On this annual day, we remember the hardest day of our lives – the day our sweet daughter died. The anticipation. Hope. Striving with her. Caring doctors. Supportive family. Everything accounted for and in order.

Young kids are not prepared to lose a baby. Our little Kayla boasted of one month’s age when her earthly life ended and she transitioned to an eternal one. When she transitioned, she left a broken-hearted dad and a crushed mom. Twenty-two years later, we still remember.

Our daughter’s story no doubt differs from your story. You may be reading this post choking back tears because you also have lost a child. Maybe yours was a miscarriage. Possibly a stillborn. For you, maybe it was the day of your baby’s birth or like Kayla your little one got sick and died sometime later.

Regardless of the details of your story, no doubt you hurt still as well. Your hurt is part of being a human. You share a pain that not everyone knows about nor can they understand.

I talked with a sweet momma just this week who lost her little one years ago. As we talked, sorrow became the dominant tone. She still hurts – maybe not like the first days, but it is still there.

On this day, I write to all those who have lost a baby as well as to all those who seek to love and care for them well.

 

The Day Job’s Seven Sons and Three Daughters Died

The Bible tells the story of a man named Job. His story is powerful. The richest man in the near ancient East, powerful, and blessed beyond measure, Job and his wife enjoyed a very large household. At this point in his life, together God had given them seven sons and three daughters among so much other blessings.

The primary thing to know about Job is that he walked with God. He loved God. Trusted God. Enjoyed God.

What Job didn’t know was the backstory of this particular day. He did not realize that God and Satan had talked about Job. Satan surmised that if Job lost big, his loyalty to God would dissipate big as well. If you have read the story before, you know that “there was a day” Job did lose big (Job 1:13-22).

Oxen. Donkeys. Sheep. Camels. Many, many servants who were members of his household. Seven sons. Three daughters. All gone.

The narrator of this story records Job’s response:

Then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head; and he fell to the ground and worshiped. 21 And he said:

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
And naked shall I return there.
The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away;
Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

22 In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong (Job 1:20-22).

Job worshiped. He did not sin nor did he charge God with wrong. In fact, he said, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

The Lord chose to give him the children in His sovereignty. God chose to take them from Him. In God’s overall world-wide, universe-encompassing, secret plan, God chose to allow the death and destruction of the animals, friends, and Job’s family. In one day in fact.

On that first day, Job recognized God’s plan, placed the circumstances in light of what he knew about God’s character, and trusted God. But that day did not last.

 

Job’s Response after Day One

The narrative of the book of Job provides the details of further suffering and a less-than-God-honoring response.

When the first act of suffering against Job did not make him lose his spiritual integrity, a second round showed up at the hand of Satan. The second round included personal sickness. His wife also failed to provide him encouragement, and his three friends eventually miserably fail too in their effort to provide Job encouragement.

Job begins to struggle. He blames God for the evil that had happened in his life. He exclaimed how unfair God was to have allowed all these things in his life. He defends his own innocence.

Here’s the point: when going through incredible suffering, even this most righteous man who understood God’s character and knew God so well even sinned in his suffering.

How does God respond? God responds in patience, kindness, and on an even keel. God declares He is angry at the three friends, but not Job. God demonstrates God’s great kindness in the midst of suffering.

Job responds to God’s patience and His questions He leaves with Job. Job understands that through his hurting, suffering, and anger, God continued to grow Him. Job repents of his poor spirit and begins again to enjoy fellowship with God.

 

Back to Day One

When the suffering was still fresh and the fellowship with God still sweet, how did Job respond? He worshipped. He understood that God’s sovereignty means that some days God gives; some days God takes away. He still chose to honor God.

Why? Because his heart responded as purely as it could initially. He responded from being super close with God. At that proximity, Job could see, think, and respond to God in ways that were appropriate.

As days came and went, Job’s perseverance under the significant trial also waned. For any of us who have gone through the suffering of losing a baby, we understand. In the midst of our sorrow, we can get into our own heads. We begin as Job often to see God as unfair. The weight of our pain and sorrow often drives us away from communion with God and often even away from love of others. Disappointment. Extreme hurt. Disillusion. Discontentment. Despair. Anger. Bitterness. This list can go further. The reality is that under the extreme weight of the sorrow and hurt, any person can lose perspective. In fact, case studies of this fill the pages of the Bible.

