None of us ever imagined we would be searching for how to live the life you didn’t choose after child loss. Yet here we are.
None of us dreamed of becoming a bereaved parent, a pareavor. We didn’t choose to say goodbye to our child. We didn’t choose the shock, the trauma, the questions, or the suffocating darkness that followed. We didn’t choose the empty chair at the table, the birthdays that now bring tears instead of celebrations, or the milestones our son or daughter should have been here to experience.
We didn’t choose this life.
Because we didn’t choose it, it is easy to feel like we have no choices at all. In those early days of grief, that is often true. Grief takes over everything. Our minds can’t think clearly. Our emotions are all over the place. Just getting through the day can take every ounce of strength we have. There isn’t much room left for making decisions because it feels like grief is making them for us.
But as time passes, something begins to happen. Not because the pain is gone, and not because we suddenly feel stronger, but because little opportunities begin to appear. We find ourselves facing small decisions. They may seem insignificant, but they aren’t. Those little choices can begin shaping the direction of our journey.
I want to be very careful here because I never want anyone to hear me saying something that I’m not saying.
I’m not talking about choosing whether or not to grieve. We don’t get that choice. I’m not talking about pretending everything is okay. It isn’t. And I’m certainly not saying that if we just try harder, we’ll feel better.
What I am talking about is the reality that life often gives us two hard paths. We don’t get to choose whether the path is hard. Sometimes we only get to choose which hard we’re going to live.
The Small Choices Matter
If you are in those early days, weeks or even months after the death of your child, this is not directed at you. Those early days are about surviving. Your brain is trying to process a trauma. Your heart has been shattered. There is no timetable for that.
But somewhere along the way, something begins to shift.
Usually, it isn’t dramatic. In fact, you may not even notice it happening. One day you realize that you actually have a decision to make. Maybe it is deciding to cook a meal instead of grabbing another bowl of cereal. Maybe a friend invites you out for coffee and, instead of automatically saying no, you stop and actually consider it. Maybe you pick up your Bible for the first time in a while. You may only read a verse or two before setting it back down again, but you picked it up. That matters.
These don’t sound like big victories to anyone else, but for a grieving parent they can be huge.
Those small choices are not about loving your child less or somehow leaving them behind. They aren’t about pretending life is okay again. They are simply the first tiny steps of learning how to live the life you didn’t choose after child loss.
I think we sometimes overlook those little moments because we’re waiting for some giant breakthrough. We think healing is going to come in one big moment when suddenly everything feels different.
But that is rarely how God works.
More often, He meets us in the small choices. One conversation. One meal. One walk outside. One verse of Scripture. One prayer that simply says, “God, I don’t even know what to pray today, but I’m here.”
Those little choices may seem insignificant, but they aren’t. They are often the very things God uses to begin moving us forward. Not because the pain is less, but because He is gently reminding us that while grief has changed our lives, it doesn’t have to stop our lives.
Please hear me carefully.
We never move on from our child. In fact, every day we are getting closer and closer to seeing and being with them again. Until then, we carry them with us every single day while taking small steps forward in the life we’re still here to live. Those are two very different things.
Which Hard Leads Somewhere?
I wish I could tell you there is an easy way through the death of your child. I wish I had discovered some shortcut over the years that I could share with you. Believe me, if I had, I would.
But I haven’t.
No matter which direction we turn, it is hard.
It is hard to get out of bed some mornings. It is hard to face another birthday or another holiday. It is hard to walk into church when your child isn’t sitting beside you. It is hard to open your Bible when you’re struggling with questions you never thought you’d be asking. It is hard to make plans for a future that wasn’t supposed to look like this.
But over the years I have noticed something else.
Staying isolated is hard too. Never talking about your child because it hurts too much is hard. Believing nothing will ever change is hard. Living with anger every day is hard. Feeling like your life ended the day your child died is hard.
That is hard too.
So maybe the question isn’t, “How do I avoid the hard?”
Maybe the better question is, “Which hard leads somewhere?”
When I choose to have a difficult conversation, it is hard, but sometimes that conversation brings healing.
