In their book, Near to the Broken Hearted, Dan and Anna Martin relate how their little family of four were excited to be at a scheduled scan during the pregnancy of much-anticipated twins.
It became clear from the body language of the medical professionals that something was seriously wrong. Long story short, one of the twins had a life-threatening condition that pitched the whole pregnancy into a mixture of anxiety and dilemma. The twins were born alive, but one (Ethan) survived while the other (Jed) died after three weeks of complications arising from his condition.
en Reviews Editor, John Woods, spoke to Dan on the publication of the book he and Anna have written reflecting on these events.
en: We must be getting close to Jed and Ethan’s birthday. What are you plans for that?
Dan: We have lots of grateful memories. We have a mixed harmony of emotions. What we try to do each year is to take at least one day on the anniversary of Jed’s death or near to it to create space to honour the weight of our experiences. We do try to keep Ethan’s birthday a special event for him, that is not clouded by the loss of Jed.
en: What prompted you to write this memoir?
Dan: It was a confluence of things. The first thing to mention is that in our own experience at the time, from the point when it was clear there were serious complications in the pregnancy, Anna in particular read all that she could to help think through what we were facing. To choose to go through with the pregnancy knowing that unless the Lord worked miraculously it would end in death: no one knew how long he might live.
Secondly, we were surprised by how soon people began getting in touch with us, saying [e.g.] ‘Someone in my church has just had a bad diagnosis at their 12-week scan, would it be okay if we gave them your number?’ Neither Anna nor I have large social media platforms, so we were surprised by how many requests of that kind we had.
The third thing is that I had jotted down mini-snippets of journal throughout that whole time. Sometimes, when we would message people, I would go back and gather up some of those thoughts that were worth keeping. At a certain point I had the feeling that I would like to tease out these thoughts in note form into something more permanent. As a preacher I sometimes read a Biblical text that has a personal impact on us, but it requires some thought to express its meaning to a wider situation. We longed for a resource that would speak to us and point us to the gospel repeatedly. I was given a sabbatical from my church, which enabled me to write.
en: This book is a collaboration, it was useful have other voices of people who have lost sons (Tim Challies and Chris Mouring). Why did you choose to do that?
Dan: The publisher suggested that it would be good to expand the focus of the book slightly more. With some adjustments and the addition of Chris’ story of the loss of an older child, the book can serve a wider range of people who have encountered loss.
en: What are the distinctive voices of Dan and Anna in the book?
Dan: The way we worked, was that I wrote the first draft and Anna tended to be good at critique and rewriting. Every chapter is both of our voices.
en: You write: ‘You don’t necessarily need to consider yourself a follower of Jesus to read this book.’ How did making that statement make you think carefully about what you wrote?
Dan: I am not sure that we have fully achieved what we set out to do, but it was certainly our aspiration. We wanted this to be a book that, whoever’s hands it found its way into, we were not taking anything for granted or assuming any Biblical or theological knowledge.
We tried when writing to imagine a mum who comes to a Mother and Toddlers group occasionally. No one knows where she is at spiritually. One day she comes to the group in tears because she has had a scan and received terrible news and does not know what to do. If someone might give her a copy of the book, we pray that it would give her some comfort from the gospel and give a pause for thought about not terminating the pregnancy.
We are also aware that grief has a way of wrong-footing us to such a degree that we should not be taking Biblical literacy for granted. We found it refreshing to articulate the tenderness and grace of the Lord Jesus to someone who was stone cold to Him in their prior awareness.
en: How has the process of writing this memoir helped you process your grief?
Dan: I forget where in the book we mention it, but we do talk about the value of writing things down. We were really grateful to God that the sabbatical happened. It was delayed because of Covid, so in the Lord’s providence it happened when it did – last summer. We were three years on, so everything was recent enough to be very memorable, but also far enough away for it to be something we could start to write about without it being constantly very raw.
It was really helpful to have the time and space over a Bible passage to tease out how you bring this to bear on a particular aspect of hearing bad news or supporting those who are grieving. Perhaps it is not until you begin to put things into words that you experience a greater clarity in knowing things. We are now even more clear than before that the Lord is near to the broken-hearted.
en: You write with both human tenderness and a robust theology – that seems like a winning combination; why is that important?
Dan: I think it is like an intensification of the Christian life. We use the idea of the liminal zone of grief and hope. The mixed tears are a reflection of a grief observed; we are saying how was it, like when we held Jed, we were crying, not just tears of grief, but also of overwhelming thankfulness that the resurrection is true. Our aspiration was to hold out to people that the gospel is experientially fulfilling as well as really true.
en: Did your medical background make this experience less, or scarier?
