Miscarried Hope: Journeying with Jesus Through Pregnancy and Infant Loss

Pastor Lohman debuts with a deeply felt, faith-based guide to help readers navigate the emotional tolls of losing a child during pregnancy or infancy. After the author miscarried during her first trimester, it took months to realize that, along with losing “my blissful expectations of motherhood... my relatively uncomplicated relationship with God, and my trust in my body,” she’d lost something else: hope. Using the Christian Holy Week as a blueprint, Lohman leads readers through the “Five Stages of Hope” related to miscarriage or infant death: expectation (Palm Sunday), shock (the last supper), despair (Good Friday), grief (Silent Saturday) and active hope (resurrection Sunday). Just as the disciples were shocked “as Jesus told them he would soon be gone” during the last supper, for example, so do grieving moms undergo emotional whiplash when their parenthood dreams evaporate. Meanwhile, the renewal of resurrection Sunday mirrors how readers can “open [themselves] up to the possibility for God’s future redemption.” Lohman doesn’t aim to expedite the grieving process, but offers support to readers, who will find the most solace in her perceptive renderings of loss’s emotional nuances: “Hope just began to appear again, unexpectedly yet slowly, not erasing grief but growing alongside it.” This will be a balm to grieving Christian moms. (Aug.)