http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/14703038/holy-play
ABSTRACT: Sport and competition can easily arouse pride, insecurity, envy, and malice. Yet they also can afford opportunities to express a healthy, deeply human inclination to play. Play finds its roots in God himself, whose creation reflects not only exactness but exuberance. He created humans in his image to reflect, in part, his playful, non-utilitarian creativity. More than that, the saving presence of God often inspires expressions of play such as singing, leaping, dancing, and merrymaking. Christians play well in the midst of a broken world when they soberly acknowledge the reality of sin and sorrow, while at the same time remembering that Christ’s kingdom of joy is on the way.
Western culture views sport in two drastically different ways. One has preserved within sport the healthy, joyful expression of the deep human inclination to play; the other has locked into a utilitarian understanding of sport that squelches play and its perspective-giving power. One appreciates the actual process of playing a sport; the other has sadly turned sport into an expression of human pride, insecurity, envy, and malice. As Christians, what will keep us from turning sport into something ugly rather than beautiful?
Sport is playful competition, or you could also call it competitive play. At the heart of a healthy understanding of sport is the proper balance between competition and play. To that end, a robust appreciation of play is sure to help. Among the many factors we could consider in answering the question of what it means for Christians to play the way God intends, in this essay I want to consider the necessity of keeping play in competitive sport for the glory of God. The main question I want to answer is, How does play help us to fulfill our created purpose in this beautiful yet tragically fallen world? First, we will briefly define play. We then will look at play in the Bible. Finally, we will consider play in light of God’s purpose in creation, humanity, and salvation history.
Defining Play
We can define play as a fun, imaginative, non-compulsory, non-utilitarian activity filled with creative spontaneity and humor, which gives perspective, diversion, and rest from the necessary work of daily life.1 In light of God’s sovereignty and faithful love, play for the Christian should demonstrate and encourage hope, delight, gratitude, and celebration.
Play and fun go hand in hand.2 One cannot truly play without a sense of good-natured humor and fun that at times invokes deep laughter. Play has the potential to totally absorb the player. Fun need not be frivolous, however. The sacred should never be trivialized by making fun a major priority, but freed slaves are inclined to sing, and play and fun are byproducts of expressing one’s freedom. Although fun is a necessary part of the definition of play, play is not the opposite of seriousness and can be very serious indeed.
Another aspect of play is that it is non-compulsory. Play must express freedom and therefore cannot be imposed on anyone. Humans are created to exercise freedom — and indeed, imposed circumstances often spark playful expressions of freedom.
“The value of play is elusive; as soon as you dwell on the pragmatics of it, it ceases to be play.”
Play is also fundamentally non-utilitarian. The pragmatic results of play must necessarily fade to the background, to an almost subconscious level, lest the pure playfulness of play be lost. Play may lead to accomplishing goals but does not depend on it, and it most certainly has the potential of accomplishing much if it is allowed to be more than merely a means to an end. The value of play is elusive; as soon as you dwell on the pragmatics of it, it ceases to be play.
True play includes imagination, creativity, and spontaneity. To play means entering a world of make-believe where the players act as if the agreed-upon rules, boundaries, and goals really matter and exist. This has parallels in the Christian life in that the exercise of faith and hope require a kind of imagination. While Christian faith is not based in a fictitious world of make-believe, it does require creatively imagining something God has promised in order to trust in him. Living with faith and hope leads to the kind of joyful discipleship God requires of his people.
Finally, play provides needed perspective, diversion, and rest. Like the arts, play can afford “counter-environments”3 that provide freedom from dwelling on the daily difficulties of life in a fallen world. Play should not serve to anesthetize Christians to life’s burdens, preventing them from engaging those burdens wholeheartedly; rather, it should provide a needed, hopeful Sabbath from their relentless presence.
Play and Competition
The inherent tension between competition and play does not mean they are unable to fruitfully coexist. Competition can increase the potential for true play, and play has the potential to heighten the enjoyment of competition. Sport requires a commitment to an imaginary world where the participants agree to act as though the made-up parameters of space, time, and the rules of the game really exist and matter. This is why we despise a spoilsport more than a cheat. The cheat acts as if the rules exist, even though he is trying to break them, but the spoilsport breaks out of the commitment to the imaginary world of play by scoffing at the very existence of the world that the game requires.
Competition intensifies the participants’ commitment to the world of make-believe where play thrives. Play keeps the competitor from losing perspective and seeing the final score as more important than playing the game.
