Pregnancy loss isn’t easy to talk about for anyone. For those of us that have survived miscarriage or stillbirth, it can be difficult to put into words the process we go through with grief and how relationships are impacted moving forward; this includes our relationship with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. For those that have not experienced it themselves, this conversation can be incredibly uncomfortable because everyone’s ability and the way in which we empathize is different; in other words, they don’t know how to respond. One thing I know for sure whether intentional or not, silence and isolation create disconnection.
This past week I have shared videos on Tiktok, Instagram, and Facebook regarding pregnancy loss as part of the series I’m doing on Pregnancy loss awareness month. For each day of the month I will address spiritual lies we can begin to believe after miscarriage or stillbirth and where God’s truth is located within them. So far I have shared 8 videos out of 31 days and covered the following topics:
- The lie that we are alone in this
- The lie that your baby doesn’t matter
- The lie that I could have done more to prevent our loss
- The lie that I don’t know anyone personally who has experienced this too
- The lie that God’s promise will come to pass the way I pictured it
- The lie that God can’t handle my anger after pregnancy loss
- The lie that the raw pain and heartache will always be this intense
- The lie that I had a miscarriage or stillbirth because God doesn’t love me.
If you would like to see these videos every day, I invite you to click on the links on the side of this page to follow me on Tik Tok, Instagram, or Facebook. I also invite you to follow me on YouTube where I will be sharing a compilation of all the TikToks as well as going into more detail in separate videos. Let’s go through each lie and look at where the truth is all of this.
The lie that we are alone in this
A spiritual lie we can begin to believe after we experience a miscarriage/stillbirth is that we are alone in this. I believe this is something a lot of us feel after losing our child at some point in our grief. In my experience and in what I’ve learned by reading the Bible, the enemy wants to isolate us from God and others. When we’re isolated, it gets harder to discern what God’s truth is in the midst of difficult seasons.
The most important thing we can do when hell is raging all around us, is to turn to God and locate what we know to be true. I’m so thankful to have learned this from our Pastor right before experiencing the loss of our children during Covid. In this way of remembering God’s truth, we can safely experience our emotions and grief surrounding miscarriage and stillbirth, while also holding space for God’s presence. Maybe you’re in a place where it’s hard to even read the bible right now or give, serve, worship, or pray. It’s okay to be honest with yourself if you’re struggling to connect with God.
When you’re ready to face God, He will be there to greet you with open arms because the truth is, he never left you. Thankfully through Jesus, we have access to come boldly before God; because we also have the Holy Spirit to help us, we truly are never alone.
A scripture that comes to my mind that speaks to God’s nearness when we are inconsolable is Psalm 34:17-19 TPT:
Yet when holy lovers of God cry out
Psalm 34:17-19 TPT
to him with all their hearts,
the Lord will hear them and come to rescue them from all their troubles.
The Lord is close to all whose hearts are crushed by pain, and he is always ready to restore the repentant one.
Even when bad things happen to the good and godly ones, the Lord will save them and not let them be defeated by what they face.
The lie that your baby doesn’t matter
When we experience the loss of our pregnancy in the first trimester, it can feel like that baby didn’t matter. We may even begin to invalidate our feelings around grieving that loss by believing the lie that because we didn’t meet that child, they are insignificant. Let’s look at a common scripture often used to comfort those who have experienced a miscarriage.
You formed my innermost being, shaping my delicate inside
Psalm 139: 13 TPT
and my intricate outside,
and wove them all together in my mother’s womb
Now, let’s take a closer look at that the TPT Bible Footnotes for that verse:
“The Hebrew word for “knit” or “wove” can also be translated “covered” or “defended.” God places an eternal spirit inside the conceived child within the womb of a mother and covers that life, sends the child a guardian angel, and watches over him or her.”
According to God’s word, our baby mattered from the beginning. We can rest on this truth that no matter if we lose our baby early or late in pregnancy, God covered that child’s life with angels. The truth is, our babies not only matter, but are thriving in heaven.
The lie that you could have done more to prevent your loss
As we experience grief after a miscarriage or stillbirth, we can start to blame ourselves and believe the lie that there was something else we could have done to prevent this. As someone who had a late term miscarriage and stillbirth as well as an early first trimester loss, there were a plethora of opportunities to believe this lie. By grounding myself in God’s truth, it became clear that no matter how much I know now, there is no going back to change what happened.
The truth is, we did everything we knew to do right then and there. Release control and accept that you did the best you could at that time.
The lie that I don’t know anyone personally who has experienced this too
A lie we can easily believe after pregnancy loss is that we don’t know anyone who has experienced a miscarriage or stillbirth. The truth is, numerous people have experienced pregnancy loss, and they just may not be talking openly about it. We can’t plainly look at an individual or a couple and tell if they’ve experienced this type of loss. Unfortunately, the statistic for women who experience miscarriages is 1 in 4. According to the CDC, stillbirth affects about 1 in 160 births; this means that each year, about 24,000 babies are stillborn in the United States. It’s a reminder that just because there hasn’t been a conversation about it, doesn’t mean others haven’t experienced this as well. God built us for relationship; you may find that as you share about your loss, others share about their experiences too. In this way, we bare our burdens or pain together as God intended.
I was surprised to learn of all the women I knew who have secretly or previously battled miscarriage and stillbirth after losing our daughter and son. Let me know if you had a similar experience in the comments.
