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In this heartfelt and powerful Father’s Day episode, Ashley welcomes back her friend and returning guest, Eric Schumacher. Eric is a pastor, biblical counselor, husband, and father of nine children—five on earth and four in Heaven. Through his own journey of miscarriage and grief, Eric has become a compassionate voice for grieving dads, and today he joins us to share about his newest book: Dads Hurt Too: A Father’s Memoir of Miscarriage.

Together, Ashley and Eric have an honest, Gospel-centered conversation about the often-overlooked grief of fathers who have lost a baby. Eric vulnerably shares the raw emotions he experienced during each of his family’s four miscarriages—and the spiritual battle he faced with what he calls the “little foxes” of comparison, shame, culture, and loneliness. Through Scripture, story, and deep theology, Eric offers dads a pathway to healing: not by hiding their pain, but by bringing it into the light of Christ.

Whether you are a grieving father, a wife who wants to better understand her husband’s grief, or a ministry leader supporting families through loss—this episode will give you language for the ache, truth for the lies, and hope rooted in the character of God.

In this episode, we discussed:

• Why Eric wrote Dads Hurt Too and the story behind its humble beginnings
• Why men often grieve miscarriage in silence and how shame or comparison can silence their sorrow
• The “four foxes” that threaten our healing: comparison, shame, culture, and loneliness
• What it means to abide in Christ when grief feels isolating and unspoken
• How Jesus’ own grief, sorrow, and physical weakness give men permission to feel and express emotion
• The danger of believing false gospels in the midst of suffering—and how right theology leads to deeper healing
• The importance of spiritual community and safe spaces where dads can be honest about their pain
• How the culture’s devaluation of life impacts grieving parents, and how Scripture restores the dignity of every baby lost
• The true gospel of Jesus: that He meets us in our sorrow, carries our burdens, and will return to make all things new

This episode is an invitation for every dad to know: Your grief matters. You are not alone. And Jesus sees you. He is the perfect Father who draws near to the brokenhearted—and He promises to one day restore what has been lost.

If you are a grieving father—or love someone who is—we also invite you to visit our Hope-Filled Resources for Grieving Dads page. We’ve gathered Christ-centered encouragement, podcast episodes, and practical support to help dads feel seen, supported, and pointed to the hope of Christ in the midst of loss.

Full transcript below.

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MEET OUR GUEST

Eric Schumacher is a pastor, author, and biblical counselor. He and his wife, Jenny, have nine children, four of whom are in Heaven.

Eric has written seven books, including Ours and Dads Hurt Too, addressing miscarriage from a father’s perspective. He serves as Pastoral Ministry Director for the Baptist Convention of Iowa and contributes regularly to Common Good magazine. He also serves as a biblical counselor at the Gospel Care Collective, an online counseling ministry.

Connect with Eric:
Instagram: @emschumacher
Facebook: /emschumacher
Website: www.emschumacher.com

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Episode 68 | Dads Hurt Too: A Father’s Grief Matters | Eric Schumacher

Ashley Opliger: [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Cradled in Hope Podcast. I’m your host, Ashley Opliger. I’m a wife, mom, and follower of Christ who founded Bridget’s Cradles, a ministry in memory of my daughter, Bridget, who was stillborn at 24 weeks. Our nonprofit donates knit and crocheted cradles to hospitals in all fifty states to hold babies born into Heaven.

I’m also the author of the book Cradled in Hope, a biblical guide for moms grieving miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant loss. This podcast shares the same name—and the same heart—as the book: to help you find the comfort, compassion, and healing of Jesus in the midst of deep sorrow.

Rooted in the hope of the Gospel, this podcast is a sacred space for your broken heart to land. Here, we are going to trust God’s promise to heal our hearts, restore our joy, and use our grief for good. With faith in Jesus and eyes fixed on Heaven, we do not have to grieve without hope. We believe that Jesus cradles us in hope while He cradles our babies in Heaven. 

Welcome to the Cradled in Hope Podcast.

Ashley Opliger: [00:01:03] Welcome back to the Cradled in Hope Podcast. Today we’re welcoming back a dear friend of the podcast, Eric Schumacher. Eric and his wife, Jenny, have been married for 27 years and are the parents of nine children, including four precious babies in Heaven.

[00:01:17] He’s the author of seven books, including two written specifically for grieving fathers. Ours: Biblical Comfort for Men Grieving Miscarriage, and his newest release, Dads Hurt Too: A Father’s Memoir of Miscarriage. Eric serves as the Pastoral Ministry Director for the Baptist Convention of Iowa and is a Biblical Counselor with the Gospel Care Collective.

[00:01:38] You may remember Eric from Episodes 50 and 52 of the Cradled in Hope Podcast where he shared his heart with such honesty and wisdom. And today, just in time for Father’s Day, he’s joining us again to talk about his newest book, Dads Hurt Too, and the often unseen grief of dads who have lost a baby. Let’s welcome Eric back to the podcast.

Eric Schumacher: [00:01:59] Hey, Ashley, it’s good to be here. Thanks for having me.

Ashley Opliger: [00:02:01] Yeah. Well, this is your third time on the Cradled in Hope Podcast.

Eric Schumacher: [00:02:06] Yeah.

Ashley Opliger: [00:02:06] And I’m encouraging all of our listeners to go back and listen to the episode where you first shared your story and then to the other episode that you had with us with Jessika Sanders from Praying Through Ministries. We’d love for you to go back and take a listen to those episodes, 

[00:02:23] But today we are really focusing on a new book that just came out called Dads Hurt Too: A Father’s Memoir of Miscarriage. And so, Eric, would you share about your heart for writing this book and really what the Lord has been doing in your grief journey?

Eric Schumacher: [00:02:42] Mm-hmm. Yeah, thank you, Ashley. Well, this book really has its genesis quite a few years ago when my friend Emily Jensen of the Risen Motherhood Podcast invited me to write an article for them, chronicling my experience of miscarriage as a father, because she wanted something to help mothers understand what their husbands were going through. And I’m so grateful for that foresight. 

