Not in Spite of this Sadness, Because of It
Not in Spite of this Sadness,
Because of It
Jessica Qualls
On Marital Strife & Repair During Advent
A positive pregnancy test last November appeared like a Hallmark ending to a hard chapter. A few months earlier, my husband and I had miraculously reconciled after trudging through almost two years of marital separation. We bought a house and moved back in together with our two young children, and now, several months later, we were expecting our third child.
But some early blood work hinted that all might not be well, though it was “too early to tell,” our nurse practitioner reassured us. A 6-week ultrasound a few days later suggested that the pregnancy was not viable, which was then confirmed at my 8-week ultrasound. We had two options: I could take medication to bring on the inevitable or wait for my body to miscarry naturally. We opted to wait. We thought it would happen quickly. It didn’t.
In the weeks leading up to Christmas, I found myself waiting on my body to pass the tissue that would no longer grow into a baby.
On a global scale, my impending miscarriage was a small grief. I have friends who have miscarried much later in their pregnancies, who have delivered still-born babies, who have, after years of trying to conceive, finally succeeded only to lose their babies shortly after. I have a dear friend who delivered a daughter with a terminal illness, and I know women who cannot conceive at all. While my cup of suffering was slight in comparison, the days of darkness in December leading up to our pregnancy loss felt marked by despair.
*
In late December, we watched The Chosen “Christmas Special.” I braced myself for Mary’s labor, both empathizing with the intensity of her birth after two of my own and dreading how it might feel to watch the birth of Jesus while knowing I wasn’t going to be giving birth myself.
Mary groaned. I groaned. And maybe, in some way, the earth did too.
In Mary’s case, the groaning gave birth to joy (John 16:21). In my case, it did not. I found the experience of “watching” Jesus’ birth to be visceral and stabbing. It was only a bitter reminder of the interloper of death that had pushed its way into our home.
And yet, I felt a surprising mix of other emotions. As I reflected on Jesus’ arrival, there was also comfort, aided by, perhaps, the worship songs leading up to his entrance, as well as the soliloquies from characters reminding us how long Israel had dwelt in darkness, despair, and waiting for this quiet moment of miracle.
*
If my home had its own book of liturgies for the patience-filled preschool days, it would be made up entirely of Daniel Tiger songs and quotes from Sally Lloyd-Jones’ The Jesus Storybook Bible. When my children were a little younger and they had to wait on one thing or another, I would often sing them a Daniel Tiger song that goes, “when you wait, you can play, sing, or imagine anything!” One child found it helpful, while the other one seemed to feel patronized. But like many (oh so many) Daniel Tiger songs, this one was instructive for me, too.
Waiting is not an activity I relish. Adulthood has not made waiting more fun, but a childhood of devouring books and slow afternoons in the backyard trained my imagination for these moments. My training has served me well in seasons of monotony, external difficulties, and even stress, but it failed me in the storm of grief.
In the final chapter of The Jesus Storybook Bible, Lloyd-Jones looks forward to God’s future redemption of all things through the eyes of John, proclaiming “in some mysterious way that would be hard to explain…everything [is] going to be more wonderful for once having been so sad.” During my miscarriage, I could not envision a scenario where things would one day look wonderful not just in spite of this sadness but because of it.
*
My lack of imagination plagued me in my season of marital strife, as well. A year earlier and 21-months deep into a separation that seemed bound for divorce, my husband and I were taking a final, drastic stab at sorting it out. Neither of us really wanted to end things with finality, but we could not seem to move forward either, despite both individual and joint marriage counseling. As a last resort, we sought out the help of an intensive counseling center that specialized in our sort of desperate, it’s-the-end-of-the-road-Bucko flavored crisis. We drove a tense and teary eight hours together, bracing ourselves for three days of ten-hour sessions. The risk was terrifying.
Before we arrived, we were both tasked with filling out extensive questionnaires. On the first day, one of the counselors read aloud a sentence I had written on my form: “I wish this wasn’t part of my story.” She looked at me tenderly as she said, “I hope, and think, that one day you will be grateful that it is.” I nodded, all the while internally maintaining profound disbelief.
Much to my surprise (and relief), over the next three days, something miraculous happened that I cannot really explain: my husband and I moved from being open to reconciliation to being able to imagine it was possible. We still had a long road of healing ahead, but hope was breaking through. Over the next two months, we tip-toed back into life together and found, to our surprise and delight, that not only were we going to make it, but we were also reinventing a life together that looked less like white-knuckling it and more like joy. Much like on that quiet night in Bethlehem, God arrived with a rescue plan after a long and weary season.
