He Always Hears: Teaching Kids Biblical Lament

This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Hope in the Morning. turning tragedies and tears into testimonies of hope. Grief isn't just something that adults experience. Our children feel loss, confusion, disappointment, and deep sadness too.

but they often don't have the language to express what's happening inside their hearts. Today, I am joined by the author of He Always Hears, a beautiful resource that helps children understand that God welcomes their cries. In this episode, we are talking about teaching kids the art of biblical lament. not as something heavy or intimidating, but as a gift. a pathway to resilient faith.

A way to help little hearts learn that they can bring every tear. every question and every fear to the Lord. If you've ever wondered how to shepherd your child through grief with both truth and tenderness, This conversation will give you practical tools and biblical encouragement to begin. Allison, thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks for having me.

So, for those that are unfamiliar, first of all, with the term lament, how would you explain what biblical lament is? Yeah, there's a lot of really good definitions out there. The definition that I've used as I'm thinking through the best way to maybe perhaps explain it to a child is crying out to God about what it feels like to live in a broken world. And the neat thing about kind of that definition is that we can unpack that further depending on the questions that our kids are asking.

So, it's a cry. There is an honesty and a pain to that. There, you know, that doesn't have to be this clean prayer with all the right words. It is a cry. It isn't one of honesty.

And we're crying to God. That's also really important: we're bringing all of that to him because of who he is. And in some sense, that alone is an An expression of trust in him because we're going to him with all of that crying. And then, what is it about? It's about what it feels like to live in a broken world.

And I think that's helpful because. We can believe all the right things about God and still feel all of the effects of living in a broken world, and those can be. Physical pain, emotional pain, relational things, and those can be so many different things: effects of sin and In a plethora of ways, and we can bring all of that experience to the Lord. And so that's kind of how I've explained it and defined it for kids.

So what at what point did you decide that this was an important enough topic that you needed to write a children's book on it?

Okay. Yeah, it really did come from a place of I needed this book, and I couldn't find exactly what I wanted. There's a lot of good resources out there. My husband passed away very quickly of a very short cancer journey, and our daughter was two years old. And I did what most parents do, I think, at least most of my parents, my friends who are parents, you know, hopping on my phone and looking for books that could help.

Books are such a helpful tool. Trying to explain really hard things to kids because it's giving you language, it's giving story, it's giving image to things that are really, really complicated, especially for kids. And so I was looking for one on lament because I knew how comforting lament had been for me and for my husband as we were walking through that. And I wanted her to have that as she grew up. And I just couldn't find one.

And so I just started thinking through, well, how would I explain lament to a young child? And I had some friends who were like, hey, I want to do that for my kids too, because if they're not hurting now, they're going to hurt some point in their life. And I want them to have that too. And so that kind of just really started this idea of like, well, maybe I could write that book. And Grace provided me the opportunity to partner with Crossway to write this, which was just such a privilege.

Was lament something that you and your husband had practiced prior to his cancer diagnosis? Had you been through other seasons where lament was just kind of. A part of what you practice in your faith? Yeah, I think both individually before we were married and then also together. One of the When I was in college, my mom was actually diagnosed with cancer.

And at this point, I knew that I wanted to marry him. And but we weren't engaged yet. And after my mom told me, I hung up the phone, and I immediately called him because I knew that his first impulse was going to be to go to God about it and express how horrible this was, and that we needed the Lord's presence and grace and comfort in this. And that's exactly what he did. And so it's just, it's interesting now looking back and seeing like, What was something that was so like such a thing of confidence?

Like, yes, I want to marry this man, is how he navigated something so horrible as a cancer diagnosis and his future mother-in-law and helped me through that. And so, although we didn't really like sit down and really dig into what. Scripture taught about lament until he got sick. Like I said, I think individually in our lives before we met, and even, you know, in that dating engagement relationship that was definitely there because we were walking through really hard things. Yeah.

You know, I think it's important for listeners to understand too that lament is definitely different from complaining. It doesn't mean that we go to the Lord and we whine about our circumstances. That's not what it is. It's having that honest conversation, like you said, with him and pouring out. pouring out our heartache because we do live in a broken world and that's not Jesus came to redeem that.

He doesn't want us to stay broken. But There are times, and I would assume that you experienced this in the loss of your husband. There are times when the sorrow in our heart. Can't be expressed in mere words, and it certainly can't be expressed from one human to another. We need somebody that created us that understands the depths of that sorrow.

And When we have Lament, which we see examples of that through Job and through David. There's examples all throughout scripture of that, but when we see that. modeled modeled for us it reminds us that God is not distant from us. He's near to the brokenhearted. He cares about our tears.

You know, when it says that he captures each tear in his bottle, they matter to him. We don't need to hide them and pretend like we're not hurting.

