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    Tragedy to Hope: A Guide for Support and Ministry After Miscarriage, Stillbirth and Infant Death
    Tragedy to Hope: A Guide for Support and Ministry After Miscarriage, Stillbirth and Infant Death
    Tragedy to Hope: A Guide for Support and Ministry After Miscarriage, Stillbirth and Infant Death
    Ebook150 pages3 hours

    Tragedy to Hope: A Guide for Support and Ministry After Miscarriage, Stillbirth and Infant Death

    By Don Sides and Linda Sides

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Tragedy to Hope is for grieving parents and for the friends, churches and professionals who help them.

    What can you say, what can you do when a baby dies?

    In Tragedy to Hope learn how to provide caring support and effective ministry to families who experience a miscarriage, stillbirth or infant death. Simple instructions, a training outline and study guide are included.

    You can read Tragedy to Hope with confidence because Don and Linda have "been there, experienced it." They reach deep into the reservoir of their loss and memory to offer practical, sound, wise, biblical guidance.

    From the Foreword by
    Dr. Harold Ivan Smith, D.Min.
    Author and Grief Counselor

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWestBow Press
    Release dateNov 7, 2016
    ISBN9781512761832
    Tragedy to Hope: A Guide for Support and Ministry After Miscarriage, Stillbirth and Infant Death
    Author

    Don Sides

    Don and Linda have provided support to many families who lost their baby during his ministry career as pastor and chaplain to churches, businesses, and military. Linda has been a homemaker, homeschool mom, homeschool group leader and English teacher for new immigrants. They live in East Texas and have 3 children living and 5 grandchildren.

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      Book preview

      Tragedy to Hope - Don Sides

      Copyright © 2016 Don and Linda Sides.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      WestBow Press

      A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.westbowpress.com

      1 (866) 928-1240

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      ISBN: 978-1-5127-6184-9 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-5127-6185-6 (hc)

      ISBN: 978-1-5127-6183-2 (e)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2016917799

      WestBow Press rev. date: 11/4/2016

      Contents

      Foreword by Harold Ivan Smith

      Preface

      Acknowledgements

      Introduction

      Part I Our Baby Died

      1   Tragedy Strikes – A Baby Died

      2   Poetic Reflections

      Part II Grieving

      3   Mother’s Grief

      4   Father’s Grief

      5   Sibling Grief

      6   Churches and Grief

      Part III Help for the Grieving Family

      7   Do’s and Don’ts

      8   Immediate Compassionate Care

      9   Developing a Caring Compassionate Congregation

      Part IV For Ministers and Other Servants

      10   Understanding Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Infant Death

      11   Sermon Starters and Sample Funeral Sermon

      12   Comforting Scriptures

      Afterword

      Part V Appendices

      Appendix A – Definitions

      Appendix B – The Numbers

      Appendix C – Study Guide

      Resources

      Bibliography

      Permissions

      All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

      Scripture quotations marked (ESV) are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      Scripture quotations marked (KJV) are from the King James Version of the Bible.

      Scripture quotations marked (TLB) are taken from The Living Bible copyright © 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

      Quotes from, First Mom: The Wit and Wisdom of Barbara Bush., Bill Adler. New York: Rugged Land, 2004. Used with permission.

      William Barclay, The Daily Bible Study Series: The Gospel of Matthew, Vol. 2, Rev Edition. Published by St Andrew’s Press. © 1975 William Barclay. Used by permission.

      He’s Always Been Faithful New words by Sara Grove based on Great Is Thy Faithfulness by Thomas O. Chisholm © 2000 Hope Publishing Company, Carol Stream, IL 60188. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

      John Henry Jowett quotation taken from Streams In The Desert, by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman, ed. by James Reimann. Copyright © 1925, 1953, and 1965 by Cowman Publications, Inc., and Copyright © 1996, 1997 by Zondervan. Used by permission of Zondervan. www.zondervan.com

      Sally’s Story. © 2001 Brenda Waggoner. Storybook Mentors: Grown–up Wisdom from Children’s Classics is published by David C Cook. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

      To our Heavenly Father

      who sustained us through grief and

      kept alive this ministry of helping others.

      To Him be glory and honor!

      And to our wonderful children:

      Julie, Melodie, Seth,

      and to Paul,

      who we will get to know in heaven.

      Foreword

      A little song from my childhood came to mind as I read Don and Linda Sides’ Tragedy to Hope.

