This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Hope in the Morning. turning tragedies and tears into testimonies of hope. Welcome to Hope in the Morning. I am your host, Emily Curtis, and this month we are actually launching a very unique series.
This month is all about kids. And you know, kids walk through trials with us, whether we realize that they're carrying the weight of sorrow or not, it's there on their little hearts. And so, how do we guide them through that? I'm joined today with one of our shepherds in the valleys, Rick Holland. And we are going to talk about what it looks like to walk kids through trials, all kinds of various trials.
So, Rick, thank you for joining us today. It is such a joy to be with you and to be with you again, Emily. Yeah, you know, you, as we talked about before in one of the episodes you've joined us on before, you, you've kind of. Taught to the game at the wide variety of ages, but you've definitely taught a lot of young adults. You've taught children.
And so, in your perspective, how does Walking through grief with a child. differ than walking through grief with an adult. Yeah, when you mentioned this subject to me, it really forced me into recollection and thinking even with our three sons. We have three adult sons, four grandchildren, one on the way. And so it really made me revisit some times of difficulty, grief, trial.
And it was actually encouraging to look back. Your question is a good one. And let me give it a simple expansion. First of all, I think that kids deal with grief, trouble, trials. Um In the same way we do, in just with less maturity.
and with less guardrails. And so, understanding that helps me to know that there's nothing new under the sun, that this is not unique to them, but their experience. It's not unique about them, but their experience is unique. to them. And so it's all about shepherding.
Um and uh it's not if but when they have These trials and sorrows and difficulties and grief. One of the things that Has been impressive to me over my own study of scripture over the years is that passage in James 1 where it says, Consider it all joy, my brethren. When you encounter various trails. Not if. Don't you wish you said if.
But they're guaranteed.
So part of the parenting process as a believer is to Create An awareness of the inevitability of trials and grief. And prepare them for it, knowing that it's still a shock to the system when it happens. Do you think one of the best ways that we can prepare our kids for trials is through scripture memorization? Scripture memorization Essential Um and and add alongside that in tandem with that uh uh explanation from both an exegetical point of view Talking to them about scriptures. But when we go through, we'll talk about this, I know, in a minute.
When we go through trials in front of them, and we will. If they see our interaction with God through His Word, that's. That's going to be the cot that comes along with the tot. Are there resources like for parents that think, man, okay, I want my child to be memorizing scripture? I don't know where to start.
What would be a good resource for them to know where do they start? Yeah, there's a lot of good ones. I mean, Dawson Trotman is the one I grew up on with the Navigators. MacArthur has a little scripture memory system that I found really helpful. What I would encourage parents to do is Find a passage that is particularly Helpful, instructive, meaningful to you that you have or are memorizing and include that with them.
The systems are great, don't get me wrong. But I think what is the overflow of our own worship and walk with the Lord may have a little bit more traction with them than the canned systems. And I'm not against the canned system. Yeah, that makes sense. And actually, like, don't underestimate the power of your child's ability to memorize because, man, they can memorize actually a lot better than we do.
And we've memorized a few passages with our kids at home, and especially James 1. Like, we memorized James 1 and James 2, and those came in so handy. Like, I feel like not only do we go back to those things when, you know, what is the source of quarreling among you?
Well, here it is, you know. And, you know, for those of you that have more than one child, I'm sure you'll be quoting that a lot. But It really does root you in something that it becomes like this mantra that not only you can say, but your kids can say back to you. I also wanted to add to that as far as resources go. Again, when I was a younger mom, when I just had very young children, we used to listen to the Steve Green, it's called Hidden in Your Heart CDs.
Those are great. They're great because they're on a child's level. They're very short. But they get right to the heart of scripture and they're easy for the kids to remember. And so, I mean, we would just pop that C D on and they would they'd play their tutu trains or they'd play with their dollies in the house and that would just be the background music.
But they're hiding scripture in their heart while they're doing it. Love it. Great idea. Music is such an easy track into their heart, too.
So good word. Yeah, I think there's another album out there called. what is it called? I think it's called Scripture lullabies. And the same sort of thing, same premise.
So it's just scripture. Put to music. There's no fluff behind it.