So you said your daughter was only two years old at the time that your husband passed away. How old was your daughter by the time your book fully came to fruition and you were holding it in your hands? Um Five.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah, she was five.

So had you read the story to her as you were writing? Did you read it to her once you had finished writing before you had it in your hands? Yes.

So we were reading them on a PDF, which was such a sweet thing because she was like, where are the pictures? I'm like, they'll be here. But even then, there's a rhyming refrain throughout the book that is just a tool that the parents in the story use. And I wrote that with the intention that it could be a real life tool for families. And she had that memorized within a couple of times that we were reading it.

And so that was just really encouraging. To hear from her mouth this little refrain, this little reminder that we can hope in God, even when things are hard, was just such an encouragement to me. Because, like you said, it's, Lament is not complaining. But I think sometimes We have a hard time identifying the difference because we don't want, like, oh, well, that sounds a lot like doubt, or that sounds a lot like complaining.

So maybe we shouldn't say that. But then really. Really showing, especially children, like, no, we can actually be this honest to God, just like Job and David and Jesus. Like, we like. Yes, this isn't complaining, but We don't need to be worried about that because God is big enough to hear all of our cries to Him, and He's inviting us to express that.

And so, I think that's really important for kids to be given that. that example of how they can do that. Yeah, I think one of the interesting things, because I think that we've all struggled with that at times when we're grieving, of not like we, we. We know we're going before a holy God. Right.

And so we don't we don't want to um We don't want to overstep our boundaries in a sense. Like, we don't want to come at God with this angry heart, but at the same time, The Lord knows everything that's in your heart. And so, all you're doing is just expressing it to the Lord and laying it bare. And sometimes part of that might come with, with, Confessions as well. Maybe we are having anger towards situations.

I would say, you know, in the time that I've done grief ministry, and even just in the grief that I've been through in my own life. There were definitely moments of anger and moments where I did question the goodness of God and whether or not God was being kind in circumstances and had to be reminded. By other believers, what is true about God? And there was an element of having to confess that which was sinful in my own heart. But at the end of the day, it all had to come before the Lord and it all had to be brought to light.

And there's no better place to bring it than the feet of Jesus. Have you found that that stanza in your book that you said that your daughter memorized, has that become almost sort of a mantra of her heart that she says now when she's going through hard things or when she's missing her daddy? Yeah, it's definitely played an important role. And there is. The way it occurs in the book, there's kind of this narrative kind of signaling that it's coming where a parent says, Remember, and then the refrain kind of comes after that.

And so, that's kind of been there have been moments where I, you know, we're talking to something really hard and be like, remember what we can do. And she'll kind of recite the refrain. She also recites the refrain when that's not the refrain that I'm asking for. We have a few different things that we, you know, we repeat over and over to help our hearts keep proper perspective and on a variety of things. And sometimes she'll repeat that one when that's not really the one that I'm trying to remind her of in the moment.

But yeah. That's funny.

So were there were there things that you repeated to your own heart? As a grieving wife who I'm sure was lamenting the loss of your husband, what were some of the things that you would repeat to your own heart? What kinds of truths did you repeat to your own heart? Oh man, nothing as clean and pretty as a rehyming, as the rhyming refrain. I think that's also the beauty of lament is that sometimes the most faithful laments are just fragments, and sometimes it's just Lord be with me.

And we're crying out to him because we know he is. But we're also pleading that that will be true and that we will believe it. And so, but sometimes all of that just comes out as like. God help me or with me. And those, I think that really was a lot of my lament, especially in those early days, were just those fragmented prayers that were just really loaded with a lot of.

pain A lot of just hope, but also just a lot of that Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief. I'm wrapped up into a lot of those. I've never heard it put that way before, where lament is like fragments. And that's so true. And it reminds me kind of of the fact that.

When we go through Such difficult, deep waters like the loss of your spouse. You feel shattered. And so you're left with these fragments of yourself. You're left to kind of pick up these pieces and. It makes sense that our hearts in such fragmentation, that's how we have to go to the Lord because it's so.

It can be overwhelming in our own strength. But what a piece when we realize that we can take it to one that is far higher than us, that understands the whole picture. And be reminded that he does love you. He does care about you. He says he'll never leave you, he'll never forsake you.

That's true for you, and it's true for your daughter. It's true for our listeners who are battling illness or who have just lost a loved one or are walking their child through perhaps a chronic illness. These are the truths that we need to continually remind our own heart, but also the hearts of one another. And when we come back, I'm going to have Allison read a portion of her book. And I think that this would be such a great resource for those of you that want to equip your children to be prepared for whatever the Lord may have ahead for you and for them.

