HOPKINSVILLE, Ky. (KT) – Alpha Pregnancy Care Center is providing a space for women to grieve their miscarried and stillborn children, and process infant loss in a faith-filled community.
Megan Thompson, a board member at Alpha, knows the grief of miscarriage.
“When we think about 2 Corinthians 1, it says one of the reasons that we go through things is so when other people go through things, we know how to properly comfort them,” said Thompson, who has experienced multiple miscarriages. “We have a testimony now to pass on to other people.”
Thompson is passing on her story and comforting grieving moms by leading a group of women through Anchored: A Bible Study for Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Infant Loss. While Thompson has independently walked through Anchored with nearly a dozen other women, this is the first time Alpha is providing the study in a small group setting.
Providing a Bible study to counsel women through this grief is the natural overflow of Alpha’s ministry because Scripture is intertwined with the center’s identity.
“I really think the Bible is the foundation of everything that we do at Alpha, because I think that’s where we find truth and life and forgiveness and direction and comfort in all things,” said Angie Crawford, Alpha’s executive director. “We see…the Bible being a source of comfort, and that God is good and sovereign, and peace and redemption and restoration is only going to come through Him.”
Thompson said Alpha was receiving calls from women who said they were struggling with loss and were ministering to clients who had come in for scans and later lost their pregnancies—and many were asking if support was available for them.
Women were asking questions such as:
–“How could this happen to me?”
–“Where’s my baby now?”
–“How do I relate to a world around me that’s not grieving?”
–“Am I going to be able to move on from this?”
–“How can I relate to my spouse or partner who is grieving differently from me?”
Anchored will equip women to wrestle with and work through these questions.
Thompson is praying that women who attend the study would learn to grieve in a faith-filled way, realizing “that God is big enough to handle their hurts. They don’t have to run from God. They don’t have to be embittered towards God.”
“Our biggest prayer is that women will find the comfort that only comes from Jesus at the foot of the cross…anchoring ourselves to him in one of the biggest griefs that we’ll experience in this lifetime—and seeing His goodness in it, right?” Thompson added. “It’s not just when we die and get to heaven that God is good. He’s good right here and right now, in the midst of our hurts.”
Crawford said local churches can pray for women in their congregations and communities experiencing miscarriage, stillbirth and infant loss. And Thompson noted that churches play a role in guiding women towards the resources at pregnancy centers like Bible studies on loss and grief and post-abortion support groups.
“Churches being familiar with the services that we offer…is incredibly helpful because who knows what a woman is going to pop up with—whether it’s unplanned pregnancy, or the loss of a child, or in any congregation on a Sunday morning dozens of women who have had abortions are sitting there in pain or in shame…and they don’t know where to go for help with that,” Thompson said.
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