Randy Alcorn's Blog

Charles Spurgeon, who fought depression most of his life and found great comfort in animals, wrote tenderly to his wife Susannah about their beloved dog Punch:

When we drove from the station here, a certain doggie barked at the horses in true Punchistic style, and reminded me of my old friend. . . . Punchie sending me his love pleased me very much. Poor doggie, pat him for me, and give him a tit-bit for my sake. . . . I dreamed of old Punch; I hope the poor dog is better. . . . Kind memories to all, including Punch. How is he getting on? I rejoice that his life is prolonged, and hope he will live till my return. May his afflictions be a blessing to him in the sweetening of his temper! . . . Tell Punchie, “Master is coming!”

Susannah Spurgeon, from her mid-thirties on, was often incapacitated by an unknown chronic illness. Besides writing letters to missionaries and sending them her husband’s sermons, she found great comfort in her piping bullfinch, a bird with a striking rosy-red chest and belly, and a black cap, face, and tail. Charles had received the bird as a gift from a close friend, who said, “I want you to take my pet bird to Mrs. Spurgeon, I would give him to none but her. . . . I know that Bully will interest and amuse [Susannah] in her loneliness while you are so much away from her.”

Susannah saw God’s hand in giving her Bully as a companion:

“Does anyone doubt that this bird was a direct love-gift from the pitiful Father?” asks Mrs. Spurgeon. “Do I hear someone say, ‘Oh! it was all “chance” that brought about such coincidences as these’? Ah, dear friends, those of you who have been similarly indulged by Him know of a certainty that it is not so. He who cares for all the works of His hand cares with infinite tenderness for the children of His love, and thinks nothing which concerns them too small or too trivial to notice. If our faith were stronger and our love more perfect, we should see far greater marvels than these in our daily lives.”

Visitors often spoke of the Spurgeons’ affection for animals. When the Jubilee Singers visited them in 1874, they observed, “We had no sooner entered than he called our attention to the exploits of an enormous cat which sprang through his arms with the agility of a trained athlete; we found, also, that his grounds were rich in birds and domestic animals, for which he and Mrs. Spurgeon have great fondness.”

Spurgeon, in his jovial way, spoke of the birds who sang to God and to him and his wife:

We now have quite a lordly party of thrushes, blackbirds, and starlings upon the lawn, with a parliament of sparrows, chaffinches, robins, and other minor prophets. Our summer-house is occupied by a pair of blue-martens, which chase our big cat out of the garden by dashing swiftly across his head one after the other, till he is utterly bewildered, and makes a bolt of it. In the winter the balcony of our study is sacred to a gathering of all the tribes; they have heard that there is corn in Egypt, and therefore they hasten to partake of it and keep their souls alive in famine.

Church historian Geoff Chang writes, “These animals were Spurgeon’s companions in his home, and he introduced them to his guests as one would introduce any other family member.” Chang also noted that the Spurgeon Library in Kansas City, Missouri, houses “nearly forty volumes on the topic of animals, that once belonged to Spurgeon.”

After Charles’s death, Susannah wrote a devotional called A Basket of Summer Fruit. She included these insights about how birds had instructed her heart:

"The time of the singing of birds is come," and from early morning until the sun sets, their sweet notes are a constant reminder of the duty and delight of thanksgiving. Out of the joy of their hearts they trill forth their gladness for the sunshine, and the opening flowers, and the unfolding leaves; and I have heard the same tender song when the rain has fallen, and cold winds have blown, and dark clouds have swept across the sky. Many a time have the birds in the garden sung a lesson in my listening ears, and rebuked my dullness or my unbelief, by their gleeful carolings.

Were Charles Spurgeon around today, he might be criticized for focusing so much on animals. It’s evident he didn’t think God—the Creator and Lover of animals who brought joy to him and Susannah through them—would agree with the critics.

Would you be surprised if you met Charles or Susannah Spurgeon on the New Earth and found them accompanied by their beloved dog Punch or Susannah’s bullfinch Bully, who spent untold hours keeping her disabled human friend company? I for one would be delighted, but not at all surprised, as it would seem a kindness entirely in keeping with the heart of God.

Adapted from All God's Creatures: What the Bible Says About Animals, Heaven, and the New Earth.

Also see: A Symbol of the Invisible: Spurgeon and the Animal World by Geoff Chang.

Recommended Reading All God's Creatures We Shall See God

While good works certainly cannot save us, they are the result and manifestation of God saving us. In fact, we’re told, “We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10, NIV).

Notice that this verse doesn’t say that God prepared doctrines for us to believe (as important as they are) but works for us to accomplish. In fact, God has a literal lifetime of good works laid out for us. Instead of burdening us, this should excite us! He has purposes, sometimes hidden, in every person and opportunity that crosses our paths.

A recent viral video shows an 18-year-old high school graduate, Jordan Hope, giving an elderly man the shoes off his own feet. Jordan was on the way to the bank when he saw the man struggling to walk across a parking lot in broken shoes.

“I just felt like God told me to go over there, turn around and just give him some new slides,” Jordan said. “So I took off my own shoes. I gave them to him, and I just felt like I brought maybe a peace in his life.”

Jordan didn’t know a woman had filmed what happened in the parking lot, and shared it on Facebook, where Jordan was later identified. She wrote, “Watching this young man take the shoes off his own feet and give them to an older man who needed them truly touched my heart.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awp_eHZaxxQ

Jordan had driven away after the initial encounter, but felt compelled to turn around, where he found the elderly man inside Walgreen’s. He paid for the man’s purchase, and then took his new friend to lunch, where he learned that his wife had died recently. Jordan has stayed in touch with “Mr. Roy,” and even started a GoFundMe to raise funds for his groceries and other expenses.

