Today is Due-Day

Today should have been my due date for a baby we lost back in the summer at around 10 weeks – a baby that we now know would have been a healthy girl, and a much longed for daughter and sister to our son. But miscarriage… 

We’re almost two and a half years into this whole recurrent miscarriage saga now, and I still don’t really understand the why’s or the how’s. But what I do know is that it’s just a little bit easier if you can find people and spaces where you can talk about your grief, and not just sweep it under the carpet… hence the whole reason for creating this writing space.

Holding space for questions

There’s just something about our pain that raises some difficult questions which demand to be listened to, held, and wrestled with for a while. Questions like: Why did this happen to me? Did I do something wrong? Where is God in my pain? Why won’t He answer my prayers? Does He even see us, or care about what is happening to me?

Often people can be so keen to just sweep them under the carpet quickly, with well-meaning but unhelpful spiritual platitudes or pat comments like: ‘It will happen at the right time’, ‘It’s all part of God’s plan’ or perhaps worst of all ‘I’m sure that God just has a better plan’.

I understand the sentiment, and I do believe that God has a plan for our lives. But can I speak frankly for a moment? Because I think that most of this type of advice is at best well-meaning but unconsidered, and at worst downright poor or hollow theology – and if you have suffered the pain of infertility or pregnancy loss, you simply don’t have to take it on board. 

I believe that God is sovereign over all things, but I don’t believe that all things that happen to us are of his design or will.

I also believe that God can eventually bring good out of anything because it’s in his nature to heal and redeem, but that doesn’t mean that he causes all of those bad things, or that he ‘planned them’ just to teach us some kind of important spiritual ‘lesson’. 

But I simply don’t believe that miscarriage is ever a part of His will, because how could that be so? Can a God of love also be the source of suffering or pain? And would the author of life, snatch away that same life so prematurely, just to teach us something? Personally I don’t think so, because that doesn’t sound like the kind of thing that a God of love would do. And I just can’t get on board with a god who behaves that way… 

Creating space for lament

Sadly, I find that many churches and christian groups prefer to focus on songs of celebration rather than lament, on sharing testimonies of healing rather than learning grace for suffering, and on sermons about having more faith rather than honestly dealing with difficult questions and doubt. 

But this over-sanitised expression of faith that happens in a lot of modern, western churches today isn’t what I see modelled when I read the Bible; that book is just brimming full of psalms of lament and stories of the suffering of individuals and nations, as well as lots of miracles, signs and wonders.

Are some people a bit uncomfortable with your grief? Do they give off the impression that you should have ‘moved on’ by now? Or does it feel like they want to ‘tidy up’ your messy emotions and ‘box off’ your painful questions, lest they also upset anyone else? 

The fact is that these people are not your people for this season. The people you need around you will listen without judgement and will resist the urge to ‘fix’ everything fast, understanding that healing takes time. 

A theology around loss

Before experiencing three consecutive miscarriages myself, I never really consider what my theology was around miscarriage and loss because I simply never needed to. 

And even now, after all these months and years of wondering and reading and thinking and processing, I still don’t know why God sometimes allows bad things to happen to good people, or why God chooses to answer some people’s prayers and not others, or why some people get to stories of healing and redemption in this lifetime, whilst others only receive the distant hope of it in the next.

But the one thing I am certain of after walking this painful road of loss three times is that miscarriage is not a part of God’s order or design or purpose for our lives. Not ever. So don’t let anyone ever suggest to you that it is.

Exodus 23: 25-6 says this:

“So you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take sickness away from the midst of you. No one shall suffer miscarriage or be barren in your land; I will fulfil the number of your days.”

(Exodus 23: 25-6)

And if that promise was true under the old testament covenant that God made with His people, how much more is it true for us today?

The truth is that life doesn’t always go the way that we hoped or planned. Sometimes really awful, unexplainable things happen. Like losing pregnancies. And I don’t think we were ever supposed to ‘be okay’ with it. Miscarriage is a horrible experience, and a jarring reminder that we still live in a broken, sin-stained world and that things aren’t yet fully restored to the way that God intended them to be.

What kind of communities are we building?

I don’t have all of the answers to offer in this blog, but what I do know is that it’s just a little bit easier if you can find people and spaces where you can acknowledge and process and talk about your grief, and not just sweep it under the carpet or accepting some kind of pat divine explanation…

So let’s all agree to build the kind of communities, churches, groups and online spaces that hold enough room for people’s pain and brokenness, as well as celebrating in their successes and sharing in their joys.

Because chances are that we will all need it at some point in time, even if not today.

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