The lie that God’s promise did not come to pass because this is not the way I pictured it happening
Sometimes when we experience pregnancy loss and we believe God spoke a promise of that child, we can believe the lie that God’s word failed. Although I’m thankful we serve a God who still speaks, we need to remember to be open to what his promises will look like as he fulfills them. We talk a lot about this in our church but what does this really mean?
After God spoke to me about having four children, what their names are, birth order, He warned of miscarriage. I genuinely thought He meant we would only experience one loss and didn’t think it would be with our first or second pregnancy. After losing Jacqueline at 18w 5d to incompetent cervix we thought okay so it’s over right? Unfortunately we were wrong and we lost Ezra early on in the first trimester to unknown causes 9 months later.
God’s word had been fulfilled with both babies but it didn’t look the way we pictured as it unfolded. It was a hard lesson and truth in holding loosely to our picture of the promises of God.
The truth is their lives still matter and have purpose in God’s kingdom. We just may not immediately understand how God uses the children he’s entrusted to us for a brief time for his good. It’s okay to be hopeful and declare that God will give us healthy babies but the moment it doesn’t go the way we want we need to locate what we know to be true about God. It may take time for you to get in a good space with God after pregnancy loss and that’s okay too.
The lie that God can’t handle my anger after pregnancy loss
The lie that God can’t handle our anger or that we should hide our anger from God after pregnancy loss is needs to be addressed. It’s easy to stand on the sidelines and point fingers at those who are grieving after the loss of their baby and tell them that any anger at God or in general is wrong. However, when you’re the one in the arena, going through the stages of grief, anger will inevitably show up. It looks different from person to person and can range from irritability to rage. Experiencing anger after a miscarriage or stillbirth is not a matter of if but when.
Although it can feel impossible to turn and confront our anger with God, he is not put off by our honesty. Not only do we need to turn to God, we need to ask for him to take this from us, give it to him, and receive his healing. Sometimes we can walk around with anger coursing through our veins and wonder why God isn’t taking it from us when we forgot to turn and give it to him in the first place. Are we then open and ready to receive God when we ask for his help? Maybe, maybe not. It may even take you a while to talk to God again after losing your baby and it’s okay to be honest about that too.
Personally, it took me a while to be able to read the bible again after each miscarriage but I continued to openly share with God and remained open to the Holy Spirit. Although it looked different with each loss, I eventually began reading again and it ushered in God’s healing in ways I didn’t know I needed.
Wherever you’re at in your grief walk with God is okay, even if you’re feeling angry at him. My encouragement is to keep the lines of communication open and allow him to take this from you when you’re ready to give it to him. Shame seeks to silence us and have us believe that we are not worthy of God’s love if we’re mad at him. The truth is, what we’re called to do, we’re graced to do. Thankfully, there is grace through Jesus to process it all and come boldly to God when you’re ready.
The lie that the raw pain and heartache will always be this intense
When we go through the devastation of pregnancy loss, the intensity of our pain is absolutely crushing. It’s easy to believe the lie that it will never get better or bearable. At times I still have issues putting into words what it was like to experience the loss of our daughter. After eight hours of labor without an epidural, she was born. I didn’t want to feel it all because I knew it would stay with me forever, but had no choice when labor quickly started after being induced. Going through labor knowing our child was already gone was literally gut-wrenching for me. Meeting her was both a joy intertwined with extreme sorrow. It was a gift to meet her and also a stab in the heart to let her go. It felt as if I was being stripped down almost like peeling bark off a tree trunk.
The pain is raw in the immediate aftermath of a miscarriage or stillbirth and is different not only from person to person, but from pregnancy to pregnancy. For three days I couldn’t stop smelling her even after showers and clean clothes. This was both comforting and torturous all at once. The truth is, losing our babies leaves a gaping wound in us that takes time to heal. That immediate, intense pain will lessen after a while. With time you may find that although the pain is much more bearable with God, the hole left from losing that child can only be filled by Him.
The lie that I had a miscarriage or stillbirth because God doesn’t love me
After pregnancy loss we all relate to God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit differently. The spiritual lies we all battle will not be identical and this includes the lie that God doesn’t love you. This lie can destroy the foundation of our beliefs and lead to more unbelief if not confronted.
The truth is, God does love you despite what your circumstances may look like right now. Miscarriage or stillbirth isn’t a reflection of God’s love for us. I don’t have all the answers as to why this happened to us, but I do know that God works all things together for good to further his kingdom.
While God’s love for us is evident throughout scripture, here are some good places to start reading if you need examples:
God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.
1 John 4:9-10 NLT
Love is large and incredibly patient. Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. It refuses to be jealous when blessing comes to someone else. Love does not brag about one’s achievements nor inflate its own importance. Love does not traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honor. Love is not easily irritated or quick to take offense. Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no delight in what is wrong. Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NIV
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you
Isaiah 43:2 ESV
The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. Those who know your name trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.
Psalm 9:9-10 NIV
The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.
Zephaniah 3:17 NIV
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:37-39 NIV
Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you.
Isaiah 54:10 NIV
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8 NIV
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Galatians 2:20 NIV
Give thanks to the God of heaven. His love endures forever.
Psalm 136:26 NIV
But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions-it is by grace you have been saved.
Ephesians 2:4-5 NIV
But you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.
Psalm 86:15 NIV
Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.
Deuteronomy 7:9 NIV
These are just a few scriptures talking about God’s love for us. If this is something you’re struggling with after pregnancy loss, I encourage you to keep talking to God and keep seeking him every day. It might feel hopeless right now but I promise, you’re worth fighting for; hang in there.
A Touch of Flourish 