When Christmas Isn’t Supposed to Be This Way: A 5-Day Reading Plan for Pregnancy Lossનમૂનો

Your Sorrow is Sacred to God

If you’re reading this, if you chose this study, I’m so sorry for the loss that has brought you here. I’m so sorry that we have this grief in common, as someone who has experienced recurrent miscarriages. And I’m writing with the hope that you will here encounter the God of comfort, who is with us in all the places where we feel pain.

It is often cited that one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage, yet the grief of such an intimate loss is often wildly underrecognized. First, it’s largely an invisible grief, isn’t it? Something as significant and life-altering as death has occurred within your own body, and from the outside, no one else would know. You grab a coffee and your barista greets you like it’s just any other Tuesday. You zone out at the traffic light and the impatient driver behind you lays on the horn, with no way of knowing what tragedy in your life has just transpired. You put a smile on as you show up to the office Christmas gift exchange, only to go cry in your car afterward.

In the early days especially and for as long as you need, I hope you’ll be gentle with yourself. A grief of this magnitude takes time to absorb. It can be even harder when you feel the need to put on a happy face and go about your way. But in the presence of God, you don’t have to go through the motions and you can be fully yourself in your grief.

Psalm 56:8 says of God, “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.”

Everyone grieves differently, and no matter how that process is for you right now, you are allowed to feel whatever you feel. Your sorrow is not too much for God; to the contrary, your sorrow is sacred to God. He sees you in your pain and it matters to him so much that he’s keeping track.

I think also of the story of Jesus and his grief upon hearing the news that his friend Lazarus had died (John 11:1-27). When Jesus came and saw Lazurus’ sister Mary weeping, “he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled” (John 11:33b). Then when he came to the tomb to see for himself, the text tells us, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). The shortest verse in the entirety of scripture makes one of the biggest reveals about who God is: a God of empathy. Jesus shows us that God is not far removed, still-faced, or disaffected from our pain—not even when he knows resurrection is in the future.

In the framing of this story, Jesus has made his intention to raise his friend Lazurus from the dead from the very beginning. He showed up to the scene fully knowing that’s exactly what he was about to do.

But that knowledge doesn’t stop his tears. It doesn’t prompt him to dismiss the sadness, nor make light of Mary’s distress. The grief is real to Mary, and so it is real to Jesus. Even though he knows Lazurus will live again, divine empathy compels him to observe her grief with her.

And the empathy of God is likewise with us. Your pain is real to you, and so it is real to God. You can still put your hope in resurrection, and grieve the loss of the departed. And you are not alone in your grief. None other than Jesus weeps with you.