“I knew a tug pulled on my heart, and it was definitely from God,” Jordan said, who credited his parents, youth pastor and faith when he was interviewed. “He interrupted my plans for that day to carry on His plans.”

This story reminds me of a time my wife, Nanci, met an elderly man at the supermarket who asked her where to find flour. “I don’t know my way around here,” he explained. “My wife did all the shopping, and she died last month.”

Nanci felt God’s prompting to give him one of my books on Heaven, but they were in the car. So she prayed she would see him later in the very large parking lot. No sooner did she get to our car than she saw an elderly man wheeling his cart in her direction. She reached for one of my books, handed it to him, and said, “Are you the one whose wife recently passed away?”

He said, “Well, yes, my wife died three months ago. We were married forty-nine years.” Suddenly Nanci realized it wasn’t the same man. But he was clearly grateful to receive the book, and Nanci felt certain he would read it. (Perhaps all the more because a total stranger seemed to know his wife had recently died!)

Since God is sovereign and is the orchestrator of divine appointments, Nanci knew her act of love was intended for this man after all. When we allow ourselves to be vessels of God’s generosity and love, those on the receiving end experience joy, and we experience the pleasure of seeing God at work through us.

Sadly, many Christians have come to think of works as a dirty word. It isn’t! True, God condemns works done to try to earn salvation or to impress others (Isaiah 64:6; Hebrews 9:14). But our Lord enthusiastically commends good works done for the right reasons (Matthew 6:4). James wrote, “Faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless. . . . If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom” (James 2:17; 3:13, NLT).

Where we spend eternity, whether Heaven or Hell, depends on the object of our faith. But our works demonstrate the authenticity of our faith. One of the mental hurdles some of us must get past is understanding the difference between salvation by faith and serving God by works. Let me be clear: Salvation is 100 percent about God’s work for us. No work can save us except the work Christ did on the cross on our behalf. But because He has endowed us with Christ’s righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21), we can now do works that please God and for which he is glad to reward us. In fact, Jesus “will reward each person according to what they have done” (Matthew 16:27, NIV).

Scripture says of the church, Christ’s bride, “‘Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.’ (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.)” (Revelation 19:8, NIV). In a book I wrote years ago, one of my editors deleted that parenthetical statement about righteous acts, thinking I’d made it up and it was bad theology. He had no idea he was deleting God’s inerrant words!

God would not promise us rewards if He didn’t want us to have or desire them. And He wouldn’t promise to reward our works unless He truly valued them.

Because God created us in His likeness, we follow His example when we do good works. Christ-followers do good works out of a heart of love but also “so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive” (Titus 2:10, NIV). Our goodness and generosity point others to the goodness and generosity of our God.

Recommended Reading Giving Is the Good Life (Softcover) The Law of Rewards (Softcover)

At a seminar, fifty people who knew each other were given five minutes to find the balloon with their name on it. Everyone searched, but no one found theirs in the allotted time. Then they were asked to collect any balloon and give it to the right person. Within minutes, each person had his or her own balloon.

The speaker began by saying, “Our happiness lies in the happiness of other people. Give them their happiness; you will get your own happiness.”

Psychologist Bernard Rimland conducted a study in which participants were asked to list ten people they knew best and to label them as happy or not happy. When they finished, they were to go through their lists and this time label each person as selfish or unselfish, using the following definition of selfishness: “A stable tendency to devote one’s time and resources to one’s own interests and welfare—an unwillingness to inconvenience one’s self for others.”

What did Rimland discover? According to his research paper “The Altruism Paradox,” everyone who was labeled happy was also labeled unselfish. Those “whose activities are devoted to bringing themselves happiness . . . are far less likely to be happy than those whose efforts are devoted to making others happy.” In a remarkable conclusion, he said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

It’s not every day that we see a direct quote from Jesus in a psychological study! But the Golden Rule (see Luke 6:31) sums up Rimland’s findings perfectly. This idea of selflessness appears in other Scripture passages as well, such as Philippians 2:3-4, NASB: “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.”

According to the study, looking out for the interests of others is in our best interests! Selflessness seems to be strangely counterintuitive to us, perhaps because we imagine that sacrificing for others is an act of holiness that’s contrary to happiness. But consider this striking passage, which appeals to us to help the hungry and needy by promising great happiness if we do:

If you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom will become like midday. And the Lord will continually guide you, and satisfy your desire in scorched places, and give strength to your bones; and you will be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. Isaiah 58:10-11, NASB

What is gloom but unhappiness? What will satisfy our desires, give us strength, and make us like a watered garden (in short, make us happy)? Giving of ourselves to help others. This is no abstract spiritual blessing—it’s a concrete promise of personal happiness!

The “spiritualized” thinking goes, Care nothing about your happiness; devote your life to making others happy. The biblical and realistic thinking is, You can make others, God, and yourself happy at the same time—by serving others. When we invest ourselves in others, everyone wins.

Jesus said we should focus on what’s bigger than ourselves: “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). We are better off with others-centered humility than self-centered arrogance: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves” (Philippians 2:3, NIV).

In God’s world, happiness is found in discovering what’s truly in our self-interest: loving God and our neighbor. This profound, paradigm-shifting concept, understood correctly, makes the false dichotomy obvious in the question, “Should I serve others, or should I act in my own best interests?”

