Question: I have dear friends who have just found out that their unborn son very likely has a severe case of Trisomy 18. They have many questions and concerns about the future. They are also receiving a great deal of negative feedback and vibes from the medical community over their desire to uphold and honor the life (however short or long it may be) of their child. Do you have any resources that might be helpful to this family that I could direct them to?

Answer: As you already know, our society is increasingly intolerant of so-called “less-than-perfect” people. That is truly unfortunate. As our nation seeks to remove burdens, it becomes a self-inflicted wound as the fabric of our society is strengthened by its ability to carry burdens and to show Christ-like love to others. Instead, as wickedness and lawlessness abound, love grows cold (Matthew 24:12).

If I can, I would like to make some presumptions and comment based on them:

My presumptions are:

1. Your friends are heartbroken by this diagnosis. Our anticipation of God’s blessing of children rarely factors in the harsh reality that there may be challenges with that blessing. It does not make the blessing less of a blessing but catches us by surprise.
2. Your friends likely are getting either direct or implied counsel to end this child’s life in the womb, with the argument that doing so is merely accepting a sad reality and thereby hurrying things along, or perhaps bringing added safety to the mother by ending the problematic pregnancy sooner than later.
3. Some of this counsel or “pressure” comes from sources whom they expected to have been more supportive or more “pro-life” in the matter.

I make these presumptions based on several cases I have experienced over the past 35+ years. If I overstate or understate, I beg forgiveness.

I mention these presumptions because of a familiar thread I observe in cases like this. It has to do with heaven and where we expect it. Please hear me out.

When God created man, he was instructed to be the caretaker or steward of the creation. Even after the fall into sin, the responsibility to be a steward of blessings remained. As stewards, we are our “brother’s keeper” (Genesis 4:9). We care for life. We protect life. We nurture life. All of those things are what we do as stewards. Their lives do NOT become our possessions, entitlements, or rights. The “Owner” of life is its Creator (Deuteronomy 32:39). Again, we are the caretakers.

We see this in shocking candor in the account of Job losing his sons and daughters in a terrible storm. His response:

At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.” In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing. (Job 1:20–22)

Many times, I have heard and spoken those words at funerals, and each time, it seems surreal that someone could react this way. God gave me five daughters, and I indeed would weep bitterly to lose them – but not without hope.

The big LIE in a world of sin is to think that here, in this place, and this time, we create heaven on earth. In our desire for heaven, we pick the right house, the right spouse, the right paint colors, the right model cars, the right school, the job, and the right church, and we continue to fidget the rest of our lives trying to refine and improve the choices we made. Yet, with each pivot, perfection seems just out of reach.

C.S. Lewis once wrote: “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” (“Mere Christianity,” Hope, p. 136).

Because of our sinful nature (Romans 7:19), we Christians are not immune from this trapping of a flawed world. We, too, imagine the perfect family, the perfect home, and the perfect peace. The word that a child might be something less than that dream can crush us if not for the certainty that heaven is not in this place, but there is a place called heaven, and it belongs to God’s people (John 14:2).

Even people who should know better get trapped into thinking like the world. They often thoughtlessly goad us into making changes for a more “heaven-like” existence in this world. In our sorrow, we forget that there is value in suffering (Romans 5:1-15), and sometimes that value is an investment in ourselves, but often it is God setting the stage for us to display hope to the hopeless (1 Peter 3:15).

But what of the child? In the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), we often talk about the two guys who walked by who should have known better and the “good Samaritan” who helped the fellow in the ditch. We never, however, give much thought to the perspective of the guy in the ditch. He was beaten and left for dead. He suffered physically and emotionally. There is no reference to him coming to faith, growing in faith, sharing his faith, becoming a helper to others, etc. What we do know is that his hardship became an opportunity for the faith of others. The child with Trisomy 18 surely could be such an instrument of God for the well-being of others.

As I have and continue to endure heartaches in life, the words of Psalm 46:10 echo daily: “Be still, and know that I am God.”

None of this is a test by God so that He can see where the faith of his people lies. He already knows! Instead, it is the opportunity for all the players in this account to see where their faith is, how it is, and where it is most vulnerable.

We so venerate life as God’s time of grace for each of us (Hebrews 9:27) that we are crushed when life is lost. Yet, we need not be crushed because of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:19-22). Our sinful nature compels us always to measure such things by what we have lost. That is why our circles of Christian friends remind us that even in the darkest of valleys, we are not alone (Psalm 23), in the most hopeless of situations, we are not without hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14), and that even in death there is life (John 11:25). May they find in this trial the opportunities to talk about the God who sacrificed His Son to bring comfort in such darkness.