When I choose to trust God on a day when I don’t understand what He is doing, that is hard, but it strengthens my faith.
When I choose to get together with a friend instead of staying home by myself, it is hard, but I have never regretted spending time with someone who understands or simply cares enough to sit with me.
Those choices don’t take away my grief. They don’t make me miss Becca any less. They don’t erase the ache of wishing she was still here.
Healing, or rebuilding our life, is not living as though our child never existed or pretending we are fine. That is impossible. It is learning to function again, and then learning how to live a life of meaning and purpose again, not in spite of our child’s death, but because of his or her life.
Looking back now, I can see that God met me in those choices. Not because I was strong enough to make them on my own, but because every time I took even the smallest step toward Him, He was already there, giving me the strength for the next step.
What Am I Hoping In?
As I have walked this journey with grieving parents over the years, I have seen pareavors think it is hopeless. They say things like, “I’ll never be able to get past this,” or “It will always be like this for me,” more times than I could count.
Maybe you’ve said those words yourself.
Over the years, I have learned something that has helped me whenever those thoughts begin creeping in. When I hear myself thinking, “It’s hopeless,” I stop and ask myself one question.
That depends. What am I hoping in?
If I am hoping life will somehow go back to the way it was before Becca died, then yes, that is hopeless. Life isn’t going back to what it was.
If I am hoping that someday I will wake up and no longer miss her, that isn’t going to happen either. Missing our children is part of loving them.
If I am hoping the pain will someday disappear completely, I will only end up discouraged because that isn’t how grief works.
Those are hopes that simply cannot be fulfilled this side of heaven.
Years before Becca went to heaven, she was being taken away to have her baby. The doctors could only give her a fifty-fifty chance of surviving. I remember standing there crying in Dave’s arms, saying, “I don’t know why I’m crying, because I know that I trust God!”
Dave answered with words I have never forgotten.
“It’s because we don’t know which direction we’re going to have to trust Him for.”
Those words have stayed with me all these years.
I think that is where so many of us find ourselves. It isn’t that we have stopped trusting God. It is that we don’t know what He is asking us to trust Him for. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring. We don’t know what the next wave of grief will look like. We simply don’t know which direction we’re going to have to trust Him for.
Hope isn’t believing that? everything is going to turn out the way I want it to. Hope isn’t expecting life to become what it once was.
My hope is in Christ.
My hope is that He is still with me, even on the darkest days. My hope is that He is still working, even when I can’t see what He is doing. My hope is that He will continue giving me the strength I need for whatever lies ahead. And my hope is that because of Jesus, this separation from Becca is not forever.
That is why I love Romans 15:13, the verse the ministry of GPS Hope is built on: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him…” He isn’t just the One who gives us hope. He is the God of hope.
Choose What You Are For
There is one more thought that has helped me.
It is so easy after the death of our child to think about everything from the standpoint of what we can’t do.
“I can’t go there.”
“I can’t face those people.”
“I can’t celebrate.”
Sometimes those thoughts are very real, especially in the beginning. There are things we truly aren’t ready for. But as time goes on, maybe we can begin asking a different question.
What am I choosing for?
Maybe a friend invites you for coffee. Instead of only thinking about what you are trying to avoid, ask yourself what you would be choosing for if you went.
Maybe you are choosing friendship.
Maybe you are choosing connection.
Maybe you are choosing an hour that reminds you there is still kindness in this world.
Maybe you are allowing yourself to be cared for.
The coffee really isn’t the point. The point is what you are choosing for.
The same thing is true when you decide to open your Bible, even when you don’t feel like it. You aren’t just reading because it is what “good” Christians are supposed to do. You are choosing to spend time with the One who loves you more than anyone else ever could.
Or maybe you decide to take a walk, work on a hobby, or accept an invitation that you have been turning down for months. You aren’t choosing those things because you have stopped grieving.
You are choosing them because you are taking one more small step toward the life God is helping you rebuild.
When we only think about what we are choosing against, we can end up feeling like we are constantly fighting our grief.
But when we begin thinking about what we are choosing for, we start seeing that these little decisions are actually moving us toward something. They are moving us toward connection. They are moving us toward hope. They are moving us toward healing.
