Praise God in the good times... and the bad.

Praising God in the good times has always come easy for me. I'm sure that this is true for most of us, but praising Him in the bad had been much more difficult for me. God has been trying to teach me a major lesson on how to praise Him in the bad times, but I must confess, it has been tough.
I guess I should explain myself. The past few months have been tough around my house. When I say that, I don't mean that Joey and I are struggling in our marriage (the opposite actually), or that we have been struggling financially (we are surviving). There has just been a sense of melancholy hanging around in the air at our house.
In June, Joey and I had our first miscarriage. We lost our baby at six weeks. We had just gotten used to the idea of being pregnant again, when we miscarried on Father's day. We got through it. I knew God had a plan for us!
Then in early September, we found out we were pregnant again. We were thrilled! We just new that miscarriage wouldn't happen to us again. I mean, does that really happen to people???... It does! We were about six weeks along again when we were told that we were miscarrying again. We were devastated, but we still had faith that God would give us another child. Two weeks later, we went back to the docto because I just didn't feel right. When the doctor did an ultrasound, we heard a heartbeat. We were still pregnant!! To say we were excited would be an understatement.
We lost that baby on Saturday. We are devastated.
Our life has been an emotional rollercoaster. We have experienced so much hurt over the past few months. We also lost a very dear friend in early October. He was my little sister Katy's best friend growing up and our neighbor for about 16 years.
It has been tough! I don't write all this for everyone to feel sorry for me or my family or to air my families dirty laundry. I do appreciate all the prayers, but Iam writing this because I know that God's love is the only thing keeping us going.
A very wise friend of mine has continued to remind me that God is good. He doesn't need to use evil or pain to teach us a lesson. God knows this kind of pain first hand. He too lost a child once. I know that God has great plans for my family and that we will continue to grow in number. But for now, I will worship him for giving me Gracie and Joey. I will praise Him for carrying me through this tough time. His promise was not that we wouldn't get hurt, but that he would hold us up while we were hurting!