My wife and I have been blessed with two precious boys and a little girl that was to be due on November 19th, 2022. During a routine ultrasound, we found out at 20 weeks that our daughter, Rose Merizalde had gone from us to be with the Lord. Our pain at the loss of our child was too deep to put into words. Excitement turned to utter grief. Thanksgiving turned to doubt. Plans for a newborn turned into plans for burial. In these heartbreaking times, we have understood the Psalmist best:
“If the Lord had not been my help, my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence.
When I thought, ‘My foot slips,’ your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up.
When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.” Psalm 94:17-19[1]
It is our greatest desire for all our children to know the Lord Jesus and make it to heaven one day. God has, by His matchless grace, secured for Rose a place in heaven for all time. Although this article is not an explanation of why we believe the Bible teaches that young children go to heaven when they die, we would like to share our experience of grace with anyone willing to read so that what Paul wrote of his experience of suffering may be true of us and glorify God’s good name.
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-4
These are a few meditations that the Lord has used to bring us through these trying times:
1. God has secured our union with our daughter in heaven.
David the King of Israel suffered the loss of his son while the child was still a newborn (2 Sam 12). The servants of David were afraid to tell him the news because of the grief that had already overtaken him because of his son’s sickness. When the King found out that his son had passed, he took comfort in the fact that they would one day be reunited. He said, “Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me” (2 Sam 12:23b). David knew that death did not eternally separate him from his son.
I believe these words were not written for David’s sake alone. Every Christian parent that loses a child has the hope of seeing their child again in eternity. The return of Christ will be the reunion of all the saints in history. We will see then that, through an early death, our child was granted “an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:11). And from that moment on we will always be with the Lord.
2. God has increased our longing for heaven.
Our longing for heaven was great before this loss but not as much as it is now. Our greatest desire in heaven should be to be with God forever (Ps 73:25). Yet, God has promised other benefits to increase our longing for it. One of those benefits is the unity of all who have died in Christ.
“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep” (1 Thess 4:13-14).
Paul wrote these words so that the Thessalonian church members would not grieve in the same way as the unbelieving world around them. For Christians, death is not the end of our fellowship. Christ will return and bring with Him all who have died before His coming. God is not a God of the dead but of the living (Mat 22:32). Our child is alive in heaven now. And if we die before the return of Christ, we will be united to her in Christ’s presence in heaven. Heaven now has one new member that our hearts long to see and embrace. Our grief is filled with hope in this promise from the Lord.
3. God has spared us the concern for our daughter’s salvation.
Paul the Apostle wrote a letter to Philemon concerning his runaway bondservant. As an unbeliever, Onesimus ran away from Philemon and likely did some damage while leaving. While Onesimus was gone, he met Paul and was brought to faith in Christ and was saved. Paul then sends him back with a letter to Philemon and says, “For this perhaps is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever” (Phil 1:15). Paul saw God’s purpose in Onesimus’ departure. Although Philemon lost him for a time, it was so that he might have him back forever. In this same way, we have lost our daughter for a time, but we have gained her for all eternity.
There is no guarantee in this life that our children will come to faith in Christ. But for our daughter, we know that she has gone to the city of our living God, the heavenly Jerusalem (Heb 12:22). What my wife and I pray for with eager longing for our two remaining children has become a reality for our girl in heaven, and in this we can take great comfort. Paul was confident of the safety of his soul even though he knew he would face bodily death soon. He said, “The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen” (2 Tim 4:18). The first death is not as dangerous as the second death. God has spared us this great concern for our girl and safely brought her to His heavenly kingdom. All glory be to Christ.
4. God has made us number the days of this life.
When we found out that our daughter had passed away, we had expected to meet her in 20 short weeks. Now that she has gone to be with the Lord, we can expect to meet her in a few decades. We thought very little about the length of our lives before, but God has taught us to number our days. The Psalmist puts it this way:
“The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty;
yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.” (Ps 90:10)
This life is soon gone and eternity begins. What is this temporal life compared with eternity? In a few short years this life will be behind us and eternity will be here. The daughter that we have lost for a finite amount of time we have gained for an infinite amount. God is so generous to us for granting so great a gift.
5. God has given us great comfort through the church.
The promises of God’s word are not only meant to encourage us, but the Bible tells us to comfort one another with the words of scripture (1 Thess 4:18). We have been greatly comforted by the kindness of our local church. During these hard times, our church has offered to babysit, cook, clean, and more. On top of that we have received texts, calls, and cards with Biblical comfort. We know that the church is the body of Christ on the earth (1 Cor 12:27) and we have greatly benefited from it. We have suffered, and the whole body has suffered with us (12:26). God has comforted us through the body and in their arms, we have felt His embrace.
6. God has shown us in greater measure the pain He felt during the death of His Son.
This has been the greatest truth on our minds throughout our loss. We love our daughter dearly, but the love of the Father for His Son is far greater. That means that the grief at His Son’s death is greater too. Yet, the Father has given His Son for us willingly. He endured the anguish of seeing His Son suffer even to the point of death on a cross. This great sacrifice shows the Father’s love for us (Rom 5:8). In going through the loss of our girl, we have thought often of all the things we could have done to prevent this from happening. Yet God gave up His Son to die for sinners voluntarily. God has let us experience, in a relatively small measure, the grief that He endured for the sake of the church. The hymn How Deep the Father’s Love for Us often came to mind:
How deep the Father’s love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure
How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory
God works all things for His glory (Col 1:16) and our good (Rom 8:28). There is a good purpose for every trial we endure. Often, we draw closest to the Lord when we feel like we are at the end of ourselves. When we go through hard times, we often don’t see all the good things that God is working in us. But when we come through clinging to the Lord closer than when we started, we may understand better why the Psalmist said, “You who fear the Lord, praise him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him, and stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel! For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him” (Ps 22:23-24).
[1] Unless otherwise noted, the Bible quotations and references use the ESV.