So, those are good resources for parents to turn to as well. And one of the other things I wanted to ask you about is: what, in your opinion, do you think are some of the misunderstandings that people have about kids and the way that they? process sorrow. Yeah. Yeah, um I think one of the things that's easy for adults in general and parents in particular to do is to.
minimize the gravity of grief in a child's heart. They process it at a different speed than we do. And sometimes we, and there's two sizes.
Sometimes we underestimate it and like, hey, get over it. And sometimes we overdo it and coddle them and don't allow. Pain to do what its intended purpose is by the Lord to be, which is to bring us closer to Him. And so much of this, if Just a healthy home. You have mom and dad at home and they're believers.
To talk about these things with each other is so valuable. I know that there's just. With someone recently, who's a broken home, only one of the parents is a believer. And all of the spiritual water is being carried by the mom. But to understand that Grief is real, and it's real to them, and it needs to be processed and thought through.
And how you do that really will It doesn't just answer the need of the moment. But it also begins, the cement hardens for the rest of their life in how they will. Think about Pain, grief, Um And it comes in so many packages. I know we've talked about this before. It can be the death of a grandparent.
It can be the death of a pet. It can be the sickness of a parent. It can be the heartache of a junior high girl who hurts your junior high daughter's feelings. And all of those are real griefs. And when you take them seriously, they can be shepherded.
I think that makes a lot of sense as a really good takeaway. I have two kids. I have one that's a teenager, one that's a preteen, and then I have two younger kids. And it really, it looks pretty different the way that you shepherd each of those things. And exactly what you're just now saying is that We we should not minimize what What constitutes mourning in their world.
because things like friendships are very big. In your preteen and in your teenagers' lives. And so when they feel that feeling of rejection or like they're being ostracized from a circle, that's a painful thing. And we don't want to just, you know, pass that off.
Something stuck with me when I was a younger mom. that I think is a neat thing to really dwell on is the fact that When we treat the things that our kids bring to us when they're little. as if they're not big deals. They're much less likely to bring the big deals to us when they're older because to them, they were all the big deals. And so when we say, you know, get over it, stop crying for that, just make new friends.
Whatever we may do to pass them off, it's gonna make them feel like, oh, mom didn't think that was important. Dad didn't think that was important.
So I guess I won't bring this next. this next sorrow to them either. No, I think you're exactly right. How you handle your kids when they're young defines how they will want to be handled when they're in their teen years, when the cement is really hardening.
So, yeah, those early years are so important to care, to know, and to care. You know, I keep telling my, I told my boys growing up: God sees. He knows he cares. But if I don't see and know and care, Yeah then There's a disconnect. Yeah, Rick, you mentioned a second ago about families that are not.
intact families, families that are broken families. And I came from a family like that, but I want, and we'll talk about that when we come back from the break, but I wanna first touch on how can the church step in and help fill some of those roles? In broken families, whether it is to lessen the load of the parent that is really doing the primary parenting. But for today's focus, how can the church step in to the children's grief? It's a very real grief when you go through divorce.
How can we step in there? Two big A's, awareness and action. To be aware and to do nothing. That doesn't really help us. And to try to do something without being aware of what's going on doesn't really help us either.
This is a point of oversight and shepherding, not just of the pastors and the elders and the leaders of the church, but with friends. Is to know is to we had a situation, and this is not uncommon, where there was a divorce that happened, and there was a junior higher and a high schooler. Kids in our ministry. And I saw one was a boy, one was a girl. Young man, young woman, and I saw our youth pastor and some of the staff.
Dive into those kids' life and be a help. And sometimes you're not the main meal, but you're a vitamin, you're a supplement. But sometimes you're the main meal. and being aware of what's going on and caring. And it's not just getting together and talking every time.
and we'll talk about this, I think, in a little while. About the problem. Job's friends, they just they just were with him. And they cared that he had a problem.
Sometimes caring that you have a problem is as helpful as fixing the problem, which usually is not fixable. Yeah. I think also, what would you say as far as in most divorces, not all, but in most divorces, Both the husband and the wife have some preparedness for it. You know, things have not been going well for a while. They're both, at least in part, kind of ready for things to dissolve.
But that's rarely the case with the children.
So how have you counseled that in the past with kids?
