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Caring for Grieving Mothers with Jackie Gibson
350 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, Rush talks with author and mother Jackie Gibson. Jackie and her husband Jonnie have four children. She serves alongside him at Westminster Seminary and most recently published her book “You Are Still A Mother.” In this episode Jackie shares her journey through the still birth death of her daughter Leila. And they talk about the unique challenges of grief in the loss of a child, how caring friends can comfort and help, and the precious ways in which God meets us in our darkest grief and loss.
JACKIE GIBSON ONLINE
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MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
You Are Still A Mother by Jackie Gibson
The Moon Is Always Round by Jonathan Gibson
Helping a Hurting Friend by Garrett Higbee
Someone I Know Is Grieving by Edward T. Welch
Learn more about the podcast here.
Timestamps:
1:20 - Intro
1:39 - Moving from Australia
3:37 - Life and Ministry Now
6:08 - The Story Behind the Book "The Moon is Always Round"
16:37 - The Commonality of Loss
17:35 - What voices of friends and Scripture shined lights of hope?
24:40 - The Comfort of Psalm 139
17:49 - Advice for Helping Those Who Grieve
31:56 - Thinking About Leila Now
34:34 - Farewell
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Transcript
Introduction and Condolences
00:00:00
Speaker
Johnny received a letter in the mail from an eight-year-old girl having read The Moon is Always Round, and she wrote in her letter, I'm sorry your baby died. That's really sad. And I'm like, if adults could learn that that's all you need to say.
Introducing Straight to the Heart Podcast
00:00:20
Speaker
I'm Rush Witt and you're listening to Straight to the Heart, a podcast from New Growth Press. Each episode includes thought-provoking conversations with leading Christian writers and thinkers. We hear who they are, what they believe, how they approach their work in ministry, and the moments in people who have changed their lives.
00:00:39
Speaker
In Straight to the Heart, we go beyond the books to connect with the remarkable people behind them. We're well into our second season, so thank you for listening, sharing, and subscribing to Straight to the Heart.
Exploring 'You Are Still a Mother'
00:00:51
Speaker
Today's episode is sad. It's precious. It's joyful all at the same time. I talk with author and mother Jackie Gibson.
00:01:00
Speaker
Jackie and her husband, Johnny, have four children. She serves alongside him at Westminster Seminary and most recently published her book, You Are Still a Mother. In this episode, Jackie shares her journey through the still birth death of her daughter, Layla. And we talk about the unique challenges of grief and the loss of a child, how caring friends can comfort and help, and the precious ways in which God meets us in our darkest grief. You really have to hear it from her,
00:01:29
Speaker
And I am happy that you can today. This is Straight to the Heart. So, Jackie, I really appreciate you spending this time with me today.
Jackie's Childhood Journey
00:01:42
Speaker
And I noticed that you said you're from Sydney, Australia, and obvious by your voice. That's right.
00:01:50
Speaker
Tell me about that. That's interesting. Yeah. So I was born in Sydney, Australia and spent the first five years of my life there. But then when I was five, my family moved to the United States, to New York State for my dad's job. And four years later, we moved to London, England for a couple of years. So all of my elementary schooling was overseas. And then we moved back to Australia.
00:02:20
Speaker
So the rest of my high school and college days were spent in Sydney. Have you ever been? I have never been to Australia. My sister went to medical school in Queensland. Oh, great. And so she spent some time there, but but I didn't. And your story explains why your accent would, you know, remain when you said you left at five years old.
00:02:43
Speaker
I was wondering how the accident kept up, but that makes sense. Do you go back there very often? We actually don't do too badly. Apart from the COVID blip, we get to go back every couple, maybe two, three years. So it's not too bad because it is a very long journey. And we often get to go for a good chunk of time to make it worthwhile. Oh, that's good. That's fun. Your family is still there?
00:03:13
Speaker
My family are still there. Actually, this week my parents are visiting, which is nice, so they're here this week. But my parents and sister and her family all still live in Sydney. And it's funny, when we moved back to Australia, I remember thinking, I can't wait to now go home back to Australia and settle and never move again. But the Lord had very different plans. So what does family and ministry and life look like today?