Recommended Reading Does God Want Us to Be Happy? God's Promise of Happiness Happiness (softcover)

I had a great time talking with Melissa Kruger and Courtney Doctor on their podcast from The Gospel Coalition called The Deep Dish. In fact, as I mentioned at the beginning of our time together, I’ve rarely seen our Eternal Perspective Ministries staff so excited as when I told them I would be talking with Melissa and Courtney!

We discussed the New Earth and and the differences between the Present Heaven and the Eternal Heaven, and we also covered some questions about animals related to my new book All God’s Creatures. Melissa and Courtney are dear sisters who love the Lord and His Word, and I thank God for their lives and ministries, including at The Gospel Coalition women’s conferences, which our EPM staff and my daughter Angie have been beneficiaries of. (These are the keynote sessions from their 2024 women’s conference, which our staff tell me they especially appreciated, including Melissa speaking about the Bread of Life and Courtney sharing about the Good Shepherd.)

Here’s a 15-minute excerpt from the three of us on The Deep Dish, addressing misconceptions about Heaven:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85K4Caeg7D0?list=PLPwoFK1MBpm5aWJkm_-X-zxj9kTOAyRwE

And here’s our full conversation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PzuAH2Z9sg

Recommended Reading All God's Creatures Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Heaven Heaven

A reader asked me this question:

Since there will be a New Heaven and New Earth, and feasts, what is meant by “doing away with stomach and food” in 1 Corinthians 6:12-13?

In context, the Apostle Paul is warning us not to let bodily appetites rule us, because the body is for the Lord, not for sin. He is not claiming that resurrected people will never eat on the New Earth. Paul is confronting the misuse of the body and rejecting the idea that “all things are lawful” means we may become enslaved to any appetite. 

As I explain in Heaven, “Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food” describes the temporary relationship between our present bodies and food. When this old body dies, that relationship ends.

In the present Heaven, before the resurrection, it’s not clear whether we will eat or have a stomach. But Paul is not teaching that our resurrected bodies on the New Earth will lack stomachs or that we will never enjoy food. The eternal Heaven is centered on a resurrected earth, where resurrected people will live in actual bodies, and Scripture’s language about feasts and eating should not automatically be reduced to metaphor. Jesus says to His disciples regarding their place in the new kingdom, “that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Luke 22:30).

Augustine points to Christ eating and drinking after His resurrection as evidence that a spiritual body is still a real body. So, it seems that our glorified bodies will still be able to enjoy food, and we will have resurrected taste buds. Afterall, God created food for pleasure as well as nourishment. (See Will We Eat Good Food in Heaven? How Will It Taste?)

The resurrected Jesus invited His disciples, “Come and have breakfast.” He prepared His disciples a meal and then ate bread and fish with them (John 21:4-14). He proved that resurrection bodies are capable of eating food, real food. Christ could have abstained from eating. The fact that He didn’t is a powerful statement about the nature of His resurrection body, and by implication, ours, since Christ “will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body” (Philippians 3:21). R. C. Sproul wrote that “whatever His body is composed of we will have too in our own resurrected bodies.”

My guess is that it will in fact be necessary for us to eat and drink on the New Earth as it was necessary for Adam and Eve to eat and drink. Not only because it is what will make eating and drinking satisfying, but also because while we will cease to be fallen, we will never cease to be finite. The promise is not that we will have no sensation of hunger or thirst, but that we will never go hungry or go thirsty because there will always be enough to satisfy us (Revelation 7:16).

God does not despise the body or the pleasures He created. He created hunger and thirst, and He intends for them to be satisfied. On the New Earth, our appetites will not be frustrated, corrupting, or controlling. Whether our resurrected bodies will digest and eliminate food exactly as they do now, we don't know—but no aspect of God-created physiology should be viewed as inherently bad.

So “doing away with stomach and food” means doing away with the present body’s vulnerability to sin, as well as to decay and death. It does not eliminate the promise of resurrection, feasts, and embodied joy. Whatever form eating takes in the world to come, it will be free from necessity, excess, sickness, and sin—and fully consistent with the goodness of God’s restored creation.

Recommended Reading Heaven

Countless people will assure you Heaven is your default destination, or the reward for working hard or avoiding certain sins. This is false. Salvation comes only through Jesus.

Still, the question remains: how can we possibly know God, and be confident we’ll go to Heaven, not Hell? The apostle John said, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13, emphasis added). But before we can live with God forever, something must radically change.

So we can know for sure before we leave this world that we will live “happily ever after.” It’s not merely a fairy tale—it’s what Jesus bought with His own blood.

Our Problem, God’s Solution
STEP 1

“God created mankind in his own image...God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” Genesis 1:27, 31

God made humans to have a delightful relationship with Him, and that’s still what He offers: “You [God] make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; …pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).

But when Adam and Eve chose to disobey God in the Garden of Eden (see Genesis 3), sin poisoned the world. Now we are all born with the desire to do things our own way, not God’s.

STEP 2

“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23

Through sin, we forfeit the happiness a relationship with the holy and good God ensures (Isaiah 59:2). The result is spiritual death—separation from God now and, after death, in Hell, which Jesus said is “eternal punishment” (Matthew 25:45). Physical death ends our opportunity to enter into a relationship with God (Hebrews 9:27).

