Grieving With Hope

3 weeks from today, on Sunday evening, March 5th, we will have a very special service, called Grieving with Hope, where we will remember all the children we’ve lost through miscarriage. 

At that service, together as a church, we will grieve the deep loss of these precious children, we will lament and we will sing, and we will be reminded of the hope we have in Jesus. 

This service is not just for those who have suffered miscarriages, it’s for the whole church, because as Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 12, we are one body, and therefore the suffering of one member is the suffering of the whole body.

So I invite you to come to the service, and I invite you to pray that God would use this service to bring comfort, healing, and hope to those who have suffered the loss of a child through miscarriage.

And as we pray, and as we anticipate this service, I’d like to remind us of three truths in the midst of the loss of miscarriage:

1) We believe that unborn children are people, made in God’s image, created for eternity.

As David says in Psalm 139:

“You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb … My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret … Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them”

We believe unborn children are people, made in God’s image, and created for eternity.

2) We do not hide in our grief, and we lean in to those who are grieving.

As one family, and members of one body -  the suffering of one member is the suffering of the whole body. Imagine how many children would be sitting in this room right now, if it weren’t for the tragic loss of miscarriages; just in our church family. No one needs to carry that grief alone. We want to be a church that comes around those who grieve. That weeps with those who weep, that carries another's burdens. And I thank God that that’s true of our church. So we do not hide in our grief, and we lean in to those who are grieving.

3) Even in our greatest loss, and deepest sorrows, we grieve with the certainty of hope – knowing that our sorrows will one day be turned to Joy.

We know this because we are Christians and we belong to Jesus. The same Jesus who suffered, and died, and conquered death and now sits at the right hand of God. The same Jesus who promised to return and to restore all things to the way they are meant to be. 

And on that day, Revelation 21,

“‘He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 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.’ And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’”

So we can know with certainty that every tear and every loss will be perfectly restored in a way that is better and more beautiful and more glorious than we could dare to hope or imagine.

So my exhortation is this: would you come, on March 5th, to grieve the loss of these precious children, and to look forward together, to the hope that we have in Jesus?