      Oh be careful little lips what you say. . .. Only God knows—and God does know—how many grieving couples have been dually wounded: by the death of a baby and by someone’s misguided attempt at ministry. Never doubt the potential for people to say stupid, insensitive things—words that keep getting re-booted and have a long shelf life.

      It is more complicated because couples grieving a baby are a mirror that reflects: This could happen to you! Or to a couple you love! So, some people—even with the same last name, or with whom you share pews—pull the blinds to avoid being reminded of this pain that does not go away.

      I value that Don and Linda have taken time—since that day when little Paul died, October 10, 1983—before writing this book. Some grief needs to season before it can be put into pixels and into words on pages of books. They offer well-learned, well-chosen words.

      The sweep of this book is wide. It seems to me to be a reveille call for the community of believers to come together and walk through the valley of the shadow of death. The man credited with those words knew firsthand about the death of a baby. His baby. Few of us can walk through that inevitable valley without someone—or someones—who know the way.

      You can read Tragedy to Hope with confidence because Don and Linda have been there, experienced it. They reach deep into the reservoir of their loss and memory to offer practical, sound, wise, biblical guidance.

      Inevitably, reading this book is going to bring you smack into questions you’d rather avoid, How could a loving God allow this to happen?

      This is not a page turner book. Truth is, some of these paragraphs need to sink into your soul. Some need to be reread and re-reread.

      I love the old hymns. Make Me A Blessing nudges me: Make me a blessing to someone today. Because parents and families grieving a stillbirth or death of a baby need help today and the day after today. Allow the wisdom of Tragedy to Hope to stretch your imagination and soul.

      – Dr. Harold Ivan Smith, D.Min.

      Author and grief counselor

      www.haroldivansmith.com

      Preface

      If you are the grieving parent, our sympathy is extended to you. This book will help you and those who surround you.

      For the grieving parent; your grief is a special thing to you.

      Nobody else lost your child, the loss is special to you.

      No one else will have the exactly the same feelings or emotions as you. Your child was yours.

      The grief of a parent who lost their child to miscarriage or stillbirth is personal. No one else carried this baby under their heart for those months. No one else had the intensity of dreams for the baby as you. Your baby was special to you in a very unique way.

      This book sometimes uses the words miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant death interchangeably. These three experiences are accompanied by deep emotions and feelings. Even though the circumstances have differences, many people experience some very similar reactions and emotions when grieving. For these reasons, please substitute any of the terms for your situation if you wish. We mean no disrespect to your situation. We pray God will comfort you during your unique period of grief.

      We lost our baby at thirty-eight or thirty-nine weeks. He was supposed to be normal. And he was, except he died.

      As we go along, we’ll tell you our story. But it’s not our story at all. It’s God’s story. We experienced some dismal days. We grieved deeply. But also we found hope and life even during our sorrow and grief. You can too. That’s why we wrote this book.

      Our prayer is that you will be blessed and supported by family, friends, and church.

      Acknowledgements

      We want to thank God for continuing to prompt us to print this book in order to pass along the comfort we received. We also want to thank our church friends and prayer partners for encouraging us.

      We express special thanks to nurse Betty Bowles who prepared the footprint card for our memory box.

      We appreciate the local church that supported us in so many compassionate ways. Their example is reflected in many of our suggestions.

      We thank our children; Melodie who edited the manuscript and is the best first reader any writer ever had; Julie for numerous suggestions during the book preparation; and Seth for proofing and insights for chapter divisions. We also are indebted to Virginia Sides and Polly Hammer who critiqued and edited for us. We love and appreciate each of you!

      We offer overwhelming gratitude to Dr. Harold Ivan Smith for his reading, encouragement and providing the Foreword.

      We are grateful for the book staff at Westbow Press, including Edward, Austin, Gwen, Lauren, and Bob, who kept us moving with the manuscript.

      And thanks to the many who on hearing of this forthcoming book, said it is just what they need for a friend or their pastor.

      We appreciate Christine Ballard for doing a photo shoot and the resulting authors’ photo that we used.

      And to the grieving parents who shared your stories with us, we have been honored to walk with you in the valley of sorrow.

      Introduction

      A Terrible Loss…

      The death of a baby, whether before birth or after, tears at the very soul of everyone who is close to the baby or family. Nothing, absolutely nothing, can describe the depth of emotion, despair of

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