Well, the first thing I'll tell you is it's not a one-hour counseling session. Uh you don't sit down and fix it in an hour. Number two, you tell them that you m They need to know that you may not be able to fix mom and dad's relationship. But you can help them to see that there's a God who is available and who sees and cares and knows. wants to be their sufficiency.
even if their parents are not meeting that need right now. And he's available. What a God we have who's always available. And they need to understand and know. Yeah, when we come back from break, I want to speak about the fact that, you know, just continuing the topic of divorce for this aspect of it, the way that you speak about your ex-spouse has a profound impact on your children, whether you realize that or not.
So when we come back from the break, we're going to talk about that and then we're going to dive into some other issues. How do we walk kids through illnesses? How do we walk kids through the death of a loved one?
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Welcome back to Hope in the Morning. I am joined today with Dr. Rick Colland. He is one of our shepherds in the valleys, and we're talking about walking kids through trials. Inevitably, we will all face trials, and kids are not immune to that.
And Uh Pastor Holland has You've taught children before you've taught teenagers, you've taught early college age, you've taught a wide variety of people. And so you've seen how sorrows vary. And one of the things I wanted to talk about, and I'm going to talk about this even just from my own perspective as someone that came out of abuse, or not abuse, but came out of divorce and out of a really difficult divorce. Um, you know, one of those things is When you're children, I was four years old when my parents divorced. And when you're young, you don't understand all of those things.
You know, I mean, honestly, I thought for many years, I thought that my parents divorced because I got a hairbrush stuck in my mom's hair. And I remember my dad screaming at my mom. And I thought that was it. That's why they got divorced. And I thought it for years.
And so here you are four years old. You can't process things like someone who's a teenager or a young adult can. Um But One of the most challenging things, I think, is when you have a parent who compares you to your other parent only in negative regards. And you know, I would say that my mom really did a good job of being mom and dad. But, you know, my dad lived in a whole different state than we did.
So we would only see him one or two weeks out of the year from the time I was four until I was an adult.
So there's not really much of a relationship there. Um but When you are a child when you're developing It's natural for us to want to look at our parents and kind of see where do we emulate our parents, where do we have some of their similar traits.
So when your parents have gotten divorced And now they compare you to that spouse, it always has kind of this. undergirding of negativity. And that can be a very difficult thing on children. And so, how would you, how would you? Tell parents out there that are going through very hard separations: how can we speak kindly about?
about their their ex-spouse in front of their children, especially in a comparative manner. Yeah, well, just a touch point with you, Emily. My parents were divorced when I was 18, just out of high school. And I had younger siblings, and walking through that was crazy because I did understand more than my younger. Youngest sibling, especially, did.
And those were very difficult times. we could help each other here. I blamed myself for a lot. Why couldn't I have d done more? Ultimately, what helped me was a, and I want to come back to your question about parents.
Where it was the church. There were some people in the church who came alongside me and helped me think rightly about this. Quick answer to your question. If you're a believer, You ought to respond to being kind, not argumentative. The hardest thing is if there's an unbelieving parent involved whose natural inclination is self-promotion by putting down the other.
That's a tough thing to do.
So you can't all, the best thing to do is never speak ill of the. your your the the s the divorced spouse, obviously. If you can't do that, if that's not happening, helping the kids to see. Not past that, but through it to understand. Where God is, Where what sin is what the solution that God has given in His Son, and He can He'll right all wrongs, and it won't always be righted in this world.
Um, it actually gives you a longing for there is a there is a better land and a better city and a better day called heaven. And uh, that that eschatology makes a difference in these thoughts, yeah, especially for. Kids. To think about this world. It's one of the first times a kid will say, This stinks.
And we can say But it's not forever, especially for those who know and love Christ. Yeah. In the in your experience, would you say that It's enough for kids to grow up having an example of what they don't want to be. Or do you think that they they have to have an example in their life of someone to emulate in a positive manner? Yeah, I mean, you should have both, and that should come from the church should give you a.
Variety of plethora of good examples if they're involved in the church. If not, then you're really feeling for the light switch in the dark. You may have a good uncle, a good neighbor who would help, but the church should provide those examples. I'm getting vulnerable again, but my parents were not a good example for my marriage. When I realized I was getting close to Mary and Kim.
