Well here is a blog post I’d never thought I’d have to write, and I am just going to throw it out there at the beginning, this is no doubt going to be an emotive post and I will be talking about loosing a baby during early pregnancy. If you don’t want to read any further then I don’t have a problem with that, I can already feel tears welling up behind my eyes and to be honest most of you won’t want to or need to read this.

I recently got sucked into an argument online. I try not to let this happen but sometimes I see someone who sounds a little confused and I just want to help. Other times I just want to know what it is that drives their beliefs, I ask a few questions and I respond with what I believe the Word of God is telling us. This recent argument was nothing like that. Somebody posted a link to a blog (I will assume it was theirs for all the passion and dismissive belittling they used to defend it), it related to Christian Pregnancy. With a wife at nearly 32 weeks pregnant naturally I read it. What I came face to face with was one person’s ramblings that ultimately stated that those Christian’s who have trouble free pregnancies were those that trusted God the most. If you lost your baby, well that was your fault for not having enough faith. It is as simple as that.

Now my wife and I lost a child during pregnancy, he had acrania, that is to say the top of his skull was completely absent leaving his brain protecting by a layer of skin. It was nothing to do with our genetics, there is just always a chance that something like this could happen. Now what this writer was trying to do was shift the blame for this off of God, and I guess the parents were the easiest targets. This person told me that my baby died because I did not have enough faith, but I should rejoice because I know I knew better. They went so far as to act incredulous to my pain, surely I should be kissing their feet because they brought me the truth that I had just failed to grasp up until this point. This is the mistake that those who follow the prosperity Gospel make; if something you don’t like happens you do not have to blame God, but you don’t have to blame yourself either.

The prosperity Gospel is based on false teachings. I know that’s a blunt statement, and typically a proclamation I try to avoid, but I cannot when it comes to this. It focuses on the idea that just because God loves us, it means that if we have faith in Him then He will do great things for us. And if great things don’t happen for you then your faith simply isn’t strong enough. This is the problem of at the core of the prosperity message. If bad things happen it’s because you don’t believe hard enough. This just isn’t true, there are not levels of belief, or acceptance of Jesus. I don’t have any more or any less than those around me because I love Jesus any more or any less than them. I have what I have given, for by my needs, and for my growth they have been given to me. We have not been called to live easy lives, and anyone that preaches to you that all you need to is at best misguided, or at worst a liar.

I know that it is hard sometimes to rationalise why bad things do happen to us, why my baby boy, who I never truly got a chance to meet, died. And her’s the thing, I don’t have a satisfactory answer for you. I wish I did, I really do. It would tie this whole message together in a tight little bow. All I can say is that we are called to be like Christ, to love like him, to treat our neighbours as he treated to his, to spread the Gospel through word and deed. And if Christ came to us, a man who’s faith was never in question and a man who loved the Father in ways we can only ever aspire to, had to suffer then so do we. We must pick up our cross and walk with Christ, their will always be pain in life, the faithful might suffer while those who believe nothing prosper. But we do not have faith in the sacrifice of Jesus because it benefits us. God is not a slot machine, you do not input faith and receive prosperous reward.

“And if [we are His] children, [then we are His] heirs also: heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ [sharing His spiritual blessing and inheritance], if indeed we share in His suffering so that we may also share in His glory.” ROMANS 8:17 AMP

I’m not entirely sure that I wrote something particularly cohesive above. It is fuelled by frustration, and pain. But it was also fuelled by an unquenchable thirst for God, so I hope that that was clear but I just want to repeat it here, I do not blame God for what happened. I do not believe that God was the reason I lost my child. We are living in a broken and imperfect world, and sometimes the worst things happen.

So to those who may be pregnant now, I say to you pray. Pray constantly and continually that God watches over your child. Know that our God is not one that arbitrarily picks who lives and who dies, and know that our God does not take your baby away. I want to leave this with two quotes from scripture that brought me strength when I was at my lowest. The first is God’s words to the prophet Jeremiah, words that tell us of God’s love for us, that before we are even knitted together in the womb that God knows us.

““Before I formed you in the womb I knew you [and approved of you as My chosen instrument], And before you were born I consecrated you [to Myself as My own]; I have appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”” JEREMIAH 1:5 AMP

The second quote is from Psalm 127. Whenever we go to hospital, or I am afraid for the health of our current child I recite these words to myself. How blessed is the warrior with a quiver full of arrows!

“Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one’s youth. How blessed [happy and fortunate] is the man whose quiver is filled with them; They will not be ashamed When they speak with their enemies [in gatherings] at the [city] gate.” PSALM 127:4-5