Dan: On balance, less scary. We did not mention in the book that I had worked on the very ward were Jed had been. For a lot of people hospitals are an intimidating environment. We were thankful that we were not in an unfamiliar environment. In the early stages we were more prone to let our minds run away with us.
en: You speak of awkward moments. Yet throughout the book you speak about the kindness of fellow believers in wisely providing you with space, caring for you and supporting you in practical ways. What did (being on the receiving end of care) teach you about what it means to wisely care for people at vulnerable times?
Dan: What an enormous difference seemingly tiny things can make to people who are at the very end of their tether. Someone who pauses for a little bit longer either to listen or before they answer; those who are willing to pause a little longer in silence; the person who does not know what to say telling us that they do not know what to say. These tiny micro elements of human interaction that releases the pressure valve. There is a moment of human connection and true sympathy. I feel more convinced as a pastor and a human being of the significance of the micro level of human interaction. In relation to that, giving someone a voucher to go and buy a coffee at Costa or get a meal at M&S can make a difference.
Coming back to the awkwardness word. We say that awkwardness can be the zone of truth. People who are trying to sympathise find that we are all out of our comfort zone there. In a sense people being prepared to be awkward is itself a function of love, because they are trying to be understanding and helpful.
en: The book is very practical. You are an intelligent and resourceful couple with a supportive family and church network. What might Christians have to offer those who go through these experiences without those resources?
Dan: In a sense that is part of our hope for the book. Our editor was very good at repackaging chapters into smaller sections and practical postscripts that help to make the book more accessible. Our aim for the book is to strengthen the arm of leaders in local churches to know how to walk alongside people in their churches who might be going through something like this. In the chapter entitled Walking Together, we, at the risk of patronising some readers, seek to lay down the ground rules for why we love in the first place.
en: Amongst the practical things you suggest are taking help when offered by family, friends and health professionals; a mini-journal; a playlist of helpful music; and keeping an eye on yourself, especially the tally of stress points in our lives. As Christians, can we sometimes ignore the importance of practical details?
Dan: One metaphor we had in an early draft was the metaphor of architecture. I think it was Winston Churchill who said that ‘we design our architecture and then it designs us.’
Once you set up all these practical things, they eliminate a whole load of decisions. We set up a WhatsApp group early on and we were grateful because anyone who wanted updates could go to one place. Simplifying is always helpful, especially when grieving. We also thought that it was important to stress that we have limitations and need to remember that we are dust.
en: In what ways do you think that you have been changed permanently by this experience?
Dan: One thing is that there is no way that we can be fully invested in this life. As Christians prior to the loss of Jed we would have liked to have thought that we were not living for this life. There is also a sense that the prospect of full joy and completeness in this life has gone. We will never have a time when we are not tinged by the loss of Jed. That confronts one with this choice: you either opt for despair if the gospel is not true, or there is this indelible reminder of the hope that we have. There is a particular sense in which Anna and I feel it because we are in full-time, paid gospel ministry. Every time we think of Jed, we think that there is nothing better that we could be doing right now. Our other children are very young, but they have an acceptance of the brokenness and suffering of this age more than they would have done. They have a ‘looking beyond this life to heaven’ perspective on life that they would not have otherwise had. Whilst we would never ask for a season of trial, we are confident that He will carry us through.
en: If people were to remember one thing from this book, what would you like it to be?
Dan: Those who weep in Christ will shout with joy.
An extract from the book:
Grief can make you feel that you are in a storm from which you doubt you will ever emerge. You might be in the midst of a darkness so empty and bleak that you doubt it will ever clear. The heartache – the broken-heartedness – is an exhausting, crushing, daily reality. It lingers for a long time.
With all this going on, we also need to navigate relationships with other people whose understanding of what’s happening to us or whose experience of life does not match our own. Awkwardness here is actually not always a bad thing. Sometimes it’s the mark of people trying to show love and compassion, but clumsily. This is seen in lots of areas of church life. Someone new walks in and you try to talk to them and welcome them, awkwardly trying to know what to ask and say to put them at ease and find common ground. A non-Christian friend asks you a question about Christianity, and you fumble over the right words to explain clearly why you believe what you believe.
Or you hear that a couple in church are pregnant but that there are major problems with the baby’s development. You see they’re sitting right next to you. You want them to know how heartbroken you are for them, but aren’t sure they’d like you to mention it at all. You ask if they’d like a coffee from the back of church. She’s clearly trying to hold back tears and looking down at the floor. He just says, ‘No thanks, we’re ok’. Even with the best of intentions, it’s awkward.
If you feel awkward around neighbours, friends and church family members who don’t understand what you’re going through or aren’t sure what to say, remember that these difficult interactions are often a sign of care. People are not fluent in this – who possibly could be? Awkwardness is often the zone of truth, and humanness, and self-giving effort.
One of the Bible’s most famous passages has this to say about love:
‘Love is patient and kind … it is not irritable or resentful… Love bears all things … endures all things’ (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).
