Tag: children

No Matter What They Face

I was at a conference in Dallas this summer and attended a presentation titled “Spiritually Leading Children at Home – Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly” led by Dr. Richard Ross. He is an incredible speaker who weaves humor in with the serious while challenging his audience to deepen their spiritual lives. You definitely should look him up!

During this breakout session he challenged us to pray for our children daily. Okay, great! That is easy. Parents are already doing that, in fact, probably even multiple times a day as their children come to mind. I’ll be honest, I thought it was a duh kind of moment. Until he uttered the next words, “Most parents probably already are, so how can we deepen that prayer.” And that’s when his challenge became hard. He said, “I don’t mean that we ask God to protect our children and give them all the blessings. I mean that we ask God that no matter what they face today, that above all, I want my child to bring great glory to God.”

It was the “no matter what they face today” that hit me hard. I don’t want my daughter to face hard things. She has already faced some very hard things and the only thing that is worse than me suffering is watching her suffer. I have never felt so inadequate as I felt when I had to watch her grieve her brother’s death, and there wasn’t a thing that I could do to ease her pain. “Above all, whatever my child faces, I want her to bring great glory to God.” Is that really the prayer that I want to pray for my daughter? I don’t want her to go through hard things.

I have continued to chew on his challenge. It continues to terrify me, and yet I think he is right. There is a dark light in this world, and it is after our children. That evil is slinking its way into our homes. It is going to fight for my child, so I had better be fighting for her too. Our children will face hard things; many of them have already or are currently in the midst of those hard things. Just like we aren’t guaranteed a life of ease, neither are they.

And to make things even harder, I have no control over the hard things that my daughter will have to endure. There are times that she will endure difficulties due to her own choices. There are times that she will have to endure difficulties due to the choices of others. There are even times that she will have to endure difficulties for what appears to be no reason at all.

What better way to equip her for those hard things than to pray that “above all, she brings great glory to God.” Because unlike my inability to protect her from hard things, God has immense power and might to equip her and to carry her through those difficulties so that she can bring Him great glory.

Crying during the Sad Parts

Michael and I recently attended a retreat for bereaved parents. Before Joshua died, I couldn’t imagine attending something that sounded so depressing. In fact, most people would expect that such a weekend would be miserable. It is far from it. Is it a difficult weekend? Yes. Even somewhat awkward at least for the first few minutes. And then, we start talking about our children.

We laugh, we cry, we have conversations that are encouraging and uplifting. We have deep conversations about God, faith and Heaven. We share our struggles and our triumphs. Although we each grieve differently, we share the same pain.

This weekend, I heard one of the most beautiful statements. Carrie Evins, another waiting mom, shared with us a quote from Steve Swift. 

“He cried. He knew Lazarus was dead before He got the news. But still, He cried. He knew Lazarus would be alive again in moments. But still, He cried. He knew this world is not home. He knew death here is not forever. He knew eternity and the Kingdom better than anyone else could. And He wept. Because this world is full of pain and regret and loss and depression and devastation. He wept because knowing the end of the story doesn’t mean you can’t cry at the sad parts.”

Read that last line again: “Knowing the end of the story doesn’t mean you can’t cry at the sad parts.”

I know the end of the story. I will see Joshua again, and I am going to continue to cry at the sad parts, even almost seven years later. We know that he is safely tucked away in Heaven, and we know that someday we will join him. Until then, there will be days that are just harder than others. There will be days that his absence is even more noticeable.

It is hard to watch people hurting; even more so when we know there is nothing that we can do to ease the pain or fix the situation. Sometimes people want to avoid any mention of someone who has moved on to Heaven. If you know a parent waiting to be reunited with a child in Heaven, please say their child’s name to them. They might cry. It’s okay. That doesn’t mean they have lost hope. Jesus wept during the sad parts and it’s okay if we do too.