It’s hard to describe the grief of losing someone you’ve never actually met. Jenny had a miscarriage this week and grief is exactly what we are feeling. There is, of course, the loss of physical union between mother and unborn child. Jenny experienced the emotional and physical pain of losing a part of herself. But the grief over miscarried babies doesn’t end there. There is also the loss of potential, of what could and should have been.
Potential hugs and kisses and hand-holding. Potential first steps and bike rides. Potential weddings and grandkids. It is nothing less than affliction of the heart to think about what could have been knowing that it will never be.
Into the messy grief come the difficult questions. Is my baby in heaven? Will I ever get to see or hold her? Why would God allow (or will) this to happen? The day after our miscarriage I was listening to “Ulysses” by Josh Garrels, and found myself weeping while wrestling with these questions. Here are the lyrics in entirety:
“I’m holding on to the hope that one day this could be made right
I’ve been shipwrecked, and left for dead, and I have seen the darkest sights
Everyone I’ve loved seems like a stranger in the night
But oh my heart still burns, tells me to return, and search the fading light
I’m sailing home to you I won’t be long
By the light of moon I will press on
Until, I find, my love
Trouble has beset my ways, and wicked winds have blown
Sirens call my name, they say they’ll ease my pain, then break me on the stones
But true love is the burden that will carry me back home
Carry me with the, memories of the, beauty I have known
I’m sailing home to you I won’t be long
By the light of moon I will press on
So tie me to the mast of this old ship and point me home
Before I lose the one I love, before my chance is gone
I want to hold, her in, my arms”
Though the song is about Ulysses (latinized Odysseus) and his journey home to his wife, it’s a great metaphor for loss and longing. It was the last line, “I want to hold her in my arms” that triggered an uncontrollable flow of tears as I thought about how much I was looking forward to holding our baby, about all the things I was longing to do with her (or him). And as the chorus repeated “I’m sailing home to you I won’t be long” I found myself longing to believe that I was sailing home to our baby in heaven.
But is our baby in heaven? I think so…but I don’t see how we can know for sure. The biggest problem is that the Bible clearly repeats that we are born sinners. Not that we are people who choose to commit sins (though that is certainly true), but that we are sinful in our very identity. 1 Corinthians 15:22 says “in Adam all die,” and Romans 5:12 elaborates: “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” The “all sinned” in that verse is best understood as unified with Adam in his sin and as receiving from him our condemnation and sinful nature (see the contrast between union with Adam and union with Christ and the results of that union in Rom 5:12-19). Moreover, in Psalm 51:5 David says “I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me,” and though he was not attempting to develop a theology of original sin, he does contrast the perfect righteousness of God and the total sinfulness of man (himself) throughout the Psalm.
Yet it is David who said of the death of his newborn boy “But now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me” (2 Samuel 12:23). It could be argued that David is simply talking about death; that his boy died and he will die and therefore he will go to his boy. However, this speech comes directly after he heard of his boy’s death and washed himself, put on new clothes, worshiped, and broke his fast with feast. He seems to be worshiping God in His sovereignty and his speech seems aimed at comfort. It doesn’t seem like a speech of hopeless nihilism, but of comforting hope.
This verse, as well as the continual references Jesus makes to becoming like “little children” in order to inherit the kingdom, gives me hope that my baby is in heaven. My hope is not in clear scriptural proofs (I don’t believe there are any for either argument), but in God’s grace. If my baby is in heaven it isn’t because she deserved it but because God credited it to her through Christ. Is it too much to believe that God could save unborn babies through grace alone? I don’t think so. After all, John the baptist was “filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb” (Luke 1:15).
The other difficult question is “why?” Why would God will this to happen? That’s a question I keep wrestling with Him about. It is true, “we know that for those who love God all things work together for good” (Rom 8:28), but what comfort is that in the midst of sorrow? I’m convinced that we need more than an understanding of God’s sovereignty to carry us through affliction. We need God.
“I know, O Lord, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me. Let your steadfast love comfort me according to your promise to your servant.” (Ps 119:75-76)
In order to trust in His sovereignty, we need God. We need His steadfast love to comfort us. We need to look at His promises and the way He always fulfills them. We need His mercy to come to us that we may live (Ps 119:77).
In the meantime, I find myself thinking much of 1 Peter 1:6 “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials.” He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through Jesus’ resurrection. He has given us an imperishable inheritance that He keeps for us. He guards our faith by His power.
Why did our unborn baby die? I’m not sure, but I know He is good.