Life in Philadelphia and Ministry
00:03:42
Speaker
So we live just outside of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania. My husband, Johnny, teaches at Westminster Theological Seminary. So we live a couple blocks from there. And I am home with two pretty little ones, Zach, who's
00:04:02
Speaker
four and a half and Hannah who's three and a half. And I have an 11 year old Ben who's at school. So my weeks are busy with those two littles. And I love being involved in the Westminster community, getting to know mostly the wives of students, but also students. Tell me some more about what ministry looks like around Westminster and just in your life and the ways that God is using you in this season.
Welcoming New Life Amidst Loss
00:04:29
Speaker
I think in this season, I'm so grateful that the Lord brought two more children into our family after, I'm sure we'll talk about it, the death of our second daughter, Layla.
00:04:44
Speaker
I'm sure at some point we'll go there. But after then, we weren't sure whether we could have any more children and struggled with infertility for years. And then God brought Zach into our family through adoption and then Hannah through biology, which was a happy surprise. So they're very close in age. But all that to say is I've re-entered the toddler years after a big gap.
00:05:11
Speaker
And that brings up natural ministry opportunities with mums of little kids. So I spend a lot of time with women who are at home with their young kids, often connected with Westminster. I have the privilege of leading a women's Bible study in my home, connected to our church. So I love studying the Bible alongside and with women.
00:05:40
Speaker
So that's a little taste of ministry. Johnny and I love having students around and getting to know them and hearing their stories.
Ministering Through Personal Loss
00:05:48
Speaker
And then because of the experience we had with the stillbirth of our daughter Layla, a ministry that has arisen from that of ministering to grieving parents.
00:06:04
Speaker
who have experienced death in the womb, death of a baby. Some people will know about the book, The Moon Is Always Around, as a precious story of comfort and honesty. And obviously it signals, as you just have, the ways that God is using you in your experience to minister to other people. And I'm curious, how frequently do you have come across someone who is reaching out for help?
00:06:34
Speaker
they're grieving because this kind of loss is one that's incredibly personal and I would imagine, tell me if I'm wrong, I would imagine it might tend to go under the radar of other people knowing about it having happened to someone and then it can leave
00:06:54
Speaker
parents suffering in a kind of silence. And so I'm just curious, you know, what that looks like for you and ministering to those parents that are, that have experienced this kind of loss. You asked at the beginning, how often do we hear from parents connected with my husband, Johnny's, but the moon is always round. He has written
00:07:18
Speaker
other academic volumes, some commentaries, but by far the book that people come up to him at the conferences and in his ministry the most is The Moon is Always Round. It's had an impact not just on grieving parents actually, but more broadly for people who have experienced other kinds of loss. And of course it was written for children primarily, but I think
00:07:47
Speaker
has almost, or maybe not almost, definitely had a bigger impact on the parents who read it to their children. So we do hear from people who have experienced the death of a baby through them contacting Johnny often through Westminster. And then I do just meet other women who will come up to me and just share the story of their loss.
00:08:15
Speaker
I wish, I hardly heard from any women, I wish it didn't happen often enough that there would be so many people with this story. And you are right, Rush, that often it is something that people don't know about, that people silently carry around this loss in their past. It's hard to share generally, but it's also hard to share when you meet people after your loss.
00:08:42
Speaker
So often when you get to know someone new, you think, do I share this part of my story? Do I share about this baby who died? So often it is a silent grief carried around, sadly. But I think things have changed and it is talked about more, which is wonderful. And certainly the moon is always round has been a way of us hearing from bereaved parents more often.
The Joy and Pain of Conceiving Again
00:09:12
Speaker
Can you share a little bit more of your story with Layla and what your experience in the, what was your experience in the loss and in that time?
00:09:25
Speaker
Yeah. So I mentioned we have an 11-year-old Ben. He was born in 2012. We were blessed with that pregnancy right away. It was very normal, straightforward. He was born and into a home of rejoicing. So a precious gift to us. And then, as I mentioned, we actually struggled to conceive again. So a couple of years passed of us trying to conceive and not knowing why the Lord wasn't opening my womb.
