Trusting God After Miscarriage

Sarah Philpott is a farmer’s wife and mom of three who’s experienced pregnancy loss. She joins us today to share about trusting God after miscarriage.

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Deadlines. Goals. Plans. We love order, don’t we? Our society helps us (wrongly) believe we can plan our families, our maternity leave, and the years between siblings. Pharmaceutical companies burst with pregnancy prevention options. We talk about starting a family as if we are making dinner plans. 

Therefore, it must be harder to prevent pregnancy than to get pregnant and have a baby. Under the covers and nine months later deliver a baby, right? Sheesh. 

Did you think you could plan out your life, too?

I was a young, idealistic newlywed when my best friend and I put our life agendas on a piece of paper. It was a list (that included specific dates) we could easily, or so we thought, check off. Graduate with advanced degree. Get a puppy. Conceive baby. Deliver baby. Maternity leave. Return to teaching. The most taxing decision was the best month to give birth.

“We’d have a tan in summer,” one of us said.

“Yeah, but it’s just so darn hot! We’d sweat too much,” said the other. 

“But I don’t want a baby in January. January is peak flu season.”

It was just the type of conversation that would make my blood boil today. 

Both of us graduated on time—check! Got our new puppies on time—check! But when it came to conceiving babies, I learned that you can plan and execute all you want, but it is completely up to God whether or not a child is conceived and whether or not you have a healthy, full-term pregnancy. Making babies is not a check-the-box type of endeavor. 

I roll my eyes at my blissful ignorance. 

The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps. (Proverbs 16:9, ESV)

After our losses many of us are reminded—or find out for the first time—that we aren’t the ones in control of our lives. This is a hard reality to face, isn’t it?

Your pregnancy may have started out either planned or unplanned. But regardless of the beginning, once your eyes spied the positive, you went into overdrive planning and imagining how baby would be incorporated into your life. 

You found out you were pregnant with your baby (you might have been nervous, scared, or excited), you used your body to nurture your baby (maybe you brought books, began a Pinterest board, envisioned rocking your little love, started shopping, stopped drinking coffee), and then you lost your baby. Boom. The physicality is quite intense: the emotional toil is real.

Not only do we grieve for our child, but we also grieve because our plans failed. And because we falsely believe we are the ones in control of our lives, we often (wrongly, I must add) feel like a failure. Our soul starts sending out the crushing false message, My body failed me. I failed our baby! Our soul screams, This wasn’t part of my plan! I thought this was supposed to be easy! Isn’t having a baby part of happily ever after? 

Those of us who have experienced loss are now changed souls. I am no longer naïve. I gaze at mamas with their swollen bellies and realize the absolute sacredness of what is growing in our bodies. 

Oh, how I yearn to be in control. 

But I must surrender this desire of control. I am not the one who creates and sustains life. 

I am not in control.

You are not in control.

God is in control. 

In Romans we read, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28, ESV.)

While fresh in my grief, I was angry and wanted to stomp those words. How can the death of my baby be part of a grand plan of goodness?

I don’t specifically know why a baby perished in my womb. Or why that is part of your journey. But I also don’t know why some women get cancer. Or why a family of five was killed in a car accident last week. All I know is God created the garden of Eden as pure goodness. But sin got in the way. So perfect goodness cannot be obtained on this earth. 

Listen to the gospel: “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33, ESV.) 

Do you see this promise? You will have trouble. Ouch. You see, our lives are not promised to be pure happiness. We are promised lives that are intermixed with troubles. Earth is not the place where pure happiness exists. That is why we long for heaven—a place absent of suffering. 

Remember, although your baby died on earth, your baby was born into heaven. Not the plan you would have chosen, but there is an absolute promise for the future—God’s master plan—heaven. 

It’s hard to grasp this promise right now, isn’t it? Harper said, “My faith reminds me that I have a specific plan while on this earth. I can endure trials with the Lord. Yet the emotional side of me wants to panic, cry, and hide in my bed with a pint of ice cream.” 

In this moment, you are in control of putting your hope in the hands of the Lord. So grab that pint of ice cream and hide in your bed, but trust what Paul says, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” (Romans 8:18, ESV)

Our heart suffers right now in the present, but there is the promise that one day you will greet your child in the place where glorious happiness shall forever exist. Trust that: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:4, ESV)

*Excerpted with permission from  Loved Baby: 31 Devotions Helping You Grieve and Cherish Your Child After Pregnancy Loss.