Growing in Christ
1 Thessalonians
God’s Faithfulness, Infertility, and Miscarriage
51 year ago
We were recently asked to write up a testimony about our experience through infertility and a miscarriage to encourage our local church. The voice is a little different than my usual writing here. Feel free to comment or share your experience.
We got married in May 2007, just days after we both graduated from college. We loved being married and eagerly anticipated the day when God would give us children. After a year of marriage we began to start trying for children and though we prayed that God would give us a baby soon, month after month went by and we still weren’t pregnant.
While it seemed that everybody around us was getting pregnant and having babies, we were rounding the corner of infertility for over a year, waiting month after month for a gift that God seemed to be withholding indefinitely.
After just over a year we went to a doctor to get everything checked out only to find out that nothing was wrong. We began taking some medicine to help increase our chances of getting pregnant. After a few months of medical assistance, we found out that we were pregnant, in all places, at Disney World. We eagerly shared the news with our close friends and family who had been faithfully praying for us and caring for us. However, when we were six weeks pregnant we miscarried.
These were very difficult days for us. We had stood, mustering up as much joy as we could in watching many receive the very gift of children that we so desired, and when we did receive that gift, God took it away. Why was our Father doing this?
The wound of the infertility and miscarriage was very deep, and those days were very dark. Through this time, the Lord specifically spoke through his Word to comfort us. It began with the preached Word we had heard just the Sunday before our miscarriage that because of our sure hope in Christ, “we do not grieve as those who have no hope”. Our sorrow was bitter because the effects and outfall of sin in the world is bitter. But Christ is a hope-giving Savior, and in many ways the Resurrection became more precious to us, when we would say good-bye to this fallen world and be with Jesus.
The Lord also spoke to us through the Psalms. Through psalms like Psalm 16, 121, 130, 27, 73, the Lord spoke to us not minimizing our suffering, but turning our gaze to Him. It was only through looking at the glory and character of God that we found comfort in that time. Through seeing who Christ is – that he is a loving, caring, gracious, sovereign, all ways faithful God – did we have a standing place amidst the storm and confusion of the sorrow.
And, again, the preached Word was a primary means of grace. As we were working through life after all of this, our pastors preached through Words of Comfort, and through Isaiah 40 we experienced the humbling joy of knowing Christ our great Comforter. Through all of this, God was showing us that though our trial was difficult, God was still faithful because he was the true God who never fails to walk through his people’s trials with them and work their circumstances for their joy.
After losing our baby we decided to continue trying to get pregnant and using the medicine. After several more unsuccessful months we began praying about whether or not God was calling us to adoption. Even before we got married we have had a heart to adopt, but we assumed that would be when we were a little older and already had some experience as parents. At this point we were still trying to get pregnant, but we knew that we only had another month that we could continue taking the medicine we were using.
As we prayed about this we felt God give us peace, not as to whether we should start the adoption process or not, but peace that he would direct our steps. God was again drawing our attention to himself, to see Christ and know his presence with us, to see God as our faithful God.
As it so happens, we did conceive a healthy baby that month, and welcomed Owen Scott into our family on October 18, 2010.
Owen is a small expression of the hope of Psalm 27 that “We shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” Through this whole trial and journey, we have continually looked upon God’s faithfulness to us. He’s continually drawn us to see Jesus Christ, our Shepherd, King, and Friend. He has continually exposed the idols of our hearts through this so that we might receive the grace of repentance. He has continually given us his Word, both in preaching and in our personal devotions; so that we might know that He is with us. Though the trial was very difficult, God has been faithful. And he will be faithful again.
Thank you.
Sons of Light
03 years ago
In my Bible reading plan a week or so ago, I read 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11. In this passage, Paul uses the phrase “sons of light” (the literal, not “children). Now the week prior I had listened to three lectures by D.A. Carson on difficult text in Hebrews sighting Old Testament passages (found here). In these lectures, Carson points out that in the Bible, the phrase “son of…” is used to convey a functional meaning, not necessarily a hereditary one. That is, sons act like their fathers (e.g. A blacksmith has a son who becomes a blacksmith). So when the Bible uses phrases like “son of God” and “son of peace” this is a functional phrase – the person who acts like God, the person who acts like a peace. This is most easily seen in Matthew 5:9, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” We see that those who make peace are called God’s sons, not because in making peace they somehow are birthed into divinity, but because they act like God, the ultimate peace maker.
So, here in 1 Thes. 5:5 we have Paul calling us “sons of light” (uvioi fwtovV). What does this mean? Applying what Carson was teaching me, here is a guess. The passage is about the coming judgment of the Lord (v.2). So the passage is dividing people into those who know the judgment of the Lord and joyfully await its final coming because they have been saved from it by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ (v. 4, 9 10). The others, by this divide await instruction, judgment and wrath because they have refused to be awakened to this coming judgment in the present. And what makes this divide? The revelation of Jesus Christ (v.9). We know that for Paul, and the NT, this image of Jesus Christ as light is clearly taught. There are many passages we could use here to demonstrate this truth, but the one that most clearly sticks out in my mind is 2 Corithians 4:6, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Thus, I think the point of this passage is to say that just as God is a lighter to people in giving the revelation of the Gospel in Jesus Christ, so we are to imitate his illumination by proclaiming this same revelation. God lights the path to salvation, and “in [his] light do we see light” (Psalm 36). God is a revealer, and illuminator; so should we be revealers and illuminators in the kind that God is of.
His revelation is of the judgment to come, the solution he has presented, and all this in the beams of his glory seen in Jesus Christ. Therefore, for us to be “sons of light” means that in this present darkness – which is a waiting room of God’s mercy – we proclaim this light of God’s revelation. As God is a revealer, so we act like God in revealing God. This then must be why Paul uses all this night language in contrast to us being sons of light.
So now reflection must give this concern: What does it mean to me in my conversations with those who are of the present darkness to speak in each situation in a way that appropriately testifies to the revelation of Jesus Christ and the coming judgment? If I am a light (of God’s revelation), and they are of darkness (under God’s wrath to come), how do I shape my words to impress the revelation of God and thereby prove myself to be a son of light – revealing as he has revealed?
This stuff really gripped me to be thinking about this, and started my thinking on how eschatological the NT is in describing Christians. This time in the Word a week or so ago has prompted my thinking in this direction, which I’ll be doing a couple more posts on in the days to come.
