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Baker Publishing Group - Jack Hayford

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48 pages

English

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What happened to my baby after he or she died?Will I ever see my baby again--and will I recognize him?What happens if I've had an abortion?Does God have a reason for letting my child die?How can I help a friend who's experiencing grief?With compassionate answers for your troubling questions, God's Word shines with hope in the dark night of human pain. God showed His tenderness when David lost a child he had with Bathsheba. In his pain and grief, David spoke the word of revelation--the reassuring word of God's truth--saying, "I will go to [my child] but he will not return to me" (2 Samuel 12:19-23).As Pastor Jack Hayford says, "This isn't myth, fable, legend or a selection of poetic thoughts for the sorrowful. This is truth to set us free. Here we are specifically freed to expect to meet children in heaven, to recognize them and to be with them."Let Jack Hayford show you the freeing truth of the Word of God and its promise that one day, like David, you will hold your child in heaven.

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Philosophie et théologie

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	09 juin 2003
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781441268242
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0202€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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1986, 1990, 2003 Jack W. Hayford
The essential substance of this book first published in the Living Way Paperback Early Flight © 1986.
Published by Chosen Books 11400 Hampshire Avenue South Bloomington, Minnesota 55438 chosenbooks.com
Chosen Books is a division of Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan. www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Chosen edition published 2014
ISBN 978-1-4412-6824-2
Previously published by Regal Books
Ebook edition originally created 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-for example, electronic, photocopy, recording-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New King James Version . Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Other versions used are:
NEB— From The New English Bible . © The Delegates of Oxford University Press and The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press 1961, 1970, 1989. Reprinted by permission.
TLB —Scripture quotations marked ( TLB ) are taken from The Living Bible , copyright © 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189. All rights reserved.
C ONTENTS
Introduction
Chapter 1 The Gift of Lives
Chapter 2 When Does Significance Begin?
Chapter 3 Life to What Degree?
Chapter 4 Destiny in the Afterworld
Chapter 5 In Heaven as a Person
Chapter 6 Instruments of Healing
Chapter 7 The Heartbeat of Love
Chapter 8 Three Steps to Loving
Addendum
To Complement and Supplement Your Reading
I NTRODUCTION
The Spirit of the L ORD is upon Me, because He has . . . sent Me to heal the brokenhearted .
L UKE 4:18

