The Moon is Always Round: Faith in the Goodness of God After Losing a Child

[On the April 26 edition of the “Life and Books and Everything” podcast, Kevin DeYoung conducts a wide-ranging interview with Westminster Seminary professor Jonathan Gibson – author of several books, including Be Thou My Vision (which I recommended recently) and an excellent children’s book, The Moon is Always Round. 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 – Coty]

When Ben was about three, we were living in Cambridge [England]…. 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, “What shape is the moon, Ben?” He’d say it’s a crescent moon, half moon, three-quarter moon. Then I’d say, “What shape is the moon always?” And he would say, “The moon is always round.” I told him to say that. And then I’d say, “What does that mean?” And he would say, “God is always good.”… Even when you can’t 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.

But little did I know that six months later it would be quite providential….  We 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, … she departed this earth…. 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…. Our world fell apart…. We had always heard of these situations of … late-term … still birth, but … all of a sudden were thrust into it. Leila was still born four days later on St Patrick’s day, 17 March.…

We brought Ben to the hospital to meet her. We spent the afternoon with her and I drove him home that night…. In the car out of nowhere – he’s three and a half – he says to me from the back seat, “Daddy, will Mommy ever grow a baby that wakes up?” See, he had held Leila – he saw that she was just very still, eyes closed. I said, “Ben, I don’t know, but let’s pray that she does.” And then he said, “Why isn’t Leila coming home?” And I said, “Well, because Jesus called her name and she went to Him.” And he said, “After she’s been with Jesus for a few days, will she come to us?” And I said, “No, Ben, when you’re with Jesus you don’t want to go anywhere else.” And then he said, “Does she not like us?” And I said, “No, she does like us, she just likes Jesus more…. We’re going to have to go to them one day. She’s not coming back to us.”… And Ben said, “Daddy, why isn’t she coming home?”… I said, “Ben, I don’t really know why, but … you remember the moon? What shape is the moon, Ben?” And he said, “The moon is always round.” And I said, “What does that mean?” He said, “God is always good.” And I said, “Tonight, 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.”…

It was actually quite a joyful day to meet Leila – nine months expectation. To meet her, to hold her…. 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…. I couldn’t believe the profound conversation I’d had with Ben in the car…. I just decided to start writing this kid’s story…. So hence was born the book The Moon is Always Round….

At her funeral, … 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 … said, “Leila the evangelist.” 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….

They did an autopsy afterwards and found nothing wrong with her. Fifty percent of stillbirths are a mystery to the medical profession….

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….

Each person’s valley is their valley and I think that’s what people need to respect and be aware of…. 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…. On my books … it says I have four children, and Leila’s one of those four…. 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…. You think I’ve only got three children. I have four children. I held my daughter.

Doug Kelly wrote to me whenever Leila died. He had a still birth, a sixth child, and he wrote to me, “You have just been given the strange stewardship of a quiet grief.” I’ve never forgotten that line. I have friends at seminary here, … 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…. 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…. 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’re sorry for your loss… Say, “We’re sorry Leila died.” … Be personal and talk about them like they’re actually a real person, because they are….

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.

[You can watch and listen to Ben – several years older – read the book at this link.]

 

9/11 20 Years On: Reflections on God’s Sovereignty

On September 11, 2001, we were living on the campus of a Baptist seminary in Ndu, Cameroon. Less than three weeks after our arrival with six children in tow (and having suffered a car accident our first full day in the country), we were shocked when a fellow missionary informed us of the terrorist attack in New York (he did not yet know about the Pentagon or Flight 93).

That evening I opened my Bible to the next Scripture in the Bible Unity Reading Plan and read of God’s destruction of His own temple, His own city. Amazed at God’s provision of just the right text for the day, I continued to the following day’s reading in the book of Lamentations. Jeremiah (the most likely author) weeps over the destruction of Jerusalem – the slaughter of women and babies, the abandonment of His people by God, the tearing down of the temple (note: at that time the temple was older than any building in Washington DC is today, and more important to the Jews than the White House, the Capitol, and the Washington Monument – combined – are to us). God had warned the nation of this coming judgment through Jeremiah himself, saying that their denial of Him would inevitably lead to their destruction (Jeremiah 22:7-9). Nevertheless, the horror overwhelms the prophet:

The LORD has done what he purposed; he has carried out his word, which he commanded long ago; he has thrown down without pity; he has made the enemy rejoice over you and exalted the might of your foes…. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears stream down like a torrent day and night! Give yourself no rest, your eyes no respite!… Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord! Lift your hands to him for the lives of your children, who faint for hunger at the head of every street. Look, O LORD, and see! With whom have you dealt thus? Should women eat the fruit of their womb, the children of their tender care? Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord? In the dust of the streets lie the young and the old; my young women and my young men have fallen by the sword; you have killed them in the day of your anger, slaughtering without pity. (From Lamentations 2:17-21)

“You have killed them.” Jeremiah does not sugarcoat this tragedy by denying God’s sovereignty and responsibility. God has brought it about, using evil men fulfilling their sinful desires to accomplish His – yes – good and perfect will (Habakkuk 1 and 2). He is sovereign; He is responsible; He is good.