*
I have been struck the past few years by how surprising God’s emergence onto the stage of our human sojourning often is. We frequently talk about how humble Jesus’ birth was, but I am also struck by how all-of-the sudden it seemed. Amid Mary’s mundane, toiling, and day-to-day drama (pregnancy discomfort, suspicious conception, tax errands, road trip), God appeared. Likewise, Jesus promises his second coming will also be “at an hour when [we] do not expect him” (Matt. 24:44) or “like a thief in the night” (1 Thess. 5:2). It seems like this manner of interruption is often Yahweh’s modus operandi. Moses is tending sheep in the wilderness when, suddenly, a bush alights and a voice from inside it starts speaking to him. Elijah and Elisha are strolling along when, suddenly, a chariot of fire separates them, and Elijah is taken up to heaven in a whirlwind. Peter, James, and John are on a hike with Jesus when, suddenly, “His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light” (Matthew 17:2). God’s propensity to surprise helps rekindle my imagination for what could be when all else seems lost.
*
While I cannot picture all the ways my seasons of grief will ultimately lead to something more wonderful, I can pinpoint ways that I have witnessed the beauty of God’s redemption thus far. The first is through camaraderie with fellow sufferers. There is a special kind of immediate kinship formed with those who have slogged through the same muck as you. I have now had the opportunity to be both the comforted and the comforter.
Early into my husband’s and my time apart, I visited a friend’s Anglican church. Having lived for several years overseas, I had experienced a variety of ecclesiastical environments, but this one was new. During communion, burgeoned by my friend’s presence, I went for prayer and wept as words tumbled out to a woman I had never met; words of how my husband and I were not together and could she pray for us please? It turned out the Lord was quietly emerging onto the scene, for as I later discovered, this woman had walked through separation herself. She was the first person I met who had experienced not only separation but reconciliation, too. She could validate the heartbreak I was enduring while also giving practical wisdom for a way forward. Weeks later, while my parents watched my sleeping children, I drove forty-five minutes to the nearest Starbucks to meet with her. Over decaf tea, she offered both her story and encouragement, giving me hope when things otherwise felt hopeless.
A few months into reconciliation, I decided to post about our experience on social media. Though this is a rare occurrence for me, I felt prompted to share our miraculous experience. My husband reposted and, shortly after, an acquaintance reached out to him with his own painful tail of unwanted estrangement. Our story offered him hope that what seemed impossible might not be so.
A few months later I received a message from a friend who we had met while living abroad and who I did not know well. She told me of her own marriage woes and how they were at their wits end, wondering if separation were the only logical option. A few more months later, she and her husband attended the same counseling center we had. Their trajectory, like ours, took a hopeful turn. We are now connected to eight other individuals and couples who have been through similar struggles. The ability to identify with them in this special kind of anguish has been a gift—a truly unexpected one.
*
In her book Prayer in the Night, Tish Harrison Warren asserts that “there is a kind of hardy faith and grit to be found on the far side of agony” I sometimes now joke that those with “easier” marriages are missing out on all of these opportunities to celebrate “improvement.” They cannot appreciate how phenomenal a conflict-free visit to the in-laws is, or a date that doesn’t end in strained silence, having never navigated the minefields that such settings offer the dysfunctional. Nonetheless, Warren clarifies that “this kind of resilience does not form us into Nietzsche’s vision of impenetrable toughness; it does not harden us. It makes us more open to our belovedness in God, to our own vulnerability, and to the vulnerability of others.” In my miscarriage, as in other seasons of grief, the idea of Emmanuel, “God with us,” was a solace to me. Certainly in my moments of weeping, I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit, thick and kind. My belovedness is most clear to me when I am experiencing God’s comfort in the midst of pain.
*
Last Christmas, our nurse practitioner sincerely commiserated with the fact that we were grieving at what was supposed to be a happy time. And yet, Christmas last year was not as terrible as I anticipated. All the time being with family, watching my young children open presents, having my husband home to help, singing carols that captured both the rejoicing and the groaning offered me moments to look forward to as well as space to grieve, heal, and rest. A miscarriage at Christmastime, as opposed to another time, was a grace during pain. “O Come, O Come Emmanuel…” again. Make this right. Make it all new. I know you will.
This Christmas, Lord willing, I’ll be twenty-seven weeks pregnant with our third child. A baby girl. I am getting my Hallmark ending. But it is less of an ending and more of an interruption that reminds me that Emmanuel is also Go’el (Redeemer). In our waiting on the arrival of a new little life, in the joy of communion with fellow sojourners, in the signs of God shaping brokenness into beauty, and in the little victories along the way, I can already see that the Lord is not wasting my pain. while it would have been nice to avoid the dark valleys on this road to celebration, it is, like Sally Lloyd-Jones suggests, sweeter for the sadness.
Jessica Qualls
Writer & Professor
Jessica was born and raised in small-town Arkansas before moving to the big city of Beijing after college. There, she married, mothered, and (mis)adventured for eight years before returning back home in 2019. She is wife to Chris, mom to two small children, and person to a very small poodle. In addition to writing, she teaches part-time at her alma mater, Ouachita Baptist University.
Photography by Marco Casella
