Isaac & Abigail

We’ve been teaching the kids a new hymn this summer and this past week we got to sing it for my sweet grandma. We went to see her one last time…she is very sick. My precious grandma has lost her health in a very quick 10 weeks.

My babies have been praying and grieving right alongside of me. We have been honest with them about what has happening. Grandma was in the hospital and didn’t remember who we were or that we loved her. Grandma was too weak to come home. Grandma maybe wasn’t going to get better. My children grieved these things each night as we prayed.

Isaac and I have talked constantly about how much to share with the kids. They are young and innocent…but this is real and hard. We have always leaned to the honest side and sometimes wonder if it was too much. But we have decided that we are not responsible for their innocence. God chooses what to bring into their lives and we choose how to help them walk through it. I can not shelter them from hard things just because they are young. Life is hard and ugly and wild. I can’t change that.

There are things I can change though. I can teach them how to grieve and mourn. I can show them that God calls us to walk through hard things but He carries us through. I can show them beauty in suffering. I can show them what a godly husband of 60 years looks like. I can teach them that God is faithful even when he takes a beloved grandma, wife, mother.

Watching my three children cry and worry is hard. So hard I question our approach. Our choice to expose them to the hard things. But I keep coming back to the reality of childhood innocence. It is a gift from God that not every child gets. And I am not in control of their innocence. I’m in control of their purity through this hard thing. I get to walk through this and show them how much it hurts, but how much I love Jesus. And Jesus changes everything.