So join us again in a moment on Hope in the Morning. Uh Hope in the Mourning allows you to lean into the suffering of others and helps equip you to purposefully mourn with and meaningfully minister to those suffering in your midst. May these testimonies cause you to see our God with fresh and thankful eyes. And may you seek to be His hands and feet to every weary heart. Visit hopeinthemorning.org to learn how you can partner with us in ministry.

Do you have a heart to comfort the hurting? Do you want to show the world that through Jesus Christ we can have hope in all circumstances?

Well, then we welcome you to visit hopeinthemorning.org and see how you can join us in these ministry endeavors. May you be encouraged by who our God is as you continue this episode of Hope in the Morning. To learn more, visit us at hopinthemorning.org. Welcome back to Hope in the Morning. I am joined today with author Allison, and she is the author of He Always Hears, which is a children's book which teaches biblical lament for children, a very important thing for all of us to know how to do, but a very unique thing to be able to prepare children for.

So, Allison, do you have a segment of your book that you can read to us? Yes, I just really love how the book ends. And so I'll just kind of give a little brief overview so that we know where this fits in. But so little Jane, she goes through a series of losses from like her stuffed animal being ruined to a friend moving away to her dad getting sick. And the point of that was to just show that brokenness can appear in our kids' lives in a lot of different ways, not always in the death of an important person.

They know that things are not the way they're supposed to be. But the book? We don't, the book ends before we really know what happens to the dad. There's a lot of questions, and so lament is for these moments. And so, little Jane is in her bed, in her bedroom by herself, and says, And as Jane lay in her dark room, she felt alone.

She wished she could talk to Gwen and she wished mama and daddy were back home again. Jane squeezed Tom tight, scrunched her nose, and shut her eyes. Then Jane took a deep breath. She didn't know what was going to happen, but she knew what Daddy and Mamma would say. Although no one was in the room, Jane whispered out loud.

Because God made and saved us, we hope in what is true. He promises that one day what's broken he'll make new. Jane opened her eyes and looked up. The moon was rising in the nighttime sky like a bright rock in a dark puddle. A tear rolled down Jane's face as she prayed for Daddy and told God how much it hurt.

He was with her, and God heard her cry. And those are the last words in the book. The book, the illustrations continue, though, and we start to see the sun just peeking over the horizon, a reminder that the light, the sun will rise in the morning, even though we don't know what tomorrow will bring. We don't know what happens. The hope is God heard her.

He was with her and he heard her. And that's what I would love our children to really understand: is that when we don't have answers, when we don't know how the story, this particular moment is going to end, God is with us and he hears you and you can cry out to him about what it feels like to live in a broken world.

So that ending was very. intentional to hopefully help our kids understand that. Yeah, you know, one of my favorite verses in scripture, and it's one that I told my kids when they were very little, when we had our first miscarriage, I had my kids memorize this, and it says, Because he bends down to listen, I will pray as long as I have breath. And I love that imagery because We don't have to try and shout to get up to him. He, just like in the manger, he brings himself low.

to meet us in our grief and our sorrow. And Allison, you and I were talking when we were on break just about how quickly your husband went from healthy to sick. Can you talk to us a little bit about that season a little bit more? Yeah, my husband was only 25 years old when he just suddenly experienced a stroke. Which kind of set us on a very, very vital journey to figure out what went wrong.

Obviously, 25-year-olds who are healthy just don't have strokes. And so about. A month after that stroke, we officially got a cancer diagnosis. That was the end of June of 2022. And he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia with myeloid sarcoma, which was just a very particular kind of leukemia.

And he went through treatment, treatment was going well, but then rapidly declined only two months later and passed away very quickly of a series of strokes from the cancer.

So it was just a very, very quick from June to August. And that was the entire situation. And your husband was a pastor. He'd been a pastor for a couple of years. And How did the church that he was pastoring, how did they surround you and comfort you and your daughter?

Yeah, they were so good to us. They took such good care of us in the crisis moments, especially making sure that our bills could get paid. We were living in the parsonage at the time, so our housing was taken care of. They brought us many meals and just a lot of practical ways, not just our church, but other churches in the area as well, and other believers around the world to just helping take care of us and pray for us. But I think that is the biggest thing is prayer.

The prayer of the saints is a practical way to love one another and carry one another's burdens. And so I always encourage people when you don't know what to do to help someone, pray, like and let them know that you're praying for them. I got a text from a dear friend this morning saying, hey, I was thinking about you guys and I prayed for you. And here's what I prayed. This, you know, this is the content of that prayer.

And like, that was just like. She didn't know, but the Lord had laid that on her heart with a very particular purpose. And it was what I needed this morning. And so I just always love to remind people, specifically the church, that prayers are practical. And it's not just a.

an afterthought.

