Loss & Light: How two miscarriages opened member's eyes to true healing

Samaritan Ministries honors the sanctity of life—not just this month, but every month. As part of that commitment, we are sharing a special series called Loss & Light. These stories feature members who have walked through the deep sorrow of losing an infant or child. In the midst of their grief, they have chosen to glorify Christ, allowing His light to shine through their suffering. This story is written in first-person by the mother.

“Grief is the price we pay for love,” Queen Elizabeth II once said.

I began to pay the price of love in September 2024 after suffering a miscarriage of my first pregnancy. In February 2025, I miscarried again. I learned firsthand that such tragedies are not uncommon, that death and suffering in a sin-cursed world strike the unborn without discrimination. This season was a waking nightmare, the last thing I expected, and it challenged my value system.

Convictions and the weight of grief

To call myself “pro-life” and to claim that life starts at conception means that lives of only 6 weeks and 8 weeks should be loved, dignified, and grieved.

Adherence to my convictions made the weight of my losses heavier, even though I was mourning two lives I had known only briefly. Where others in our materialistic culture would say all that had passed from my body were nonviable clumps of cells, I believed those lives conceived in me had personhood and an eternal state to be concerned about. This was right and good, until pride entered the picture and a position that was meant to honor God instead morphed into something aimed at exalting myself.

My self-righteousness was revealed.

Why was my family, one who would adore and care for a baby, suffering from this? Weren’t there plenty of women in this world who didn’t even want to be pregnant? Why do so many mothers who carry a baby to full term lose the very lives they would protect?

I pridefully found it incomprehensible that my body—redeemed by Jesus and a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)—would still experience brokenness to this degree. I fell into the common pitfall believers are trapped by when enduring pain: questioning God and justifying myself. I had set up a trial in my mind, made myself the judge, and gave the verdict that God’s treatment of me was unfair because of my high regard for the unborn.

The diagnosis for my tailspin was blind pride. I thought that I had earned a ticket out of suffering for knowing the right things. I thought that loving the unborn made me a better candidate to be a mom than others. I thought it placed me on a pedestal of women who deserved to carry a pregnancy without issue. The facade of false holiness was stripped away, and I was forced to reckon with my true dependency rather than my perceived strength.

Repentance and rediscovering hope

All this pride had to be repented of before the Father. The simple Gospel brought me to my knees in this season and taught me to look higher than myself for deliverance from this world. The next battle was to fight the temptation to despair in my vulnerability and instead find true hope in Christ.

In the haze of mourning these little lives through the spring and summer of 2025, I looked voraciously for some kind of buoyancy. I wanted a vision of life beyond this suffering to hold me up and encourage me to look forward. I quickly learned I was not alone. Testimonies abound of women who have experienced death in their bodies—from infertility, recurrent miscarriage, stillbirth, and more. I am so thankful they pointed me to the goodness of God in the hard questions and dark days.

However, I found a quiet discomfort growing in me as I noticed a pattern of many women’s journeys through this kind of loss. Most often, those telling their story were women who had experienced a season of loss and then went on to have a healthy pregnancy and gave birth. It made me feel less bad for them but did not assuage my own sadness.

Children are a gift, not the ultimate hope

I rejoice that God can and does respond to prayers of those who want to have children but find themselves stuck in recurrent miscarriage or infertility. I see very clearly that children are a blessing, and a gift of grace. It is certainly only by His hand that any life is possible and that is worth thanking him for.

Yet, I knew that having a healthy pregnancy would not simply erase the reality of miscarriage that I had gone through. (It does not, I can confidently say, now being in the third trimester of a healthy pregnancy.)

Perhaps for others, the joy of carrying a baby could outweigh the memories of sorrow, but I doubted that I could respond the same. I certainly did not know if I would get to that point when so near to my losses, so I had to accept, despite the many times I heard it was possible for others, that the version of a family I envisioned for us was never promised. Further, I thought at that time, if I were really to go on and give birth someday, what assurance did I have that this would be the end of my suffering related to having children?

It became clear that being pregnant and bringing children into the world was not a complete solution to the problem of death of the unborn for my unsteady soul. Children themselves are not a sufficient source of hope in an uncertain world. Giving birth does not shield me or any other believer from suffering.

Anchored in eternal promises

My favorite Bible verse for many years has been Revelation 21:5, which starts, “He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’” (NIV) I love that this declaration comes at the end of the Bible, in the description of God’s epic conclusion to His plans for this world. They reassure me there is no pocket of this globe that will evade the healing, restorative hand of our Savior.

The reality is that wanting children is a beautiful, noble desire. But it is not the best desire. The true redemption of this world will not be caused by us merely experiencing pregnancy. It will come by the victory of Him who is called Faithful and True (Revelation 19:11).