Serious Play
Christians are commanded to live carefully and wisely and to make the most of the time we have “because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15–16). Stewarding our time wisely and seeking eternal rewards should lead to a sense of peaceful urgency because the time we have is short (Psalm 32:6; Romans 13:11–13). We may think, then, that the Christian life affords no place for activities that seem so unessential as sport, play, and recreation. Certainly, for a Christian, play should never have a trivializing effect on life. God and life are not to be trifled with, and play in this sense has no place in the Christian life. If play serves merely to divert rather than to give hopeful perspective, it can actually prevent serious transformative engagement with a world badly in need of redemption.
“Play can serve to remind those who are burdened and heavy laden that there is rest and restoration on the way.”
An eternal perspective, however, should lead to both diligent, earnest engagement with gospel ministry and restful playfulness as we trust in the God who knows the beginning from the end. The sovereign grace of God frees Christians to seriously play even in the midst of the suffering all around us in this fallen world. Paradoxically, there is a vital connection between suffering and play. Those who most recognize the difficulty of life in a fallen world are often able to play and laugh best. Play and playfulness can serve to remind those who are burdened and heavy laden that there is rest and restoration on the way. These moments of emancipation can remind the faithful of the ultimate liberation coming when God makes all things new (Revelation 21:5).
Play in the Bible
The Bible never explicitly addresses play. The Bible is a mostly serious book that seeks to pull the reader from his sinful, God-ignoring sloth and distraction to an earnest pursuit of his Creator and then to holy living. But the seriousness in the Bible often sets the stage for the unbridled joy of knowing God — joy that is often expressed in playful exuberance. Most of the elements of our working definition of play — fun, free, spontaneous, creative, non-utilitarian — are found throughout Scripture, especially in response to the liberating, saving presence of God himself. This sense of play, it seems, has its origin in God himself.
Biblical words translated as a variation of “play” (sachaq, shaa, and raqad in the Old Testament, paizo in the New Testament) can also carry meanings of amusement, merrymaking, celebration, laughter, sport, delight, mocking, dancing, frolicking, leaping, and prancing. The most common kind of play in the Bible is the playing of instruments. Music, depending on the kind, can be a profoundly playful expression. Humans, animals, and creation itself are portrayed as having an indelible playfulness woven into them.
To understand play in the Bible, as we shall see, we also need to appreciate related concepts such as laughter, Sabbath, feasts, festivals, childlikeness, and music. These activities are impossible to do well apart from serious play. So, our study of play in the Bible will not be limited to passages where words translated play occur. Rather, we will focus on examples where main components of play are present. These occur most often when God’s presence, grace, and glory are most evident to his covenant people.
Playful God
God created the universe with amazing order. He also guides our lives in his wise providence, which assures us that nothing happens apart from his careful, perfect plan, which culminates in his glory and our good (Romans 8:28). But in the midst of God’s wise ordering of the universe and perfect execution of his purposes, he works with a creative, playful extravagance.
This is evident in both the creation itself and God’s interaction with it. The description of God’s creative activity in Psalm 104, for instance, gives us a picture not only of God’s awesome power and wisdom, but also of his abundant playfulness in his creative work — gushing springs, singing birds, wine that gladdens hearts, and abundantly watered trees all point to a fabulous display of lavish divine activity. As the psalmist describes the immense and powerful sea, the greatest sea creature of all, Leviathan, is said to have been formed by God “to play in it” (Psalm 104:26). This verse may even imply that God himself is at play with Leviathan in the seas he has created!4
The overwhelming artistic variety we see in creation indicates that there is not only an intelligent designer behind it, but also a playful artist. The sheer variety of tastes, colors, sounds, textures, and shapes in creation indicates anything but pure utilitarian motivation by its Creator. God is both skillful architect and creative artist. He does nothing based in need (Acts 17:24–25; Psalm 50:9–12), so creation, like play, is “meaningful but not necessary.”5 In creating and sustaining everything, and in accomplishing redemption, God’s pleasure and glory are his primary motives (Isaiah 43:7; Matthew 10:26; Luke 11:21; Ephesians 1:5, 9, 11–12). Creation is God at play, “a play of his groundless and inscrutable wisdom.”6 Creation, and life itself, become a source of pleasure and delight for those who delight in the Creator and the work of his hands.