And isn’t that really what rebuilding is?
It isn’t one giant decision that changes everything overnight. It is hundreds of little choices, made one at a time, that slowly begin putting the pieces back together.
Sometimes God Invites Us to Something New
One of the practical ways I think God helps us take those small steps forward is by sometimes inviting us to do something new. I am not talking about making huge life changes. I am talking about something much smaller.
Sometimes it is simply trying something you haven’t done before. Or maybe it is picking up something you used to enjoy years ago that somehow got left behind.
After Becca died, I eventually picked up my knitting needles again. It had been years since I had knitted. Picking them up again didn’t take away my grief or make me miss Becca any less. But it did remind me that there was still something inside me that could create instead of only mourning.
Trying something new doesn’t lessen our love for our child. It doesn’t erase our memories. It doesn’t mean we have stopped grieving. It simply means we are allowing God to breathe a little life into places that have felt dark for a very long time.
Maybe trying something new is like picking up a hammer to rebuild a house. It may feel awkward. It may feel scary. You may wonder if it is worth the effort. But perhaps it is one of the tools God wants to use as He continues rebuilding your life.
You don’t have to do something big. Just be willing to take one small step. Usually that is all God is asking of us.
How to Live the Life You Didn’t Choose After Child Loss
None of us chose this life. If we could have chosen, every one of us would have chosen to keep our child here with us. We would have chosen a completely different story. But that isn’t the choice in front of us today. The choice we do have is how we will walk through this life we have been given.
Will it be hard? Absolutely.
But staying stuck is hard too. Living without hope is hard. Believing nothing will ever change is hard.
So maybe the question isn’t whether this journey will be hard. Maybe the question is, “Which hard leads me closer to the God of hope?”
Because that is the hard that I want to choose. Not because I enjoy it. Not because it hurts any less, but because I have discovered that every time I take one small step toward Him, He is already there, ready to take that step with me.
That doesn’t remove our pain, but it does give us a place to anchor our hope. We don’t have to figure out the rest of our lives today. We don’t have to know what next year, next month, or even tomorrow will look like. We simply need to ask God to help us take the next small step, trusting that as we move toward Him, He is already there, ready to meet us with the strength we need for whatever comes next.
Perhaps that’s what learning how to live the life you didn’t choose after child loss really looks like. It isn’t finding a way around the pain, and it isn’t finally arriving at a place where grief no longer hurts. It’s choosing, one small step at a time, the hard that leads you closer to the God of hope.
And as you keep choosing those small steps, I believe you’ll discover that God is faithfully rebuilding a life you never would have chosen. Not into the life you once had, because that isn’t possible, but into a life where His presence, His purpose, and His hope are carrying you forward until the day you are reunited with your child.
NOTE: This was partially taken from the Grieving Parents Sharing Hope podcast episode 360. Click here to listen to the full discussion, or look for the Grieving Parents Sharing Hope podcast on your favorite listening app.
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AWARD WINNING AUTHOR, LAURA DIEHL, has written several impactful books that provide comfort and guidance to those navigating the painful journey of child loss, after the death of her own daughter in 2011. Her most acclaimed work, When Tragedy Strikes: Rebuilding Your Life with Hope and Healing After the Death of Your Child, has received multiple accolades, including the 2017 Gold Medal Centauri Christian Book Award for Non-Fiction and a Silver Medal in the 2018 Illumination Awards. Several of her other books have won awards as well.
In addition to her writing, Laura is an ordained minister and has an extensive background in international children’s ministry. She is a sought-after speaker and singer at grief conferences and churches, known for her compassionate approach and deep understanding of the grieving process, especially the unique loss of a child. Through her weekly award-winning podcast, her writings, and other resources provided by GPS Hope, Laura and her husband, Dave, continue to provide hope and healing to thousands of parents worldwide, helping them find light in the midst of profound loss and darkness.
For more information about Laura’s award-winning books go to gpshope.org/books.
To find out more about Laura Diehl and the ministry of Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope) visit gpshope.org.
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