Excerpt from Lost Gifts: Miscarriage, Grief, and the God of All Comfort by Brittany Allen. ©2025 Jason Jensen. Used with permission of Lexham Press.  

I sat in a blue beach chair, feet buried in the sand. The sun that morning glared through an overcast sky as I watched my husband wade in the ocean. Setting my book on my lap, I peered into the deep blue before me when a woman, round with a baby, strolled into my view as she followed her toddler. Melancholy fell around me like a light summer rain. My throat tightened, but tears failed to follow. Sadness wedged itself in my throat, making it hard to breathe. It felt like a century passed before I could swallow down the sorrow. Behold, the sign of familiar pain—the kind that lingers in the background like a pilot light. This is one symptom of a heart that longs, a heart that is sick with grief, a heart where waiting feels endless. We were on our much-anticipated anniversary trip that August, fresh on the heels of losing our third baby just two months before. It was supposed to be a reprieve from all the pain we had lived through that year. For me, it was running away from weariness. But grief found me there. 

I watched as the woman with the long dark hair played in the sand with her son and husband. I wondered what it would be like to build sandcastles and show my babies the way God makes waves crash upon the shore. I looked at the heaviness of her womb and thought, How right and good. Babies should live. Bellies should grow. My hand rested on my own stomach where three babies once were, where a baby should have been. I wasn’t envious; I had grown to rejoice over each new life that flourished. No, I wasn’t jealous, I was grieved. And I desperately missed my babies. 

Who or What Do We Treasure? 

I’ll never forget the shame that flooded my body and made my heart race when an acquaintance told me, “Once you stop idolizing a baby, God will give you one.” A woman who barely knew me had made a severe judgment: God’s withholding equals my sin. She claimed I had traded my Savior for a baby—that I was clinging to the gift rather than the Giver. I looked in my heart and found her to be a liar. I loved my babies, but I truly loved God more. Unfortunately, when a woman loses babies or battles infertility, it is often assumed she must be discontent in Christ. If she were content, then God would give her a baby. This is not true. A gift withheld does not equal an idol we hold. Our lack is not evidence of faithlessness. Our empty arms are not a result of unrepentant sin.

Envy or Grief? 

When a woman walks through a season of miscarriage or infertility, she will be met with hoards of soul-pricking reminders. Due dates, pregnancy announcements, baby showers, or a stranger’s swollen abdomen can leave her reeling with feelings of grief, envy, or both. Sometimes we don’t know exactly what we’re feeling; we just know it hurts. Our hearts are breaking, and life without our baby is so painful. 

Some Christians view any kind of sadness as a sign that a person is not finding their hope in Christ. To believe so would be to expect more from our fellow humans than their Creator does. Contentment is not the absence of sadness, but rather to be resolved in our belief that Jesus is enough, no matter our circumstances. 

And yet, God can use our grief to draw us nearer to himself, causing us to grow in contentment, because in his presence is fullness of joy and complete satisfaction (Psalm 16:11). It seems that, for the sake of our own joy, it may be a valid question to ask ourselves, who or what do we most treasure? If it is not Christ, how can we grow toward making him the treasure of our hearts? For we know Jesus himself said, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). 

It might be easy for onlookers to misjudge the state of her heart as envious. They forget that right after Scripture calls us to rejoice with those who rejoice, it also says to weep with those who weep. This means we do both simultaneously. We rejoice with women in the gift of new life, and at the same time, we weep with women over the loss of their baby. Surely, the woman walking through loss should be given grace to grieve even as she rejoices with the woman who has received a baby. We cannot lock up our sorrow in a tidy little box in the attic of our minds, only taking it out when it is convenient. It is normal that life’s reminders will cause us to shed fresh tears. Experiencing the rekindling of grief over losing our baby at the sight of these reminders is not the same as envy. 

What do we do when our grief is brought to the surface by a baby shower or a pregnancy announcement? Do we stuff our feelings down and try to ignore them? Do we heap shame on ourselves for missing our baby? No. We must address our grief with God. Depending on the circumstances, that might mean logging off social media and bringing our grief to the feet of our Father through prayers of lament. At a gathering, it may look like taking a moment to go to the bathroom and praying for the Spirit’s help in rejoicing with our sister as we grieve. It may mean we have to forgo baby showers for a time. Depending on the relationship, sometimes this might look like two friends—one who is pregnant and the other who is pregnant with loss—rejoicing, weeping, and praying together. 

Sometimes we feel a mixture of grief and envy. It’s important that we don’t deny ourselves permission to grieve our precious baby while also seeking to put away any envy in our heart. Longing for our baby, feeling the sadness of life without them, thinking about the would be’s (“My baby would be the same age as hers.” “I would be 20 weeks pregnant today.”), wondering how it would feel to hold them—these are thoughts and feelings of grief, not envy or discontentment. 

Envy holds in it a state of entitlement. Envy says, “I deserve a baby because I ______.” 

… would be a better mother than her. 

… love God and she doesn’t. 

… have experienced more suffering than her and deserve a break. 

… have been waiting longer than her. 

… was hurt by her. 

When we are consumed with thoughts that display why we deserve a baby more than someone else, we know we have crossed from the safe waters of grief to the rapid currents of envy. And envy, when left unchecked, will only lead us off a cliff, falling fast down a waterfall of harm—harm to ourselves and harm to others. 

Whether you have been struggling against the fleshly thoughts of envy or simply wrestling with the grief of losing your baby, or a bit of both, Jesus is with you. You can bring all of these things to him, ask for forgiveness where necessary, and rest in the comfort only he can provide in the sorrow of miscarriage.