We get glimpses of the playfulness of God also in Christ’s teaching, which often includes verbal sparring. Jesus’s parables frequently contain humorous exaggeration (the beam in the hypocrite’s eye, Matthew 7:5), word play (Peter’s new nickname, Matthew 16:18), and irony (asking whether the people who went to see John the Baptist had gone out to see someone “in soft clothing,” Matthew 11:8).
Play and the Coming Kingdom
The most stirring images of play in the Bible occur in attempts to express the joy and freedom experienced in the coming kingdom of God. One of the most vivid of these images appears in Zechariah 8:5: “The streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets.” God gives his people a beautiful scene of the eschaton to look forward to: children playing with uninhibited, unhindered freedom. Isaiah 11:8–9 offers a similar picture of the freedom to be found in the heavenly city. Fearless, childlike play, no longer inhibited by the effects of sin and the curse, is a key metaphor of Christ’s kingdom. Similar images of playful celebration and merrymaking abound in other prophetic glimpses of what the New Jerusalem brings (for example, Jeremiah 30:18–19; 31:4, 13–14).
“Fearless, childlike play, no longer inhibited by the effects of sin and the curse, is a key metaphor of Christ’s kingdom.”
One of the tenderest pictures of God’s deep care for his people is found in his promise of a restored Jerusalem. He likens it to the care of a compassionate mother for her little baby (Isaiah 66:12). In the restoration, God provides the security and freedom a child experiences while playfully dandled on her mother’s knee. These images call to mind Jesus holding up a child as the prototype of the kind of person to whom the kingdom of God belongs (Matthew 19:14). Jesus calls his followers to an attitude of childlike dependence and trust in God, and this kind of trust invariably leads to childlike play as we see God’s fulfilled covenant promises.
Playful, spontaneous exuberance sparked by God’s presence and blessing is also vividly displayed in David’s joyful worship when the ark of the covenant was returned from the Philistines. David looks downright childlike as he celebrates the symbol of God’s abiding presence reentering Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6:5, 14, 20–22). David’s celebration epitomizes key elements of our definition of play. His enthusiastic, exuberant dancing and leaping was free, creative, fun, and non-utilitarian, and it demonstrated and encouraged hope, delight, gratitude, and celebration.
David’s playful dancing and leaping mirrors other responses of joy over God’s restoring power and presence (Psalm 87:7; 114:4; Isaiah 35:6; Malachi 4:2; Jeremiah 31:4, 13; Luke 1:44; 6:23; Acts 3:8). One would be hard pressed to think of a less practical, less constrained, less mandatory, less boring activity than leaping and dancing. This is the exuberant response of pardoned prisoners.
Those who fail to understand God’s astounding grace have no appreciation for this sort of impractical, unrestrained worship. The woman in Luke 7 dismissed pharisaical decorum when she kissed Jesus’s feet and used her tears and hair to anoint his feet with oil. She stands as a vivid and powerful picture of a sinner who understood grace (Luke 7:36–50). This same disposition was displayed by the woman who “wasted” expensive ointment anointing Jesus. She did a “beautiful thing” to Jesus in preparation for his burial and realized that unrestrained appreciation was warranted (Mark 14:3–9). His disciples failed to have her perspective at this moment, but most of them would welcome it once the Author of life left an empty tomb behind.
Sabbath and Rest
Beyond explicit play-oriented passages, Sabbath observance in the Bible helps us understand the value of play. Sabbath-keeping forced God’s people to disengage from providing for themselves and remember the ultimate source of their daily bread. The Creator and Sustainer built a mandatory rest into each week to get his people to put their efforts at survival into perspective. Even more radically, God instituted the Sabbath when his people were in the wilderness, where failure to fend for yourself could mean death. Resting in God’s sufficiency and power wars against a human-centered view of life and demands we surrender any vestige of self-sufficiency.
Similarly, Isaiah rebukes Israel and seeks to free them from thinking their efforts were the ultimate source of their protection (Isaiah 41:13–14). In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus also seeks to quell the pride that leads to anxiety about our provision (Matthew 6:25–33). In this passage, Jesus is saying, “How dare you worry? Who do you think you are — the sovereign God?” James also corrects a heightened view of human planning by comparing it to God’s comprehensive sovereignty (James 4:13–17).
None of these exhortations is intended to undercut human effort, attentiveness, passion, diligence, or responsibility. Isaiah, Jesus, and James all worked extremely hard and took their human decisions and activity seriously. Human activity, however, must always be subservient to the overarching plan and power of God. God calls us to the freedom and Sabbath rest that lead to childlike dependence, trust, and holy play.
