{"id":3171,"date":"2022-04-27T14:33:45","date_gmt":"2022-04-27T14:33:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/?p=3171"},"modified":"2022-05-13T19:20:11","modified_gmt":"2022-05-13T19:20:11","slug":"the-moon-is-always-round-faith-in-the-goodness-of-god-after-losing-a-child","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/2022\/04\/27\/the-moon-is-always-round-faith-in-the-goodness-of-god-after-losing-a-child\/","title":{"rendered":"The Moon is Always Round: Faith in the Goodness of God After Losing a Child"},"content":{"rendered":"

[On the April 26 edition of the \u201cLife and Books and Everything\u201d podcast<\/a>, Kevin DeYoung conducts a wide-ranging interview with Westminster Seminary professor Jonathan Gibson \u2013 author of several books, including Be Thou My Vision<\/a> <\/em>(which I recommended recently) and an excellent children\u2019s book, The Moon is Always Round<\/a>. <\/em>DeYoung prompts Gibson to tell of the personal tragedy that led to the writing of this book. This excerpt begins 41 minutes into the podcast<\/a> \u2013 Coty]<\/p>\n

When Ben was about three, we were living in Cambridge [England]\u2026. He loved to look up at the moon at night. So we would always hold him up at the window and look for the moon and say, \u201cWhat shape is the moon, Ben?\u201d He’d say it’s a crescent moon, half moon, three-quarter moon. Then I’d say, \u201cWhat shape is the moon always?\u201d And he would say, \u201cThe moon is always round.\u201d I told him to say that. And then I’d say, \u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d And he would say, \u201cGod is always good.\u201d\u2026 Even when you can\u2019t see the whole of the moon, the moon is always round; even when you can’t understand all of God’s goodness in a certain situation in life, God is always good.<\/p>\n

But little did I know that six months later it would be quite providential\u2026. \u00a0We were expecting our daughter, Leila, and she was due on the Lord’s Day, 20 March 2016. But on the Lord’s Day 13 March, \u2026 she departed this earth\u2026. We woke up and Jackie said there’s something not right, so we went to the hospital and had the scan and confirmed that there was no heartbeat\u2026. Our world fell apart\u2026. We had always heard of these situations of \u2026 late-term \u2026 still birth, but \u2026 all of a sudden were thrust into it. Leila was still born four days later on St Patrick’s day, 17 March.\u2026<\/p>\n

We brought Ben to the hospital to meet her. We spent the afternoon with her and I drove him home that night\u2026. In the car out of nowhere – he’s three and a half – he says to me from the back seat, \u201cDaddy, will Mommy ever grow a baby that wakes up?\u201d See, he had held Leila \u2013 he saw that she was just very still, eyes closed. I said, \u201cBen, I don’t know, but let’s pray that she does.\u201d And then he said, \u201cWhy isn’t Leila coming home?\u201d And I said, \u201cWell, because Jesus called her name and she went to Him.\u201d And he said, \u201cAfter she’s been with Jesus for a few days, will she come to us?\u201d And I said, \u201cNo, Ben, when you’re with Jesus you don’t want to go anywhere else.\u201d And then he said, \u201cDoes she not like us?\u201d And I said, \u201cNo, she does like us, she just likes Jesus more\u2026. We’re going to have to go to them one day. She’s not coming back to us.\u201d\u2026 And Ben said, \u201cDaddy, why isn’t she coming home?\u201d\u2026 I said, \u201cBen, I don’t really know why, but \u2026 you remember the moon? What shape is the moon, Ben?\u201d And he said, \u201cThe moon is always round.\u201d And I said, \u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d He said, \u201cGod is always good.\u201d And I said, \u201cTonight, Ben, it’s hard to see the moon at all really, but we’ve got to remember that God is good and He has His reason why Leila’s gone to heaven.\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n

It was actually quite a joyful day to meet Leila – nine months expectation. To meet her, to hold her\u2026. We could see God’s goodness and giving us a daughter. We got to meet her, name her. But then there was this other half of the moon I couldn’t see\u2026. I couldn’t believe the profound conversation I’d had with Ben in the car\u2026. I just decided to start writing this kid’s story\u2026. So hence was born the book The Moon is Always Round<\/em>\u2026.<\/p>\n

At her funeral, \u2026 Ian Hamilton had this throwaway line where he said Leila’s was a glorious testimony. She pointed us all to God, she pointed us all to another world. And then he \u2026 said, \u201cLeila the evangelist.\u201d That’s what we call her. We hear quite often throughout the year letters, emails from people who have been blessed by that book who’ve sadly had similar experiences, and we just always think Leila the evangelist, she being dead yet speaks\u2026.<\/p>\n

They did an autopsy afterwards and found nothing wrong with her. Fifty percent of stillbirths are a mystery to the medical profession\u2026.<\/p>\n

So good has come out of it. The moon is always round. The Lord has used our sore providence to minister to others. We still miss her greatly. We just had our sixth anniversary of her not being with us\u2026.<\/p>\n

Each person’s valley is their valley and I think that’s what people need to respect and be aware of\u2026. With a still birth you get to meet them, you get to hold them, you get to see who they look like. You carry their little body in a white coffin into church, you put that body in a grave. In that sense it gives them great dignity\u2026. On my books \u2026 it says I have four children, and Leila’s one of those four\u2026. One of the great pains for a parent is we all love to talk about our children, we love to put photos up of them on Twitter, Facebook, email them to people. But nobody gets to see your stillborn child, and that’s a great sadness\u2026. You think I’ve only got three children. I have four children. I held my daughter.<\/p>\n

Doug Kelly wrote to me whenever Leila died. He had a still birth, a sixth child, and he wrote to me, \u201cYou have just been given the strange stewardship of a quiet grief.\u201d I’ve never forgotten that line. I have friends at seminary here, \u2026 and their daughter is six years old and I’ll often look at their girl and I’ll think, wow, Leila would be running around with her\u2026. But she’s not here. So it’s this hidden grief that’s very hard to articulate at times, but it’s very real. And the encouragement I give to people is: If you know someone who’s lost a stillborn child, ask them their name\u2026. Just to ask them their name and use their name in conversation if you’re talking about the child. Don’t just talk about the baby they lost or we\u2019re sorry for your loss\u2026 Say, \u201cWe’re sorry Leila died.\u201d \u2026 Be personal and talk about them like they’re actually a real person, because they are\u2026.<\/p>\n

Look up in the sky. You can’t see the moon tonight. You see just a sliver, but it’s not any less round, it’s not any less brilliant than it always is.<\/p>\n

[You can watch and listen to Ben – several years older – read the book at this link<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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