A must-have book for helping women who miscarry

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After Sunday worship recently, I could sense a friend was upset. When I inquired, she mentioned she was miscarrying. I did what I knew to do — I hugged her. And then I hugged her again.

Last week my sister texted me. “I have a friend who had a miscarriage. What can I do for her?” Immediately, I replied: “Take her a meal!”

For those of us not acquainted with miscarriage, it can be an isolating and strange kind of grief. I know this grief personally, I’ve had three miscarriages. The first two were what doctors consider routine; the third was a particularly difficult as I was further along in my pregnancy. In both instances, women around me hugged me and loved on me by bringing me meals.

You don’t have to serve in women’s ministries very long to encounter a woman suffering from the tragedy of miscarriage. Although you would never know from the very little we speak about it or hear about it from Sunday pulpits, miscarriage is a common event. Yet, the sadness from the loss of a pregnancy is so unique that the church is often left wondering how best to minister to women walking through this circumstance.

This Mother’s Day, it’s my honor to recommend a new resource written by my friend Jessalyn Hutto.  Inheritance of Tears: Trusting the Lord of Life When Death Visits the Womb is a biblically-faithful and thoughtful account of God’s sovereignty over and through miscarriage.

Why I recommend the book:

Packed into five little chapters, Jessalyn offers hurting women wisdom, comfort and hope while leading them to the cross of Christ, their ultimate source of comfort.

–She offers wise counsel regarding practical questions of grief. For the woman who wonders if her miscarriage is her fault or if she could have prevented it, Jessalyn draws their attention to the salve of the gospel.

–She speaks from the big picture of life, opening her book with a primer on the impact of sin on a woman’s body.

–She beautifully links God’s sovereignty to God’s goodness for women who doubt the Creator’s trustworthiness for allowing their miscarriage.

–She offers sweet prayers for hurting mothers at the close of each chapter, giving women a chance to digest the rich doctrine covered in each section.

And because she wisely guides the reader through the different levels of emotional suffering entailed in miscarriage, I would recommend that every women’s ministry leader purchase and use Inheritance of Tears as they serve women walking through this difficult circumstance. Despite hard the circumstance of miscarriage and the equally hard truths Jessalyn explicates in her book, women ministry leaders must be prepared to give biblically-informed comfort to the hurting women in their care. Inheritance of Tears is a must-have book for helping women who are suffering from the “unseen grief” of miscarriage.

Special thanks to Jessalyn for providing me a copy of Inheritance of Tears to review. For more information about the links in this post, click here.