Hopeful Play
How can we ever justify playing when hunger and abortion kill millions of children every year and wars rage around the globe? Without sober acknowledgment of sin, play can become a mere distraction or obsession. But because of God’s sovereign power to bring a wonderful conclusion to all of the ambiguities and suffering in life (Romans 8:28), the Christian has hope and can truly play in righteous measure.
A game’s clear, definitive result is part of its appeal. The 24-hour news cycle reveals never-ending political, national, international, interpersonal, and religious conflicts. It is no wonder many readers turn first to the sports section to discover yesterday’s results. While the clear resolution sport offers is part of its draw, ironically, interest in play and sport rests largely on the uncertainty of the final outcome. We lose interest in games if the outcome is assured before the game starts. This is why parity in sports leagues is vital to maintaining interest. There must be a good measure of uncertainty as to what will transpire and what the end result will be. The more tension created by this uncertainty, the more engaged we become with the game.
This creative, spontaneous uncertainty is central to the definition of play and at the heart of the intrigue of sport. It also mirrors the tension at the heart of the drama of human history. The spontaneous uncertainty with an eventual ending inherent in play reflects the unfolding story of our lives. Like games, our lives are filled with uncertainties that lead to one final result. Play can equip a person to deal with uncertainties on the way to the conclusion. For a Christian, the promised good conclusion to the difficulty of life in a fallen world brings a deep enjoyment of play as it dramatizes a life that ends well.
Hope of the Cross
God’s redeeming power that evokes play and laughter from believers is seen most powerfully in the “folly” of the redemptive work of Christ (1 Corinthians 1–2). The juxtaposing ironies in his life are many: the glorious Creator becomes a baby, the Creator of all beauty has nothing in his appearance to attract us to him, the source of all joy becomes the man of sorrows, the Holy One is cursed and crucified. His life conjures images of a man chasing an impossible dream, except Jesus doesn’t remain dead at the end — and all our hopes and dreams come true in him.
“When play is grounded in the hope of the gospel, it can become one of life’s greatest and most encouraging pleasures.”
The gospel leads to play, for it expresses our ability to transcend the brokenness of our world. We momentarily see the human predicament as not only daunting but fixable (Romans 8:20–22). The Christian worldview recognizes the relentless difficulty of life in our cursed world, but it also recognizes that the world is being redeemed by the one who created and cursed it. So we have hope, and play, in the midst of our brokenness. “He suffered that we may laugh again. . . . In the cross of Christ God is taking man dead-seriously so that he may open up for him the happy freedom of Easter.”7 Without hope, play becomes merely a diversion from life’s troubles rather than a hopeful expression of the freedom to come in the eschaton. When play is an end in itself, it can become a frivolous idol that keeps us from dealing with the human predicament. When play is grounded in the hope of the gospel, it can become one of life’s greatest and most encouraging pleasures.
Heaven: The Play of Eternity
Christian play is a response of those who know God as their Father — who know that he has overcome the world and that he loves to abundantly share the spoils of this victory with his children. God’s saving power leads to great joy among God’s people (Psalm 126:2). This joy is possible even when life is brutal (Luke 6:21). Tears and empty stomachs are not the whole story. God will bring ultimate healing one day.
Christian play should see suffering for what it is, but always through the eyes of cross-centered hope. Following Jesus turns pain into glory, confusion into wonder, sin into redemption, Good Friday into Easter Sunday. God invites us to come to him as his free, forgiven, secure children. To be sure, we are to approach our holy God with healthy fear and hearts broken by our broken world, but God’s people are also called to rejoice, sing, play, and laugh because we know that the owner of all things is working out his perfect plan, which ends with a wedding banquet and perfect resolution and rest. This sure hope in God’s sovereign power and loving-kindness enables us to play with abandon, even before the great wedding banquet begins.
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The Effects of Being Greatly Loved by God: Ephesians 5:1–2, Part 1
http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/14928035/the-effects-of-being-greatly-loved-by-god
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Attack at Dawn: The Spiritual War Against Ordinary Devotions
Every morning summons us to a feast. With each new day, the inviting voice of Isaiah 55 beckons, “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. . . . Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food” (Isaiah 55:1–2).