 

A Way Forward

As Job suffered, responded to his friends, and against God, Job argues with himself about his relationship with God. He misunderstood a very common belief that God only allows good things in His plan for the person who loves him and never bad things unless you deserve them. His argument simply stated that since as a person Job was such a godly man, then God was unfair to let him suffer. His friends, believing the same thing, told him to repent of deep, secret sin since God’s plan included this level of suffering. “Job, surely you did something to deserve this.” Both the friends and Job believed the same things just from two different perspectives.

He understood (Job 28:12-28) that the wisdom he needed to work through this problem was in God alone. Yet, at the same time (Job 27:1-6), Job is angry because in his own mind, God could not be just.

Wisdom is in God and he knows that he need it from God. Yet, he struggles with humbly going back to God for that wisdom. Why? Because he is angry at God that his circumstances were in his mind unjustly hard. Job desperately wanted what he wanted and suffered under the losses (Job 29:1-10). Those losses then clouded his perspective of God which pushed him further and further away from true wisdom. The further one gets from wisdom, the greater the pain, the greater the loneliness, and the greater the suffering.

Job’s first step back was toward God. He needed to listen to God. When God spoke, Job listened and it helped him. He was reminded what he knew all the way at the beginning. In fact, what he thought he initially knew, now he understood even greater.

 

Job Listened.

Were his losses very real, very hard, and very significant? Yes.

If you have lost a baby, yours are as well. In the loss, if we are not careful in our own suffering, we walk away from the voice of God instead of toward it.

God helps Job gain his perspective (Job 38:1-42:6). In the process of listening to God, Job recognizes his own human limitation. He understands that he can’t understand it all. He exclaims, “I will put my hand over my mouth” (Job 40:4). In other words, he realized that he had been talking more than listening to God. The more Job talked, the less he learned. When he listened to God in the midst of his suffering, he learned and it helped his perspective.

Job eventually says, “I have declared without understanding things too wonderful for me to know” (Job 42:3). In this statement, Job recognizes that his deep criticism of God was without perspective. His suffering opened up the door for significantly more hurt when he lost his fellowship with God.

Yet God did not lose Job. God did not walk away. God does not treat Job with contempt. In fact, God simply gives him perspective. As God does, Job understands and repents of his own lack of judgement in the suffering. God forgives him. The relationship gets restored.

 

From Wherever You Are…

As one who has lost a baby or more than one, no doubt you suffer. There is a hole in your life that you can’t plug with anything else. That is ok. You are a mom, dad, granddad, grandmother, uncle, aunt, brother, or sister to a child that left this world and went into eternity. As King David said, “Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me” (2 Sam 12:23).

All is not lost. Yes, you lost the opportunity in this life to enjoy your child. This hurts and hurts badly. But your baby is more alive than ever. Your baby awaits you. Your baby enjoys pure love, exuberant joy, and endless fellowship with God and those who have died in Christ before you. Your baby is not angry at God. Instead, your baby enjoys His presence. Your baby would say to you, “Don’t misread God. I’m fine. We are separated for a little while but you can come to me. I can’t wait in God’s plan for you to come be with me and God. But until then, listen to God and walk with Him until then.”

God does not stand in anger waiting for you to turn back to Him. Instead, God waits with open arms. If you turn toward Him and draw near, He will draw near to you (James 4:7-10). He will not give you a cold shoulder. He does not sit in anger as a result of your anger at Him. On the contrary, He loves you, hurts with you, and wants to enjoy close fellowship with you.

You need in courage and faith to listen to Him. As you do, similar to Job, you will hate some or all of the ways you have responded to God. That’s ok. God never moved. He loves you. He welcomes you back to Him. When you ask for forgiveness, God always does. He enjoys your presence. He has never left you and has quietly walked with you, helped you, and even protected you as you possibly have ignored, accused, and have been upset with Him.

 

Image Credit Connie Hipshire

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