Faithful Paradox

I have a son who survived an oftentimes fatal, catastrophic pediatric seizure disorder as a baby. The disorder caused brain damage, developmental disabilities, and he has struggled with seizures now for 16 years.

After a particularly terrible seizure last week, one of his brothers sat in my room in tears. He was unable to sleep after his brother-roommate had this episode. He was bunked up in my room while my husband kept watch over our son in the boys’ room. Between watching this brother seize and also losing his oldest brother to cancer, my son said, “This life is so hard.”

There are times as a mom when I have no idea how to respond outside of, “Yes, you’re right. It is.”

Shepherding our kids through pain and suffering is hard. For parents, it can feel like we carry a double portion of grief; we carry our own grief, but also that of our grieving kids. Whatever may come, as parents we are called to lovingly shepherd the children God has entrusted to our care through every high and low. What a privilege to walk with them, pointing them to Christ, despite the pain that often accompanies this calling.

Each child has different and unique needs, and while this list is certainly not exhaustive, here are six ways I have worked to shepherd my own kids’ hearts through pain and loss.

1 God’s character must be foundational.

When a family faces suffering and loss, questions inevitably arise: Can God be trusted? How is he good when this is what he allows?

I’ve struggled with some of those questions in my own wrestling yet I have the advantage of decades of walking with the Lord. My kids only have a few years of knowing Jesus.

As I urge my own heart to recall, I also remind my boys that God is only good and kind. I will often say things like: “I don’t understand what he is doing, but God is only good.” or “This feels deeply confusing right now, but I know God loves us.” and “I cannot fathom what God is up to, but I know he is kind.”

The character of God has to be the foundational piece of where we point our kids in the midst of suffering. Even when we struggle to believe or understand it ourselves, we must teach our own hearts and our children to speak what is true until emotions follow in belief.

2. It’s okay to admit you don’t have all the answers.

As parents, it can feel like we need to have the right answers in order to point our kids to Christ. Yet there are times, often in the midst of suffering, where we simply don’t have the answers. We feel as confused as our children do about the suffering God has allowed.

I used to fear that exposing my own struggles with or confusion about what God was allowing would somehow impart doubt into the hearts of my boys. As we have all matured, however, I have learned that inviting my kids into my own wrestling can be a beautiful opportunity to model for them the frail weakness of human effort and the all sufficient faithfulness of God. I have worked toward being transparent with my children, in age-appropriate ways, inviting them to see glimpses of my own wrestling with God.

Our kids need to see authentic faith; not perfectly performed faith. They need to understand a piece of learning to trust God is meeting him on the wrestling mat. While we know God will win the match, showing up to wrestle is a part of growing in faith.

God doesn’t expect perfect faith or polished belief; even from parents. While we are certainly called to model faith for our children, that modeling includes both steadfast faithfulness and the battle for right belief. What better place for children to learn these lessons than from their own parents?

3. Ask your children about their feelings toward God.

I have made it a practice to periodically ask my children, “how is your heart toward God right now?” Often, our feelings about God during times of pain and disappointment are the spaces where the enemy can plant seeds of doubt about God’s love and character. I desire to hear from my boys. I want to both know their hearts and also point them back to Jesus in the places they have strayed or maybe believed lies.

When we lost our oldest son to cancer, I asked one of my sons about his heart toward God. He said, “I know God is faithful, but he wasn’t faithful in this.”

I responded to him, “It sure feels that way, doesn’t it?”

We then had the opportunity to talk about God’s faithfulness. God never promised to heal Ezra here on earth, despite how much we longed to see him do that. He did promise to hold Ezra to the very end, and God was faithful to what he promised. We also talked about how God has healed Ezra in heaven, so there is faithfulness we cannot yet see but is no less true.

Take the time to hear what your kids are feeling about God in the midst of loss and suffering. Let them know that what they are feeling makes sense, given the loss they are experiencing. And then prayerfully and gently point their hearts back to the truth.

