Psalm 23:1 states that because the Lord is our Shepherd, we have everything we need. As a bereaved parent, that can be difficult to believe, because we feel like we need our child back!
The Need for Gritty Grace
One thing we truly desperately need is grace. But we don’t just need grace. As my friend Kim Avery (who lost a daughter from this earth) says, what we need at a time like this is “gritty grace.”
We don’t know for sure what it was, but we do know that there was something that was causing a lot of suffering for Paul. We read in 2 Corinthians 12 that Paul asked God three times to take this thing away, and three times God said, “No.”. But He also told Paul that His grace was “sufficient” (or just enough) to get him through whatever it was, and that God’s power was being seen through Paul’s weakness.
When we first find ourselves in this horrible place of pain and suffocating darkness, His grace is just enough to get us through each day, each hour, each minute, or just the next breath. (That is what Kim calls gritty grace.) But His grace is more than just barely making it through. It is also deep at work in us for when we come out of our place of darkness. He not only gives us the strength to endure but also starts changing what we want.
Our Shepherd isn’t just helping us survive, He is shifting our desires, giving us the power to do what we could never do on our own. When I say He is shifting our desires, I don’t mean that we stop loving or missing our child, but He changes what we think we need, which shifts us into the place of peace that we so desperately want and need.
From Survival to New Purpose
God’s grace will not only get us past just surviving, but to where we even start feeling happiness and joy. We can and will have meaning and purpose once again in our lives because of His grace; because He has everything we truly need.
I know some of you may think that is impossible. But nothing is impossible when it comes to God. Do you agree that it would take a miracle for your life to get to that place? Guess what? God is in the miracle working business.
His power is at work in us, shaping us into something absolutely beautiful, so much more than we can imagine. As we lean on and depend on Him to help us through, we become someone we never thought or even imagined that we could be.
The Shepherd Who Has Everything We Need
God’s grace is changing our focus from what we think we need, to what we really need, which is Him, as our Shepherd. This isn’t a consolation prize, or second best for those of us who didn’t get the miracle for our child that we wanted. It is God’s deepest, most personal and intimate work.
He is making us whole, with a strength that comes through His grace that we would not have any other way. This is why David could say in Psalm 23 that God has (and is) everything we need. We really don’t fully know the power of God’s grace, until we experience it in a way like this.
The Lord truly is Your Shepherd and has everything you need to get through this. Keep leaning into Him until you see the truth of it for yourself.
NOTE: This was partially taken from the Grieving Parents Sharing Hope podcast episode 298. 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.
about someone, we know what type of life-changing loss they have experienced. But when telling someone about our loss, it is along the line of, “Her child died.” There is no word that identifies the devastating, horrific, heart shattering traumatic loss in our lives.
I think it is important to have a word that validates the fact that parents who have lost a child through death have a weight that is extremely heavy…heavier than most will experience in this life. Not as a label to give us permission to wallow in our deep sorrow, but one that draws us together to be able to strengthen and encourage each other within our life-long club membership that none of us wanted.
The word pareavor sounds like a pretty good description of what happens when our child dies, no matter the age of the child. We are parents who have been deprived of our children who were seized and torn away from us through death. We are pareavors.
Sharing Hope (
Right now, we still have the stinger in us. The pain from the “poison” of our child’s death is still affecting us and will continue, until we join our child on the other side of eternity. That is where the “sting of death” will be pulled from us, and we will no longer be under the effect of that poison and continue feeling the pain of our child’s death.
that we can count on in the life we are living here on this earth. Not only does He love you, but He is right smack dab in the middle of your grief with you, and He is excited about you, knowing your future and the good things He still has for you.
your firm foundation. He is also a very present help in time of trouble and the giver of hope. Ask Him to open your eyes to see those things in a very real way. And not only can you have hope in your future here on earth, the most truly wonderful part happens when we leave this sinful world and move to eternity with Jesus. And just think, as a side note, we have someone very dear and close to us who has beat us there.
This higher place of trust will demand everything to be consumed at the altar. There will be nothing left in your hands. Are you willing? It’s the road to your healing that I am offering you.”
What happens when you take your child by the hand and lead them to the foot of the cross and find out you do not get to hold your promise for the rest of your days? What happens when you look in horror at an altar that is marked with your child’s death and the reality that there is no ram to sacrifice instead as a way out?
them places to encounter His presence, the worst of all darkness had just happened? How could He allow this to happen? I trusted Him. Or did I?
For months, I was in a battle with the Father, trying to put a demand on my daughter. I wanted her here with me. I was determined that God was going to answer the questions I had because she was mine and it was not fair. I had surrendered her to Jesus at the mountain of sacrifice and deserved her in my arms all the days of my life.
would live a holy abandoned life and that their eyes would be fixed on eternity.