00:09:55
Speaker
And then when Ben was three, we fell pregnant again and we were so excited, obviously. And then when you have a season of waiting, it just makes that positive pregnancy test even more precious. And we thought, the Lord has answered our prayers after all this waiting. And I just bonded with this baby very quickly, more quickly than the first time, having not
00:10:24
Speaker
I hadn't known what it would be like to have a baby before Ben, but having raised a little one, I just felt connected with this baby very quickly.
00:10:34
Speaker
And the pregnancy passed, just like my first one, very normally without any complications. The scans were fine. They were normal. But then a week before Layla's due date, so I was 39 weeks, I was just worried that my movements or the movements of the baby had slowed down.
00:10:57
Speaker
So I remember phoning the hospital and asking, could I come in for a checkup? But the midwife who I spoke to wanted me to just calm down and drink something cold and count kicks, which I did and reassuringly felt movement. So she then said, there's no need to come in. But the next morning, we just weren't sure that we had felt any movement. I wasn't sure Johnny couldn't feel any movement either.
00:11:27
Speaker
his hand on my belly. So we did go into hospital that day and it was 39 weeks and four days, I think, when they confirmed that Leila had died, that there was no heartbeat. And then, of course, I didn't know anyone at the time who had been through this
00:11:50
Speaker
Um, I didn't know what it would be like, but I assumed that they would take me in for a caesarean section and take the baby out straight away. But they actually encourage you to go through labor naturally. So it wasn't until four days after she had died that I gave birth to Layla and she was stillborn at full term. Wow.
00:12:17
Speaker
I'm really sorry to hear of the loss that you've experienced and yet at the same time grateful for the way as he so often does the Lord has used your story and experience to encourage and comfort and help others because that is really a beautiful
00:12:35
Speaker
Even young children want answers to the hard questions about God and suffering. In The Moon is Always Round, seminary professor and author Jonathan Gibson uses the vivid imagery of the moon to explain to children how God's goodness is always present, even when it might appear to be obscured by upsetting or difficult circumstances.
00:12:56
Speaker
In this beautiful, full-color illustrated book, he allows readers to eavesdrop on the conversations he had with his son in response to his sister's death. Father and son share a simple liturgy together that reminds them that just as the moon is always round despite its many phases, so also the goodness of God is always present throughout the different phases of life.
00:13:21
Speaker
visit NewGrowthPress.com to learn more about the Moon is Always Round by Jonathan Gibson. This is a unique perspective that you have. And so I'd like to ask you, if you think about your experience in this loss, we're obviously all familiar with other kinds of loss, but what do you think is unique about the death of a baby in the womb?
00:13:46
Speaker
Well, one thing that is unique about the death of a baby in the womb is you just didn't really know this person. And yet they are so precious to you. So whether it's an early miscarriage or a later term loss of stillbirth,
00:14:03
Speaker
you didn't know much about this baby. Some people the further along in pregnancy the baby dies may have known the gender, may have named the baby. Other parents don't even get to find out those details about their baby if it's an earlier loss. And so I think that is what is unique is that you
00:14:28
Speaker
feel connected with this baby, though that's going to be a different experience for different mothers and depending on potentially when the baby died. But this baby is taken from you before you even got to know them. And you have so many questions about your child. What would they have been like? What would their personality have been like for
00:14:51
Speaker
I mean, we had the joy, I will say, it was a great joy to hold our baby, to see what Layla looked like. She had dark hair. She was seven pounds. She resembled her big brother, Ben. They are gifts to us that we got to see and meet her.
00:15:12
Speaker
But for many women, they don't get to meet their child or see the form of their child if it's an earlier loss, for instance. And I think the other unique thing about this kind of loss is it's the death of a life, which is devastating, but it's the death of a future you imagined raising a child when you fall pregnant
00:15:42
Speaker
I immediately calculate the due date. I want to know when is this baby due? And I start to imagine straight away what time of year will it be? How old will their siblings be? And so when a baby dies in the womb, it's the death of a person and it's the death of a dream that you have for the future.