[00:03:07] You know, when we walked through our four miscarriages, there were no resources that I could find for fathers who are grieving miscarriage. And I remember having a conversation with a friend, “Something needs to be written. We need something here.” And so that invitation to write was really the beginning of this project.

[00:03:23] And so over the course of the last few years, I’ve just had the opportunity to write more and to speak more into the lives of dads who are grieving miscarriage. And so this book is really just a very brief, short, first-person narrative walking through our four miscarriages, what was going on in my heart, and how Jesus was meeting me there.

[00:03:47] And in my experience, I found it so uncommon to hear men speak about pregnancy loss, and what I’m really hoping for is just for dads to realize that it’s okay to talk, that you can share these things, that you can grieve these things. And it’s an invitation into a conversation, really.

Ashley Opliger: [00:04:07] Yeah. Well, I love it, and I love that it is a very short read.  I read it in an evening.

[00:04:13] And I think it’s just not intimidating for someone to pick it up and feel like, “Hey, I can read this short little book in an evening,” and feel seen and known and also receive truth and hope. 

[00:04:26] And what I really loved about it, Eric, and your writing style is that you really just shared very authentically and vulnerably your real raw emotions and just even the honest feelings of, “My wife went through this and her body was the one that was carrying the baby. And am I an imposter to be feeling and experiencing these same emotions?”

And I just love that you really entered in and gave us your thought process and your emotions, because I think a lot of times those are the hard things to say, to really resonate with the underlying emotion before we jump to the hope and the truth that we want to share.

[00:05:07] And so I really think that’s a wonderful gift to the dads who will read this book. I can only imagine that so many dads are feeling many of the very same things that you’re feeling. 

So would you share what obstacles you had to overcome to be willing to share? Because I know you felt like, “I don’t know if I can put myself out there and share these things,” but God really convicted your heart to be a voice for other dads. So share about that journey.

Eric Schumacher: [00:05:35] Yeah, that’s a great question. It’s hard to be vulnerable. And sitting down to write through this, it brought up all those emotions again and all those fears. Is it legitimate to be feeling this way about suffering, about loss? What are other people going to think about me? What are other men going to think about me? What are other women going to think about me? 

[00:05:58] And I know that there’s going to be people who roll their eyes and think, “Oh, just get over it.” Or, “This is a common experience,” and, “Why are you feeling this way?” But I know that there’s people who are suffering in silence and they’re wondering if they’re alone. They’re wondering if these feelings are valid. 

[00:06:16] And one of the things that I come back to is that as we read through the Scripture, we have a God who speaks about rejoicing, and lamenting, and anger, and this whole range of feelings, and particularly when our God takes on flesh in the person of Jesus Christ,

[00:06:30] We have a Messiah who exhibits this full range of human emotions in His experience, and He’s validating that part of what it means to live as the image of God in a broken world is to have emotions and feelings that respond to what’s happening in the world. 

[00:06:56] And we have a Savior who can say, “My soul is sorrowful, even to the point of death.” And He invites His disciples in on that experience. He brings His best friends with Him into the Garden of Gethsemane and says, “My soul is sorrowful to the point of death.” And He says. “Watch with Me. Stay awake and watch with Me.” He wants His disciples to see His emotional agony. 

So, if I have a Savior who experiences these things and is choosing as part of His ministry to us to put them on public display, then I want to follow Him in that because that seems to be a means through which He is ministering grace to us. 

[00:07:44] And I can trust that when I speak, even if I’m not misunderstood, because what happens to Jesus in the Garden, His friends fall asleep. He wants to be vulnerable, and they can’t even stay awake to watch. But my Savior knows what that’s like, and so He will be with me, and He will sustain me in the hard work of being vulnerable.

Ashley Opliger: [00:08:05] Yes. And I think too what you’re saying about Jesus’ ministry and the suffering that He underwent and how He was always being drawn to people who are suffering, and a lot of times when we’re going through pain, trauma, loss, we feel like God is far off. It just feels like He’s distant or aloof or doesn’t care. And that is not how the Bible portrays Jesus or God Himself, the Father, to be. 

[00:08:36] And you had Paul David Tripp write the Foreword for this little book. Dads Hurt Too, and he shares in it that:

In our grief, we will always preach some kind of gospel to ourselves. It is either a false gospel of a God who is distant, uncaring, and uninvolved, or we speak to ourselves of the true Gospel of Jesus Christ with the hope that is found in His presence, power, promises, and inexhaustible grace.” 

Would you speak to that?

Eric Schumacher: [00:09:07] I think it was Martyn Lloyd-Jones who said that no one speaks to us more than ourselves. We’re always preaching to ourselves. And as we walk through miscarriage, we’re natural interpreters. We are trying to figure out what the message of our circumstances, what it means. 

[00:09:31] And so we’re either going to interpret this as, “God has failed me. He doesn’t love me. He doesn’t understand,” or, “I’m not getting what I deserve. I’ve obeyed God. I’ve practiced my spiritual disciplines, and He owes me an outcome in this pregnancy based on my obedience.” 

[00:09:59] And those kind of false gospels of works righteousness or prosperity gospels that tell us if we just trust God in the right ways, everything will be peaceful and perfect, those things are going to produce bitterness and anger, and they’re going to shrivel our souls because they’re not true. 

Or we can let these painful experiences remind us that we live in a world that’s broken by sin, and our bodies are under decay because we live under the curse of death, but we have a God who sees us.

[00:10:21] From almost the moment of the Fall in Genesis 3, God immediately moves into that. The first thing that we read after Adam and Eve’s sin, and they’re ashamed, and they’re covering themselves in their nakedness, is they heard the sound of God walking in the Garden. He was present with them. He moved into their space, and He meets them with compassion.