Well, and that's a reminder too that here you are, you're three and a half years out from losing your husband. And to those that have never experienced really deep grief, it may seem like that's a decent amount of space. But when you've experienced deep grief, that's nothing in the span of a lifetime, especially you're young with a young child. What a beautiful example that your friend set for other listeners and for myself as well, that to be reminded to love continuously like that for the long haul. That's what long suffering looks like: it's walking with somebody.

For a lifetime, really, because that grief doesn't go away. You learn to live with it, you learn to bring it before the Lord, but it doesn't just go away after a year or two or three. What are some of the ways that you have Intentionally, or maybe even unintentionally, but you've looked back and been like, That, like, maybe you had a proud mama moment, but just ways that you point your daughter to see the goodness of the Lord, even as your heart continues to ache for the loss of your husband. Man, there's a lot I could reflect on. I feel like we have these types of conversations all the time.

My daughter is very inquisitive. She asks a lot of questions. And so I usually try to let her ask the questions that she wants and not really. You know, just I want her to know that she can ask those questions and that we will work through them, even if the answer is like, hey, I don't have an answer, but we can pray about that. We can ask God all our questions, even if we never get an answer.

And I think it's also important to realize that, like, helping our children lament isn't detached from our discipleship of them. This is all wrapped up in how we're helping them know and love God and trust him as their savior. And so these conversations are not separate. It's all part of discipleship. In some ways, part of what the Christian life is, this side of heaven is faithfully walking length with one another through a broken world, hoping in Christ.

And so I think. That's also just really a huge part of it. I remember.

Sometimes I ask my daughter leading questions just to kind of see. How she's processing things. And I asked her one day: I said, Does God still love you, even though He let your dad die? And her response was, of course. I said, well, how do you know that?

And she's like. because he sent his son to die on the cross for my sins. And that was just a moment where it's like, yes, that. When we cannot see past this fog of grief. We can still see the cross in the word, and that is the ultimate.

Proof that God has loved us to the degree that He sent His Son to die on the cross for our sins. And I think that is so helpful, especially in those moments where we may not be able to kind of see our way out of how is God good in this? Yeah, we're asking that question and Well, God's greatest good to us was his son's death on the cross, and he is the first fruits of the resurrection, too.

So I just think that that is a really helpful thing to keep in mind: that this isn't separated from discipleship, and this is not separated from the gospel. And so, we're walking alongside our kids with all of that in mind. I think what you mentioned too is really an important thing because Sometimes I think we almost are afraid to ask our kids those leading questions because we think, what if I don't have the answer for what they're saying? There are many times when you might not have the perfect answer, but you guys can either learn side by side what the answer could be, or sometimes we have to just know that there are mysteries of God that we don't understand. That's part of actually, at least in my own faith, I feel like that's part of what makes me so sure about Christianity because I don't fully understand everything because God is very other than us.

That's what holy means. He is other, he is set apart from us. And so, one of the things that, at least in my own faith, that That I tell people often is that one of the reasons why I'm so sure that Christianity is the one true religion is that there are many things that we have to just believe by faith. And it doesn't mean that we don't strive to understand that which God has allowed us to understand in His Word, but sometimes there are mysteries of God because He's other than us, right? We can't understand the Trinity in its fullness, we can't understand Christ coming and becoming flesh.

We don't understand all of that in our finite minds. in the same way that we don't. Not only do we not always understand, but we often don't understand why God allows certain circumstances in our lives. But we do know that He uses them all for our good and for His glory. And that sometimes does not, it doesn't feel good, right?

I'm sure losing your husband is not something that. that you would desire as a way for the lord to bring about those means But we can trust that he's faithful and that he will bring about those means and that he will be faithful to you and your daughter, and he won't leave you or forsake you. And I think it's important that we not only remind our own hearts of that, but when you open up those questions and that open dialogue with your children and you're willing to say, they may ask me a question that I don't really have an answer for. But you can still lead them to the fact that God knows all things and He's trustworthy. And we see that throughout scripture, right?

And one of the things I think is so beautiful about the Lord and His character is that. He's the same God, yesterday, today, and forevermore. And in James, it says that with him, there's no variableness. There's no shifting shadows with him.

So we don't have to wonder if the God that delivered Joseph is the same God that is working all things for our good as well. He is. We know that he is. And so would you say, what are some other, I guess, fears in a sense that you think parents would have to overcome in order to allow their children to ask those real deep, vulnerable questions about God? Yeah, I think one of the things that I've just kind of encountered specifically in writing this book is.

Well, what if my kid doesn't know about death quite yet. Right, what if um what if they haven't lost a grandparent or a pet? I don't want to bring that up. I don't want to engage that conversation because that is really scary. And I don't want to scare them.