So, with the Book in hand, we turn Godward with the parched and famished soul of Psalm 63, acknowledging our need and anticipating his banquet: “My soul thirsts for you. . . . My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food” (Psalm 63:1, 5). In Christ, we come to God, through his word, as those who thirst come to water, to receive wine and milk without cost (Isaiah 55:1), as those who hunger to be satisfied with true bread.
Each new morning dawns with divine mercies to quench our thirst and satiate our souls.
Ideally, this is the main feel of morning meditation in God’s word: feeding, eating, drinking, being satisfied. Not the feel of battle and combat, but of feasting. But mark this: as sinners, in a cursed world, with a real enemy — to keep feeding, we also must fight.
Ordinary devotions are nothing less than war.
Devil Rise Early
“Did God actually say . . . ?”
From that very first temptation, the enemy has set his sights on the words of God. If we’ve already heard them, he’ll question them. But even better, he knows, would be to keep us from hearing God in the first place.
The devil and his team know how powerful are the words of God, and how vital they are for our life and health. They know the devastating power of ordinary Bible intake. They know the power of fire to warm coals, and the power of God’s word to feed saving faith and keep believing hearts soft. They know, and tremble at, the explosive, world-altering force of faithful Christians sitting down morning by morning — without fireworks or theatrics or applause — to the quiet glory of ordinary devotions.
So, the devils will do whatever they can to disrupt the morning feast. They launch their campaign under the cloak of darkness, and attack at dawn. But we are not left to be outwitted by their schemes, ignorant of satanic designs (2 Corinthians 2:11). The devil may prowl like a roaring lion, seeking to devour (1 Peter 5:8). Yet with sober-mindedness and watchfulness, we can observe, and reinforce, his likely points of attack.
Three Assaults on Bible Intake
Consider, then, how our enemy often leverages the patterns of our world, with the sins and weaknesses of our own flesh, to plot against the ordinary, quiet, unhurried, early-morning feeding of our souls in the word of God.
1. Keep Them Up Late
The campaign begins the night before, at dusk: keep them up too late. It could be a sleepless child. It could be some tangible, late-breaking need, requiring an act of love. It could be analog human conversation or a late-night event. All the old stuff. But these days, machines are now doing a good bit of the work. Our many screens — from big ones on the walls to the little ones in our pockets — are very efficient at burning the midnight oil.
The spiritual war for ordinary devotions begins long before the sun comes up. The sober-minded and watchful observe it, and act with wisdom — ready to sacrifice the good of sleep in the call of Christian love, and eager not to squander God’s gift for the follies of late-night bingeing and scrolling. One bad habit can knock other good ones out of sync. The enemy would have us be blinded to the cascading effects of empty late nights.
2. Distract Them
If we do retire at an actual human hour, not all is lost for the enemy: distract them in the morning. Which can be quick work.
In one sense, it’s always been easy. Even in the mid-seventeenth century, Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) lamented our universal proneness to distraction: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” We don’t need endless news and the Internet to sidetrack our attention — yet now we have them and, oh, how susceptible we can be. The smartphone, its notifications, and infinite scrolls are particularly ensnaring.
3. Make Them Rush
A third enemy scheme is hurry. The devil would have the motor of our souls run at the same RPMs first thing in the morning as it does the rest of the day. He would have us move at the world’s pace, rather than the Word’s. He would even happily have us try to do too much in morning devotions, so that we do it all too quickly.
As columnist Thomas Friedman has written, we find ourselves living in an “age of accelerations.” Our world pressures us and conditions us to adopt its pace, and we are prone to internalize its speed as our own — and bring the rat race with us when we come to God’s word.
But the morning feast of Bible meditation is not fast food, and not to be treated as such.
Three Attacks on Temptation
How, then, might we combat the devil’s schemes? It’s one thing to anticipate how the demons will attack; it’s another to act on that knowledge. What will you do to thwart the evil forces set against daily Bible reading and meditation?
1. Handle Screens with Care
Among other practical strategies, we might learn to handle our screens with special care. Think how much less prone to morning distraction you might be if you kept the phone silenced, upside down, and further away than arm’s length. Or even better, in another room.
For our souls to start the day feasting on God, we need not only to make time, and be realistic about what we have, but also to guard it by getting to bed, getting up, and avoiding morning diversions. Both the night before and morning of, screens and their content, with their glittering pixels, are great distractors of souls.
For many of us in modern life, we can hardly avoid them. We work at them and use them for our jobs. We spend a shocking amount of our days and weeks on them, much of it for good. But exercising particular caution with our screens after dark, and before meeting with God in his word, is becoming the greater part of modern Christian wisdom.
