Help for Men Facing Miscarriage

There will be a day when every child of God will be invited to the one funeral that we will all want to attend: we will be invited to the funeral of death.

Yes, it really is true—death will die and eternally be no more. Along with it will die all the grief, pain, fear, sadness, suffering, and loss that death always drags with it. The completely righteous life of Jesus, the acceptable sacrifice of Jesus, and the victorious resurrection of Jesus, all accomplished on our behalf, guarantee that the enemy of everyone living—death—will finally and forever die.

This is a wonderful hope for every child of God to hold on to.

But if you’re a man dealing with the horrible shock and sadness of miscarriage, you know that we’re not there yet.

The Grief of Miscarriage

You and I still wake up every morning in a place where death is a dark reality that casts a fearful shadow over us. We all know that somehow, someway, death will burst through our door and shatter the safety of our most intimate places.

Death is always hard, but the death of an infant occupies a category of its own. We sort of expect elderly loved ones to die someday; it is hard to let go of them, but their passing is not beyond the realm of our expectations. But the death of a child still in the womb seems particularly strange and irrational.

Babies aren’t supposed to die. How is it that life is allowed to grow in the womb, only to be snatched away before life outside the womb is ever given a chance to begin? Death is always hard, but a miscarriage just seems senseless to us.

Suffering through Miscarriage as a Man

When you face a miscarriage, there is something fundamental to understand. You won’t just suffer the miscarriage, but you will also suffer how you suffer the miscarriage.

We never come to these shocking and sad moments of life empty-handed. We always carry into them ways of thinking about God, ourselves, life’s meaning and purpose, hardship, and what God has promised us, which will shape how we experience the painful thing we’ve gone through or are now going through. Wrong thinking always deepens the effects of already painful experiences.

This is why the book Ours by Eric Schumacher is so important and helpful. Being a man who is suffering through miscarriage brings with it a set of seductive, hard-to-resist temptations. 

Death is always hard, but the death of an infant occupies a category of its own.

Perhaps for you, it is anger, bringing God into the court of your judgment and questioning his goodness and love. Maybe it’s the temptation to numb yourself in some way from the pain using busyness, media, chemical substances, or food. Perhaps for you, life seems unpredictable and dangerous in new ways, and you’re tempted to give way to fear. Or maybe you’re tempted to cope by denying the emotional, spiritual, and relational toll that miscarriage has taken on you. Perhaps for you, the temptation is envy: to be bitter as you see others enjoying what has been taken away from you.

None of these things will produce a good harvest in your heart or your marriage, and all of them will make your suffering even more painful. In my time of loss, I think I have fallen into all of these temptations in some way.

You may be thinking, “Ok, Paul, I am struggling; where can I find help?” My immediate answer to that question is Ours by Eric Schumacher.

What Ours by Eric Schumacher Offers

This book is a fountain of help for any man going through the dark valley of miscarriage. Let me tell you why.

(1) It Offers the Healing of Biblical Faith

Eric Schumacher understands that biblical faith—that is, trust that is rooted in God and his work on our behalf—will never ask you to deny reality. If you deny the reality of what you have gone through or are going through, you may achieve some temporary peace, but you’re not experiencing the full healing power of biblical faith.

This book is written by a man who has walked through the dark valley of miscarriage again and again. So, the painful realities of its hardship and loss splash across page after page. If you’re a man dealing with the emotional, spiritual, and relational trauma of miscarriage, you will find yourself in this book, and you will come to understand your experience of loss more fully and deeply.

But even more importantly, you will realize more fully, maybe more than ever before, that God understands every aspect of your suffering, and because he does, he is never put off or disgusted by what you are going through.

You can bring your anguish to him and find mercy and grace form-fitted for that particular moment of need.

(2) It Draws the Suffering to God Himself

There is a second and even more glorious theme in this book. This theme is why I will recommend what Eric has written here again and again. He has come to understand that when we are suffering, God’s greatest gift to us is not an answer to all of our questions. No, his greatest gift to us is way better than a set of answers.

God’s greatest gift to a man going through the pain of miscarriage is the gift of himself. He carries everything you need into this moment of pain and loss in his loving, wise, and almighty hands. If you are God’s child, it is impossible for you to be alone in the dark night of miscarriage, and it’s equally impossible for you to be left to your little bag of coping mechanisms.

This book is a fountain of help for any man going through the dark valley of miscarriage.

In the gift of himself, God gives you so much more than you could ever stretch your imagination to ask him for. The book describes in remarkable detail what it means to know that, in hardship, God gives himself to you. It describes how the glorious truth of God’s faithful and loving presence changes how you think about and walk through the dark night of miscarriage.

I can give no higher praise than to say that, with all of its helpful insights and answers, the best thing this book gives you is Jesus. No, not in some super-spiritual, other-worldly way, but in showing us a Jesus who lives with wisdom, power, faithfulness, and grace in the dark cracks and crevasses of human suffering.

This is a Jesus who gets what you’re going through, and, because he does, offers you just what you need. If you have walked through or are now walking through a miscarriage, I wholeheartedly recommend this book to you. I wish I’d had it when we lost our first child.

This article is a sample of the foreword that Paul David Tripp wrote for Ours by Eric Schumacher, a 31-day devotional giving biblical comfort and practical support to men processing miscarriage. The book is available on July 1, 2022. If you are purchasing this book for care packages, you can find bulk deals at thegoodbook.com.