I understood I need to Hook our relationship with each other up to several other godly couples because. I had never seen, except by distant observation, what a godly. Family, a godly couple would look like. And by God's grace, I was able to find some of those people in the church. And we in the church should be willing to be those examples for younger couples and even kids who might not have godly parents.
Yeah, what you just said made me think about the fact that likewise Before I got married, I mean, my mom and my stepdad, which I call him dad, he was phenomenal, loved him dearly. But as a little girl, you know, you form a lot of your opinions about things when you're little, when you're young. And I remember like really having a fear of marriage, even though that was something that I really wanted. I desperately wanted that relationship, but I really had a fear of it. And the people that I would constantly look back to were my grandparents.
But again, even with my grandparents, you know, it was like, I remember if my grandparents would even bicker, here I am, a little girl, and so they were watching us a lot. And I would like cry and start telling them, don't get divorced. You're going to get divorced. Because that was my experience, that you fight, you get divorced. And so my grandparents, you know, they would come alongside me and say, you know what?
We don't always agree, but you don't have to worry about us. Like, we're not going to divorce each other. And you're safe here. But sometimes we don't agree on things. And.
But they, you know, my grandparents never argued loudly or anything, but it was just that fear that's there as a child. And so I love what you're saying as a commission to the church, really, is when you see those families that that do break up. And again, sometimes the parents are Ready for it, sometimes one of the spouses is completely blindsided. That does happen, and so being able to step in and love those children and love the husband and the wife in a Christ-like manner. That's what it looks like to be the church.
That's what it looks like to live out Galatians 6:2 and carry one another's burdens.
So, shifting gears now a little bit, I want to talk about some of the other things that kids go through too, because You know, we get sick and we face different trials and sorrow and death. Children do too. You know, I mean, we have been praying for a little boy through Hope in the Morning that has not only already gone through cancer, but now he's been diagnosed with having a condition where he's having strokes as a result of the cancer. He's nine years old. And yet His parents are put in a position to not only counsel him, but counsel his siblings through that too.
So How can we as a church and as parents step up when our children become unexpectedly ill? Yeah, I thought a lot about this very issue in preparation for how we would have this talk today. In preparing my own three sons and talking, and this is very personal: is Kim and I were very deliberate about thinking about. difficulties, trials. um catastrophes, grief, and uh Wrote this down: preparatory, responsive, and observational.
Preparatory means that. We need to let them know that life is not always going to go as We want. We live in a sinful world. This world is broken, and we should expect it to act like that. Responsive means when things happen.
You get cancer, your kids get cancer, their friends get cancer, it makes them terrified. How do we respond to that? God knows that we're going to be throwing those curveballs. And then the third is observational. And what I mean by observational is They need to see how mom and dad, adults in the church, respond to their own.
Trials. That's very instructive. How should we walk through that?
Now, with a kid who has a terminal illness or whatever. I think in Philippians 4:8, whatever is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, of good repute, anything excellent, anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things. That first one is such a big deal, Emily. Think about what is true. Because in those moments, our mind rushes to what the Bible calls vain speculation.
And what is true is we have today. We're not promised tomorrow, that's all of us. Let's be faithful and love and know God now. Today And keep our focus on what is before us. You know, James 4 and 5, don't let tomorrow.
Rob the joy of today. And that's a parenting 101 daily, hourly. effort to keep their mind focused on what is true. in this situation. Yeah.
I I love that as a parent to think through the fact that That's our kids' greatest teacher, right? Is how we respond. to things and You know, going forward with that, which we won't have time on the radio portion to cover this whole thing.
So, if you're listening on the radio, join us on our podcast, which drops every Tuesday. You can either watch us on YouTube at Hope in the Morning Backstage, or you can listen to us wherever your favorite podcast platform is. Again, they drop every Tuesday, and we have some really important things to talk about. I want to get going on this question before we hit the break, which is just. Just like adults, again, we have big feelings when we go through hard things.
And sometimes, sometimes it can be hard to not only understand those feelings, but to even understand, like, are we allowed to feel these feelings?