STEP 3

“The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23

Absolutely nothing we do will restore us to God. He says even our “good deeds” are like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). So Jesus—fully God and fully man—came to deliver us from death and give us everlasting life (John 3:16). “God demonstrates His own love toward us…while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

Jesus did for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves. When He made the ultimate sacrifice for us on the cross, He said, “It is finished” (John 19:30). The Greek word translated “it is finished” was written across certificates of debt when they were canceled. It meant “paid in full.” On the third day, Jesus walked out of His tomb, proving He’d conquered sin and death (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).

STEP 4

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9

God’s greatest gift is a restored relationship with Him (John 3:36). Jesus, the gift and giver, is the only way to God. He said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

STEP 5

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9

“If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” Romans 10:9

To receive full forgiveness, we must admit our sin. Romans 10:10 says, “For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.” Justification means Jesus makes us right with God. Then we affirm to others that we follow Him.

STEP 6

“Whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.” John 5:24

Jesus freely offers the deliverance we need and the happiness and fulfillment we crave: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13). When we accept His gift of eternal life, God’s Holy Spirit indwells us and helps us obey Him (2 Timothy 1:14).

Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). This is the “good news [gospel] of happiness” (Isaiah 52:7).

“This is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3). The essence of eternal life—the good news of salvation—is to know, love, follow, worship, serve, and enjoy Jesus. It’s all about Him.

To believe in Jesus is to depend on Him for what He promised us, and trust His love, proven by the death He died for us. Once we know Jesus, “in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13).

Make things right with God. Now. Don’t put it off. Confess your sins. Accept Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross to deliver people from spiritual darkness.

If you understand what God has done for you, tell Him. There’s no magic in these words, but they may help convey what’s in your heart:  “Jesus, I confess that I do not measure up to Your perfect standard. Because You died for my sins, I gratefully accept your forgiveness and will seek to follow You wholeheartedly. Thank You for paying the price to give me eternal life.”

What's Next? 

Once you’ve acknowledged Jesus as your Savior, join a community of Jesus-followers. A Bible-believing, people-loving church will instruct, support, and guide you. Churches aren’t perfect, but we all need each other (Hebrews 10:25).

Seek out people who know God’s Word and can help you grow in your relationship with Jesus! Read the Bible, talk to God, share your good news, and gather regularly with God’s people.

“Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18).

If you have any questions or need help finding a church, contact us.

God’s offer of salvation is the best news there has ever been or ever will be! I hope you’ll share this article with others who need to hear about it. (If you’re interested in handing out a printed version, EPM offers a beautiful full-color brochure.)

We also have a version of this article available in 21 other languages. Please pass these along to those you know who speak these languages, or to missionaries serving those who do:

Afrikaans
Arabic
Bosnian
Burmese
Cambodian-Khmer
Chinese (Simplified)
Czech
Dutch
Farsi
French
Indonesian
Italian
Korean
Nepali
Portuguese
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Tajik
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Recommended Reading Gospel Brochure (10-pack)

During my interview on the Building Excellence podcast, host Bailey Miles asked me, “What Does it mean to be a good husband and father?” Here was my answer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9z-R8Xr5r2s

Scripture makes clear that a husband’s first responsibility is to love and serve: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word” (Ephesians 5:25-26).

An unholy husband cannot lead his wife into holiness, which is exactly what God calls upon us to do in Ephesians 5:27-28. We are to follow the example of Jesus and do as He does, “to present her [his bride] to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.”

Husbands, you didn’t make your vows to your boss or your buddies, but to your wife. The best thing you can do for your wife is to become more like Jesus.

Here are some resources on becoming a better husband:

Biblical guidelines: What does it mean to be a godly husband?
Six Tips for Being a Godly Husband
The Five Priorities of a Godly Husband
Seven Marks of a Godly Husband
Bible Truths about a husband’s role and calling(more Scripture, more depth)
From Gil Stieglitz, a short helpful outline of being a godly husband; includes mention of an online video course you could do, which would be good for you and would honor your wife’s wishes
A book I recommend you get and read is  Becoming a Godly Husband ; it looks good and is written by the same person above, Gil Stieglitz

Parenthood is a calling, far more important than any vocation. When it comes to being a faithful dad, the best thing you can do for your children is to love God with all your heart, and the second best thing you can do is to love your wife with all your heart. Our children and grandchildren are an ongoing investment, a gift we leave to a world we won't be part of, but will impact for eternity through the generations that follow us. It takes only money to leave your children an inheritance, but it takes spiritual discipline, “a long obedience in the same direction,” to leave them a true heritage.

Here are some recommended resources on being a godly father:

What Does It Mean for a Man to Lead His Family Spiritually? by John Piper (14 minute audio)
25 Ways to Spiritually Lead Your Family by Dennis Rainey
10 Promises for Parents by Kevin DeYoung
Focus on the Family has a book titled  The 21 Day Dad’s Challenge: Three Weeks to a Better Relationship with your Kids
And here are some past articles from my blog related to fatherhood: Leaving a Legacy of Faithfulness: The Father as Model and Mentor, Advice for Dads Who Didn’t Grow Up with Role Models, The One Thing My Daughter Remembered Most About My Parenting, and Some Thoughts about Fathering (and Grand-fathering)

Finally, this video shows the impact of a father, investing in his kids even when he himself lacked a good role model:

 

 
 


 
 

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A post shared by Mrs Elisha Brown (@thechristlifecoach)

Recommended Reading Courageous It's All About Jesus The Resolution for Men

It’s been four and a half years since my precious wife Nanci went to be with Jesus. The early months of grief were disorienting and excruciating, and even the first year was unlike anything I’ve ever known, though I had experienced considerable loss and grief saying goodbye to my mother, father, best friend (Jerry was my best male friend; Nanci was always my best friend), and a number of other good friends.