[00:10:42] He’s asking them questions to draw their hearts out, and at the end of the story, He’s covering them with garments to clothe their shame. And He’s promising that He’ll send a Redeemer who’s going to crush the head of the serpent. 

[00:11:00] And so we can preach to ourselves a false gospel of a God who doesn’t see, a God who doesn’t know, a God who doesn’t care. Or we can remind ourselves of the true story that God has moved into our suffering, literally in the second person of the Trinity taking on flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. He loves us. He sees us. He inhabits us, the presence of His Holy Spirit. He’s died on the cross to overcome, to remove sin, to forgive us, to satisfy the wrath of God so that the curse can be removed.

[00:11:32] And that’s not the end of His work. The day is coming when Jesus is returning, and He’s going to make all things new. He’s going to wipe every tear from our eyes, and He says death will be no more.

[00:11:43] And particularly in pregnancy loss, as we think about the children that we’ve lost, who are now in the presence of God, the fact that I believe these children [will] be resurrected, raised from the dead with imperishable bodies to dwell with us and with our Lord forever, that’s good news! That brings us a lot of comfort.

Ashley Opliger: [00:12:03] It’s amazing news and just so exciting to think that this world is not our home, that Jesus is coming back, and we have so much to look forward to. But you’re right, through suffering and through death, I do believe that it is an opportunity for us to really understand and see the true Gospel.

[00:12:25] And you spoke of a couple of different gospels that sometimes we can unknowingly believe, these false gospels like the prosperity gospel. And I do think that those gospels, if we are believing them as we enter into grief, they are really going to affect how we grieve and process our loss, really, how we suffer, the perspective that we have.

[00:12:53] And that’s something I write about in my book, called Errors in Theology, of how that can really affect how we grieve and why it’s important to have a right theology. And in your book, Paul David Tripp, at the beginning, says:

I am reminded that suffering is never a neutral experience because we never come to our suffering empty-handed. We carry our previous experiences, long ago formed assumptions, our functional theology, what other people have told us, and a host of other things, to our pain and loss. These shape the way we interpret and understand what we are going through. Often we are pulled between bad thinking, the devil’s lies, and remnants of the awareness of God’s presence, His sovereignty, and His grace, while we just wish this were all a bad dream.

[00:13:30] And I could not resonate enough with that sentence, and I know you share the same thoughts because really, from what he said about bad thinking and the devil’s lies, that kind of catapults us into the main content of your book, which you talk about these Four Little Foxes, and use those as analogy of different ways that the enemy attacked you through your grieving journey.

[00:13:56] And so I want to use this framework to lead us into this conversation about the foxes and how the enemy uses them to get us away from God’s truth. So, would you share more about the inspiration of how you structured the book and these foxes?

Eric Schumacher: [00:14:14] Yeah. As I meditated on, “How am I going to share about these four experiences of miscarriage,” I sat down, I outlined the experiences, and then I just really dug into what was going on in my heart and wanted to draw out a unique struggle from each experience that really threatened my heart from being able to process these things in a right way. 

[00:14:34] And that analogy comes from the Song of Songs, “Let us catch the little foxes in the vineyard.” The foxes in a vineyard gnaw on the vines, and they’ll kill the vines. And these foxes threatened what I call the Vine of Grief to prevent from proper grieving to happen.

[00:14:54] Really, they threatened my abiding in Christ is what they did. And so my approach was to look at each of those challenges and see what was going on in my heart, and then how Jesus speaks truth back to those things.

Ashley Opliger: [00:15:10] We hope you’re finding encouragement in this episode so far. We want to take a moment to share some resources our ministry offers to support grieving moms like you.

On our website, bridgetscradles.com, you’ll learn more about our nonprofit and find many hope-filled resources, including free e-books to help you plan a memorial or funeral service for your baby, meaningful ways to honor your baby in your heart and home, and gentle guidance for navigating difficult days like due dates, Heaven Days, and holidays.

We invite you to join our community of grieving moms through our Christ-centered support groups, offered both in-person at our headquarters near Wichita, Kansas, and virtually through Hope Online. These gatherings provide a place to find comfort, connection, and biblical hope alongside other moms who understand your pain.

You can view upcoming dates and sign up on our website. While you’re there, we’d also be honored for you to share your baby’s story with us.

For ongoing support, we welcome you to join our private Cradled in Hope Facebook group—a safe space for grieving moms to find friendship and walk their healing journey together.

To stay connected with us and receive faith-filled encouragement, follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @bridgetscradles, @cradledinhope, and my personal page @ashleyopliger. 

Now, let’s get back to the episode.

Ashley Opliger: [00:16:30] Well, Eric, I love the way that you’ve structured everything. You have each fox, you share an experience, an emotion, and a specific example of how you’ve walked through that, and then you leave us with the truth and the hope that you want to impart. Would you share the four foxes first, then go into the first one?

Eric Schumacher: [00:16:53] The four foxes are comparison, shame, culture, and loneliness. 

[00:17:06] So comparison, I found myself in a few different ways that I was comparing myself with other people. One of those was just comparing myself with my wife. She’s the one who was literally pregnant. Her body was carrying a child, had gone through the process of becoming pregnant. Her body is the one that is miscarrying this child. She’s going through the cramping. Sometimes she’s had to have a D&C. She was induced to labor with one of our miscarriages, and she’s going through these physical adjustments. She’s the one who is physically suffering. 

[00:17:36] And so sometimes in comparison, I think Satan was whispering in my ear. “Who are you to bring up your suffering? Who are you to be sad? She’s the one who’s going through the medical event, so to speak. You don’t have any right to be sad. You don’t have any right to suffer.”

[00:17:52] I also compared myself to the losses of other people. At around the time of our very first miscarriages, which was very early in the pregnancy, we had a relative go through a very painful and tragic ectopic pregnancy, and they had to go through emergency procedures and all those sorts of things, and there was a lot of pain associated with it.