So with kids, sometimes that can come out in the form, especially little kids, can come out in the form of a tantrum or they're angry or they're disobedient for a time. And Obviously, we have to, as parents, instruct sinful behavior, but how can we as caregivers, whether it's a foster parent or a biological parent, whatever it may be, how can we give kids that safe space to express their grief, especially when it shows up like anger or withdrawal or confusion? Yeah, I mean, there's a difference between sin and foolishness that's bound up in the heart of a child. Let's just say it that way.
So you're training them to have self-control in any whatever. Toddler versus team. Um Um But Yeah. A gentle answer turns away wrath. I think our response To whatever they're doing is almost as important, the tone is almost as important as the truth we're telling.
I mean, there's an old saying: you can't bad attitude a kid into a good attitude. You know, you will be joyful, just like me. That's not, no one's gonna do that.
So, how we say what we say is important. And you don't match their tantrum with. an adult pitching a fit. Calm? Shepherding.
Hang on, this is not appropriate. Let's talk about it. Let's calm down. I think sometimes we're looking too much at how to control the kid in the situation. Than we are, how is my response going to be redemptive and helpful?
Um Not just in content, but in tone.
So it was very important to look at ourselves. I completely agree. And I think sometimes when we, as adults, oftentimes, you know, the things our kids are going through, Usually, we're going through too, whether it's our child's illness or the death in a family, a divorce, whatever it might be, we're facing that as a family. And so we want to effectively shepherd our children as they go through that. But we also have to shepherd our own hearts during that.
And you think about some of these issues, like the loss of, maybe, maybe the loss of a sibling. or the loss of your health. How important is it that the parent tend to their own heart and how can they do so so that they are equipped and established to tend to the hearts of their children. Yeah, I think that they need to see the reality of the situation. It's okay for the parent to be.
Disappointed. upset Frustrated with the situation But working through those. Is as important as having worked through those and watching. Watching a parent deal with those emotions, those responses, and how to exercise biblical self-control in theological thinking. Absolutely critical.
And there's, I'll give you a slight example, a parallel. We had this rule in our house when the boys were growing up. Kim and me, if we got into an argument in front of our boys, We got out of it in front of the boys. Yeah. We didn't want the mom and dad are upset.
They send us to the other room, and 10 minutes later, we come back and they're hugging. No, they need to see. Atomize of sin and confession and asking forgiveness and granting forgiveness. That's a part of the process. such with grief, they need to see, oh no, I have cancer.
Oh no, I I I've uh This is so minor. I had rotator cuff surgery. It took me out of a few things, and I was disappointed with that. Talking through that with my adult sons even was helpful.
So I wouldn't, you gotta be real. and vulnerable. But also show them how you get to the right place and get them there with you. Don't just. I figured it out.
Come be like me. If an adult doesn't know how to get to that right place in their own life, Where do they go? Yeah, there's three questions that I ask. This is the foundation. of all of my counsel counseling.
I asked three questions. What do I feel? What do I think? What do I know or what do I believe? When a challenge comes up, what do I feel?
I feel anxious. I feel angry. I feel upset. I feel disenchanted. I feel insecure.
I understand the feelings. That's the soul's reflex to trial. What do I feel? The secondly, what do I think? Most of the times, Emily, Our thinking is controlled and dictated by our feelings.
But then there's the third question. What do I know? What do I believe? And the the goal in all of my self-counsel and counseling others is Is to reverse those three questions. What do I feel?
What do I think? What do I know? Should be. What do I believe? What do I know to be true?
What does scripture tell me? which tells me how to think rightly about this situation. And then here's the big one. That will help me control how I feel. It might not change it.
But it will allow me to have self-control over the feelings.
So, what do I feel? What do I think? What do I know? That's how adults can not only process. Grief and trials and difficulty, but also shepherd kids to think that way.
My sweet wife, you know, my wife, we're on the freeway the other day. A guy cut me off, and I had an unsanctified moment. I'm like, come on. And she says what do you feel and i'm like no you preach my own sermons to me So it's a good little paradigm to work through. Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, that's definitely something that I'm going to use not only in my own life, but with my kids. I mean, I just wrote it down as you were saying that because. I love that because I don't want my kids or even our listeners today, whether it's children or adults. And many of this month's episodes, we're hoping the children and adults listen together and have these open conversations. And Hmm.