I don't want to kind of put shame or hurt on them that they don't need. And by all means, that's not what I'm suggesting. But I do think if as Christian parents, we're trying to Not just equip them to walk through a broken world, but also accurately and precisely teach them the whole counsel of. Scripture and the gospel, you have to push past that kind of temptation to not talk about death. Because Death is a part of what that's what sin brought into this world when Adam and Eve sinned.

And death is throughout the Bible. It is a constant reminder that we need a Savior. It helps us marvel at the work of the sun to die in our place. And so I think it's. As grown-ups, as parents, it is our job to keep our children safe and to protect them.

But we also have to teach them accurately and precisely the whole gospel and the whole word. And so, and so that can be a tough balance. Every kid is different, every family situation is different, but that's something that I've encountered where someone might say, Oh, maybe don't read this book because if your kid hasn't experienced death, then this would be too scary. And I just think, you know. Again, every kid is different.

Maybe it's not for every kid, but I think as grown-ups, we need to think through: okay, but how can I engage my child in a very age-appropriate, sensitive conversation about death as they're watching Disney movies or they see dead bugs or. It is there in characters and books and stuff like that. And so I think, as Christian parents, we can engage them with really hard conversations with a lot of wisdom and grace because we have the gospel and we have the Holy Spirit to help us. I completely agree with you. And I would even say, after having read your book, I think that you did a beautiful job of really starting very soft, you know, where she loses her, or she doesn't lose her stuffed animal, but her stuffed animal becomes dirty and to the point where it can't be fully cleaned.

And so it can't be fully restored, right? And then her best friend moves away. And every time she walks past that house, it's a reminder that I wish Gwen was here. I miss playing with Gwen. And then it goes into the deeper things of.

Daddy is sick now. But I think you did a beautiful thing to incorporate not only showing how the mom and the dad they were weaving the gospel in all the way from the stuffed animal to the loss of the friend so that she was equipped by the time Jane by the time Jane suffered the sickness of her father. And as you said, it doesn't, it does not cover death. Your book leaves it open-ended there. And so parents can leave it at the illness or they can take it farther if they need to, if that's their circumstance.

I think that you have beautifully illustrated the fact that Jane was equipped for that sorrow. Because her parents had walked her through every little one. And kids do face little heartbreaks, little disappointments, whether it's their team lost or they lost their favorite stuffed animal or whatever it may be. They're little opportunities for us to put the gospel in there and say, you know, we still have an opportunity to praise the Lord in these circumstances, which is another side of lament, actually, that I think would be great for us to talk about: is that lament is. When you look, especially at the Psalms, lament is bringing our sorrows before the Lord in a very Open, vulnerable way, but then it's always coming back to the character of who God is, and that's where the hope is rooted.

So, can you talk a little bit about the praise side of lament? Yeah, we have a lot of examples of that. Like you said in Psalms, but we also have examples like Psalm 88, which doesn't actually have like a clear turn. And so, we do have to have to ask the question, like, okay, so then how do we understand that praise element where we don't see such clear turn? Because I think sometimes in our churches today, especially American churches, I think that's what we're looking, like, that's what we're listening for.

We're listening for that clear turn. Yeah. And, and it's, That's the predominant thing that we see in the Psalms of Lament. But I think there's also because we're crying out to God, that is already ascribing Him worth. But you are worthy of hearing my cry because you actually are a God who does hear.

Something has to be true about God. We're confessing that as we cry out to him. Yeah. Um There's like again what you said appealing to his character. I remember being in the hospital and being like, God.

This does not feel good. Yeah. And why am I saying that I'm going to God? Because he is good. But this does not seem to match his character.

But because I'm going to him with it, it's because I actually believe that he is. And so sometimes, you know, that's kind of in that messy, fragmentary language. But you're absolutely right. Lament is at its core based in what we believe about God. And He has to be a particular kind of God.

Things have to be true about Him and His character for us to even be able to do that. And so I think that is also just wrapped up in why this is even a comfort and a grace and a hope to us. That's because it is entirely anchored in His character. Mm.

Well Those of you that are listening on the radio, I highly suggest that you join us on our podcast because we're going to talk a little bit more, not only about this book and this resource, but we're also going to talk about what worship looks like amongst lament, what the fact that lament can build a stronger faith in us. And that might sound like a funny thing that lamenting creates stronger faith, but it does. And we're going to talk about that.

So join us either on our podcast. You can listen wherever you like to listen to podcasts or our YouTube channel, which is Hope in the Morning Backstage. And before we go, Allison, where can they get your book? Any online stores sell it also, my publisher, Croftsway. You can purchase it from them as well.

So Allison, continuing on. What you were saying about lament and coming back to praise I think it is also an important note for the church. And I don't know what this experience was like for you and your own grief, but I think. The church oftentimes Wants to rush into the season of I'm okay. I'm okay now.