[00:18:14] And so we chose to stay silent because we didn’t want to, and this was wrong thinking, but we didn’t want to distract from their pain by speaking about ours. And that was a form of comparison that prevented us from grieving rightly. 

[00:18:37] And then also, our first miscarriage wasn’t until after we had three living children. And so there was, in my mind, this idea that, “Well, at least you have three children,” or later, “at least you have four children,” or, “five children. So you don’t have it as bad as those who have suffered miscarriages and pregnancy loss who don’t have any living children. And so you shouldn’t be grieving because you have the blessings of living children,” which I think is a wrong way of thinking, but that’s how comparison attacked me.

Ashley Opliger: [00:19:07] I agree, and I see this so often in our support groups, especially women and couples who’ve lost a baby very early in pregnancy, it’s almost like sometimes they don’t feel like they have the right or that they’re worthy to be in our support group because they lost their baby so early. And that is absolutely not true.

[00:19:28] And we have it as part of our Declaration of Faith, when anyone comes to our support groups, that “We believe that life begins at conception and every baby is worthy of being grieved.” But I have heard so many people say that. They’re sitting in a room with women and families who have lost a baby at 24 weeks like me, or 30 weeks, or full term, or after birth, and they feel like it’s not the same, it’s not as bad as that.

[00:19:53] And so then that comparison leads them to a place of feeling like their baby is not worthy of being grieved, which is not true. And they know in their heart their baby is worthy of being grieved, but I think it’s that comparison trap, and that is definitely from Satan and using those tactics to really cause confusion in your heart and your mind and really leads to the next fox, which is shame of like, “Well, I shouldn’t be grieving this baby. It was so early,” and all of those things, and that is not true.

[00:20:28] And I love that you really shared that truth with us because so often until we give ourselves permission to grieve and we say, “Yes, this baby had an eternal soul. I had hopes and dreams for this baby in our family and in our lives, and I am going to grieve rightfully,” and really step into that, I think that’s where healing begins, is giving yourself permission and getting away from the comparison and all of the lies and weeding out from that. 

And so would you walk us through then the second fox, which is shame, and how that started playing a role in your grief journey?

Eric Schumacher: [00:21:08] Sure, yeah. With one of our miscarriages, my wife had to have a D&C, and the doctor invited me to remain in the room with her for the procedure. He actually invited me to sit next to her. I could sit facing her and hold her hand. 

[00:21:24] And I’m not naturally squeamish about things, I’d witnessed several of our children being born never felt the least bit like I was going to faint or pass out or anything like that. But for some reason, I just started feeling uncomfortable. And I chose to sit in the back of the roo,m and then I started feeling like I might pass out. I started feeling lightheaded, probably just because I was thinking more about it. 

[00:21:52] And then I was having these thoughts of, “Wow, if I pass out, he’s performing a delicate procedure on my wife. I don’t want to startle him, distract him.” And so I said, “I’m going to go sit out in the waiting room.” And so I got up and left. 

He was fine with that. My wife was fine with that. Went out, and so I’m out sitting in the waiting room, and all of a sudden I just hear this voice saying to me, “What a pathetic man you are, that you couldn’t stay in the room and support your wife. You should be ashamed of yourself for your weakness in that moment. You have abandoned your wife, and you are a failure as a man.” And that was really hard. 

[00:22:39] And there were other thoughts and feelings like that as well that were perfectly unreasonable, the idea that as a husband and a father, I should protect my wife and my children, and that somehow I had failed to protect my wife and children because this miscarriage happened.

[00:22:59] And of course, there was nothing that I could do to prevent it, but it brought me face to face with my limitations. I couldn’t protect my wife and my child in this instance, and so it threatened my sense of my worth in God’s sight, my value as a man, as a husband, as a father.

[00:23:31] And where Christ really met me in that was by seeing how weak our Savior was in His human life. He became so weak that, at the end of His journey, He had to have another man carry His cross for Him as He went to the cross. And that wasn’t sinful. That wasn’t a failure. That was part of what it means to live in this human body.

[00:23:48] And that doesn’t impact how God loves me. My worth and my value come because, by grace through faith, God has declared me to be righteous in His Son. And He’s united me with Christ and adopted me as His son. And those are lies that Satan told me that I really had to push back against by seeing who Christ was and who I am in Jesus.

Ashley Opliger: [00:24:11] Eric, I just appreciate your vulnerability there in sharing the enemy’s lies because I think a lot of times we’ll hear that voice and we’ll think it’s our own voice, or we’ll think it’s just us being critical of ourselves or whatnot, or some inner wound that we’ve been dealing with. 

[00:24:30] But I really do believe there is a real spiritual warfare in grief and through miscarriage and pregnancy loss, and really any trial or pain that we’re walking through on this earth. I believe that the enemy sees that as an opportunity to strike because he does see us as weak. And it’s almost this mentality of, “They’re at their weakest moment. They are in all this pain. I can take them out. I can feed these lies and let them self-destruct and destroy.” And that’s what the enemy does is steals, kills, and destroys. 

[00:25:07] And I’m glad that in that moment when you heard that voice, that you recognized where it was coming from, who it was coming from. And I do think that’s an important part of it, is having an awareness between God’s voice and the enemy’s voice and even our own critical spirit, of just knowing that there is a very real enemy here, and that he is not above using our greatest pain and loss to use that against us, which just should make us all the more angry at our enemy, that he would be so low as to come after us in these moments.

[00:25:44] And so I just appreciate you sharing that, because I think that so many of us do hear those kinds of things, and the enemy is going to be very specific in how he speaks to our heart. 

[00:25:56] And the enemy does not have access to our thoughts like God does. But I do believe that the enemy and fallen angels, demons, they do study us. They do know us, and they know our predilections and our preferences and our weaknesses and our downfalls, and so I think speaking these lies very specific to our soul in a way that’s going to destroy us. 