But we don't want children or our listeners to feel like you can't have emotions, that emotions are bad. They're not. They're God-given. They are appropriate for those situations. This is not how the world was meant to be.
Like, we can grieve that. We can be upset with the fact that sin has entered the world and it's caused disease and death and sorrow and pain. No nobody Especially nobody here within Hope in the Morning, whether it's our pastors or myself or Robbie when he co-hosts, none of us would tell a parent who is walking through cancer with their child. You can't feel upset. You can't have moments of feeling angry about that.
No, we want to walk alongside you in that. We want to help carry your grief for you. We want to demonstrate Galatians 6:2 here. You know, the Bible says that that is how we fulfill the law, is by carrying one another's burdens. And I want to put a short little caveat here, which is just to say that if you know of families that are going through these hard things and you say that you're going to pray for them.
Pray? Deeply for them. Don't pray these cursory prayers of God, please help them with whatever they're going through. Amen. It is godly for us to actually feel their sorrow, to carry that in our heart, and to carry that weight to the throne of God.
and leave it there. And in my experience. Here on Hope in the Morning, I mean, there are so many heavy things that I pray for on a daily basis, and it does feel heavy. I mean, genuinely, there are some days when I just feel heavy-hearted. But that's a reminder to me to take it again, take it to the throne again.
And Wouldn't you want someone to do that for you if it was your child, if it was your child laying in that hospital bed or your marriage that was suddenly dissolving? You would. You would want somebody to say, you know what, I love you so much that I am carrying your pain in my heart, but I'm not leaving it there. I'm carrying it to the Lord over and over and over again. This is love.
This is what it looks like to make our Christianity a verb. And not not just an adjective. Um You know, I also wanted to ask you, how do we With a child that Doesn't seem to be processing a grief, like whether. We'll we'll take death in death in a family in this instance. If there has been a death in the family and there seems to be a child in your family that just is not.
acknowledging it or processing it, do we as caregivers push into that or do we let it go? Yeah, what the way I love how you asked the question because there might be a path in between. Overbearing and completely letting go. It's a great way to phrase that so that we can say you can thread that needle a little bit. And rarely does that get accomplished in one conversation.
Because uh some kids Internalize things, they shut things down, and it's easy for them to recess into themselves. But they need to talk whether they even know that or not.
So to hey, how you how you feeling about grandmom's funeral next week or or how and I'm okay. All right, well, don't let it sit there. You might want to come back an hour, a day, a week later. Uh I would keep Picking that scab a little bit to just say, How are you really doing? Um Uh not to the point of you know, irritating them.
But And usually the best invitation into that is to say, Hey, I don't care how if they're five years old, you pray for dad. This has been hard for me. Is it hard for you? Um, to let them know that you are engaged in the grieving process exactly with them, and that's it, it's okay. We have a common bond called grief.
That the Lord intends to pull us closer to Himself, but also closer to each other in that experience. Yeah, you know, believe it or not, with this being the ministry that the Lord has, you know, chosen for my life. I actually am not good at expressing vulnerable grief. Like, that is something that I tend to kind of keep very private. And in, you know, in hard seasons in the last year or so, my husband, who ironically, my husband is like, A very um He's just cool, calm, and collected all the time.
Like, there's no shaking the boat. He's not an emotional person. But he told me, he said, You know, I think it's really important that our kids see you cry. You need to let them watch you cry. And that for me, you know, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this with our listeners, but for me, it was like, excuse me, do what?
You know, and But that did sink in because, you know, I have sons and daughters, and I don't want my kids to think that that is a sign of weakness, whether it be. Weakness of character or weakness spiritually. I don't want them to think that. I want them to know that. It's all about where we take our grief.
But tears in and of themselves are not a sign of weak faith. And sometimes I think as Christians we can think that. We can think that, oh, if I'm struggling, if I'm crying, then I'm not trusting the Lord. I'm not praising what his sovereign will is for my life. And How important do you think that is as a counselor for parents to?
be vulnerable in their grief in front of their kids. It's really important. Look, Jesus wept. I mean, there's a lot of questions. Why did he weep?
He had to bring Lazarus back. No, he was sad, Lazarus gone. Look, his heart was broken. He wept. No, I don't think it's a whole lot deeper than that.
