Finding Christ in Life’s Losses
It was a calm Saturday night at home when we received a life-changing phone call. My husband and I, after adopting our daughter internationally from China, were now in the process of pursuing a domestic infant adoption. The phone call was our social worker sharing the news that a birth mom had chosen us to parent her baby boy. He had just been born, and an hour later, we were at the hospital meeting our son and his precious mother. We had been praying for this day and were thrilled to be expanding our family again!
A few days later, we brought Ezra home from the hospital and began the steps to finalize the adoption. After a month of the legal process going forward, we learned that, due to COVID, things would take longer than normal in the court system. We were willing to be patient, and while we waited, we settled into life as a new family of four.
Our daughter Zion, while initially hesitant about this new baby that suddenly entered our lives, soon became an adoring and protective big sister. We watched Ezra grow from a tiny preemie into a crawling, jabbering toddler. All the while, we waited for that day we would officially legally be a family, even though we already felt it in our hearts.
We waited and waited for finalization, and what should have taken a matter of months ended up taking a year. At the end of twelve months of parenting our son and expecting to adopt him into our family forever—in an unusual decision of what became a contested adoption case—we were told we had two hours to say goodbye to Ezra forever.
It was a shocking and seismic loss that rocked our little family.
As our new reality settled in, I didn’t know how to move forward with such a hole in my heart and my home. I wondered how I could ever be happy again with such intense pain and longing to hold my son again. Nothing seemed like it could ever be quite the same. Loss is like that; it changes how you experience life.
Your loss may not be saying goodbye to a child you expected to be in your family forever, but I am sure you have experienced your own pain points—maybe the loss of a relationship, a job, a pregnancy, a dream, your identity in motherhood, or a myriad of other painful circumstances.
When walking through painful circumstances, just like any other season of our lives, we can ask how we can live out the gospel and bring glory to God through our response. In our individual journeys, God can help us navigate our pain in a way that brings deeper understanding of the gospel and dignifies our grief as image bearers with real relational, emotional, and spiritual impacts from loss.[1] God created us with emotions and avoiding them doesn’t honor that design. So, as we face losses in our lives, we can choose between ignoring our pain in an effort to find peace or working through our pain—which leads toward healing and growth.
As I tried to understand how to process my own heartache, I appreciated Dr. Diane Langberg’s counsel in her book Suffering and the Heart of God—that dealing with our pain in a healthy way must include three things: talking, tears, and time.[2] With my own tendency to ignore and minimize my pain, I found these three action steps to be a helpful framework as I became oriented with my grief.
When I am sad about the loss of our son, I’ve learned to make room to process my emotions by talking to my community about them—allowing myself the space to release my tears and then giving myself grace for the time it takes for healing. These steps are part of honoring the way I have been created with emotions. At the same time, we should also keep in mind that, while our emotions inform us, they don’t have to rule us. Processing them well, then, always ends with us lifting our eyes upward to God—our Ruler, Sustainer, and Comforter.
As we create space to acknowledge and validate our grief, it can forge greater intimacy with God. When I was in the depths of grief for my son, crying out to God for some relief to the pain of my empty arms, God’s presence bore greater significance and his promises more relevance than I had ever previously felt. We cannot fully appreciate all the magnificent facets of light unless we have also experienced darkness. Similarly, in the depths of pain, Christ’s presence and promises often find new areas of our hearts that might not have been opened otherwise.
Not only is Christ with us in our pain, he also sympathizes.[3] He was called a “man of sorrows” (Is. 53:3), and he too expressed very real, human emotions of sadness and grief—whether weeping at the death of a friend or facing the anguish of his own death.[4] Christ’s suffering on the cross creates a pathway for us to have access to our heavenly Father—to bring him our prayers, laments, and hurts. These truths have taken a greater stronghold in my life after loss. Pain can press us into knowing and trusting God more, instead of festering and turning our hearts bitter. Because of the gospel, there is eternal hope in the midst of our pain, and we don’t have to be stuck there.
I heard a friend say recently that, after loss, we don’t really “move on,” but we can move forward. We move forward into the darkness of grief, that the light of God’s truth might shine brighter. We move forward into greater meditation on God’s promises and forward into seeking how we might bring glory to God through our challenges. I will never be the same since suddenly saying goodbye to my son, but his memory and impact will live with me forever as a reminder of God’s presence.
[1] Genesis 1:26-27
[2] Diane Langberg, Suffering and the Heart of God: How Trauma Destroys and Christ Restores, (New Growth Press, 2015)
[3] Hebrews 4:15