And so we overcome that with the truth of God’s Word and with knowing who He is. And I loved your illustration of Jesus needing someone to help Him carry the cross, because that is a picture of His humanity.

[00:26:32] Jesus, of course, being God, He could have gotten Himself off the cross, but He didn’t. He wanted to subject Himself to God’s will because He knew that He was going to be the Savior of the world. 

And so thank you for that beautiful picture of Jesus as in human flesh suffering, but also being fully God and being a Savior who loves us and acquaints with us or understands our own weaknesses and carries us through that.

[00:27:00] And so now I would love for you to speak to the third fox, which is culture, and how walking through pregnancy loss in a culture that does not really value human life in the womb, how that affected your grieving process.

Eric Schumacher: [00:27:17] Yeah. I was struck by what you were just saying about what voices we listen to and the voice of Satan, and as we move into thinking about the voice of culture, I just wanted to note something that I’ve learned from my friend, Jason Kovacs, who’s a Biblical Counselor.

[00:27:32] He points out: In the Garden of Eden, as God addresses His people, who are now in suffering and in sin, He’s asking them questions. And one of those questions was, “Who told you that? Who told you that you were naked?” 

[00:27:45] And Jason takes that opportunity to ask the question, when we’re in the midst of suffering a hardship, “What voice are you listening to?” When we hear these things, we need to ask the question, “Who told you that?”

And it strikes me that even now, as we’ve been recounting these foxes that we’ve dealt with, one has been self, my own comparison, another voice has been Satan, and we just spoke about that with shame. Jason points out a third voice is society, and that’s this fox of culture.

[00:28:14] And ultimately, as we sort through these, we need to be asking the question, “Am I actually listening to the Spirit of God, who speaks through the Son of God, who’s revealed to us in the Word of God?”

And you’re so right that we live in this culture that doesn’t always value life in the womb and sometimes actively denies that there is value to life in the womb.

[00:28:35] I see this in social media conversations all the time. And in one incident that happened for us, we’d returned home after learning about a miscarriage. I think maybe my wife had a D&C at this time, and I needed to run to the store to pick up a prescription for her and some other items. 

[00:28:52] And I got in the car, turned it on, the radio was on to public radio, and there was a politician who was speaking about some abortion legislation that was being debated in Iowa. And he made the comment something to the effects of, “I don’t know why people see this as such a big deal. It’s only so many weeks that we’re talking about here.”

[00:29:20] And that so many weeks was identical to the baby that we had just lost, and he was referring to our child as a ‘it was only’. It was only this much, in other words, to say it doesn’t really matter at this point, that this child doesn’t really matter. And he was diminishing the value of my child for the sake of advancing a political football, so to speak, to have some political wins and to promote abortion, to promote the taking of life in the womb.

[00:29:47] And that just made me, it made me very angry that our culture would attack and devalue these precious children who at the moment of conception are made in the image of God, which means, to be made in the image of God means to be made as His representatives in this world. And the way that you treat God’s representative reflects the way that you think about God. And that’s why it’s so important that we love our neighbors, because we’re loving the image of God. 

[00:30:18] And so it wasn’t just my child that’s being attacked here, but this is the glory of God that’s being attacked here, when children in the womb are devalued, which goes back to the comparison piece we spoke about when we say, “I don’t have the right to grieve as much because this child was only five weeks in the womb compared to the 39 weeks.”

[00:30:36] Regardless of age, regardless of size, regardless of location, this is the image of God. And because God is worthy of glory, every life is worthy. 

Where Christ met me in that moment was as I reflected on Jesus standing outside the tomb of His friend Lazarus. And that passage says that He was ‘greatly troubled’ and that the Greek word behind that refers, is actually sometimes used for war horses as they’re snorting. It’s a word for anger.

[00:31:12] And I think what’s being communicated there is Jesus is looking at the tomb and He’s angry at death. And we see other times too in the life of Jesus, where I can think of the woman who anoints His feet at that dinner party, and Jesus is upset at the way that the men in the room are thinking about and treating this woman. 

[00:31:33] There’s other instances where Jesus is disturbed by the way that people are devalued, and then He demonstrates His love for them. And so I was reminded that I have a Savior who’s also angry at the injustice of human life being devalued, and I’m also reminded that He is the One who does something about it.

[00:32:00] Just as He says to His friend, Lazarus, “Come forth,” and gives us this foretaste of resurrection from the dead,” we are reminded that Jesus is returning to set all things right, not only to raise us from the dead, but He’s returning to bring all things under judgment, to vindicate those who have been rightly devalued, and to punish those who afflict other human beings.

[00:32:27] And so whether it’s through God’s wrath on the cross and the forgiveness of sinners who trust in Him, or whether it’s through Hell, one day all these things that we have the right to be angry about, the accounts will be settled.

[00:32:41] And so I don’t have to drive to the Capitol Building in Iowa and give a legislator a piece of my mind and take out vengeance. Vengeance is the Lord’s. And I’m active in those circles, and I speak into those things because I want to be pro-life and I want to see laws that are pro-life, but I can also rest in the justice of a Savior whose anger is better than mine and He can do something about it in the end.

Ashley Opliger: [00:33:05] Yeah, absolutely. My pastor always says these things that we’re talking about, sin, and specifically he shared this with me when we were discussing everything that had happened to my dad, he just said, “This will be dealt with, either at the cross or on Judgment Day.” 

[00:33:23] And that just gives us so much hope to know that God is a just God, but He’s also a merciful God. And really, through my own journey of walking through my dad’s death is realizing I hate the sin, but love the sinner. And that is an important distinction is that I do believe justice and mercy, a lot of times those two characteristics of God feel very conflicting.

Because as you were saying, there’s wrath and Hell and He’s going to punish sin, but at the same time, He’s merciful enough to die for our sin and be crucified on a cross. And those things just are so extreme. They seem so extremely different, His wrath and His mercy, but they are both part of Him and they don’t negate each other. They don’t conflict each other. 

