Empty Arms — the Comfort of Jesus in Barrenness and Pregnancy Loss

Kathy (last name withheld for privacy) is a fascinating person by any definition. She and her husband Neil have served as AGWM missionaries since 1987, first spending 25 years in the jungle-covered mountains of Papua New Guinea translating the New Testament into the native tribal language.

Upon completing the translation in 2013, they transferred to Sicily in 2016, serving ever since as first responders (and providing digitized versions of New Testaments in mother languages) for immigrants and migrants who, fleeing war and oppression, often arrive on Italian shores profoundly traumatized following perilous voyages on open seas.

Kathy’s stories are numerous and her accomplishments even more so. Yet there is another side to her story, a deep and personal pain that she shares on behalf of those walking the same road.

FIVE LOSSES AND A MIRACLE

“I have a spinal cord injury,” she begins. “I was an accountant and then later went into missions. There I encountered well-meaning people who thought I was a self-indulgent yuppie and urged me to get pregnant. I tried to brush it off, playing a little song in my mind: ‘They mean well, they mean well, they mean well.’”

Unbeknownst to the public, Neil and Kathy were suffering a series of pregnancy losses. After her fifth miscarriage, a doctor friend explained to Kathy why, due to the location of her spinal injury, pregnancy was difficult and carrying to term was virtually impossible. Hurting, Kathy asked the Lord that she never become pregnant again unless she “carried to term, had a boy, and he followed the Lord all the days of his life.”

In 1992 that prayer was miraculously answered — Neil and Kathy had a son.

Amid this happiness, Neil and Kathy found themselves inundated with church people, who, unaware of their history, peppered them with questions about how soon they would try to have another child. Some even made the false and hurtful statement that those with just one child are not ‘real mothers.’

An elderly lady named Louise, who also had only one living child, comforted Kathy. “Honey, if you have one, they want two. If you have two and they are the same sex, they want a third to round things out. By four they are hinting it is time to stop and by five they are freely suggesting it is enough.”

EMPATHY AND A BRIDGE

To this day, Kathy deeply empathizes with the many women who have unfulfilled longings for children, whether due to pregnancy loss or inability to conceive.

She also honors women like her own aunt Lorrie, who never marry yet spend their lives nurturing, guiding and helping families, and those who face increasingly difficult struggles to foster or adopt.

“They too have empty arms longing to be filled,” she says.

Kathy points out that in Scripture, one of the Lord’s descriptions for pain is barrenness, indicating that He understands how much it hurts.

As Christ empathizes with the ache of barrenness, so He is the bridge between grieving mothers and their babies born gloriously and completely into eternity. He cradles the earthside family, bringing help and redemption, and He holds the heaven-born child — who He called into existence to fulfill an eternal destiny of which sin and suffering will never be a part.

REDEEMED GRIEF AND COMFORTING THOSE WHO MOURN

U.S. missionaries with Chaplaincy Ministries Kelly Ward and his wife Alisa have, in their own way, shared in Neil and Kathy’s pain. Just a few years into their marriage, their son Matthew was stillborn at seven months.

“God has redeemed our grief numerous times, allowing us to comfort others who mourn,” says Ward, who is a licensed professional counselor specializing in marriage, grief and trauma.

Alisa agrees and says that she and Kelly found solidarity in a support group following the loss of their son.

“Every mom has a story,” she says. “Ours was just different. But I still wanted someone to hear it. We often need help to process what has happened or is happening, so that we don’t get stuck in the grief. Reach out, tell your story.”

Together the Wards run Sole Mission, an evangelistic shoe ministry that serves communities nationwide. Ward also serves as a community counselor and was among those who ministered to families who lost children in the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, in 2022.

He states that no two people — including a husband and wife — grieve alike, and that statistics for divorce among couples who lose a child through miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant or childhood death range from four to eight times the average divorce rate.

Ward says, “When we lost our baby, Alisa and I grieved very differently. Fortunately, by the grace of God, and with the support of our strong families, we found a way forward together. Yet even after 33 years, we have felt the pain like it was day one. It doesn’t last as long, and we are better equipped to deal with it. But one never completely heals from the loss of a child. The grief is a companion for life.”

AUNTIE LYNN'S FLOWERS

Indeed, Kathy remembers one night in her journey when the companionship of grief was especially oppressive. While helping a family who had a newborn, she had spent the day cooking, cleaning and feeding. Amid the busyness she felt the constant and painful reminder of what she believed at that time would never be hers.

As evening fell, a knock came on the door. There, holding a bouquet of flowers, was a British single lady who Kathy simply knew as Auntie Lynn.

“She just hugged me, and we cried, because she knew what I felt,” Kathy says. “To show the love of Jesus, be kind. That is the most healing thing you can do. Kindness is the heart of our loving Jesus.”