A month after Nanci died, I thought I was losing my mind, and that dementia was setting in because I literally had to look at a calendar not just to remind myself of what day it was, but of what month it was. The truth is, most of the time I didn’t even care what month it was. All I knew is that I had Nanci for 54 years, and she had been my soulmate through all 47 years of our marriage, and then suddenly our house was quiet. Her loud, contagious, and delightful laughter was no longer there. She wasn’t cheering during football games, she wasn’t at the family functions, she wasn’t there for our anniversary in May, and she wasn’t present for Thanksgiving or Christmas or the kids’ and grandkids’ birthdays. Her absence felt like a kick in the gut every single day. There is nothing like that loss. I consoled myself that I was grieving so much precisely because I had loved her so much, and still do.

When I say I was grieving, I don’t mean every minute. I kept busy with important things that included pouring my life into others, which is healthy as long as you keep in touch with what’s happening in your own heart. The grief comes in waves, and those waves will continue until I’m with Jesus. And yet, there is healing over time. God reminds me that He is not done with me as long as He keeps me here in this world. He has a purpose, and even though there have been times I’ve wanted nothing more than to just be with Him and Nanci, God knows best, and my times are in His hands. As I live my life, I have the opportunity to represent Jesus first and foremost, but also secondly, to represent Nanci and the things that were closest to her heart. That is a great privilege. 

Other than Jesus, Nanci has been the center of gravity in my life. When your center of gravity is no longer there, it’s easy to fly off out of orbit. But God keeps me centered on Him, and has given me the grace to walk with Him even on days when my heart has been so broken that I thought I could hardly endure. “God heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3). 

Dr. Lee Warren is a neurosurgeon and the author of The Life-Changing Art of Self-Brain Surgery and Hope Is the First Dose, which shares what he learned about grief after his son’s death. He says this in an Instagram post:

For a long time I thought healing meant the ache would eventually go away. That someday I’d wake up and it just wouldn’t hurt anymore. That’s not what happened, and I’ve come to believe that’s actually good news.

…Neuroscience tells us grief isn’t a wound that closes. It’s more like a new neural pathway your brain builds to hold both the love and the loss at the same time. Every time you remember him, you’re not reopening a wound, you’re strengthening a connection between who he was and who you are now. Grief and love run on the same circuitry. That’s why it never fully quiets. It’s not supposed to.

…Thirteen years later, I don’t grieve the way I did in year one. But I still grieve. What’s changed is what I carry alongside it: gratitude that I got to be his father, and hope that this isn’t the end of his story or mine.

Here’s his video sharing more:

 

 
 


 
 

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A post shared by Dr. Lee Warren | Neurosurgeon (@drleewarren)

Though Nanci’s death was a heartbreaking interruption in our relationship, I anticipate our everlasting reunion in a world without sin and suffering and grief, where happiness will be the air we breathe, and where we will be part of the same marriage of God’s people to our wonderful Bridegroom. This means my grief—real as it is—has a shelf life, with an expiration date.

Nanci stenciled this on our bedroom wall, and it is the first thing I see when I wake up every morning:

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22-23)

What else can contemplating the unceasing steadfast love of God, and His great faithfulness to us, do but give us strength for the day ahead? Jesus is my closest and dearest friend as I’ve walked this journey of grief. I can’t imagine life without Him. But in particular, I can’t imagine life without His friendship and my daily awareness of His presence and love and grace. I’m so grateful to know that because of Jesus, what’s ahead of me is a world where God’s children will truly—not grounded in a fairy tale but God’s great promises—all live happily ever after.  

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13).

Recommended Reading Grieving with Hope Heaven

Note from Randy: In God’s providence, this article by Anna Russell appeared on The Gospel Coalition around the same time our ministry posted an article about Hannah Strege, a 27-year-old woman who was the first embryo ever adopted. Anna’s article is remarkably consistent with what we shared about Hannah, and is the perfect follow-up for us to share. Hannah’s parents Marlene and John paved the way by adopting Hannah and her siblings as embryos, and now nearly 30 years later, children who were frozen in their earliest stage of development are being adopted and born into loving families like Anna’s.

Thinking about this makes my heart sing! I have faced huge opposition and disappointments in the prolife arena over the years, as well as seeing the good end of things. But wow, this is one of the best things I’ve ever seen come out of pro-life efforts! (One reader of our blog about Hannah asked what resources exist to help families who want to adopt embryos. Marlene, Hannah’s mom, suggested the adoption scholarships available through my dear friend, author Karen Kingsbury.)

Why We Said ‘No’ to IVF and ‘Yes’ to Embryo Adoption

By Anna Russell

The 2019 Book of Common Prayer contains a liturgy of thanksgiving for the birth of a child and one of thanksgiving for the adoption of a child. When our daughter was born in September 2024, we asked our pastor to come to the hospital to pray both these prayers for our new baby. Not genetically related to me or my husband, our daughter came to us through embryo adoption.

By God’s grace, in 2019 I spent hours during our last year of seminary researching and writing about infertility, assisted reproductive technologies, and the ethical issues surrounding their use. At the time, I thought of this as my latest theological hobbyhorse. It was interesting and important to me, but it wasn’t personal. All that research and writing occurred a year before my husband and I started trying to conceive.