[00:34:15] And what I’ve really understood about God, and as I’ve been walking this out in my own Christian faith, is that He hates the sin, He loves the sinner. And as Christians, we are also called to hate the sin and love the sinner. 

And so coming back to this conversation about culture and devaluing human life starting in the womb, we can hate that abortion happens and we can hate that people do not value life and are saying, “It’s only 16 weeks. It doesn’t count.” We know that’s not true.

[00:34:48] As you said, every life is made in the image of God and has inherent eternal value because we’re made of body, spirit, and soul. And as you said before, the Resurrection is coming. Jesus is coming back. Just as He resurrected Lazarus, He’s going to resurrect us and our babies and we will have immortal bodies, and so that’s the hope that we have in this.

[00:35:08] But it is hard, and as you shared, we want to lend our voices for truth and for standing for what’s right and true and good. But at the end of the day, it does not fall on our shoulders to make everything right in this world. We can’t in our own power, we don’t have that ability. We have to rest in knowing that Jesus is going to make everything right and He’s coming back.

[00:35:34] And ultimately, for those that repent and turn to Him, He will show mercy. And for those who don’t, there will be punishment and judgment. And it will be, even though it seems so extreme to us, like how could He send someone to Hell for eternity, right?

[00:35:49] A lot of times people struggle with that part of God. Like, “I don’t want to believe in a God that would do that.” That is how extreme sin is, and He cannot be in the presence of sin. And that only shows us all the more, in my mind, how merciful He is in dying on the cross for us. So would you speak to that before we continue our conversation with the fourth fox?

Eric Schumacher: [00:36:13] I love that our God is a God of compassion, and the word for compassion communicates something that’s actually physical in us. It’s like a gut reaction you have to another person’s suffering that motivates you to go and relieve it.

Every time that compassion is used in the life of Jesus, it’s met with a response where it’s not just that He feels pity for someone, but that He’s moved.

[00:36:44] Our God, like we’ve been speaking about, is compassionate. He sees His people in their sin and in their suffering, and He moves toward them to rescue them, to restore them, to redeem them. And that is such good news because it’s not just culture that’s devalued human life. It’s me in a thousand ways that I’ve failed to love my neighbor as myself.

[00:37:10] And the Good News is that Word, who was God and who was with God became flesh and dwelt among us, and He has carried our sorrows. He’s acquainted with grief. He knows what weakness and sickness are, and He died in our place. All the wrath that we deserve was poured out on Him on the cross so that no more wrath toward us remains.

[00:37:37] We are perfectly forgiven. All we can receive from God is His love and His grace and His mercy, and that’s the call to the people who are listening today. Put your hope in Jesus. You can’t fix any of this, but through His death and His Resurrection, He is making all things new. And He is a Savior that is entirely trustworthy. You can trust Him with everything and you’ll never be put to shame.

Ashley Opliger: [00:38:10]  Amen. I love that you said we can’t fix this, and that’s an unsettling truth because we want the control. We want to be able to fix things, and I can only imagine, as the dads that are listening today, that’s also inherently part of how God made men, to be leaders and to be fixers and protectors, all of these things.

[00:38:34] And so when you are confronted with a situation such as losing a baby and you can’t fix it, you cannot make it right, I think all the more it leads us into the arms of Jesus and to the foot of the cross, because we realize in our humanity, our own weakness, our lack of power, our lack of ability to save ourselves, to fix these things that are broken in our world.

[00:39:01] And that leads us to Jesus, who is the only One who can. He’s the only One who can heal our hearts. He’s the only One who’s ever overcome the grave and who promises to do the same for us. 

And for me, I take such great comfort in coming to the end of myself and understanding, “This is not about me. This is about God, and He is going to be the One that makes everything right and wipes away all of our tears,” and really just putting all of my hope and trust in Him and not in myself.

Eric Schumacher: [00:39:33] Amen. Amen.

Ashley Opliger: [00:39:35] So Eric, I want to finish with talking about the fourth fox, which is loneliness. And I love that you vulnerably shared about at this time you had just become a new pastor to a new church and you were walking through another miscarriage and you wanted to kind of keep this to yourself. You didn’t want to burden other people. So would you talk about the fox of loneliness?

Eric Schumacher: [00:40:00] Yeah. It strikes me just the order we’ve been talking about these in, which is the order that are in the book. But you know, the first voice of comparison was really something going on inside my head, listening to myself. And what is it that Adam and Eve do in the Garden of Eden when they discover that they’re naked? They hide.

[00:40:19] They’re telling themselves, “What we need to do is hide ourselves behind fig leaves, and we need to hide behind bushes from God because He’s here.” The second voice we’ve been talking about with shame was the voice of Satan. And you mentioned that He’s always prowling about seeking someone to devour. He doesn’t play fair.

[00:40:37] He doesn’t say, “Wow, this person’s going through a tough time. I think I’ll give him a break.” No, he is a predator. And what do predators do? What does a wolf do when he is looking at a flock? He looks for a weakling that he can separate, that he can isolate from the protection of the flock. 

[00:40:58] And Satan wants to get us. He’s going to magnify that temptation to hide. He wants to get us alone. And really, our culture, as we listen to society, is the conglomeration so often of Satan’s lies plus the voices of a million people in their heads. And the voice of the world is always trying to draw us away from the voice of the Church, where Christ through His Spirit is speaking through His Word.

[00:41:25] And we are tempted, as I was tempted, to shrink back and to just be alone in my suffering and to isolate myself. And I’m reminded that, as we’ve said so many times, that God comes to us through the person of Jesus Christ. He is the one mediator between man and God, and our message of hope is to hear who God is for us in Jesus.

[00:41:49] And how is that message proclaimed to us? God says that we Christians, who are being conformed into the image of Christ, are His ambassadors. God has determined that the means through which His Word is going to be shared is through other people speaking into us. 

[00:42:07] And so our sinful flesh and the devil and the world are going to collaborate to try to get us away from context in which these foxes can be shot and killed, to use an extreme language there. 

