Finding Hope in Pregnancy Loss

“Living in Light of Eternity” is the tagline to my website and the main theme encompassed in my writing. There’s a reason and a story behind that phrase.

Loss and Grief

In March 2014 at 19 weeks pregnant, I lost my first son. At the time, I was living as an expatriate in the middle east. The trauma and circumstances surrounding that loss is a separate story that I hope to share soon.

For more than five years, I waited patiently for my grief to dwindle. I waited and waited. The opposite happened.

My pool of grief began swirling into a whirlpool of confusion mixed with despair. My emotions and thoughts became more scattered and fragmented. In the summer of 2019 I walked into a counseling office for the first time in my life, and because of that, I’m able to share the hope that has begun co-mingling with my sorrow.

Part of my grief focused on myself and the fact that I’ll never meet my son on this side of heaven. I’ll never know his smile or touch.

Another facet of my grief centered on him. I felt that he lost so much—the countless beautiful things to behold on planet earth, being held in his mother’s arms, going on an adventure with his dad. I grieved for what he would never experience.

Walking Through It

I’ve heard it said that grief cannot be sidestepped or ignored. The only way out of it is straight through it. I certainly found that to be true.

During this period of turmoil, it seemed God would not allow me to push thoughts about my son to the back of my mind. The things I read, the stories I heard, they all seemed to dig up memories of my loss and leave me with my wound raw and open.

Living Word of God

One day I opened my Bible and read the story of David and Bathsheba. The complete story is found in 2 Samuel chapters 11 and 12.

At the beginning of the story, Bathsheba is married to another man, Uriah. David saw her, wanted her, and took her. He arranged for Uriah to be sent to the front lines of a battle, where his death was practically guaranteed. Uriah did die, and David made Bathsheba his wife. David’s actions displeased God.

David and Bathsheba’s first child together was a son. God afflicted the baby so that he became sick and died.

Reading this, with all my ongoing inner turmoil, made my heart break even further. How? Why? David and Bathsheba’s son did not choose his mother or father. He had no control over David’s sinful actions, and even so, life was stripped away from this infant before had a chance to live it.

I needed more explanation. How can this be?

I searched through Bible commentaries looking for notes that would help me make sense of this incident.

It was too personal and important for me to gloss over.

Most of the notes I read commented on David and the lessons to be gleaned from his life. But what about the baby’s life? I needed to know it mattered.

That’s when I found a statement concerning David’s baby that turned my grief on its head. I wish I remembered the source, but I’ve searched without finding it again.

We assume that for the baby, his dying was a bad thing.

A New Perspective

For those of us left on earth, we grieve the absence and the distance, but for those swept up into the arms of Jesus, loss of life isn’t really loss at all.

For those of us left on earth, we grieve the absence and the distance, but for those swept up into the arms of Jesus, loss of life isn't really loss at all. Click To Tweet

I felt God speak to me, “Look at this the way I do, from an eternal perspective.” What is the significance of the baby’s loss, in light of what he gained?

Try as we may, our human understanding of heaven and eternity is small and incomplete. But what we do know is that the fulfillment of our every heart’s desire is awaiting us in the presence of God. Our joy will one day be complete.

In the presence of Jesus, David’s baby and my son are not lamenting their time lost on earth. They have gained everything.

In Light of Eternity

I do not discount my own grief or loss. It is real and painful, and I empathize with anyone who has experienced something similar.

What I do find is that Jesus walks with me through this valley toward our eternal home.

One day I will be reunited with my son, no longer as mother and child but as co-worshipers of the King.

Remembering this, the reality of eternal life with God after death, I dwell in peace and declare that it is well with my soul.