When it suddenly applied to my own life—after nine months of trying to conceive, waiting, and praying, only to be disappointed again and again—I found I wasn’t emotionally or spiritually prepared for the heartache I experienced.

My emotions weighed on me constantly. My spirit felt weak. But my time spent studying assisted reproductive technologies in seminary wasn’t wasted because, intellectually at least, I was ready. I knew what to expect from our fertility clinic once we started pursuing medical help. We knew what treatment options our doctor would present to us, and we knew what we were and weren’t willing to try.

Infertility affects approximately 12 percent to 15 percent of couples in the United States. Many of those couples will ultimately pursue in vitro fertilization (IVF) to grow their families. Almost 3 percent of babies born in the United States are conceived via IVF. Since the technology’s inception, millions of people have been born as a result.

If that’s something you (or someone you love) is considering, I would love to share the way my husband and I approached this theologically—and how the Lord redeemed our infertility.

Why Not IVF?

Criticizing IVF, even among pro-life Christians, is an uncomfortable exercise. As IVF becomes more common, more Christians have used IVF or know someone who has. Most who pursue IVF do so because they’re following an intense longing rooted in the biblical desire for the blessing of children (Pss. 113:9; 127:3–5).

For those with children or loved ones conceived via IVF, these critiques feel deeply personal. Yet I want to make clear that critiques of IVF have nothing to do with the value and dignity of children conceived via IVF. These children are image-bearers made by God, and the circumstances of their conception don’t change that (Ps. 139:13).

IVF is a process by which fertility specialists create embryos (babies at the earliest stage of human development) in a laboratory with egg and sperm collected from the parents. These embryos are then transferred to the mother’s uterus in the hope they’ll continue growing through a full-term pregnancy to a live birth. To achieve the highest odds of success, doctors will typically create multiple embryos per IVF cycle, selecting only the healthiest for implantation.

Most embryo transfers are done one embryo at a time. Unused embryos are then either frozen to be transferred at a later date or destroyed. Genetically testing embryos is routine, as it allows couples to discard embryos with a higher likelihood of genetic disorders.

If pro-life Christians agree that a unique human life begins at fertilization, then just as early-term abortion that kills an embryo inside the womb is wrong, destroying embryos developed outside the womb is wrong. If couples who conceive naturally shouldn’t abort a pregnancy because the baby has a genetic disorder, then embryos created via IVF shouldn’t be destroyed for the same reason.

Technically, it’s possible to do IVF without freezing or destroying any embryos (by purposely creating and implanting only one embryo at a time and forgoing genetic testing). But to do IVF this way is prohibitively expensive for most couples. And many doctors won’t agree to this strategy because of the diminished chances of a successful pregnancy. (Our doctor, for example, told us this wasn’t something he’d be willing to do.)

Some couples choose to create multiple embryos with the plan to implant them all over time. To me, this seems too risky—what if a pregnancy complication keeps you from carrying again, a divorce causes an embryo custody dispute, or one or both partners pass away before the embryos have been transferred? At that point, you’d be left with an almost impossible decision about what to do. However, the intention here is good, and my objection is mostly due to unknown hypothetical risks. Christians could disagree with me in good faith. But this wasn’t a path my husband and I wanted to take.

Why Is Embryo Adoption Different?

Since we knew IVF wasn’t an option for us, we kept embryo adoption in mind in the event more conservative treatment options were unsuccessful. After testing left us with a diagnosis of “unexplained infertility,” and we’d exhausted what medications and other treatments could do for us, we asked our doctor about embryo adoption, which set us on the path to our beautiful now two-year-old daughter.

Unlike in IVF, no new children are created through embryo adoption. Rather, a child who already exists gets a chance to live and be part of a family. An estimated 1.2 million frozen embryos exist in the United States at any given moment. Of these, hundreds of thousands have been abandoned by their genetic parents, and an untold number will remain frozen indefinitely until the parents choose either to donate or destroy them.

Each frozen embryo is a unique human being, made in God’s image and deserving of life. Embryo adoption is a redemptive choice that offers them that chance. It’s possible to lament the broken circumstances that led to the child’s need for adoption while also rejoicing in the gift of becoming that child’s parents—as parents of traditionally adopted children do. Though I lament the need for embryo adoption in the first place, I’m deeply grateful that through embryo adoption, the Lord saved my daughter’s life and made me her mother.

Embryo adoption is significantly more affordable and less physically demanding than IVF. It offers women the chance to carry and give birth to their adopted children, and offers those children the earliest opportunity for attachment with their adopted parents. During infertility, I grieved the loss of the gift of pregnancy, of knowing what it’s like to nurture a new life with my body. Though my daughter doesn’t share my DNA, she did share my body throughout pregnancy, and I was able to nurse her after birth.

Not a Perfect Solution

Though I long to see more Christians pursue embryo adoption, it isn’t necessarily a fit for every infertile couple, and it carries risks and complications. For some couples, embryo adoption isn’t medically viable. Certain causes of infertility inhibit not only conception but also a woman’s ability to carry and give birth safely.

The average success rate for a donor embryo transfer is between 43 percent and 45 percent, a discouraging prospect. We’re so grateful that our first embryo transfer led to the healthy birth of our daughter, but we were mentally prepared for the prospect of multiple failed transfers. A failed embryo transfer carries the same emotions as a miscarriage—a life deeply longed for lost prematurely.

Additionally, as with natural pregnancies, miscarriage or stillbirth can occur with adopted embryo pregnancies. Genetic disorders are still possible. Most complications that can occur in a natural pregnancy occur at slightly higher rates in pregnancies achieved through embryo transfer.

