Find Healing After a Miscarriage or Stillbirth

A miscarriage or stillbirth brings a sudden, grievous end to your dreams of a baby. After such a painful experience, you may feel hopeless. But God will help you heal and restore your sense of hope.

Here are some ways you can pursue healing after suffering a miscarriage or stillbirth:

• Remember and honor the child you lost. Hold a memorial or funeral service for him or her. Post a memorial to your child online and record your thoughts and feelings about your baby in a journal. Plant a tree in memory of your child, then watch it grow. Each year on the anniversary of your baby's death, gather with family and friends to share your thoughts and feelings and to pray.

• Help your body recover. Eat a nutritious diet, get the amount of sleep you need each night, slowly begin an exercise program, and talk with your husband and your doctor honestly about whether you're ready to resume sex before you do so.

• Allow yourself the freedom and time to express all the emotions you're feeling - such as anger, fear, or sadness. You may want to write them down to sort them out. Then release them to God. Remember that God cares deeply about you and can be trusted to heal you.

• Share your pain with another person or a few other people who will listen to you and support you as you pursue healing. A trusted friend, a professional counselor, or support group members could provide the help you need.

• Don't blame yourself or your spouse for the miscarriage or stillbirth. Nothing productive can come of blame or anxiety. Remember that you live in a fallen world filled with suffering, but that God has great compassion and is willing and able to help you.

• Strive to help other people who are suffering. Through serving them, you'll get your focus off your own pain, and God's love will flow through you, helping to heal both you and the people you're serving.

• Think about the blessings you do enjoy right now in your life, and take the time to thank God for them.

• Talk honestly with your spouse about how the loss of your baby has hurt your marriage. Then pray together, and work on encouraging and supporting one another. Make sure your marriage is healthy before you try to conceive again.

• Consider whether adoption might be an option for you and your spouse.

• Have faith in God Himself, rather than just in a particular agenda for your life. Seek to discover God's will for you rather than trying to convince Him to make your will a reality. Know that if it is God's will for you to become a parent, He will eventually let that happen for you if you're seeking His will.
  

Adapted from Losing You Too Soon: Finding Hope After Miscarriage or the Loss of a Baby, copyright 2002 by Bernadette Keaggy. Published by Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, Or. Look for this book at your local Christian bookstore, or order it online by clicking on the link below.

Bernadette Keaggy has been married to acclaimed guitarist Phil Keaggy for more than 20 years. She and Phil live in Tennessee with their three children.

Have you ever suffered a miscarriage or stillbirth? If so, how did that experience cause you pain, and how did God help you heal? Visit Crosswalk's forums to discuss this topic by clicking on the link below.