And we need to recognize that. We’re having a conversation, and your podcast is a conversation, and our books are invitations to these conversations. We need other people engaging the messages we’re believing and hearing and saying, “That’s not true.”

[00:42:41] And my temptation was to shrink back and say, “I can’t let anybody know what I’m thinking and what I’m feeling, because I’m a pastor. I’m supposed to have it all together. I’m not supposed to be struggling. I’m supposed to be ministering to other people. They didn’t hire me so that they could carry my burdens. I’m here to carry theirs. I’m here to preach truth to them. I shouldn’t need them to say these things to me.”

[00:43:03] And that’s just a lie. And what we really need to do is to be moving in to–and this is hard, and you and I both know all the reasons. It’s hard because there are communities that aren’t safe. That’s why we need Bridget’s Cradles and the support groups that you do, and we need to be educating the Church on these things, but we need to be moving in to community.

Before sin even entered the world, God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone.” Jesus gives an amen to that in the Garden of Gethsemane, where He wants to not be alone. The last Adam in a different garden is saying, “It’s not good for Me to be alone. I want My friends here to see My sorrow, to sympathize with Me, to give Me comfort and support.”

[00:43:49] And that’s really what this book is begging men to do and inviting men to do, to say, “You’re not alone in this. You’re not the first to walk through this. You’re not the first to experience these things. And it’s okay, the need to talk about these things with your wife, with other men, with your church community. In fact, it’s not just okay, it’s necessary. You need to be speaking about these things so that other people can be speaking the truth of who Jesus is back to you.”

Ashley Opliger: [00:44:25] Yes. Amen. Amen. I believe so strongly that the Church, and I say that as in the Capital C Church, the body of believers, we are the hands and feet of Jesus, and it’s a beautiful picture that Jesus can show Himself through the face of other people and through the words of us sharing His truth in the Word of God. 

[00:44:42] And of course, we’re encouraging everyone to get in their Bibles and to read the Bible for yourself, but we’re also saying you need people around you who are essentially regurgitating that back to you and reminding you of that truth when you start to believe the lies of society, the lies of Satan, the lies that you’re hearing of your own mind. Because that’s our flesh nature, is to gravitate to those other voices, I think.

[00:45:18] And when you are saying about society, how it’s really the enemy is behind the voices of society in these millions of people, right? We know that Satan is the current god of this age. He’s the prince of the power of the air. He has so much more power and influence in our world than I think people give him credit for. And that’s not to prop him up, but it is to acknowledge his role in our society and in our lives. 

[00:45:44] Because I think when we act like there isn’t this invisible threat, that that is not taking place. And I think that can be really dangerous because as you said, he is a predator. And when we are going through grief, we are weak and we’re a vulnerable target for him. 

[00:45:59] And as you said so perfectly, when we bring our pain into a body of believers and into the Church, that is where these foxes can be dealt with and that is where those lies are put into the light and brought out of the darkness and we start seeing the truth for what it is. 

And I think it’s so important for everyone listening to engage in these conversations, to put yourself out there. It is uncomfortable to be the one to initiate these conversations and to share your heart and share what your honest emotions are.

[00:46:35] And you might even be struggling in your faith and it might be scary to be the one to say that, to say, “I don’t know what I think right now about God, and I’m struggling with this aspect of God and I’m dealing with that.” 

[00:46:48] But I think, again, bringing that into light where you can have honest and fruitful discourse around those doubts, I can’t tell you how many times we’ve had those conversations in our support groups and it’s like a breath of fresh air and a relief for everyone to just say, “Yeah, me too. I’ve been struggling with that. I’m really angry at God. I want to yell at Him.”

“Okay. Well actually it’s really good that you just said that out loud.”

So will you speak to that, just about being honest with God about where you’re at and how that can lead you out of the den, I guess, if we’re using fox analogies, the den of loneliness?

Eric Schumacher: [00:47:25] Yeah. This past summer in my personal devotions in the morning. I’ve been reading through a psalm a day and just meditating on it.

[00:47:34] And our pastor is actually, at our church, He’s also preaching through the Psalms right now, and I’ve just been struck by how raw and vulnerable and honest the Psalms are to say some things that I don’t know that we always feel permission to say in the Church and as Christians. 

[00:47:57] And we think, “If I was really a spiritual person I wouldn’t be speaking in these ways.” And the biblical concept of lament is: Lament is really a prayer where it’s formally a prayer of complaint where you’re putting a complaint before the Lord. 

[00:48:12] And the typical logic and structure of a lament is, “I know who You are, God. I know what Your character’s like. I know who You’ve declared that You are. And here’s the circumstances of my life, and these don’t seem to match. I cannot make sense of how life is like this, when You say You’re like that. And I’m wondering: How long is it going to be like that? What’s wrong? Why aren’t You being who You’ve said You are?” 

[00:48:46] And typically those psalms resolve with, “Nevertheless, even though I can’t make sense of these things, even though this tension remains, I’m going to choose to trust You.”

And the fact that we can speak these doubts, the Book of Jude says, “Be merciful on those who doubt,” God is merciful towards our doubts. He remembers our frame. He knows that we’re made of dust. He knows that we’re weak. 

[00:49:11] The fact that we can even speak these things is in some ways an act of faith that honors God because we’re saying, “I do believe there’s a God, and I do believe that He’s good and powerful and merciful and loving. It’s the fact that I believe these things that makes my circumstances so hard. If I didn’t believe that, there wouldn’t be any tension. There wouldn’t be any tension here.”

[00:49:40] And I grew up watching Mr. Rogers, and I remember Mr. Rogers saying what we can name, we can manage. Like as soon as we name a thing and admit that it’s there, we can begin to deal with it. 

[00:49:51] And that’s so true in the Christian life. When we can put our doubt and our struggles and our pain on the table and name it, then we can start speaking into it. But as long as we hide it and cover it up, we’re sacrificing the opportunity to bring the Gospel to bear on those things. 

