Miscarriage and Comfort in the Psalms

Within a few weeks, my world went from ecstatic joy at the news that we were expecting twins to devastating grief when the ultrasound technician said there were no heartbeats nor had there been any growth since our last ultrasound a few weeks earlier. 

Is this really happening to us? 

That evening, the awful event of miscarriage confirmed the technician‘s diagnosis.

Our miscarriage was emotionally and spiritually crushing. Days turned into weeks, and then into months, and I was emotionally and spiritually lower than I had ever been in my life. At times, the grief practically choked me of the very air I breathed. 

I was desperate for some form of comfort to revive my grief-stricken, joy-suffocated soul.

“How in the world am I to deal with this?”   

“Where do I turn for comfort ?”

"How do I even move forward in life?"

“Lord, help me!”  was my constant cry. 

God heard my desperate pleas, and in His goodness and perfect timing, He brought me to the Psalms. 

The Psalms speak of God’s unchanging character

When God allows grief to enter our lives, we often hurl questions at Him: Why did You allow this? Are You really in control? You declare Yourself to always be good, but how can this be a demonstration of Your goodness? I know I am to be thankful, but how can I ever thank You for this? My soul is so distraught, I don’t know how to even begin to find joy in life again.

Such questions are not unique to our generation. In the Psalms, we find the Psalmist voicing similar questions about his own trials. He experiences emotions that we are all too familiar with: he speaks of despair, grief, fear, faintheartedness, helplessness, and sorrow, among many other emotions.

            

While the Psalmist testifies of his inner distress, these accounts aren’t merely recorded for the emotional support of the “I know what you‘re going through—I’ve also been through it” kind of statements.

Rather, after the Psalmist takes his readers through his personal moments of despair, he recounts intimate descriptions of how he combats the despair with the rehearsal of the truths of who God is. Essentially, the Psalmist directs his grief-stricken readers to find comfort in something superior to any external comfort the world can offer—he directs them to the character of God.

The Psalmist helps us to better understand who God is by describing Him.

We see God as:

•   Good and upright in all of His ways (Psalm 25:8)
•   Marked by steadfast love and faithfulness in His paths. (Psalm 25:10)
•   A Rock that is unmovable and steadfast, a shelter in the storm. (Psalm 61:2-3)
•   Our Help in those times when our souls are in the depths of despair and silence. (Psalm 94:17)
•   Upholding us by His lovingkindness when our feet are about to slip out from under us. (Psalm 94:18)
•   Gracious and merciful. (Psalm 111:4)

As I walked through the grief of miscarriage, I discovered that if I was going to find help in God, I needed to know His character, for it is God’s character that defines Him and His actions.

A failure to understand God’s character is a failure to understand and know Him. 

Thus, it was through the Psalmist’s many articulations of God’s character that I slowly began to more plainly see God for who He is, despite the intense grief that threatened to suck all joy out of me. As the Psalmist found comfort by the constant rehearsal of God’s character, we too must lean heavily on the revealed truth of God‘s character to find comfort in our times of sorrow.

The Psalms show us how God’s character affects us

Right now, you may be thinking “What a bunch of cliché statements! So what if God declares Himself to be a Rock? So what if He is gracious and full of compassion? It doesn’t feel like He’s very compassionate after what He has just taken from me!”

Let me direct you back to the Psalms.

For the heart filled with sorrow, we cannot shrug off the reality that God’s character has the power to impact our lives. When the Psalmist gets personal with his statements about God’s character, he portrays a tangible relationship between God’s character and the sorrows of life. This relationship becomes relevant to us through specific language that clearly addresses dealing with trials and sorrow:

•    We have strength and courage through a confident waiting on the Lord. (Psalm 27:13-14)
•    We have a place of refuge because He has caused us to taste and experience His goodness. (Psalm 34:8)         
•    We see preservation because of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness. (Psalm 40:11)
•    We have hope in Him in the midst of despair. (Psalm 42:5,11)

These declarations are not empty statements with no application for today‘s mother who struggles to make Biblical sense of the grief of miscarriage or infant loss. The Psalmist’s statements about God’s character help undersatnd the how and why God does what He does. Having experienced the reality of God’s character, the Psalmist was confident not only in the character of God, but also in the unquestionable implications of trusting God: God will always act according to His character. He is and He acts. 

Like the Psalmist, we can be confident that the character of God impacts our lives today as we trust Him to act according to His character!

The  Psalms speak of coming joy

A confident trust in God’s character produces a certain peace, despite the sorrow. Again, the Psalms take the reader one step beyond simply enduring trials: In Psalm 30, we see the hope of coming joy. In this chapter, the Psalmist contrasts weeping and rejoicing, mourning and dancing, sackcloth and gladness. 

There may be sorrow now, but we have hope of beyond the sorrow. 

What is that hope? We find one answer in Romans 8:18-30 where we learn of fallen creation and the glory that awaits us. In verses 23-25 we read that "we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoptiong as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." (ESV)

Everyday, we feel the effects of the fall in our life. Miscarriage and infant loss are some of those devastating effects. By its very definition, hope is something that we look forward to--it is something that gives us motivation beyond the here and now. And so, even though we struggle with the sorrows in life, we look forward to the unseen hope that God promises of one day all things being made right, of our bodies being glorified, and of being in God's presence. 

That is our hope in the sorrow of this life.

So our questions to better understand the “why?“ may not be fully answered, but a heart satiated with the character of God will help us to have the proper perspective and to find joy, even now.

How?

Because God has done a mighty work: He has acted so that “my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to you forever!“ (Psalm 30:10-12) God desires that His children learn to trust His name—His character—for that is what produces rejoicing and gladness (Psalm 33:21.) 

Furthermore, because we know that the Lord upholds us with His right hand (Psalm 64:8) and that we can rest confidently in the shadow of His wings, we can then “sing for joy” (Psalm 64:7).

In the midst of sorrow, it is ultimately His character alone that gives us strength to rise each day, to bless His name in the storm, and to find joy in the morning after the sorrow.   

Conclusion

In the months following our miscarriage, I pored over the Psalms and wept as the present-reality of God’s character saturated my joy-choked soul and reminded me that my God is always good, loving, and sovereign, a refuge in time of need. The quiet assurance that I could trust God to make Himself real to me in my time of need and to act according to His declared character produced a solace and hope unlike anything this world can offer. 

Yes, my life will be forever be marked by our miscarriage.  

Yes, sometimes the sorrow still overwhelms my heart and I cannot help but to again ask the Lord "Why?" 

But God has used the Psalms to remind me that His unchanging character governs His every action, that He is my refuge in time of need, and that, in the end, He does give intense joy that is found only in knowing Him, even though it may be through tears. 

And so I will praise Him.