00:16:02
Speaker
My wife and I had a miscarriage. We have five kids now and we had a miscarriage and so a lot of those feelings are familiar to me as when that happened.
00:16:17
Speaker
especially in terms of what you were describing about the loss of dreams. You have immediately plans and especially if you've had other children and you know a little of what the path is like, that it can make it particularly difficult. And I'm curious, I wonder in your experience, did you have losses in life
00:16:41
Speaker
prior to this that were meaningful to you? And how did those previous losses and the way God helped you or what you went through encourage and help you? Or was this kind of a first significant experience of loss? Yeah, it does make sense. I think for me and for my husband, this was really the closest death had come to our family.
00:17:08
Speaker
Apart from grandparents, which were very sad bosses too,
Community and Church Support
00:17:14
Speaker
but I think this was our first very close experience of death. We had not had to plan a funeral before. I had, I don't have memories, maybe one of a, of a grandparent's funeral prior to this.
00:17:33
Speaker
but nothing as close as this loss. So in the midst of your grief, what were some of the things that gave you hope? Because people who are going through this, obviously, as you know, better than anyone.
00:17:46
Speaker
have such a hard time seeing through the darkness of their grief to Anything that can look like hope or can give hope in the moment. So were there particular voices passages of passages of Scripture friends Who were able to shine a light of hope for you in the midst of your grief? What was that like for you? Yeah, I mean the beauty of the Christian Church when there's bereavement is
00:18:17
Speaker
just an enormous blessing. And we were immediately surrounded by our church family. We were living in Cambridge, England at the time, I should say, and neither myself or Johnny had family living close by. So our church were our family and they just showed up. And I mean, there's an excellent book written by Nancy Guthrie about what grieving people, you know, wishing you or
00:18:47
Speaker
what helps and what doesn't. That's not the exact title, but someone could check that. I think so many people have very unhelpful things said to them or people who don't show up in grief. I'm so grateful looking back that our friends just knew how to show up. I don't take that for granted because I know for many people it isn't that experience.
00:19:16
Speaker
Our pastor at the time was wonderful and he would just come around and read us scripture. And I have never been so desperately parched for God's Word as I was after Layla's death and desperate for it, especially in those four days between her death and her stillbirth.
00:19:39
Speaker
It was truly the only thing that brought us hope and comfort in those very dark days. I wish I still had that level of hunger for God's word, which we really are desperate for without feeling it always. And I did have friends who stepped into the darkness, who shared their experience of loss with me. One sent me
00:20:07
Speaker
a verse from Deuteronomy that I was unfamiliar with up until this point. Deuteronomy 33-27, that the eternal God is your dwelling place and underneath other everlasting arms. And that, for me, just as I felt like I was plummeting into a bottomless cavern type thing, that the rug had been pulled out from under my feet.
00:20:35
Speaker
To be reminded that God's arms were underneath me was a huge comfort. And we felt the Lord's presence by His Spirit and in His Word in a very real way. And then, of course, I felt like I met the Lord Jesus in a new way too, in grief.
00:20:59
Speaker
as the man of sorrows. I had been a Christian for many years, but going through this suffering, and especially again, those dark days between her death and her birth, where I was so terrified, I just found a very close companion in grief in Christ.
00:21:21
Speaker
And I remember thinking of the agony he was feeling in the garden of Gethsemane knowing his crucifixion was coming. And while this is really an incomparable type of loss and grief to Christ, it did help me think in a new and deeper way that he knew exactly how I felt. He knew better than anyone because of what he had experienced.
Finding Hope in Scripture
00:21:49
Speaker
So there are some examples of what gave us hope in the raw days right after loss. And for those listening who haven't experienced that loss but maybe will know someone in the future who will go through that loss, being sent scripture was a blessing to me in small
00:22:14
Speaker
in small pieces. Thoughtful passages of Scripture that were comforting. Not preachy, maybe, but I had a friend who had experienced a similar loss that I hadn't known about. She just wrote on little note cards, just single verses and put them on a ring so that I could flip through them. Because truly we experienced Scripture being manner that we needed each day.
