Grace weekly, but none had seen her obvious birth defect until God was ready for them to. God knew the number of days Chandler Grace would live inside my body and he was preparing my heart all along for her birth.
I gave birth earthside to Chandler Grace Piercy on March 13, 2019 at 3:33pm and at that same time she was born into Heaven.
I truly believe God knew the grief that was to come from losing my only daughter would be enough to capsize me if I was only dependent on myself. Luckily, He was there in the hospital room when I delivered and He was there when I hemorrhaged immediately after birth. I lost two-thirds of the blood in my body and was dying due to the placenta being stuck on my uterus wall. My husband and mom watched on as a room of doctors worked on my body to control the bleeding.
I lost consciousness shortly after hemorrhaging, but what I experienced during that time can only be described as God. I felt the presence of God and the peace of God in an unexplainable way. I remember knowing I was in bad shape physically and feeling like I was surrounded by brightness. I knew without a doubt I was in the presence of God. I also felt the presence of Chandler Grace. There was no physical space holding us, it was me, God and my daughter.
I asked God to let me live. My heart pleaded to Him, while knowing I would be leaving my daughter with Him, but also begging Him to let me live for Matt and Colton. I became semi-conscious at some point and knew I was being taken to an operating room for emergency surgery. I promised God then and there that if He let me live, I would shout my story for all the world. I would be living proof of His faithfulness.
I woke up hours later in a recovery room. I held my daughter’s body and praised God for sparing my life. A moment that should have destroyed me was filled up with the peace and hope of God. The white sign that I bought months before was stamped with my daughter’s footprints that night. God knew. He knew the moment I bought that sign that it would forever hold my daughter’s footprints and stand as a reminder of his endless Grace.
I couldn’t sleep that night. After Chandler Grace was taken to be cremated, I laid in my hospital bed praising God. God provided me with overwhelming strength and hope. He filled me with His peace to the point that all that bitterness I had carried for years and the question of why that had lingered, were made no more. I used the weeks and months that followed Chandler Grace’s birth to draw near to God and His purpose for my life. He changed my life with the loss of my daughter, but He grew my faith in a way I did not know was possible.
Over the past couple of years, I realized that the question of “why” was the wrong question to ask God in our trials. It is clear this world is not our home, and as Christians we cannot expect to live a life with earthly peace and no hardships. The question in my mind changed from “why” to “how can I seek God during this?” When I changed my perspective, I found so many God winks (as I call them). I found a joy-filled life.
The hope God has given me through the birth of our daughter has shown me that He truly loves us and He truly hears our prayers, has made it possible for me to say it is well in my soul.
We were blessed with another son in 2020, Clay, and one last son in 2021, Campbell. The longing for my daughter has not gone away over the years, but I have peace and joy in ways that would not be possible on my own. Philippians 3:7-11 really speaks to me on what you gain when you experience loss. I gave up what I could not keep (earth side) and in doing so, found a peace and faith that I cannot lose.