As a pastor—a shepherd of souls—I find myself, time and time again, meeting people who have suffered the death of a baby, either before or shortly after birth. If you have experienced the great crisis to which I refer, it’s quite possible that you are searching for something—anything—powerful enough to calm the questions that may rage inside your heart.
You may be among the great number of women and men who have planned, prepared and prayed for a child, but the baby was stillborn—dead on arrival. Perhaps you are one of the thousands of parents whose newborn babies lived so short a life as to have hardly truly arrived—babies who died a few hours, days or weeks after birth. Together, parents of the stillborn and of the newly born who die form a distinct group of people who had a baby they never got to keep.
Or maybe you are the parent of a child lost to abortion. If so, you may be like so many others I meet who are suffering greatly in the aftermath of the procedure that proponents hail as prompt and painless. Untold numbers of women and men are stumbling through the emotional carnage following an abortion—some believing their decision was wrong; others racked with uncertainty. The pain runs deep.
Finally, you may belong to a third group of the disappointed: the hosts of women who longed for a child, but two or three—four or maybe five—months into their pregnancy something went awry and they miscarried.
If you have experienced the wrenching loss of a child in the womb or during the weeks and months following birth, you are hardly alone. The parents of the stillborn or the newly born who die, the miscarrying mother and the maternal victim of abortion are all parents of children who were designed for a lifetime of purpose but whose lives were cut short.
In the Creator’s finest plan, these children were not intended for the disease, death or destruction that took their lives. Yet they died. Like a rescheduled airplane suddenly departing ahead of time, these children took an “early flight.” Before we could ever know them—their possibilities, their presence and their purpose—they were gone. Whether their hastened departure was forced through accident, neglect or abuse of the fetus, disease, deformity or simple malfunction, suddenly they departed.
For those who remain at the airport of the present, there can be tears, pain, bitterness and questions—but I assure you that there is also hope.
In recent years, as I encountered increasing numbers of hurting people whose parenthood had been cut short, I began to search God’s Word to seek a case for hope . I wanted to find truth that could heal and give comfort in the midst of the pain following the amputation of a life from its potential; thus, this book.
In the following chapters you will find scripturally based answers to many of the questions you may have found yourself asking: At the time of my miscarriage or abortion, did my baby have a soul? What about the stillborn child or the baby who dies shortly after birth? Is he or she in heaven? If so, what is he or she—this child who never developed character or personality beyond the womb—like? Will I ever see my child again? And how will I recognize my child when we finally meet in heaven?
The purpose of this book is to offer a path to hope and healing—not through happy talk or platitudes, but through the solid footing of the holy truth of God’s Word. The biblical foundation for hope and comfort is strong; the Scriptures indeed offer a way out of the depths of grief.
If you have experienced the loss of a child through the tragedy of abortion, God’s Word offers you something more: forgiveness and healing for the series of choices that led you into the abortionist’s chamber. Abortion is not only a tough topic but a delicate one. And it’s a tragedy. But my object in these pages is not to elaborate that tragedy or underscore the facts of human failure. Rather, I seek to offer comfort and direction for the future.
There was a time when I was not unlike many Christians who wrestle against bitterness, self-righteousness and even condemnation toward the parents of aborted children. I was not only angry that lives were being taken, but I also felt superior. And that was the hateful blindness I had to deal with—the cocksureness of my self-righteous opinion.
In that state, I couldn’t even begin to gain perspective on the fear, pain, hurt, agony and embarrassment of so many who needed something else from me. Society has so liberalized abortion that the uninformed and uncounseled readily give in until, in the aftermath of the experience, the living victims bend beneath another burden—the burden of questions such as, What have I done? Who might the child have become? Was I right? Wrong? Can I ever forget? What would have happened if I hadn’t . . . ?
Having met increasing numbers of women and men who ache over the ramifications of their right to choose has not changed my conviction about the wrongness of abortion, but it has cured my soul of the wrongness of my superficial point of view. I now see a place where life, light and love are desperately needed—a place in our world where truth not only can shine like a beacon light discerning good and evil but where that same truth can also shed the light of healing, warmth and hopefulness. If you are, indeed, one of the many adult victims of abortion, then read on. You are on the verge of discovering forgiveness, healing and hope.
It is to any parent who remembers—with tears, pain, bitterness or questions—a stillborn, miscarried, aborted or early-death child that I dedicate these moments in God’s Word. And for those among us who have never known such pain, failure or grief, my hope is that an enlargement of heart may occur. May God’s Spirit, through speaking His Word, create a new space within all of us and make a place where we can host with understanding and compassion all those we know or will meet who have been left with aching hearts and empty arms following a little one’s early flight from this life.
So now, come with me to the fountain of truth—to God’s Word—where eternal wisdom, reconciling righteousness and healing hope abound. Let’s find out what we can about God’s answers to one of the most wrenching traumas in our present society: the pain following the too-early death of an infant.
I’LL HOLD YOU IN HEAVEN
C HAPTER 1
T HE G IFT OF L IVES
And the L ORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being .
G ENESIS 2:7

The foundation of hope for any human dilemma or, in fact, for any human disobedience will always be drawn from God’s Word—not from human reasoning or happy-talk philosophizing. The answer to your deepest pain or most grievous heart cry lies in Scripture. What then, should be your first question?
Perhaps the best place to begin is with the simple query: Was my unborn child, in the fullest sense of the meaning, actually a human being? That question must be settled with confidence and personal certainty. God’s answer gives rise to an amazing basis for hope—an expectancy never before anticipated as possible. So let’s discover what the Creator Himself has to say on the subject.
Our first objective is to establish a biblical basis for the prenatal existence of the human soul. Is a person a person before he or she is born?
Here is the crux of the matter, for if we are only dealing with chemistry or tissue in examining the nature of the fetus or the stillborn, there is little at stake. But in most of us, an inner monitor signals that there is something more involved here than mere chemical combinations or complex structures of tissues. Could it be that God has given a conclusive and confirming witness in His Word that the life of an embryo is eternal?
Without surrendering to either mystery or superstition, we can say yes! The life of the child in the womb is eternal. But please understand: This is a statement based on far more than religious opinion, occult dogma or h