When Kids Suffer

Photo by Rene Bernal on Unsplash

I don't know any parents who, if given the opportunity, wouldn't want to minimize their children's suffering. Some friends in our church have a daughter who just went through the most recent of many surgical procedures due to a health condition she was born with. If they could take the pain from her, exchanging their healthy bodies for hers, no doubt they would. I've watched friends walk through diagnoses, death, and heartache, helpless to take the pain away from their children.

Most recently, I've watched as friends in our Nashville community have guided their young kids through unspeakable tragedy and fear due to the shooting at The Covenant School. For some of them, those killed were close friends. There's no shielding a child from that, no pretending that evil isn't real or that it can't touch us.

When my kids were little and struggling with separation anxiety at the babysitter's or the church nursery, I would say, "Remember, Mommy always comes ______," and their little voices would answer, "Back." It gave them comfort in the moment and allowed me to slip away, but in the back of my mind was always the nagging thought: "What if I don't?" What if something happened and they were left without a mother and with the memory of a mom who made a promise she couldn't keep?

The instinct to protect and shield our kids is, I believe, a God-given one. Even God describes Himself as a mother bird shielding her young. But there are things we can't protect them from and truths about the world we can't ignore. 

This past Sunday, my pastor preached on Ephesians 1:15-23. He talked about the hope we have in Christ (Eph. 1:18) and categorized our hopes into "big hopes" and "small hopes." The big hopes are the ones that underpin all the small hopes. The hope of our inheritance in Christ--that's a big hope. The hope that my child might be healed or might make a friend--those are small hopes. And it's the big hopes that are there, holding us up when the small hopes don't come to pass. The big hopes will never fail for those who are in Christ. 

Our kids are going to suffer. They will feel disappointment, betrayal, even perhaps despair. No mantra or well-meaning promise that we'll protect them or be there for them can insulate them from the brokenness of the world in which we live. 

But what we can give them is big hope--the hope that holds up all other hopes:

Blessed by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has called us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you. (1 Peter 1:3-4)

This is the reality we and our kids need on the days when the pain is great and our hearts are sick. An imperishable hope. Thanks be to God.