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Trusting God through the Loss of a Child

  • Carrie Dedrick What topic related to Christianity, faith, and the Bible is trending online and in social media today?
  • Updated Jan 08, 2016

Christians have asked the question, “Why does God allow His children to suffer?” for ages. We are told God is a loving God in scripture (1 John 4:16), but life sends us so much pain. 

Kyle Porter wrote about his personal experience with suffering in The Gospel Coalition blog “We Lost a Child, and Gained Something Greater.” In the blog, Porter shares his family’s experience with the stillbirth of his daughter, Kate. 

Through the devastating loss of his daughter, Porter says he experienced the presence of God like never before. 

Porter writes, Hebrews 5:8 reminds us that Jesus learned obedience from suffering. We have felt the weight of that verse this week, and testify that it is good. We lost Kate, but we got more of God, and it is a sweet thing.

“There is no bitterness among us. How could there be? We aren’t even promised tomorrow. We are sustained here on Earth in the expanse of the universe only by God’s words. We are owed nothing.” 

The Porter family drew closer to God in their grief. Friends and family rallied around them in prayer and fellowship. They met God in their pain, which is why Porter is now able to find the gift in their tragic loss. 

Porter says, “The sorrow that flowed that week is an unspeakable thing. And we can truthfully say the Lord is good in both the joy and the sorrow, if not greater in the sorrow. That was what we tried to point to all week.”

“This is why I say we lost a child (a baby!), and gained everything. Christ is everything, or he is nothing. We lost so much, but gained so much more. We got so much more of the Lord than we ever had before. We got more of the Lord than I knew was possible for a human to get.”

The Porter family allowed God to carry them through their treacherous path, and found renewed hope in the Lord. 

In the Crosswalk.com blog “Trusting God through Miscarriage,” Chelsea Sherman wrote, “What does it mean to trust God with everything?

“I think it means trusting when it doesn’t make sense; having faith when the world looks on and says you have no reason to. It means that you truly believe in something greater than human understanding, a Creator that is so loving and so powerful and all-knowing that there is no possible way to comprehend his will. It means that you trust your Maker so deeply that even when he takes away in ways that are totally incomprehensible, you hold fast to faith, because you know that he is good in all things.”

He is good in all things. In joy and in sorrow. In laughter and in weeping. In sickness and in healing. He is good.

Publication date: January 8, 2015