00:22:44
Speaker
Yeah, I want to ask you more about that, but first just share briefly what my experience was in our miscarriage. One of the passages, which is a familiar passage in light of children before they were born in particular, is in Psalm 139. And I remember Psalm 139, especially verse 16, was just an unexpected for me.
00:23:10
Speaker
comfort. And it says, your eyes saw me when I was formless. All my days were written in your book and planned before a single one of them began. And I remember that being an encouragement to me, I think because it brought a striking sense of God's sovereignty
00:23:35
Speaker
But what might even be better described as loving providence in my life, just to know that even for this child that we lost by miscarriage, that was true. And that of all that I know of the Lord and his trustworthiness and his sovereignty and his goodness and his wisdom and his happiness,
00:24:01
Speaker
that I could see through that lens this hard grief and suffering that we went through.
00:24:08
Speaker
and to see Him at the center of it, holding it all together, even though there was a big mystery there. There's a huge mystery. Even now, thinking about it, it's hard for me to reconcile those. There's a tension. I can't have a hard time reconciling those ideas because I think of how wonderful it is to have kids and to be able to walk through life with them. In this case, God had
00:24:32
Speaker
ordained the days that he saw as best in a way that I don't see as best, but that was a big comfort. Psalm 139 is, yes, thank you for sharing that because that is a very precious psalm for many who have experienced the death particularly of a child.
00:24:51
Speaker
And knowing that Leila's death wasn't an accident or something that I had somehow caused was a huge relief to me because I feared that maybe I could have done something differently. Maybe we should have gone into the hospital on that day where the movements had slowed down and maybe we could have saved Leila's life.
00:25:14
Speaker
to be reminded and assured that her days had been numbered by a good and sovereign Lord did give me peace. To leave that in his hands, even though, as you say, it's perplexing, and why would the Lord choose that for her, as you say, when we had enjoyed?
00:25:38
Speaker
the years without sun. At the same time, I have come to see and did see early on but have seen increasingly how much those little ones who were taken early in life have been spared from the hard things in this life. They are somewhere where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.
00:26:00
Speaker
They're with the Good Shepherd, the Lord Jesus. If I had a choice today for Layla to be here with us on Earth, I couldn't take her from the Lord Jesus. She is in a much better place. It's not the end yet. She's still waiting for her resurrection body.
00:26:23
Speaker
She has been spared. I mean, you and I, having had the privilege of raising living children, we've seen the ways sin and suffering has already affected them in their young lives. And so I do see that as a blessing for her. Layla has received great gain. And so that's a joy and a comfort.
00:26:48
Speaker
Let me tell you about Jackie Gibson's new book, You Are Still a Mother, Hope for Women Grieving a Stillbirth or Miscarriage. Grieving the loss of a child to stillbirth can be a lonely and agonizing experience. Sadly, this overwhelming loss is far more common than one may think, affecting around 1 in 160 births.
00:27:09
Speaker
Gibson honestly acknowledges the sorrow, the loneliness, and fears that come from suffering the loss of a child while pointing to the gospel with gentleness and understanding. You are still a mother weaves scripture and deep truths about God with Jackie's personal experience to provide a book that is both honest and full of hope
00:27:30
Speaker
Acknowledging that all who suffer this loss will never be the same, she reassures readers that God will be present through every moment of every day. Visit NewGrowthPress.com today to learn more about You Are Still a Mother by Jackie Gibson. So I said I wanted to go back to it. Let me ask you, can you say some more to the friends of those who are grieving loss like this?
How to Support the Grieving
00:28:00
Speaker
what advice you have to give them, similar to what you gave from your experience, that scripture is obviously a soothing balm in doses, but even that can be mishandled or handled in an insensitive way. And so maybe you could shed some light on what kind of mindset I should have when I'm trying to comfort someone in this grief,
00:28:29
Speaker
Because you're right, I think the reason I could receive all this scripture, particularly from this friend, is that she was there with understanding having had a similar loss. But maybe I was more sensitive. I think a few people did share with us Romans 8, 28, the Godbook. In all things, God works for the good of those who love him. I don't think that was particularly helpful at the time.
