Austin's Blog

It is evident that fellow bereaved parents are an immense encouragement and blessing to those of us who have buried children. We are all in a club whose membership we would not wish upon our worst enemy, a “sacred circle of sorrow.”

Something both sad and encouraging to me as of late is recognizing how many well-known Protestant missionaries, reformers, and preachers buried their children as well. The names read like a theological hall of fame: Adoniram Judson, Hudson Taylor, William Carey, John Flavel, Charles Wesley, John Bunyan, Robert L. Dabney, Philip Melanchthon, Johann Sebastian Bach, Matthew Henry, George Whitefield, Samuel Zwemer, Jonathan Edwards, Frederick Douglass, George Müller, Fanny Crosby, John Owen, Samuel Rutherford, William Perkins, Robert Smith Jr., Nancy Guthrie, Jerry Sittser, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Cotton Mather, Theodore Cuyler, Thomas Boston, John G. Paton, David Livingstone, and others.

Why does this encourage me? First, these faithful men and women changed the course of history despite facing one of the most difficult losses. Second, if they made it, so can we. We need to know we will survive and if God was faithful to them, He will be faithful to us. Third, we are not exceptional. God’s people have suffered losses of various kinds, even the hardest loss of a child dying before them. The question is not, “Why me?” but “Why not me?”

Two pillars of the Protestant Reformation faced child loss and yet remained steadfast. In September 1542, Magdalene, one of the daughters of German reformer Martin Luther, lay dying, her father weeping at her side. He asked her, “Magdalene, my dear little daughter, would you like to stay here with your father, or would you willingly go to your Father yonder?” Magdalene answered, “Darling father, as God wills.” Luther wept, holding his daughter in his arms, praying that God might free her, and she died. As she was laid in her coffin, Martin Luther declared, “Darling Lena, you will rise and shine like a star, yea like the sun…I am happy in spirit, but the flesh is sorrowful and will not be content, the parting grieves me beyond measure…I have sent a saint to heaven.”

Luther was not exceptional as the only Protestant reformer. At the loss of his only son, who died in infancy in 1542, theologian and pastor John Calvin wrote to Pierre Viret, “The Lord has dealt us a severe blow in taking from us our infant son; but it is our Father who knows what is best for his children…God has given me a little son, and taken him away; but I have myriads of children in the whole Christian world.”

Both Luther and Calvin confessed the goodness, sovereignty, and wisdom of God. God knows best and we can trust Him. They also grieved the loss of their children, recognizing the gravity of what they lost. They understood the gracious goal of parenting—getting our children to Christ in Heaven. Elisabeth Elliot writes, “When parents receive a child from the hand of God, they receive a life to be shaped and molded. Their job, in the words of Janet Erskine Stuart, is ‘to give a saint to God.’”