And I can look back. Even we had one person, she was going to write for the book, and at the last minute, she had another. Big tragedy in her life. And she said, I just, I just can't right now. I can't.

She had written her story, but she couldn't submit it. She just, her heart was too heavy. And so we pulled her story. And I've asked for permission from her to share this, and she has said yes. But one of the things she said that I thought was so poignant is that the church sometimes can be too quick.

To usher grieving people onto a testimonial platform. Too quick to say, hey, will you come speak at the ladies' event? And it's been a year or eight months or however long since your husband passed away. And what she said, which I thought was so, insightful Is that we have to really make sure that we have tended to their grieving hearts for. as much time as they need to really be in that healed space.

before we usher them onto a proclamation platform to talk about. All that the Lord has done and how good He is. And we certainly can talk about how good He is in the midst of lament. But We need to give people, including believers, The space to have sorrow and grief, and not feel like there's some timeline on it where you have to be okay by this point and not crying about it anymore, and not questioning God anymore about these things. It's an ongoing thing.

It becomes part of your faith, honestly. How would you personally say that the art of biblical lament has strengthened your faith as you've continued to walk this journey three and a half years later of not only losing your husband, but now raising your precious daughter as a single mom? Yeah. I think because low mint is So deeply tied to the word and God's character, it has just continually brought me back to. God and the gospel and his word, and those are always good for our faith.

Um Yeah, I think also because lament is really helpful in those messy moments. Um, the past few years really have been quite a tapestry of like really neat opportunities: getting to write a book, speaking, and all these things, but then also, like. Still, a lot of crying, and you know. Alone and sitting, you know, my daughter's in bed, and me sitting and being sad. And so I think sometimes we, like you said, there's an expectation, not just of like a timeline, but like a linear progression.

And that's just not what the human experience is like. Because there's also always things. And we know with losses like this, there are also like secondary losses that are going to continue to happen. I think also because I have such a young child who's continually growing and experiencing things for the first time in her life, she's also having to be confronted with the fact that her dad has died at every single one of those points. And so.

I'm very acutely aware that like Okay. This grief is going to be with us forever until Christ comes back and makes a new heavens, a new earth, and the saints are all reunited with him. And so. I think that is also, there's an element of like peace and freedom there with Lament, too, that Lament's job isn't to get us done with this. Yeah.

It's actually helping us as we walk through this. And so that in a way that's very freeing because it's like our, just like our faith is going to be continuing to grow and be shaped by our study in the word and meditating on scripture. Lament is also helping us do that as we walk through really hard experiences for the long haul of our lives. Yeah. How would you say the church, in very practical ways, can serve widows and I mean, I wouldn't, your daughter's not an orphan, but she doesn't have a daddy anymore.

What are some of the practical ways that the church can serve? Yeah, like I said, prayer is. very practical um I get asked this question a lot. And I think it really depends on the family, and it depends on the church. And so that's hard because.

You kind of have to know them then, and so you just really got to know these families and what do they need.

Some single moms, and a single mom might be single moms because they're widows or for other circumstances, and those are going to have different needs.

So but so one single mom might need help with finances, but another one might not. One single mom might need help with taxes, another one might not. And so there's practical things, you know. Things that need to get done that, like a typical family has at least Two grown-up hands to do, whether it's cart maintenance or house maintenance. My church had someone clean the gutters on my house this past summer, which was so helpful.

But I think all of those things need to be done within the context of like. You gotta know them and you gotta be in a relationship to say, like, hey. What can someone help you with practically around your house in the next couple of months? And so, some churches have programs of like, hey, this is what we do for our widows, and that might work great. Oftentimes, those programs are for widows who are at or around retirement age.

They're going to have different needs than someone in my situation. And so, I just think as a church kind of considers all of their discipleship, it's just good to ask questions about like, what do our single moms, our widows, our children without fathers, what do they need? And we might need to ask, but what do you think? I think that's a great, a great point that every family is different. And we talk about this often: that you have to be plugged into your church and actually know your brothers and sisters within your body if you're going to serve them effectively.

And one of the things, actually, right before I came in the studio, there was a man that left the studio and he was asking, He's like, Are you the one that does the hope in the morning ministry? And he, you know, he wasn't real familiar with it.

So he was like, Is that a widow's ministry? And I said, Well, it's a lot of things, but it does encompass widows as well. And he said that he just recently read a study that said that. In America, most recently, there have been approximately 2,800 new widows per day that have been happening. And honestly, our ministry has done a lot of reaching out to young widows, people that are.

40 and under left with young children. And I'm not sure what the influx of that is, or if we're just more aware of it than maybe we used to be. But as you mentioned, there are definitely different needs. You know, my mom was widowed last year, and we have stepped in and really tried to care for her, her household needs, and that sort of thing. But it's different when you have, when you have kids, too, because especially as your daughter gets older, you're going to have activities to go to and all sorts of things where you do kind of need that extra set of hands.