00:28:53
Speaker
The true though that is, and I have come to believe that, that's very hard to wrap your head around when you're right in the midst of the crushing grief and loss. But I would say generally speaking, and again, you have to know your friend or your family member. Show up. Just show up. Don't withdraw and think they need
00:29:19
Speaker
space and I don't want to upset them by bringing things up. Show up. Now that's not to say you literally show up at their door unannounced, but you send them texts just expressing. I mean, this maybe sounds so patronising, but just expressing sadness.
00:29:37
Speaker
The best thing Job's friends did was sit and be quiet and weep with their friend. And then when they started speaking, it all got out of hand. So show up, say less, but say something as well. I can acknowledge how sad their loss is. And I think I'll speak specifically for a later term loss just because that's been my experience.
00:30:05
Speaker
I really appreciated those people that celebrated our daughter's life, that marked it. So some of the most precious gifts to us, like a friend who knitted little baby booties and sent them. You know, when you have a baby who's stillborn, you don't get baby presents and that makes sense. Of course, we won't need them. But expressions of, um,
00:30:33
Speaker
love for a baby or things that mark their preciousness was so meaningful to me and Johnny. Um, so someone sent us like a little smocked dress and it's not wasted, you know, even though she'll never get to wear this things like that for certainly in our experiences, later term loss just meant so much. So that there, there are some things for the early days.
00:31:03
Speaker
And then as months and years go on, try to remember. And that's harder because life is busy and time moves on, but those parents won't ever move on. They will remember and carry with them their loss for the rest of their lives. So trying to remember anniversaries, acknowledging that baby
00:31:33
Speaker
in the holidays, times that you feel they're lost more acutely, like a Christmas or Mother's Day or Father's Day. I think that's very precious, just to acknowledge the baby who's not there, the child who's not there. I think those are some ways you can love and comfort a friend or a family member. I want to ask you a question. I don't know if this is for the episode or not. And I run the risk of asking,
00:32:02
Speaker
something inappropriate. It's one of those moments where I'm not sure if I should ask it or not. I'm curious on the heels of what you were just talking about. Does Layla's grave place in Cambridge come to mind? Do you think about it spatially like that when you think about her? Do you think about part of her is there?
00:32:25
Speaker
and where it is and you bring that to mind. And that's a difference in thought. That's a multidimensional way of thinking about her that's different than the single dimensional way that you were describing coming from.
Layla's Burial as a Place of Hope
00:32:42
Speaker
But I actually love the question. I would love it to be in there. Yes, I do.
00:32:47
Speaker
Yes, I think before Layla's death, we thought, and I say we, including my husband in this, I think I'd thought about cemeteries as just memorials, but there's so much more than that. They are where people have been laid to rest, and for believers, everyone will experience a resurrection to life or to death.
00:33:15
Speaker
Mysteriously, it is the very places where these bodies have been laid or ashes have been buried or scattered that these people will rise from the dead. So for us, that little cemetery in Cambridge is a very precious physical place for us. We miss visiting. Now we know when we would go, we weren't visiting Layla in one sense. And in another sense, we sort of were. It's where her body is laid to rest.
00:33:46
Speaker
So, it is more than a memorial, a graveyard where someone has been buried. It's a precious place where someone is awaiting the resurrection. Now, again, Leila's soul is alive with Christ, and her body is buried.
00:34:08
Speaker
We hold those both together. She's not there. Her soul is with Jesus. And yet this very precious body is that will one day rise from the dead. Jackie, I've really enjoyed spending this time together with you, and I've learned a lot, and it's been an encouragement to me. And so I really am grateful that we've had a chance to spend this time talking and sharing life together. Yeah, thank you so much. I've really enjoyed our chat too. Thanks, Rush. Yeah.
00:34:39
Speaker
You've been listening to Straight to the Heart, a podcast from New Growth Press. Our next episode releases next week, and I look forward to seeing you there.