A commitment to love is a commitment to endure awkwardness with patience and kindness – and this applies to us as sufferers as much as it applies to those whose attempts to love us sometimes go awry.
One thing that helped us to act with patience and kindness was having a few very simple conversational ‘scripts’ ready. For instance, when passing strangers congratulated us on Anna’s bump, we would smile and accept their congratulations with a ‘thanks’ – seeking to love them and prevent awkwardness on their part. We would not share that it was a twin pregnancy, or the burdensome information about Jed’s prognosis. (Our girls, however, had no such compunction: if they were around when a poor, unsuspecting stranger complimented Anna on her bump, the stranger would receive a matter-of-fact, ‘There are two boys in there but one of them is going to die.’ This was usually followed by gaping and scrambling for words by the stranger and some serious explaining by Anna or Dan. It shouldn’t have been funny but the girls’ straightforwardness about the situation sometimes brought a wry smile to our lips.) To others who clearly wanted to talk more, we’d say: ‘Thank you. Actually, we’re having twin boys. But sadly, one of them has got really major health problems. He’s not expected to live, although we’re praying that he will.’ Sometimes we were given opportunities to talk about how our faith in Jesus was transforming our experience of the dark valley.
When people at church asked us how we were doing, but we didn’t feel we had the emotional energy to go into lots of detail there and then, we would say: ‘Thanks. We’ve been up and down, to be honest, but God’s grace has been sufficient every single day. We really appreciate your prayers.’
Knowing what we’d say in advance meant we had a short, simple, honest answer to give. It didn’t shut the conversation down, but neither did it require people to hold a long conversation that neither they nor we were quite prepared for. We found that people – friends and strangers alike – usually showed touching levels of human compassion for us, for which we were so grateful. We learned that a small step of honesty and vulnerability on our part helped others to relate in a human and vulnerable way in turn.
Usually, but not always. What about the bizarre, trite, or outright offensive comments people sometimes make? At least a couple of people said (almost word for word), ‘Of course he’s going to live – you just need to be positive!’ We came to realise that such people were not intending to be profoundly insensitive. They were, nevertheless, blindly selfish. Such a comment is really about not having to engage with the painful and awkward reality you’re confronted with. For some people, it is just more comfortable to continue believing that, with enough positivity, all of life can be controlled. The first such comment left us speechless. After that, we were less surprised and were able to end the conversation with a polite ‘Thank you. We’re definitely praying all the time.’ You never know how people reflect afterwards. One person later came to us and said, ‘I’m so sorry for how I reacted when you first told me about Jed’s problems. I really didn’t know what to say and just said the first thing that came into my head.’
We were surprised and blessed at how, with a few people, us sharing what was going on with us led them to share their own personal experiences of the loss of a child. For some, this was the loss of their baby many decades prior. Others shared how they had had a sibling who had died in childhood, and what a lasting impact that had had on their whole life into adulthood. Others shared how awful the experience of having a stillborn child had been, such that they would rarely mention it even to close friends. We have been humbled to realise how many people all around us are marked in some way by the tragedy of the loss of a child. We have been blessed with some wonderfully enriched friendships through people’s kind willingness to share their own stories with us, after hearing our own little honest summary.
Our solid Saviour
A boy is at death’s door with a fever. Realising his son is about to die, the father, a royal official, treks about 18 miles to beg Jesus to come and heal his son. But instead of accompanying the father back to his home, Jesus just says, ‘Go; your son will live’ (John 4:46-54). What a staggeringly trite and insensitive thing to say – unless Jesus speaks the truth. Sure enough, the father trails home to find that his son was healed at the very moment that Jesus spoke.
Jesus’ response initially seems awkward, jarring: it isn’t what the father wanted. But Jesus’ words turn out to be solid, true and sure – as they do again and again across the Gospels. Jesus’ words are not always what we want to hear, but they are always true. We can abide and live in them.
We began this chapter by recognising that to have a child with severe health problems is to be constantly confronted by your lack of control. The Bible’s invitation to us is to leave behind our desperate need to control, and to rest in the love of our Father, who is good. To live in the liminal zone in real time as we keep abiding in the words of Jesus. To love others even when what they say stings.
Part of the ache of suffering is that it can’t quite be ‘weighed’ or quantified in any objective way; this is the lament of Job, who suffered terribly (Job 6:2-3). There is no clear, consistent, easy way to communicate to others just what a burden we are carrying. It’s not like sharing the price of petrol, or the current temperature outside. But although our suffering cannot be adequately articulated, it can be known – and it is known by the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the most dependable person in the universe.
The very same voice of Jesus that spoke outrageous hope to the father in John 4 promises to wipe away every tear from His people’s eyes. He declares: ‘Behold, I am making all things new!’ (Revelation 21:5). We will return to this glorious hope in the final chapter.
Read the review of this book here
