Let me tell you about my daughter. She was a vivacious, loving and a very fun sixteen year old daughter, sister and friend to many. She was a junior in high school and involved in countless activities. She was ranked #10 in her class academically. She loved playing and writing piano music. She was actively involved in our youth group and was looking forward to our youth mission trip in Mexico this past summer. The past 18 months of her life, her father and I saw a budding maturity, especially in spiritual matters, having professed her faith in Christ as a child. During that time, she experienced the tragic death of a 14 y.o. boy that she had known in her early childhood. Attending his funeral transformed her thinking about the brevity of life. She wrote a song following this event, detailing the struggle in her heart over this boys death. God had prepared her heart for her own death! We have since found poetry, a diary and many music compositions written by our daughter that document her growing maturity in the Lord. It was evident to all in the way she conducted herself, especially in the school she attended. Many heard the gospel message clearly presented at her funeral. She would have been so pleased to know that her classmates and many others were afforded the Good News because of her death. My daughter did not die in vain ; God was glorified in her death because many saw Christ in her and heard the message that brings eternal life. She died for Christ’s sake, that He would be glorified. He was.

The day of her accident had been a busy one, but aren’t they all at sixteen! She had been up a little late the night before studying for six weeks exams. After school that day she traveled with her choir director for the first round of All-State choir auditions. I picked her up afterwards and we went back to Starbucks for a Frappuccino to celebrate her good audition. I whisked her back for an evening marching band rehearsal. Whew! We drove home in separate cars, and she never made it home that night. We found her some 30 minutes later, after she had driven off the very straight road and into a tree. She was conscious when I arrived and we talked and prayed with her while we waited for help to arrive. Reciting the 23rd Psalm was even difficult for me, as my anxiety rose. It took over an hour for the rescuers to get her out of the car and into the awaiting Careflight helicopter. She had lost consciousness during the ordeal, and I was grateful, but unknowing that I would never be able to speak to her again. After eight hours of trying everything possible to save her life, her heart stopped at 5:30 the next morning, eleven months go today.

Watching your darling, innocent, beautiful, talented daughter die is a painful, gut wrenching experience. Why would God in His sovereignty, allow the innocent to suffer? How could this world possibly go on without her light for Christ in it? The Holy Spirit within my heart calmed the raging thoughts in a supernatural way those early days and weeks, primarily through His Word. They suddenly became alive in that ditch on the side of the road that night. I knew I had to live them, walk the talk, so to speak, or my testimony would fall flat. Miraculously I had the strength to get through each moment, each day, and now each month. The Holy Spirit brought one specific passage to mind as we flew across the night sky in the helicopter:

I had been teaching the previous Thursday morning at the ladies’ study and this had been part of the passage that day. So I meditated on each of these glorious attributes of our Lord as we flew over Dallas to the hospital. The stunning one was the last one: “in Him all things hold together.” Knowing that our lives would never be the same, I prayed that the Lord would give me the strength to accept whatever His will had for me that night; if He held her life together, so be it; if He chose to not hold her in this life, so be it. It really was His choice, as our Sovereign, and I would submit to His will. I knew that I didn’t want to submit grudgingly, because I was at the mercy of the Sovereign King of the universe. I wanted to honor Him in my emotions, in my responses to people and in our decisions about our daughter’s care in this most difficult moment when it would be hard to process and think rationally. God made His choice, which was known to Him since the moment she was conceived, to end her physical life that day. But now I had a choice. How was I going to respond to His choice for my life? For the rest of my life I would be without my best girlfriend, my smiling, singing, happy girl. Life suddenly looked very bleak, lonely and not enjoyable.

Although I have many well-meaning family members and friends who love me and my family, they have not been my source of comfort since her death. The main source of comfort has been God’s Word. I have now lived out His Word in my life in a way I never imagined until I was in this pain. I have found that its promises are true. I realize that the delightful relationship I was missing couldn’t and wouldn’t be filled with another earthly relationship. I need to look to Him to fill that joyful, pleasurable relationship void that I am now in. I thought my relationship with the Lord was fine. But He took me to the deepest level of emotional human pain to realize that there was something more to my relationship with Him. He wanted me to turn to Him in a way I had never fully done before. Clinging to God’s Word, and trusting that it was true, has seen me through. Each day I ask the Lord to keep me from over indulging in my emotions, and help me to be useful to Him. If I am sucked into my emotions (which were damaged in the Fall, Genesis 3:8-10), and an unbeliever comes to my door, I would be useless to my Master. Even believers need to see in me that my Heavenly Father is faithful to His promises and is caring for me. I have been entrusted with this peculiar stewardship to demonstrate to the world that my Father is faithful to His Word. He is bearing me up, comforting and keeping me, despite circumstances that appear otherwise. I want to tell people that He loves me, not just by my words but also by my actions. The way I behave at home and in public should tell those around me that I’m really content in His sovereignty. My behavior in the midst of this trial should tell others that my God is worth following. My responses can actually be a gospel presentation if I demonstrated to the world the sacrificial suffering of Christ who humbly submitted Himself to the cross so that others might be reconciled to God. What an opportunity to be used by God. What an opportunity to make my daughter’s life and death into something others can look to and be saved. She would be delighted with this kind of response, so I am pursuing it. Here are some verses that have helped me with my choice of how to respond each day.



It is an awesome thought to realize where my daughter is today. She has experienced her glorification. Her hope has been realized and she is not disappointed. My husband pointed out to me that our daughter wouldn’t even want to come back now because of what she is experiencing in the presence of Jesus. It is glorious! To her the suffering she endured before entering eternity was worth it because of her present reality. As her mom, I only wish I could know what she is experiencing. I can only know through the scriptures. They are now more precious to me than ever! Here’s another favorite from Romans:

Purchased by the blood of Christ, I am not my own. He owns me. I belong to a Master to do with as He wishes, to bring Himself glory. He could shear my wool off to use for His pleasure; He could use my milk to bring nourishment to others; He could even slaughter me and use the meat. Any way He uses His purchased sheep, it is for the purpose of bringing Himself glory, making Himself known to the world through me. I see in this verse both a privilege to be used by Him and a responsibility to be willing to be used by Him because of the enormous price He paid for me. In the end, my hope of eternal life will be realized, and I will see Jesus and my beloved daughter! This is the reality I live in and cling to. How should I then live as I long for that day: Being useful in whatever circumstances He puts me in. Finally:

Christ’s road was one of suffering, and I should expect the same. But who would have thought I would experience this trial! I am experiencing the joy of ministering God’s love to others in the midst of my pain. It has been a great delight for me to know He is using me and my trial in ways I never imagined before.

Standing only by His grace
Sue

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