Even assuming a successful embryo transfer and a healthy pregnancy, raising a child born through embryo adoption comes with complications. As with traditional adoption, these children are likely to have confusing feelings about their origin stories and questions about their genetic parents that may be difficult or impossible for their adoptive parents to answer.

Despite these complexities, for many infertile Christian couples, embryo adoption can be a redemptive option that offers a child a chance at life and the couple the gift of a child, while avoiding the ethical quandaries of IVF.

Interested in Embryo Adoption?

If you’re walking through infertility and wondering whether to consider embryo adoption, first pray and seek counsel. Ask the Lord to align your heart to his plans for you, even if those plans don’t include having a child. Much of my spiritual formation throughout our infertility was based on learning to trust God amid deep suffering and unfulfilled longing. The book of Job gave me words for this: “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21).

Seek the counsel of a pastor or mentor who knows you well and can pray with you as you process your grief, consider your options, and ask for the Lord’s guidance. Seek advice from friends who have experienced infertility or done embryo adoption themselves. Being able to talk to just one person who could share her experience and answer my questions gave me the insight I needed to step forward in faith and pursue embryo adoption.

If you’re already working with a clinic, ask your doctor if embryo adoption is available with their practice. If so, this allows you to keep working with the same medical team that already has your diagnostic information and prevents you from having to travel for treatment.

Several Christian services are dedicated specifically to embryo adoption. Though you’ll have to travel if you’re not local, working with a Christian medical team can be a real gift when navigating the complexities of embryo adoption. Services like Snowflakes, the National Embryo Donation Center, Embryos Alive, and the Christian Embryo Adoption Network are worth looking into.

Redeem the Wait

As I write this, my daughter is asleep in the next room. And at 24 weeks pregnant, I can feel the kicks of her little sister in my womb. When we adopted our first daughter, we also adopted her sibling embryo, hoping to conceive and carry again as soon as possible after her birth. We praise the Lord for two successful embryo transfers in a row, and that we get to call these two little girls, who are full biological siblings, our own.

When, Lord willing, our second daughter is born in a few short months, they’ll be almost exactly two years apart, even though their embryos were created at the same time back in 2015, 11 years ago and a full year before my husband and I married.

It gives me such hope and gratitude to know that even before we married, God knew these two girls and knew they’d be ours. He knew we’d struggle to conceive and that we’d suffer through years of longing, but he also knew that as long as we waited for our girls, they waited even longer for us. Their stories are imperfect and complex, but miraculously the Lord “knitted [them] together in [their] mother’s womb,” and they’re so loved (Ps. 139:13).

Infertility taught me that protection from suffering isn’t guaranteed in the Christian life. In fact, suffering with and for Jesus is promised. Even with one daughter healthy and with us, and one healthy and on the way, “happily ever after” isn’t guaranteed for our family.

But I can look to the cross and know God is in the business of redeeming suffering to bring about his kingdom purposes. Our suffering through infertility—and our daughters’ suffering through years of frozen waiting—were redeemed with embryo adoption. I hope more Christians experiencing infertility will consider embryo adoption, too, and find their suffering redeemed.

This article originally appeared on The Gospel Coalition , and is used with permission of the author.

Recommended Reading Pro-Choice or Pro-Life?

I enjoyed sharing about my childhood dogs (Ranger, Champ, and Spike) and my adulthood dogs (Champ II, Moses, Maggie, and Gracie) in my book All God’s Creatures. I didn’t say much about some of them—Maggie and Gracie stole the show—but I loved them all, and Nanci loved the four we had together. (She always regretted not having a dog as a child.) Each dog was a gift from God, and the memories are precious. Here’s more about them:

Champ I

My memories of many nights as a boy sleeping out under the stars are inseparable from Champ, the golden retriever who shared them with me, inside and outside my sleeping bag, peering at me lovingly through eyes of wonder and delight. Looking back, I sense that, in his own intuitive way, Champ knew his Creator long before I did.

One thing Champ loved to do was crawl up on the roof of our house, which was flat on one side. My dad made a little ramp where he could come up from the backyard, and have a wonderful view of the neighborhood. So when people came by our house, they saw a dog up on the roof, but couldn’t see how he got there. We got a lot of comments about that!

Spike

My mother would pick up her little dog Spike, who when he got older than he was in this photo, developed a face so pathetic it could make you either cry or laugh. She would wrap a washcloth around his head so that his bulbous eyes were peering out. She would then tell a story in his voice, beginning with “I was a Russian refugee” and telling tales of his travels far and wide across the world until he was finally welcomed into our family in Oregon. Looking at that dog’s face, you could swear that he was acting out his part. If we’d set a bucket in front of him, people would have put money in it!

Ranger

My family also had a black lab named Ranger, who had a sad story. He got involved with the wrong kind of dogs (notice I am blaming those other dogs, not Ranger?). They went out as a pack and started killing sheep. I remember my mom telling me that dad had found a new home for Ranger, way out in the country. It was only years later that it first dawned on me that my parents were trying to protect me from the probable truth—that Ranger had paid the ultimate price for getting in with the wrong crowd and killing sheep, and surely had not been rewarded with a peaceful life in the country! (Who would adopt a sheep-killing dog?)