And If our Lord wept over heartache, So can we and so should we.
So, I would ask, not you, but I would ask those of us who have a tendency to kind of bottle our tears and stuff away from our kids. Is that Pride is that concern for them that that might lead them to a bad place? Is it not trusting the Lord or trusting their process that the Lord is sanctifying them or bringing them to the knowledge of the truth in them? Why am I so resistant to do that? And um but you you're exactly right.
I was talking about one of those things is being observational and teaching our kids. They need to see how. We process scripture and truth through our own life. And Usually, the first swing is a painful one in our hearts. It's emotional.
That's okay. They need to see that. Think about the opposite. If they don't see that, what what What wrong conclusions could they be making about us, about God, about grief, about themselves?
So being vulnerable, to your point, is is exactly It's pedagogical and it's it's shepherding of our kids. I've heard some parents say this, and on one level, I totally understand it, but they've said that they didn't want to grieve in front of their children because they didn't want their children to feel. The weight or the need to comfort them. But as I'm sitting here thinking about that, I'm thinking actually back to an example: I've got my 13-year-old here in the studio with me. And he, he is, he's not an emotional kid.
You know, he's one of those very science-y kids. And so that's just, he doesn't wear his emotions on his sleeve at all. But when my dad died, you know, I was laying in bed one night just crying, and none of my kids were around.
Well, he came up behind me and just started rubbing my back and said, You know, mom, you're not alone. I'm here with you. And I sit here thinking, Let your kids comfort you sometimes. It's good. It's good for them to learn to do that.
Oh, Emily, there's a, there's a. A wonderful, and I mean, I can cry talking about a story. We, um, this is not a tragedy but We uh drove Luke back to Louisville uh to drop him off for um Um uh hi his freshman year of college. We're in the van driving back, and we pull out of the parking lot. I'm telling you, Niagara Falls hit me.
I was a mess. Just start sobbing. You know, my boy is girl. I just dropped him off. And my middle son.
From the back, leans up and puts his hand on my shoulder and says, This is all he says is. That is going to be okay. But he was there for me. And so I think that those are important moments. And he also saw that I cared about my sons.
I was sad about my ecstatic that he's growing up and going to college, but you'll know it's just, it's hard when that first one goes off. Yeah. Yeah. I love the idea of us giving our children the opportunity to comfort us. It doesn't mean that they're parenting you.
It doesn't mean that the rules are reversed and that you're putting a weight on your children, but there is an opportunity for growth, growth of compassion, growth of service there, growth of selflessness. Which, I mean, I know, again, as raising four children in today's world, selflessness is not high on the priority list of things being taught by the world to our kids. And when we can teach our kids that, You know, we all have different moments within a family. We're not, most of the time, we're not all breaking down at the same time by God's grace.
So, how do we lift each other up? I mean, it works that same way in marriage. You know, Lord willing, if you have a godly marriage, when one is down, the other lifts them up, and vice versa. And we want to do that within the church as well. Um With the couple of minutes that we have left, I wanted to ask you to, for the adult that's listening that feels unequipped or afraid that they might do it wrong, especially the single parents that are out there thinking, man, I really wish I had another adult to run this by, what encouragement would you give them as they step into a child's grief?
Maybe even a foster parent that's listening. How can we step into their grief? with confidence, compassion, and humility. Yeah, I think the first thing, and I go back to Job's friends who we give a hard time toward, but when they sat with him at the beginning in silence. I think there's something just to say that you know and you care, and that you realize that they're experiencing this grief.
I don't want to. Downplay or overplay this, but You know, um A kid loses their pet. They're seven years old. And and they're weeping and they're sorry and they're they're sad and they're confused and they're anxious and That's real, and to be able to just hold them and to say, to weep with them, to care, you know, weep with those who weep is a pretty general statement. And I think letting them know that you care not Coming in, coming in, coming in the room for two minutes and leaving.
Um the hardest the hardest answer I want to give is that Caring for others takes time, especially with your kids.
So it's not going to be a five-minute pep talk and pep rally, and you're going to be done.
So if you don't feel like you know what to do, just be with them and care it. time and attention Go a long way. Yeah. And then seek counsel. Talk to people around you.