You might also consider going old school with a paper Bible. Those do not ring, vibrate, or notify. And paper actually helps a reader slow down and experience “the precious milliseconds of deep reading processes.”
2. Gather a Day’s Portion
A glorious simplicity accompanies “ordinary devotions,” the kind that feed and sustain souls for a lifetime. Admirable as it may be to try to read this book and that commentary, and study these topics, and memorize those verses, and even pray long lists — and all that in addition to reading and meditating on God’s word — trying to do too much in the morning will undermine the rest and feast of being in God’s presence and enjoying him, and his Son, through his word.
One way to put it: seek simply to gather a day’s portion each morning. Like God’s people, collecting manna each day in the wilderness, aim to feed your heart’s hunger and quench your soul’s thirst for just that day. No need to catch up from yesterday’s missed readings, or try to get ahead to store up for tomorrow or next week. God will take care of tomorrow. Rather, come to eat and drink and be satisfied today. In other words, don’t bite off more than you can chew. Don’t try to do too much, but cultivate a faithful realism for the long haul.
3. Chew Your Food Slowly
Finally, save your hustle for the rest of the day. Slow down, if you’re still able. It may take some time to learn how. Seek to chew your food slowly and enjoy it. Such savoring in the moment also helps us to carry it with us into the ups and downs, and pressures and accelerations, of the day.
The biblical image of meditation dovetails with the feasting pictures of Isaiah 55 and Psalm 63. Hebrew meditation is like an animal chewing the cud. I’m no farmer, but the few cows I’ve observed doing this did not seem to be in any sort of hurry. If you’re going to be like a cow, be it first thing in the morning as you chew slowly, unhurriedly, even leisurely, on the words of God in Scripture.
Ancient books in general, and the Bible in particular, were not meant to be read with speed, like we today have been conditioned to read (that is, skim). Learn a whole new gear for Bible reading. Read slowly, and reread. Seek to enjoy God and his world and his glory and his Son. Don’t swallow too quickly and move on, but chew slowly and savor his grace.
War is not the main mindset for early mornings. Come to God’s word to feast and be satisfied. But know this is nothing less than battle. Consider the devil’s common schemes, and fight to guard the feast.
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Through the Valley of Miscarriage
Sobs shook my body. Nurses couldn’t help but squeeze a shoulder, hand, or foot whenever they entered the hospital room. Eventually, I’d cried so hard for so long that one felt the need to say, “You’re going to be okay, honey.” She must have thought it was the abdominal pain, or the bleeding, or the impending surgery.
“I know,” I whispered. “But I miss our baby.”
Considerate as they were, the staff struggled to understand my sadness. Perhaps no one who refers to an unborn child as “remaining fetal tissue” really can. They seemed to look away in discomfort whenever my husband and I called our baby what our baby was: our baby.
But now our baby was gone, as were deep breaths and clear thoughts. Did I cause this? I should have gone easier on my body. Was it my sin? I’ve been so impatient lately, even harsh. Maybe if I hadn’t — maybe if I had . . .
Never had I entered a valley quite like this.
Our Greatest Need in the Valley
The mysterious sorrow, the frantic questions, the lingering pregnancy hormones. In the days and weeks surrounding miscarriage, a mother’s faith often sits under fire, as we ache in ways we so little understand. We lost our child — but who was that child? Girl or boy? Mom’s nose or dad’s eyes? We’ll never hear her first word, or know his favorite food, or teach her to read, or watch him run. Much of our pain is the pain of receiving a gift along with so little time to unwrap, hold, and love it.
In its place stand questions that, left unanswered (or answered only by our pain), can distance us from who God is for us in Christ. Instead of clinging to him as “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3–4), we can begin to wonder who he is, where he is, what he’s doing — and why it had to involve our baby never taking a breath. He whom we beheld as sovereign, good, and near to us the day we grasped a positive pregnancy test suddenly feels out of reach. We begin to cast him sidelong glances from afar. We had thought he was our good gift-Giver. Is he actually a cosmic and cool gift-Taker?
But the God whom we are so quick to doubt — he is quicker to respond. Throughout the ages, he put together a Book brimming with words not only true, but satisfying and strengthening. That is, a Book about himself. No matter how many our tears, mothers who take hold of its words can hold fast to God, eternal life, and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). Indeed, there is no other way through the valley of miscarriage.