When facing disasters and tragedies, in our arrogance we often try to put ourselves in the Judge’s seat and pretend to bring God to the prisoner’s dock to charge Him with doing evil. “You could have stopped this, God! And You didn’t. So You must not be good, or You must not be sovereign.” But we are not wise, impartial judges; we are condemned evildoers. He is the One Who is light, and in Whom is no darkness at all; when we, by assuming the Judge’s seat, implicitly claim to be without disqualifying sin, we deceive ourselves, we preemptively call God a liar, and we prove that there is neither truth nor desire for truth in us (1 John 1:5-10). By ignoring God’s revelation about Himself (He is pure, sovereign and good!) and about us (our hearts are deceitful above all things!), we engage in circular reasoning: we assume that God is a liar and that we are in a position to judge Him before the proceedings begin. This is just a kangaroo court.

If we are to rightly consider tragedy and evil, we must acknowledge this truth: We don’t deserve to live. We exist by God’s mercy, and by that mercy alone. The only reason you and I draw breath today is that God’s perfect Son, who lived the life we should have lived, was scourged and nailed and hung naked on a cross to die a shameful, horrible death. God “has done what He purposed” (Lamentations 2:17): He did what He purposed in destroying Jerusalem, in the terrorist attacks of 9/11, in every natural disaster – and in sending His Son to the Cross. As we will consider this Sunday, “Our God … does all that He pleases” (Psalm 115:3). And in addition to exercising righteous judgment, He pleases to offer to all rebels, to all evildoers, to every one of us, the gift of His crucified and risen Son. He offers to us through that Son His New Covenant, under which He will be our God and we will be His people, and He will never turn away from doing good to us; He will put the right fear of Himself in our hearts so that we never turn from Him (Jeremiah 31:34, 32:40). To all who accept His offer, He makes this promise: Through whatever evil we face, through whatever setbacks we encounter, through whatever pain we endure, He will stand beside us. Furthermore, all that pain and suffering will work in us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

There are many important lessons from the terrorist attacks of 9/11 that we should consider on this twentieth anniversary. But none is more important than the biblical truth of God’s working all things together for the good of His people and the glory of His Name.

So join me in prayer:

Father, help us to believe this truth and to live consistently with it – to weep over sin and evil and sorrow, to fight the sin and evil in our own hearts, and to trust You throughout. Deepen our confidence in You, our trust in Your Word, so we might know that even the greatest sorrow and the most severe tragedy we face cannot compare to the sorrow and tragedy of the Cross – and the greatest joy and delight we face in this life cannot compare to the coming joy of being presented to Jesus as His perfected and renewed Bride at His coming. Save us from arrogance; exalt the Cross and the New Covenant in our minds; comfort us with Your love; show us Yourself.

 

Preparing for Suffering

Five days ago Omar Mir Siddique Mateen walked into the Pulse Bar in Orlando and killed 49 people. Not one went to that bar last weekend thinking, “I’m going to die tonight”

Imagine that your brother, your sister, your friend, your classmate, or your next-door neighbor were among those killed. How would you respond?

We rightly shrink in horror from that heinous crime.

But in the four days since the Orlando terrorist attack, about 170 other people have been murdered in the US; about 6400 have died of cancer, about 6700 of heart disease; about 100 were killed by drunk drivers.

Then on Tuesday, also in Orlando, two-year-old Lane Davis was dragged underwater by an alligator and drowned. Lane’s father, wading into the water, didn’t have an inkling that there was any danger to the boy.

Imagine that Lane was your brother, your nephew, your grandson, or your son. How would you respond?

In the days since that tragedy, approximately another 200 little boys and girls under five years of age have died in the US.

In this rich and predominantly peaceful country, we can live under the illusion that death is something strange, something unusual – something we can avoid, we can put off indefinitely if we drive carefully, eat well, and exercise diligently.

But death is all around us. Tragedies happen. All the time.

Furthermore, in the years ahead, unless Jesus returns in the next few decades, every one of us will die. Some will know they are dying. Some won’t. Some will die swiftly and painlessly. Others will die horribly. But we will all face death. It is certain.

So shouldn’t we prepare for it? Shouldn’t we learn how to approach the tragedies that will undoubtedly come in this life – so that we will be prepared both to help others in the midst of such crises, and to endure them biblically ourselves?

This Sunday we begin a short sermon series on the book of Job. We have been making our way through Paul’s letter to the Romans for more than a year, and still have much to cover in that great epistle. We’ve come to one of the best-known verses in all of Scripture:

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28 NAS

What a promise! What comfort! And how great is the God who can make such a promise!

And yet, a dear friend who had recently suffered horrible tragedy once told me, “If one more person quotes Romans 8:28 to me, I’m going to kill him!”

What led others to misuse this great verse, so that it was not a comfort but a barb?

I believe the problem was a lack of understanding of the lessons of the book of Job – lessons that the Apostle Paul knew well, indeed, that he assumes the readers of Romans know.

In Job, we see a good man – kind, generous, loving, dutiful, pious, and upright – lose his goods, lose his children, and lose his health, all in a few days. Then his friends come and make matters worse. Buffeted by all this tragedy, Job deeply questions the goodness and justice of God.