When the church, especially you had talked about it wasn't only your church, but it was other churches and kind of the universal church, as we call it, that were stepping in to kind of minister to you and your daughter. What did that? do for you as far as seeing the Lord's provision for you. Mm-hmm. It was a beautiful thing because, at the same time that I was feeling very loved by the church, by the body of Christ, I also kind of, in some ways, lost my place in it.

There wasn't a clear Community that I fit with people with shared experiences. Within a year, I did leave the church that we were at for a number of reasons. The largest reason being that I moved. I had to get a different job. And so I now lived just farther away from the church that we were at, left on great terms with that church.

But then also, you know, starting a new church, which actually was our old church, the church we had left to do ministry. But You know, feeling like I didn't fit in with the widows there because. I was in my 20s, and the young parents really was kind of young marrieds. And then the singles are the never marrieds. Yeah.

And so it was just kind of, and I think there were like three other single moms in the entire church. And it's a pretty big church. And so, and we're all different for different reasons.

So, it's just feeling like there wasn't. A place for me and my daughter to fit. At the same time, The church's mere existence. testifies to gospel hope. Because God has redeemed for Himself a people, a family.

And that was comforting and encouraging to me, regardless of whether or not there was like a natural place for me for a small group or a Sunday school class. And that doesn't mean that it wasn't hard, that it's still not hard. But I just think that those two things oddly existed at the same time. It was like, I one feel very acute, I'm acutely aware that like I have experiences that no one else in my church can. know from experience what this is like.

Yeah. Do you feel practically loved and cared for and prayed for? And even when it's hard, the church just by existing is an encouragement because it is proclaiming gospel hope.

So I hope that answers your question. Yeah, it does. And I think that it brings up again the importance of lament because, just like you said, honestly, no matter what the sorrow is you're going through, no two people have exactly the same experience because none of us are exactly the same, right? And even a young widow who maybe lost her husband to cancer, maybe it didn't happen in the course of two months. You know, every circumstance is different.

But God sees it all. He really does care for you and hear you. And I've mentioned this on a couple other episodes, but I'm going to mention it again because I love this song so much. There's a song, and the writer's name is Stephanie, and it's called No One Ever Cared for Me Like Jesus. Have you heard that song?

Yeah. I love that song. And there were moments in the depth of my grief. And I've heard from many other people, same with them with that song. When your heart feels overwhelmed, and it's just like this, it's this exhale where you realize nobody ever cared for you like Jesus did.

And you can take it all to him. He sees it, he knows you, he cares, and you can bring every sorrow. To his feet, and he's not going to leave you there. He's going to redeem it. And we don't know what that looks like.

You know, it doesn't always mean that he. You know, I mean, we certainly don't preach a prosperity gospel on Hope in the Morning. And so we don't, you know, we're not saying that the Lord's going to redeem your sorrows by restoring everything. He chose to do that with Job, but He doesn't choose to do that with everybody. And that's okay.

God is still good, God is still faithful. And ultimately, we have a reward in heaven. And If we can keep our eyes heaven-centered, which I think is part of what Lament does and what your book aims to do with Jane, is if you can keep Your focus on the Lord, on our ultimate goal of being reunited with Him in heaven, where there is no more tears, no more pain, no more sorrow. There can be joy. even amongst our sorrow, because we still have something to look forward to.

And it's something, it's a sure thing, it's a sure hope. It's not something that that is wishful thinking it it will come to fruition and The Lord has promised that to his children. And so we have something that we can look forward to with great anticipation. And I'm sure for you with your husband, knowing that your husband is with the Lord in glory, it's that much more of this beautiful anticipatory hope. that we have.

I also want to say one thing real quick because, with what you had mentioned about not having a community per se that really fit you perfectly, there is another ministry that I just want to give a little plug for here, real quick. We've had her on the show, but there's a ministry called Songs in the Night. I'm not sure if you're familiar with them at all. But it's called Songs in the Night, and they actually do a retreat for young widows, and it's called Beauty for Ashes. And they do this beautiful retreat for moms that are, I mean, they're not all moms, but they're all about 45 or younger, all of these widows, and many of them in their 20s and 30s, because.

it allows them to have that community where A little bit closer, you feel like people understand what you're going through because they're in a similar season of life. Um Going back to your book, what are maybe two things that you really hope and pray that the Lord accomplishes through the work of? He always hears. Yeah. I mean, we kind of touched on this a little bit, but I just do hope that grown-ups and parents can be encouraged by this book and see that, hey, we can engage our kids with this conversation about lament in these kind of little losses.