When You Cannot See, Read
Like the mother who miscarries, the author of Lamentations was no stranger to loss. Babylon laid waste to Jerusalem before his very eyes. He saw attackers drag away children. He watched Israel’s rulers flee. He looked on as young and old groped for bread yet rose empty-handed, covered in the city’s ashes. When his eyes could take no more, he wept.
But even as his vision blurs and stomach churns, his mind holds fast to something far sturdier than Solomon’s temple: this.
But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end;they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:21–23)
Though he swims in a sea of unthinkable grief, still he is able to reasonably say, “I have hope.” How? Because he has “this” — the truth of God’s unending love, mercy, and faithfulness — and because he calls that truth to mind. Whenever his pain rises up and shouts about who God appears to be in the moment, he directs his thoughts toward who God has revealed himself to be “from everlasting to everlasting” (Psalm 90:2).
“If we are not careful, wondering about God without talking with God can lead to wandering from God.”
Grieving mothers, how much greater is our access to truth and, through it, to our God? In the Bible, we can read the words God “breathed out” (2 Timothy 3:16) for us, each of which “proves true” (Proverbs 30:5) and “gives light” (Psalm 119:130). In his many sufferings, can you imagine the lengths to which Lamentations’ author might have gone to possess a single copy of the full Scriptures we have? Yet “this” was sufficient for his time of need. Might the entirety of the Bible be sufficient for us?
Though tears cloud our eyes, hormones our emotions, and sorrow our thoughts, we can arrive at truth and its only source, our God. For what we cannot see through the fog of loss and grief, we can read. Because of the Bible, there is no shortage of hope-restoring words to choose from (Romans 15:4).
At the same time, we are wise to spend what time and energy we have reading (and rereading) passages that address our darkest questions. Is God sovereign over miscarriage? If he is, what is he doing through it — and can he still be good in it? I wish I had space to respond. For now, I’ll leave you with the texts to which I turned (along with links to other resources that may serve you): Job 1, Isaiah 48, Psalm 91, Psalm 119, and Romans 8.
When You Cannot Pray, Repeat
Grief affects more than our ability to get truth into our minds; it can also keep us from getting truth out of our mouths in prayer. Upon parting with children we never cradled, fed, or dressed yet inexpressibly loved, we may feel little desire to address the One who either “didn’t spare them” or “couldn’t save them.” We tend to curl into ourselves, as we believe one of a hundred lies about God’s lack of interest or power.
Despite our unbelief, God stands ready to help through the Scriptures once more. In our most clouded moments, not only can we speak his word to ourselves, but we can repeat his word to him. When we do not have the words to talk to our Father, we have only to open the Book with a thousand pages’ worth of ways we might pray.
Lamentations 3:21–23 remains a fitting guide. The author, upon telling himself that God’s mercies “are new every morning,” turns immediately to address God: “Great is your faithfulness.” In the same breath, he draws truth in and then lets truth out and up as he turns it into prayer. And lest we think this was an easy task for him, consider the stanza he pens just before:
[God] has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes;my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is;so I say, “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord.” (Lamentations 3:16–18)
No, he feels pain’s pull away from God and toward hopelessness just as we do. For despair often prefers to talk about God than to God, a habit suffering Christians must learn to resist. If we are not careful, wondering about God without talking to God can lead to wandering from God.
Scripture can return us to the tender speaking terms we once knew and now need, perhaps more than ever. Whether we turn a passage into prayer, as Lamentations’ author does, or pray a psalm word for word, or use one of the New Testament’s many petitions, God went to great lengths to ensure that grieving mothers could weep yet still speak to him. What love is this, that when we lack the words to say, he offers us his own.
Ever with Us
As we walk through the valley of miscarriage, our pain, when left to itself, will not be so kind as to reinforce a biblical view of God and suffering. Rather, sorrow will try to seize the upper hand on reality, bending our hearts into a posture of doubt, mistrust, or resentment.
But praise God, we need not feel, think, or even reason our own way back into his grip. His word open before us, we can read and pray a path across the valley. Though our stomachs will stop growing, and we’ll schedule no more ultrasounds for now, there is a way for us not only to withstand the loss, but to grow because of it: “by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).
The valley we walk is not so low that God cannot get to us. Indeed, if we are in Christ, we need only open his word, and we will find that he is with us already: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me” (Psalm 23:4). Together, mothers, we can push past what our anguish might want to what we know our anguish needs: communion with God through his word.