In this book we learn about some of the causes of pain and suffering in this life; we learn of the hatred of our enemy, Satan; we learn of the majesty and sovereignty of God, even over Satan; we learn some of God’s purposes, as well as the nature of genuine faith.

So through this book, we can gain a solid and necessary foundation for understanding Romans 8:28 and following.

Through this book we can become genuine comforters, instead of the “miserable comforters” (Job 16:2) who tormented Job and my friend.

And through this book, we can prepare for the tragedies that undoubtedly await us in the years ahead.

So join us. And may God’s Word build us up and equip us, so that in the day of trouble we might look to Him in the full confidence of faith.

Sovereignty and Evil in an Iranian Prison

A ravaging tornado destroys entire neighborhoods and kills dozens, including many children. A government agency abuses power by singling out certain political viewpoints for invasive questioning. One country in the Middle East falls further and further into chaos, while another moves closer and closer to building nuclear weapons.

Where in the world is God? Is He really in control? Does He care?

Scripture assures us that “our God is in the heavens; He does all that He pleases” (Psalm 115:3). So how do tornadoes and government corruption and political chaos and the threat of nuclear terrorism please God?

Consider these questions in light of a recent book, Captive in Iran by Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh. These two friends came to Christ, and were active in distributing Bible and sharing their faith with anyone who might ask. Eventually they were arrested.

Fearful and suffering, they do not know what they might encounter in the hellhole of the notorious Evin prison. But what they find is many hurting people who are willing to hear Jesus’ story and their story:

We were in the best place we’d ever been for witnessing to people hungry for the gospel of Jesus. The living conditions weren’t very good, but we didn’t have to deal with travel and traffic! And we could tell our fellow prisoners the story of Jesus openly because no one would come into this rat hole to spy on us. (647 – the numbers after each quotation are Kindle locations)

Our conversation with [a prisoner] was another reminder of how God had moved us on from what we thought we should be doing to what He wanted us to do. We had hosted two home churches and distributed twenty thousand Farsi New Testaments, evangelizing while avoiding the regime. It was a slow process. Now that we were in prison, we could talk openly about our faith. Whereas before we had searched for people to speak to, now they came looking for us: “Go see the Christian girls!” The very prison system that tried to silence us was now our megaphone. (2843)

Even some of the guards seek out their prayers:

“I’m tired of working here,” [one guard] admitted. “I don’t think I’m cut out for it. Would you pray for me?” “I will be happy to.” And so I prayed for my captor, secure in the presence of the Lord that washed over me in waves, in the deepest recesses of the most feared ward of the most notorious prison in one of the most oppressed nations of the world. Surely I had never felt more blessed. (2498)

Uncharged, they are kept in prison for many months. Finally they appear before a judge, facing the charge of apostasy – which can lead to execution. The judge asks:

Miss Amirizadeh, are you a Christian? Are you called to follow Jesus? Explain to me what you mean by that.” As the questions hung in the air, I felt chills run up and down my body. They were the same questions, asked the same way, I had been asked during my baptism ceremony. . . . Today, October 7, was the four-year anniversary of that day. . . . The first time I was asked the questions, I was free, happy, and surrounded by friends. Now I’m under the threat of death. God is asking, “Are you still a Christian?” The path to Christ is never the easy way. As Jesus said to His disciples in Mark 8:34, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Today I renewed the promise I made to God on this date years ago. I promise to take up my cross and follow Christ. I want to die for God. I will follow Him forever. Sometimes God puts us in a difficult situation and tries us. This is the real test. “When you are in fear, will you still be true?” I decided in court to follow God even if it kills me. (3719)

After an international outcry leads Iranian authorities to look for a way to release the women while saving face, the chief prosecutor assures them he is on their side and is willing to help them, if they will negotiate with him. Maryam answers:

“I sincerely thank you for your kindness . . . but my trust and reliance are with God. I believe it is the Lord’s will that Marziyeh and I should be in prison, and that our freedom lies in His hands alone. If the Lord wishes to release us, no one can stand in His way. Of course, we don’t like staying in prison and we would rather be free, but we prefer to wait for the Lord’s decision on the matter.” (3905)

They are released, without apologizing for anything they have done.  God showed His sovereignty and His faithfulness to these two brave women.

In the case of Maryam and Marziyeh, we see the end result; God did indeed use even the evil acts of evil men to bring about His good purposes. Their faith was strengthened; the Gospel spread to some of the most downtrodden in Iranian society. But remember: When the authorities first threw them in prison, they had no idea how God was acting. They faced the possibility of death time and again. Others in similar situations had died.

As these two women clearly say, God’s sovereignty does not imply that we will have easy lives. It does not imply that God will get us out of every difficult and dangerous situation.

Rather: Our God is in the heavens, doing all that He pleases. We will face confusing, dangerous, and difficult times. Sometimes in retrospect – as in this case – we see how He worked for good in the midst of danger; often we do not. But Scripture assures us: He is at work. So we are to live by faith and not by sight.

He is sovereign. Trust Him with your life.