[00:50:24] And so that’s why I love sanctified introspection. I think we should be looking inwardly. I think we should be analyzing what’s going on inside of ourselves, not to stay there as sort of self-centered navel-gazers, but so that we can bring it all out and put her on the table and then do what my friend Jason Kovacs says is make this Gospel Turn, where we’ve looked at ourselves, we’ve analyzed what we’re thinking, feeling, desiring, what voices we’re listening to and all that’s producing inside of us, and then we go, “Okay, what has Jesus done? Where’s Jesus at? What is Jesus saying and how does it speak to all that mess that we just flopped in front of us?”

Ashley Opliger: [00:50:56] Eric, I love the Gospel Turn. I love that it’s this decision to not keep going straight into whatever lies that we’re hearing. We might start believing it, but we’re saying, “You know what? Even though this is painful, even though this is not what I wanted for my life story, even though I don’t understand this right now. I’m going to trust and believe in Your character, and I’m going to have hope in the midst of this,” and just turning straight to the cross. 

[00:51:28] And that’s the analogy, when you said Gospel Turn, that’s just what I’m seeing is this deviation from wherever we’re going, because even if it’s one degree off, in airplane terms one degree off can get you miles and miles away from your intended destination. 

[00:51:51] And so I think when we see it as we’re going to turn straight to the cross, we’re going to go on a straight and narrow, it’s a straight and narrow path. It’s not the wide, open path. And that’s the path that everyone, most of the world, is walking. And that might seem like the easy path. 

Because I think we have this understanding of: We’re a Christian, things are going to go right and things are going to be easy, and it’s really the opposite, I would say. Sometimes it’s harder to be a Christian, and as you said, in all of the laments in the Psalms, it’s like, well, there’s this tension, right?

[00:52:15] We know God is good, but this doesn’t feel good and this world is broken and I don’t understand why I’m walking through this. But it’s this understanding of, “You know what though? In spite of all of that, I’m not going to keep walking down the earthly way. I’m going to turn to Jesus because He’s all I have and He’s our only hope.”

[00:52:32] And so I love that throughout your book and throughout this conversation, every single fox we talked about, you brought us back to the life of Jesus. Every single one. And I’m sure you didn’t even realize you were doing that, but that’s just the essence of this conversation is every single thing we come back to Jesus. He is who we need.

[00:52:55] And so, Eric, I am just so grateful that this little book exists. We are going to be using this as a resource in Bridget’s Cradles, and I really hope that any dad listening would go and find it on Amazon and read this short but very impactful book. So Eric, thank you for writing it. Thank you for being willing to share your heart, your life, your story, and use your grief for good.

[00:53:22] Would you mind closing us in a prayer for dads who have listened to this episode, they’ve resonated with many of the things that you’ve said, but they’re still struggling and they’re not sure where the next step is. Would you just pray over them in their next steps, in their healing journey with Jesus?

Eric Schumacher: [00:53:40] Yeah. Thanks for having me on, Ashley. I’d be glad to pray. 

Father, we’re so thankful that we can call You Father. We’re thankful that You gave Your Son to save us from sin, from death, and from the power of the devil. 

Father, we thank You that we have a Savior who is fully acquainted with our suffering and with life in this broken world, who has been tempted in every way as we are, but without sin, and so He can sympathize with our weaknesses, and promises that because of His work in atoning for our sins and because of His work in living through our suffering, that He knows how to help us. And His throne is a throne of grace where we can run in times of trouble to find help. 

I pray for the fathers who are listening, who are struggling, that You would give them the grace and the courage and the faith to first of all cry out to You, to look to Jesus and to believe that He can help them, that they would hope in Him, and that they would ask You in His Name to help them.

[00:54:43] And then I pray, Lord, that You would bring them into safe, Christ-centered communities and give them the courage to say, “God, this is scary, but I’m going to go talk,” and that they would open up to their wife, to a friend, to a pastor, and that You would prove Yourself to be faithful to them. And we pray this in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Ashley Opliger: [00:55:03] Amen. Thank you so much.

Eric Schumacher: [00:55:06] Yeah. Thanks, Ashley.

Ashley Opliger: [00:55:08] Thank you for listening to the Cradled in Hope Podcast. We pray that you found hope and healing in today’s episode. 

Don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss new episodes when they release each month. You can also find this episode’s show notes and a full transcript on our website at bridgetscradles.com/podcast. 

Be sure to sign up for our email list on our website, so that we can keep you updated on upcoming podcast episodes, support groups, and other hope-filled resources.

You can also purchase my book, Cradled in Hope, wherever books are sold. It’s a biblical guide for grieving moms to find hope after miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant loss. Written from the depths of my own heartbreak, I share vulnerably about losing my daughter, Bridget, and how God met me in my grief. Through Scripture, theology, and soul-deep reflections, Cradled in Hope offers biblical wisdom, practical guidance, and the eternal hope of seeing your baby again in Heaven through faith in Jesus.

To accompany the book, I’ve also created the Cradled in Hope Guided Journal—a beautiful companion that includes space to write your responses to the discussion questions, full Scripture passages from each chapter, and additional reflection pages and guided charts to help you process your grief and draw you closer to Jesus. You can download the free digital version on my author website at AshleyOpliger.com/Journal, or order the printed version on Amazon if you prefer to write by hand.

Are you looking for ways to use your grief for good? Visit our website to learn how you can volunteer or donate to Bridget’s Cradles in memory of a baby in Heaven. 

Do you want a quick way to make an eternal impact? Share this episode with a friend or leave a review on Apple Podcasts to help more grieving moms find the same comfort you’ve received here.

Thank you so much for listening and sharing. Until next time, we will be praying for you. And remember, as Jesus cradles our babies in Heaven, He cradles us in hope. Though we grieve, we do not grieve without hope.