Champ II

One of my great delights later in life was introducing my wife Nanci to dogs for the first time. When our girls were small, I told Nanci I wanted to get a dog. Our friend Mindy offered us an English Springer Spaniel. We had the pick of the litter, so I went over and chose a puppy and brought him home to give to our children. Nanci, who had never had a dog, immediately fell in love with him. We named him Champ in honor of the Golden Retriever I had grown up with. (Champ II was a master escape artist, who repeatedly dug under our fence.)

Champ was the beginning of Nanci’s lifelong love of dogs, which I’m confident will still prevail on the New Earth. In fact, she asked me when she had cancer, “Do you think it would be OK if I asked God for me not to rule a city on the New Earth, but instead take care of a hundred dogs?” Given that governing animals was God’s very first command to Adam (Genesis 1:28), I told her I thought God would be fine with that prayer request!

Moses

For a while, we had both Champ and our Dalmatian Moses. When Champ died, Moses grieved his loss. His friend was gone, and he clearly missed him, just like we did. And in grieving his friend, he helped us grieve too.

Moses walked with us through our daughters moving out of the home and starting their own families, and he played with our grandsons. He would let those boys wrestle with and bump him around, and he never retaliated.

Moses was a precious and inseparable friend and walking companion to Nanci. He could also steal food and exit the room in the blink of an eye. He once stole a steak right off the grill when our son-in-law Dan Stump was fixing dinner at our house! (Read what I wrote about saying goodbye to Moses here.)

Maggie

Like every dog and cat I’ve ever had, our Golden Retriever Maggie brimmed with personality. And, no, personality is not the wrong word, even though animals are not persons. If I answered the door or left the room—even briefly—Maggie would always take over my chair (which we both knew was really her chair), pretending she’d been there all along.

Her love overflowed as she would press her body against our side yard cyclone fence, inviting strangers on our road to come scratch her—and many did, every day. Mags would also go out of her way to be stubborn, loving a good battle of the wills, bringing us endless laughter. Nanci would look at her and tell her, affectionately, “Maggie, your mind has a mind of its own.”

When Nanci was in the third year of her cancer, we got the news that Maggie also had cancer. We were devastated, but by God’s grace we affirmed our trust in His love and sovereignty, for permitting both Nanci’s and Maggie’s cancer. (I wrote a blog about saying goodbye to Maggie, and many readers have shared how it’s helped them in their own grief over pets.)

Gracie

Nanci and I were both terribly sad when each of our dogs died. And each of the four times Nanci and I got a new dog, she was effusively happy. Less than a year before she left this world for a better one, Nanci was lying on our lawn to get her face close to our newly acquired eight-week-old double doodle puppy Gracie. She had not been able to sit on a lawn for two years, much less stretch out. Her delight was palpable.

Only twice could we together take Gracie for walks, both with Nanci pushing her walker, once hooked to her portable oxygen tank. It broke my heart that she wasn’t strong enough to walk on her own and even hold the leash of our 12-pound puppy. And yet those walks were celebratory, not morose, because it was the most Nanci had been able to do for months. She smiled and laughed and couldn’t take her eyes off Gracie except to look at me and smile, with no need to speak, because my delight was one with hers. On her final walk with a beloved dog in this dying world, she was “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10). And it was a joy that came into Nanci from Gracie, in a way that could only come through a spirit, a living being with the God-given breath of life.

After Nanci died, sometimes it was hard to be around people. Not once was it hard to be around my dog. I don’t just credit Gracie for that. I credit the God who made her one of a kind and entrusted her to my care. Gracie is no substitute for Nanci, but her companionship has meant a great deal to me.

And yes, Gracie is full of her own unique personality. She plays games with me all the time. When I give her a treat, she runs for her life downstairs lest I or some lurking thief snatch it from her. She pretends she isn’t hungry for hours, sometimes for a whole day, but when I leave the room for five minutes and return, her food is gone even though she is lying on the couch exactly where she was when I left, just like Maggie, pretending nothing happened when I was gone!

The Gift of Dogs

My life without animals simply would not have been my life, and I know many other people who feel the same way. God has used dogs to make me laugh, bring me delight, and show me unconditional love. There have been times when I’ve really been struggling, but then I put my arms around my dog, and God comforts me. Even when you’ve blown it and made a fool of yourself, your dog thinks you’re a hero. Even when you don’t sense much love from people, your dog will follow you to the ends of the earth and die for you in a heartbeat. (Check out this article about a new study showing that dogs’ brains light up when they see happy human faces.)

God can use the secondary delights of His creation to draw us toward Himself as the primary delight. Romans 1 says, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.” God’s qualities and attributes are made visible in His creation, and the higher the creation, the more manifest they are. Animals are His second highest creation. To observe them is to observe their Maker. As I look into Gracie’s eyes, and as she gives and receives love and devotion, I feel drawn to the God who made her.

I hope you enjoy reading All God’s Creatures as much as I enjoyed writing it. My friend Greg Laurie, pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship, kindly offered this endorsement:

Most of us have had a favorite pet in life. They were often there for us when people weren't. No judgment. No bad days. Just pure, unconditional love right there on the couch next to you.

My friend Randy Alcorn is a bona fide expert on the afterlife. He has researched and written more about the topic of Heaven than almost anyone alive. Now, in All God’s Creatures, he takes the questions people whisper in the hallway after church and answers them out loud with the full weight of Scripture. Whether you’ve lost a beloved pet, are wrestling with why God allows animals to suffer, or just want a clearer vision of what eternity will actually look like, this book will point you to the Bible, and to the God who made and cares for every creature.

(Read all the endorsements here.)

Recommended Reading All God's Creatures Heaven on Earth