It's kind of like we even said, just even the intentionality of like the types of losses are in this story. I hope kind of give grown-ups a little bit of confidence that, like, hey, you don't have to wait until like really big losses to talk to your kids about this. I also just hope that it provides both kids and grown-ups language to be able to cry out to God. I think sometimes if we haven't been taught and we haven't known to study that in the word, it's there. I think if you read scripture plainly, like lament is just all over.

But if you've never been taught, that can be such a daunting thing. And you can, you might feel worried that you're going to get it wrong. And so I hope that this provides a little bit Of language and confidence to be able to engage in the topic of lament because it is such a grace and comfort for us as grownups and for our kids. And it's for the long haul, too.

So I think that's also why it matters. This isn't just for like a, here's a have how to one-time one conversation, but here's something that's going to be full of hope for the rest of your life. Yeah. And it equips your children to have hearts of compassion and empathy toward others, right? Because even if they may not face a hardship for a couple years.

they're likely to have friends and family members who do and You know, it's a beautiful thing. I remember when we had, I've had five miscarriages, but when we had our first miscarriage, my little girl was four, and she just is one of those very tender, empathetic hearts. And a friend of ours, about a year later, they had a miscarriage. And so the little girls were friends. And my daughter wrapped up a present for her and wrote her a note and just said, I know that your heart hurts and that you were hoping that your baby brother or sister came home, but I just wanted to tell you that your baby brother or sister is with Jesus and I love you.

And she wouldn't have known how to care for her friend, even at that young age, if she hadn't been through sorrow, if we hadn't walked through that as a family and walked through the truths of scripture. Where is that child? Is God still good? Does God still bend down and listen when you pray? She had prayed for that baby, my daughter, for so long.

She was praying for a baby sister. And so she was devastated when that happened. And the Lord, in his kindness years later, did grant her a baby sister. But I also wanted to mention at the end of your book, you actually have a list of questions, kind of like a guideline that parents can. Can go through with their kids.

Can you talk a little bit about some of those guiding questions? Yeah, let me pull up my permanent reference. I can tell you the last time I read it. Um Yeah, I basically included the back. It's two whole pages.

I think it's longer than the book itself. I knew that. This was going to be brand new to some grownups. And so basically, in the last couple of pages, I kind of just provide kind of an unpacking of the refrain, which I read: because God made and saved us, we hope in what is true. He promises that one day what's broken, he'll make new.

And I kind of just unpack that, you know, what is it God made us? How do we understand that? And how does it, how do we understand God saved us? And how can we tell God how much it hurts? And how is that he promises that one day what's broken he'll make new?

How is that hope full of hope for us? And kind of walking through the whole story of scripture in a way that helps us unpack that refrain. Which I think is helpful if you're going to use this refrain in your home to be able to kind of further that conversation as you're kind of, again, Walking alongside your kid because they're going to ask questions. Like I said you said, even if they're not hurting, they're going to have friends who are. And so they're going to have questions.

I think in Ohio, where I live, one in 10 children will experience the death of a parent or sibling before they turn 18. And so if we just think about classroom size or even how many kids are in your churches, that means that we will be walking alongside families who are experiencing deep, deep loss. And so I think having that is really helpful. Yeah, honestly, I mean, that makes me think that not only is this a good book to get for your own children, but buy an extra copy or two to have on hand so that when you, when you do encounter a family that's going through a hard time, and again, your book, I think, beautifully covers a wide gamut. It can beautifully cover a wide gamut of sorrows that a child will face.

Have a couple copies on hand that you can bless a parent with and say, hey, I know you're facing some hard things and may have some hard questions with your kids. And I thought that this would bless you as well.

So as we close out today, I just, I hope you feel encouraged and not overwhelmed and that teaching our children to lament isn't about having all the right words. It's about helping them know where to take their words. When we show our kids how to cry out to God in their sadness, we're teaching them something deeply stabilizing, that they're never ignored, they're never too small, and their prayers are never too messy for a mighty God. And again, Psalm 116 says, Because he bends down to listen, I will pray as long as I have breath. I love that picture: that the God of the universe stoops low to hear the cries of his children.

And when our sons and daughters learn that truth early, that God bends down to listen, they learn to keep praying through their tears, through their questions, through every season of life. May we be parents and shepherds who teach our children not to silence their sorrow, but where to direct it, because he always hears. Allison, thank you so much for joining us today on Hope in the Morning. Thank you so much. Hope in the Morning is a non-profit ministry that seeks to encourage the hurting.

Equip those who walk beside them, and evangelize the lost with the hope of Jesus Christ. to partner with our ministry or to make a donation in your loved one's honor. Please visit hopeinthemorning.org. Your donation helps keep these stories of hope on the air. and helps tangibly meet the needs of the herding.