Thanks to Melissa, I came across a series of incredibly moving reflections yesterday from a couple who are pregnant with a child, Ethan, who has a fatal birth defect. Amidst all the vitriolic rhetoric and ideological warfare that takes place between “pro-choice” and “pro-life” movements in America, this intensely personal story is really a true witness to the nature of Christ’s peace. This is a true example of what embracing the way of Christ’s hospitality looks like. It is at once a testimony to the cost and the joy that attends a life given over to that hospitality. May Eric and Dayna be blessed, sustained, and kept through this time.
Here is just one snippet of Dayna’s poignant reflections:
The idea that God’s providence or purposes are somehow at work behind tragedies like Ethan’s death is appealing to many people. I think this might be because, in our moments of powerlessness, this thought reassures us that God is in complete control, even if we cannot comprehend what God is doing in our lives. But I’m not sure it’s an honest conclusion. Surely God is at work in our world and in our lives, and surely the promise of the resurrection is that one day the power of death will be completely swallowed up by the God who is the source of all life. But the moment in which we live is somewhere between the promise and its fulfillment. The moment in which we live requires both stark honesty about the realities of our broken world and radical faith in the coming vision of wholeness that God has promised. The moment in which we live requires us to acknowledge that there is much that remains terribly broken about our world, even as we wait in faith for the day when all will be made whole. . . .
I know that if I am open and listen, there are things I will learn through this experience. I know that the heart-rending experience of loving and losing Ethan will shape me in life-changing ways. At the very least, going through this dark valley has the potential to make me a more wise and compassionate pastor and friend. But I don’t believe for a minute that God caused this to happen or that this was in God’s plan for Ethan’s life. I don’t believe God wills babies to be born with birth defects any more so than God wills tsunamis or genocides or mass starvation. I believe God hovers like a heartbroken mother, tending to a dying child, among the wreckage of our world. I believe God longs with a longing far more intense than what I feel for Ethan, for the healing and wholeness of all the broken and dying life in our world. I believe God is actively fighting against the powers of death and destruction in our world, and will continue to fight against them until the day that they are no more. And I believe that God is grieving with us as we wait for that day when all of creation will be completely freed from the strangle-hold of death.
I have a brother who lived for a half-n-hour after he was born; today (given advances in technology and medicine) he could’ve been saved, but then there was nothing they could do. Similar to this story our family has found the same solace (I Thess. 4) in knowing that he is with Christ, and we will see him someday in the presence of the LORD — nevertheless, there is still grief!
I don’t think God “wills” such things either, instead I think He has redeemed them; which is why the cross is so profound! The destruction that the “old” intends to bring, actually serves as the occasion for God’s wisdom and love to break forth in redemptive power and hope . . . so instead of speaking of God through decrees (which is what Ethan seems to be speaking against), we should speak of Him and His “control” through the economy of His love for us in Christ.
Thanks for sharing this “real theology,” Halden.
This is a wonderful reflection. Nothing pissed me off more then when well intentioned folks told my wife and I after our failed pregnancy that “God has a reason for it.” I think Dayna’s words in the first paragraph are spot on. People (myself included) do not know how to cope with the effects of a fallen world and grasp (both rightly and wrongly) at everything they can for some sense of control.
Tim F.
Indeed. The whole “God had a reason for it” mode of thinking seems to me to be downright demonic.
Hey Halden, thanks for posting this. My wife and I are going through almost the exact same thing. We are also expecting a baby in a few weeks with a fatal genetic condition. In this case the ribs are too small for lungs to develop very much. He’s fine in the womb, but won’t make it very long outside.
We’ve had to think through all of these same theological issues as well. Many doctors have been baffled that we would not terminate and we were surprised at what an automatic decision it was for them.
The hardest theological issue we’ve dealt with is miraculous healing. Some family members are upset that we aren’t confident that God would heal the baby. They say that it isn’t God’s will for the baby to die and thus if we pray for healing we can expect that. We differ from Dayna in that we are praying for a miracle (although we didn’t for a while), but mostly we’re praying for God to prepare us for what is coming and that he would be glorified through it all. We’ve already seen many good things come from this experience and we expect many more.
Our blog is down for another couple of days, but we’ve been posting updates through the process there. http://www.bodeutsch.com
Justin, thanks for your story. It seems that loss of life in the womb/early infant death is one of those things people don’t share about too much, but when they do it’s amazing to learn how many people are walking the same path. There’s a power to sharing these experiences and I hope you all find your place. See this for an interesting take on the Amish way of sharing:
http://rainmomblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/do-amish-blog.html
Yeah, Justin thanks for this. Thoughts and prayers go with you. I look forward to reading what you’ve written after the blog is back up.
Dayna will be savaged by some Calvinists for what she’s saying, but I commend her for speaking the reality of her journey. God’s peace and hand upon her.
I don’t expect we’ll ever gain consensus here on earth, but as one who agrees w/ John Newton’s assessment that “Nothing is needful that he withholds; nothing is needless that he sends”, I’d like to think that I believe because it’s true, not because it’s comforting (though it is that). Everything I read in the bible tells me that God is not up in heaven, wringing his hands helplessly at the wreckage he sees on earth and in our hearts.
I don’t know what to do with our ripped and bleeding hearts other than to bring them to God repeatedly in confidence that he knows what he’s doing, down to every malformed fetus. If he didn’t will it and if he’s not purposefully withholding his miraculous healing, then I’m not sure why we are told to cast our cares upon him. Rather a cruel and pointless command, no?
But again, I hope I tread lightly on this painful ground. The wherefores and why’s of seemingly needless suffering are certainly beyond my final thoughts.
I don’t know how you could gather from the posts linked to (if you read them) that anyone is saying that God is “up in heaven, wringing his hands helplessly.”
The notion that we must choose between a God who purposely predetermines all evil that undergo and a flaccid God who paces around helplessly is a false choice.
The cries of “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” from Jesus on the cross belie any attempts to construe the reality of suffering and death as something that God does. Rather it is something that we undergo and perpetrate. Any attempt to explain it rationalistically is bound to fail because sin and death are ultimately a complete aberration.
But what we cannot do is claim that it is ultimately all God’s act. God rather claims that it never even entered God’s mind that we should commit the evils that we perpetrate (Jer 19:5; 32:35). God is not a God who sits aloof, assuring us that its all in his good plan. Rather he is a God who suffers with us and suffers under our hand (see the book of Hosea).
Further to this point, see Jer 9:17-18
“Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider, and call for the mourning women to come; send for the skilled women to come; let them quickly raise a dirge over us, so that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids flow with water.”
Note the shift into first person plurals here. It clearly means to include the speaker, Yahweh himself with the grief of the mourners.
If we take the Bible seriously we must affirm that God mourns and weeps with his people over their suffering.
While I don’t want to give to overstate the impact of theological education, I have to say I am mighty impressed with Fuller for the part they played in forming these two.