4. Pray with your kids.

When my son was seizing last week, after the emergency had passed, I looked over my shoulder and saw my other sons in the hallway watching with horror and tears. It never gets easier to watch a seizure and it’s always scary.

I walked into the hall, pulled them both into a hug and prayed. I prayed for their brother and I also prayed for their hearts. I confessed I was afraid and struggling to trust God at the moment and asked God to give us all the faith we needed to trust him.

As parents, there are countless moments where we have no idea what to do or say. At times we are so far out of our depths and there is no clear way to reassure our kids. As we grieve and struggle as parents, we also bear the weight of trying to comfort our children’s suffering hearts. In these moments, the only thing I know to do is pray with my boys. Part of that prayer is often, “Jesus, I don’t know what to do right now. I need your help.”

The beauty of these prayers is that it teaches our kids that there are times all we can do is cry out to Jesus. Often nothing changes; at least not instantly, but there is faith and surrender in the discipline of prayer as the first line of action.

Going to the Lord with our children over and over with our prayers can teach our kids what faithfulness looks like, even in the midst of disappointment and loss.

5. Point their hearts to eternity.

As a kid, I assumed my life would be full of rainbows and unicorns. I rarely considered loss or the reality of death. I was heavily influenced by false gospels, assuming that because I was a follower of Jesus, he would somehow protect or shelter me from life’s cruelest trials. Outside of bike crashes or the occasional set of stitches, I suffered very little.

My kids have faced far more hardship than I did as a child. They have tasted some of life’s most bitter realities at a much younger age than I ever did. I hate this for them. I grieve that in many ways, they have had to grow up more quickly than a lot of other children.

A piece of redemption I can find in this, however, is that their hearts are not nearly as tethered to the world as mine was. We have been able to talk often about salvation and eternity; the truth that because they know and love Jesus, whatever sorrows they face here on earth are the worst they will ever experience. While there is certainly good that God has for them in the midst of hardship, often this good is veiled or cannot be understood; at least for a time. One day, because of Christ, these sorrows and pains will both be understood and be redeemed. The grief and loss my kids have had to bear has provided the opportunity to help them look beyond what little this world can offer toward something far greater.

Continually reminding our children that this world is not their home is a gift we can give them. Reminding them that Jesus has so much more for them, exhorting them to remain steadfast in the midst of pain, while helping them see what good they can is one way to shepherd our kids through that pain. It doesn’t fix the grief. It doesn’t lift the sorrow. It doesn’t make it any easier to endure, but it does remind both their hearts and ours that this is not all there is. We have an eternity with Christ to anticipate.

6. Entrust their stories to Jesus.

Entrusting my boys’ stories to God is still hard for me. After my son’s seizure the other night and my other son’s tearful expression of despair, I texted a friend and said, “I’m really struggling to trust that God is writing a good story for my kids.”

If I’m honest, I am still working through a lot of hurt in my heart as I continue to process the pain we have endured as a family. How can the storylines of cancer and catastrophic seizure disorders write good stories? I know all the right theological answers. I know the right things to say and believe. Knowing good theology is of great value, but good theology does not protect the heart from the pain of being broken. I still struggle with feeling deep disappointment about the story God has written. It’s confusing. It’s painful. I know that somehow, these pieces of my kids’ stories are not outside of the will of a good and loving God, but I don’t understand this yet.

As I shepherd my kids, I exhort my own heart; God is only good and only kind. Then I remind myself that faith flowing from understanding is no faith at all. God has not asked me to trust him because I understand what he is up to. He’s asked me to trust him because he’s trustworthy and good.

I have no idea how God is using these pieces of suffering to write a good story for my kids. I don’t know how God can bring redemption to these pieces of loss and brokenness, but he has promised he will. It may not be in the way I would hope or until eternity that I get to see these promises, so for now, I battle my own heart’s bent of questioning and turn my eyes to what I cannot see or understand. This is no easy task, yet it is one worth battling for the sake of shepherding my kids through the difficulties of life. What a privilege it is to point their hearts toward Christ, knowing it is truly their only hope.