What's the best way to do it? And remembering that it's usually not a one-and-done. Shepherding opportunity. Yeah. Especially if it's grief over a loss.
You're going to have multiple angles.
So getting equipped is part of the church's resource that you can do that. But I would not undermine or In any way, underestimate the value of letting them know that you care. Uh and even I'd go even as far as say physical contact, a hug. Uh, there's that gut goes so much, so long. Yeah, yeah.
It's built in in value. Absolutely. Don't underestimate your care. Yeah, that reminds me too of. I read something else that talks about how, like, what the love languages are basically of children.
And as a parent, especially a busy parent, I think we miss this one a lot of times, which is kids don't, especially little kids, they don't have the understanding to say, Hey, can you come and sit down and have an intellectual conversation with me about this? But instead, they say, Will you play with me? And that matters to them a lot for you to sit there, to be present with them, to engage in what they're engaging in. And a lot of times, When you do sit down and play with a child, that's when conversations happen. That's when they start asking you questions.
Or you can even notice, if you have a child that's more imaginative and does kind of the role-playing with their little action figures or whatever it is, you can kind of notice where their heart is sometimes by the way that they interact with their little figurines and their characters because. Are they hurting? Are they angry? What kind of scenarios are they setting up? It can be very telling.
as a parent Let me build on that, Ellie, because you just said something profound, and that is Developing the awareness and sensitivity to watch them and to listen to them and to cue off of that. I think sometimes parents are not as in tune with what's going on. But it's right there in front of you if you'll watch and listen. That's really good observation. You know, I think also the point that you made about the physical contact, that's huge.
You know, when I was little, again, four years old, my biggest memory, honestly, is my mom rocking me in a rocking chair when I would just cry and just singing to me. And that's how she would do it. She wouldn't sit there and try and say, let's talk about all the reasons why mommy and daddy got divorced or it's not your fault. None of that. She would just hold me and let me cry and sing.
It makes me cry now because honestly those are things. Those were things that were tender. to my heart as a child. But going back to what you said, You you learn that, you know, you learn it as a child. Um And so, in our family, when we've gone through hard times, that's what I do with my kids.
You know, I don't care if they're my six-year-old or my 13-year-old. It's let me hold you, let me scratch your back, let me sing the same song that my mom sang to me. And it's like that. That's loving out 2 Corinthians 1, 3, and 4, right? To comfort others with the comfort with which we have been comforted.
And that. That is how we pass it down to our children: comfort them, let them comfort you, and Always pointing them to the Lord. You know, in the scripture verse in Matthew, where it talks about, let the little children come to me. That's who we want to lead them back to. That's our only, that's our only refuge when things are hard and when things are.
when when we feel consumed with sorrow. He's our refuge. He's our joy. He's our anchor. And that's who we want to.
point our children back to. Um I wanted to read another poem that I wrote here, real quick, and I wrote this for kids in mind, but really, you know. If you have young kids like I do, a thunderstorm can be a scary thing. For little kids, it's loud, it's unexpected. You don't know when those booms are going to come, it can shake the house, it can make your foundation feel unsteady.
And so I wrote this poem for my children and wanted to share it with our listeners today in case it benefits their children as well. And it's called He Controls the Night. When you hear the thunder loudly boom as you're snuggled up in your dimly lit room. With each rumbling sound and each flash of light, May you be reminded of God's wonderful might. His powerful hand controls the night, and those very same hands will hold you tight.
He'll keep you safe, for his love runs deep. you can trust him to guard you as you peacefully sleep.
So rest your sorrow and your fear in the hands of your Creator who holds you dear. He is safety and calm when things seem scary. When your heart feels heavy, give it to him to carry. Like a loving father safe and strong, He'll comfort you when all seems wrong. He loves you fully, so be at rest.
He is working all things out for your very best. Rick, thank you so much for joining us today on Hope in the Morning. And I hope that those that are listening, whether you are a foster parent or a biological parent or a step parent or a caregiver, a grandparent, whoever you may be. As you find yourself walking through these shadowy valleys with children, My prayer for you is that you would hold their little hand and that you would walk them steadily toward the Savior. Thank you for joining us on Hope in the Morning.
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