In the meantime, my obstetrician had switched off, swiftly, the ultrasound machine. Then she proceeded to give instructions to her attendant to arrange for a procedure to remove the foetus from my womb.

I kept repeating the doctor’s words in my mind. Mere words that changed my life in an instant. Mere words that somehow morphed into an invisible hand that grabbed hold of my trembling heart and ripped it out from the very core of my being.

I turned to my then almost four-year-old daughter, who had been sitting quietly in the clinic all the while, and broke the news to her.

She looked at me quizzically, her eyes glistening. I could tell that she was severely disappointed. She had named the baby Moses, as he was her favourite Bible character. Later, she would tell me that Moses was in heaven with God; she would recognise him, she said, and he would recognise her, too.

Though Moses had lived inside my womb for only 12 weeks more than 20 years ago, he continues to live inside my heart.

As the psalmists lamented in Psalm 88:18 and Psalm 13:1, I cried out to Him: “Darkness is my closest friend”, and “How long, LORD? Will you forget me for ever? How long will you hide your face from me?”

I rationalised that I should have already healed since my miscarriages had happened long ago. I forced myself to wear a countenance of recovery, to act strong and focus on helping other grieving women.

I thought I had my closure when I finally gave birth at the end of my fourth pregnancy. One day, however, when I was cradling my rainbow child—the baby conceived after a miscarriage—tears gushed out uncontrollably. I cried out to God:

It was then that I was finally able to surrender my unprocessed pain, sorrows, and agony to God, and take my time to address my grief.

And it was then that I confided in my heavenly Father that I was ready to name the baby I had lost.

Borrowing the idea from my daughter, I told God that my all-time favourite Bible character was Joseph. At that moment, the name appeared before my mind’s eyes:

“Joey”.

“I love it, God!” I told Him. “This name is perfect!” I had wondered, many times, if my first miscarried baby was a boy or girl. Now I think I know.

Bestowing a name to my unnamed baby and acknowledging that my losses were monumental and devastating allowed me to grieve well.

I still miss Joey and Moses today. Each time someone asks me how many children I have when Mother’s Day comes around, or just simply out of the blue, I think of them. The pangs of longing and the remembrance of my losses are still etched in my heart.

But in my grief, I remember my older daughter’s words, uttered soon after I lost Moses. My unborn babies are in the safest place—they are with God in heaven. I am also comforted by the truth that the Lord keeps track of all my sorrows and collects all my tears.

You keep track of all my sorrows.
You have collected all my tears in your bottle.
You have recorded each one in your book.
—Psalm 56:8 NLT

I may never grasp the mystery of God’s plan as to why Joey and Moses lived mere months in my body, and then flew away to their heavenly home. But I can, and will continue to choose to trust in His heart.

(Section extracted and adapted with permission from Discovery Series When Tears Remain: Loving God Through the Loss of a Child © Our Daily Bread Ministries.)

While some of us might be tempted to think that grief is something we have to deal with quickly and put aside, or even that it indicates a lack of faith, the Bible shows that faith and tears are entirely compatible.

Jesus himself declared in Matthew 5:4, “Blessed are those who mourn.” When Lazarus died, He grieved openly (John 11:35). The apostle Paul, too, says in 1 Thessalonians 4:13 that we are not to “grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope”—we can grieve over our loved ones, but with hope.

Weeping for a lost child and missing him or her is normal. In When Tears Remain: Loving God Through the Loss of a Child, author Jeff Olsen writes:

It’s normal to feel like you are drowning in a sea of emotions, to be worn out by questions that seem to have no good answers . . . You’re not doing something wrong. You’re not being unspiritual. You are reeling from a devastating blow and desperately trying to figure out what it means to go on living in a world without your son or daughter.

It’s important, he adds, to give ourselves permission to feel our grief. We don’t have to ignore or dismiss it with easy answers. Nor should we let someone talk us out of what we are feeling. “Let the feelings and thoughts come—raw and unfiltered—and try to express them,” he says.

Olsen also believes that we should not keep our grief to ourselves. While there may be times when we just want to be alone with our tears, we can learn to open up and share our grief with others who offer to listen to us. We can also draw strength from others who have gone through or are going through similar experiences. As he says, “You will likely find some of your greatest understanding and comfort in the company and words of those whose hearts pound with the agony of losing a child of their own.”