Truths to remember after a miscarriage

"It was probably for the best."

"The was probably something wrong with the baby."

"At least it was early."

"You probably would have just thought your period was a few days late if you hadn't been obsessively testing."

On a Tuesday morning, I grasped a positive pregnancy test in my hands. The following Friday, I called the advice nurse line to ask what I should do about the bleeding. Unlike my other losses, my first miscarriage was quick and early. Without the positive test I would have never known--but that test confirmed all I needed to know. Life had begun and now it was ending.

Each statement listed above seemed to say, “No big deal. Move on. It’s better this way. Push your emotions aside.”

If we value human life as precious, then we can call miscarriage what it is--the death of a beloved child, created in the image of God.

Death is not what is best. Yes, God is sovereign over every detail of our lives, including death. Nothing happens without first filtering through His loving hands. But death is the result of a broken world. Death is God's enemy. God sent Jesus to die in our place and to conquer death forever. He made a way for all who call on Jesus to have victory in death and wiped away all its sting for us, and we can rejoice in this. But death itself is God's enemy and it is appropriate for us to lament when we are faced with the death of a loved one.

God is with you in your grief. He works in our sorrow. He sanctifies us in our suffering. His ways our not our ways and He is always good. His plan is the best plan--a plan that includes the redemptive work of Jesus and His return, when every tear will be wiped from the eyes of those who are His. We can rest knowing it won't always be this way, as we fix our tearful eyes on Him.

You baby's life mattered. They were knit together in your womb.

You're still a mom.