Clinging to Christ When Fear Tells Me I Could Lose Another Child

There are certain fears that only make sense after you have buried a child.

Before Ryan died, I knew tragedy existed. However, after Ryan died, tragedy became personal. Real. Possible in a way I never understood before.

Losing Ryan to suicide changed the way I move through the world. It changed the way I parent. It changed the way I pray. It even changed the way fear speaks to me.

One of the interesting and real parts of suffering is that it often causes different people to run in different directions.  One person runs toward God.  Another runs from Him.  Another numbs.  Another rages.  Another isolates.

Pain does not always produce immediate surrender. Sometimes it produces confusion, self-protection, fear, anger, shame, escapism, or attempts to anesthetize unbearable grief.

As a mother, there is nothing more heart-wrenching than watching one of your children struggle deeply while feeling powerless to fix it. Especially when you see them searching for comfort, identity, or escape in places that will never truly heal the ache inside them.

However, one great truth that God continues to wash over me is that…just because someone is struggling or wandering does not mean God has abandoned them.  Nor does it mean you failed them.

I have realized that in many ways I am carrying two griefs at once: grieving Ryan, and grieving the spiritual trajectory I fear for one of my living children. The second grief keeps reopening the first.

This kind of fear and grief feels heart wrenching.  It feels exhausting.  And if I am being honest, sometimes it even feels harder than the original loss — because this grief is active, unfolding, uncertain, and filled with fear about the future.

I think one of the deepest fears hidden underneath all of this is:“Lord…You helped me survive losing Ryan, but I do not know if I could survive losing another child.”  That kind of fear is hard to admit out loud.

However, after traumatic loss, the heart and mind no longer move through the world the same way. When you have buried a child, your heart now knows something you never wanted it to know...terrible things can actually happen in this world.

So when I see someone I love struggling, grieving destructively, or running from God, it understandably awakens terror, not just concern.  My temptation is to panicto obsess, to try and control the outcomes, to spiritually force change and to carry a burden that was never meant to rest on my shoulders.

But over and over, Christ gently reminds me:  “You are not the Savior. I am.”  "You are not the agent of changed hearts, I am."

These truths are both painful and freeing.  Painful because I desperately want certainty.  Freeing because the salvation and sustaining of my children ultimately does not rest in my ability to hold everything together perfectly...it rests in the hands of a sovereign, compassionate, capable and loving God.

This is where the providence of God becomes more than a theological concept but something that can anchor me back to true, living hope.  Providence means that  my child’s story is not outside God’s reach.  That my child's  grief is not invisible to God.  That my child's coping mechanisms are not stronger than God’s mercy, and that even my child's wandering is not happening beyond the boundaries of what God fully sees, knows and allows.

Sometimes God’s work in a grieving person looks very messy before it looks redeemed, especially after trauma and especially when they are trying to outrun pain they do not know how to carry.

God used a dear friend to remind me that heart change is a process and not an event.  Perhaps this is part of my calling in this season: not to “fix” someone through pressure or fear-driven control, but to remain steady, prayerful, emotionally available, honest, compassionate, truthful, and anchored in Christ myself.  My friend also encouraged me by saying that often people have to experience the gospel before they can profess the gospel.  Lord, may you equip me to walk the gospel out in action...may my children see that sorrow does not destroy hope and that love remains even amidst the struggle.

God brought to my attention the various cries from Christian saints that have gone before us...Psalms are full of cries like:  “How long?”  “Why?”  “I am afraid.” “My soul is cast down.”  “Will You forget me forever?”  I have uttered these very words many times over the past 6 years and more recently this past week.  This points to the very fact that grief and faith can co-exist...Biblical hope is not the absence of fear or sorrow, but bringing our fears and sorrows  to God and not allowing them to become my god.

In all transparency, I feel like a failure as a Christian, especially as it relates to the sorrow, pain and outright hopelessness that I have felt at times.  Yet, my heart's desire is still to cling to Christ and the gospel through it all and that matters more than I sometimes realize.  Not because my grip on Christ is perfect, but His grip on me is perfect.  Not because I am never weary, but because even in my weariness He allows me to  keep turning toward Him instead of away from Him. That is evidence of His great grace, not failure.

The gospel means "good news" and the greatest news is that the gospel gives hope precisely because Jesus enters places that already feel dead, hopeless, broken, and beyond repair. While I cannot guarantee outcomes, I am not abandoned in the waiting.  As my friend said this week..."Christians do it (waiting) with a broken heart; we do it weary; we do it scared",  but we do it faithfully with Christ.  Sometimes our faithfulness looks less like certainty and more like:  “Lord, I am terrified. But I will keep bringing my child to You again and again because where else would I go.”

So today, I cling.  Not because I feel strong.  Not because I have answers.  Not because I know how every story will unfold.  But because Christ has proven Himself faithful even in valleys I never imagined I would walk through.

If you are carrying similar fears today, you are not alone. Keep praying.  Keep loving.  Keep entrusting your children to the Lord again and again.

Our hope was never meant to rest in our ability to control the outcome.

Our hope rests in Christ alone.  Our hope is in God Above All Else.