Hope for Mamas with Sick Babies
Editor’s Note: We know how deeply mamas feel the pain and struggles of their little ones. If you’re walking through a scary season right now, we hope you’ll find additional help and encouragement in our Suffering and Loss resource page.
Ding ding, ding ding, ding ding went the hospital machines tracking my baby’s oxygen saturation. They had been stable and in a healthy range all afternoon. I was starting to feel hope that we could go home the next morning. But then night came.
My son’s oxygen levels kept dipping and struggling to come back up. I paced back and forth anxiously watching the numbers, the exhaustion from several days in the hospital weighing on me. The nurse came in and increased his oxygen support. I felt gutted. Not only would we not be going home the next morning, but it might be several more days away.
I can’t keep doing this, I thought. It’s just too hard to have a sick baby. Why can’t I have a healthy baby at home like so many of my friends? The grief threatened to overwhelm me.
I was right. It IS too hard to have a sick baby. Amid everything going on, I needed hope to cling to. Real, true, everlasting hope outside of my circumstances. Placing my hope in my plans of discharge or the timing of his recovery wasn’t working.
Did God have peace to offer me in this place? Was there true hope to be found, even when the timeline of recovery was unknown?
In a heavy night of soul searching, I dug into God’s Word and discovered two beautiful, anchoring truths: God offers comfort and he is Creator.
God Offers Comfort
Practically, what we need when our little babes are sick and suffering is comfort. Like a warm blanket wrapped around us, we need to be held as the tears of grief roll and the fears of the unknown threaten to overtake us.
Paul, one of Jesus’s followers, reminds us where we can find hope: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).
Paul goes on to write more about the relationships between suffering and comfort, Christ and us, endurance and hope. But the basic principle is this: God is the source of our comfort. We can turn to him with weary hearts that grieve when all is not well with our babies.
How do we receive comfort from God? Often, he ministers to us directly through reading his Word or through prayer. The Holy Spirit works to align our hearts with God’s, whereby his peace, comfort, and stillness start to transform our hearts even in the most stressful of circumstances. He also comforts us through the love and service of others.
As I was cared for by God and his people during my baby’s sickness, the weight of the suffering lifted off my back enough to notice other grief-stricken parents. I started to pray for them, not sure if they had anyone to bring their needs to a merciful, comfort-full Father. In so doing, I saw firsthand how God can miraculously comfort us to be a light in a dark place, even while the darkness threatens to swallow us.
God Is Creator
Secondly, God is Creator. Not only did he dream up all the life that we see and do not see, but he intricately created us. He knit our child in the womb.[1] He chose which genes would make up their features and crafted every part of their tiny personality. And he also set the limits and number of their days on this earth.[2] He is sovereign and good within every part of their story—including this one.
Yet often in suffering, it can seem as if God is distant and uncaring––not the loving and invested Creator Scripture describes him to be.
When Jesus was living on earth, he was close friends with three siblings: Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. When Lazarus died, both Mary and Martha came running to Jesus frustrated and grieved, proclaiming, “Lord if you had been here, my brother would have not died” (John 11:21). They knew Jesus’s power to heal and save and were devastated that, in his seeming absence, their brother was allowed to die.
As a mom with a sick baby, I resonate with that. I easily cry out: God, don’t you see what is happening? Why don’t you intervene or stop it? Lord, if you have been here, my baby would be healthy! Where are you?
Was Jesus uncaring and distant with Mary and Martha? No. Jesus met them and wept alongside them at the loss of his dear friend.[3]
In his full control and knowledge, Jesus allowed Lazarus to die so that he could showcase a glimpse of the power which would be fully revealed in his own death and resurrection. Jesus tells his followers, “Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him” (John 11:14-15). He then tells Martha, “Your brother will rise again. . . . I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:23-26).
Jesus loved his friend and had the power to save him but chose to wait. He wept at the loss of Lazarus and used this circumstance to point to the eternal life that he offers. Jesus held the power as Creator over life and death, and he ultimately chose to raise Lazarus from the dead.
In 1 Peter 4:19, we’re encouraged, “Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.” Do you see how Peter is integrating our suffering with trust in God as Creator? God has created each of us (including our tiny babies), and everything that happens exists within his will and control.
So even amid suffering, anxiety, grief, and unknowns, we can fully entrust ourselves to God’s care as our Creator. He knows our sufferings and keeps our souls safe in the midst of them.
Friend, as we hold our sick little ones today, do we believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life? That he is both Creator and Comforter in this deep valley? Along with another parent of an incredibly sick child, may we cry out, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).
[1] Psalm 139:13-15
[2] Psalm 139:16
[3] John 11:32-33
Note: A version of this piece originally appeared at The Gospel Coalition | Canada.
