Podcast

Experiencing God’s Hope and Healing through Significant Loss. Cheryl Christopher

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Unshakable Hope Podcast, where real life intersects redeeming love. I’m Kellie Hall, and this is where we wrestle through faith questions, such as how do I trust God’s heart when His ways and delays are breaking mine? We’ll hear from people just like you and me, who have experienced God’s faithfulness when life didn’t unfold as they expected.

My prayer is that God would renew our hope in His word and His love through these conversations.

 

Kelly: Hey, guys, my guest today is Cheryl Christopher. She is someone who is intimately familiar with grief and loss. She’s written a powerful and hope filled book called A Portrait of Grief, Hope and Healing, After the loss of a child, her story has blessed and encouraged me so much.

I heard her on the bleeding daylight podcast, and I knew immediately I wanted to reach out to see if [00:01:00] she’d be willing to join me here, and I’m so thankful to be able to bring her heart and wisdom to you all today. One of the endorsements for her book comes from Philip Yancey. He is the best selling author of Where Is God When It Hurts, and he is one of the authors whose books mentored me so much as I processed ongoing losses within our family’s story.

In his endorsement, he asked the question, How does one person live through such a succession of tragedies? And that is certainly an appropriate question for Cheryl.

She’ll unfold her story in just a few moments, but I’ll share with you that her family life changed forever after the death of her two sons and one grandson. And as a trigger warning, I do want to mention that suicide is a part of the story, but Cheryl focuses on the tender and personal ways that God met her, prepared her, Brought healing and hope in the journey, and even restored [00:02:00] laughter.

I love what she writes in her intro. She says, My credentials are simply that I’m a person of faith who asked God why, myriad times, who endured perhaps the most painful of all losses a person can experience, and eventually found the strength to stand up and take steps forward.

So, Cheryl, I am truly grateful.

You’re here. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Cheryl: Thank you for inviting me. Kelly. I’m delighted to be here.

Kelly: I’m also really thankful to be connected with you because I noticed that. that you were from Beaumont, Texas, and I grew up in Port Neches right? Oh, you did? Oh, wow. Yeah. And you graduated from Lamar University, which is where my mom went.

Cheryl: Oh, great. Yes.

I would love for you to tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.

I am married and my husband and I now live in Bryan College Station. And we have a daughter who lives [00:03:00] here. We are not Aggies. But we had a son who went to a and m, so we’re kind of, and my my husband’s brother went to a and m.

Cheryl: But we’re surrounded by Aggies. It’s a great, great place to live. It really is. As far as things that I love to do, I love to go to the beach.

Kelly: Hmm.

Cheryl: I am a painter. I’m an oil painter. I started painting probably, oh now about 12 years ago. And I still write some. And I’m also taking some psychology classes back at Lamar.

Oh, wow. Yeah.

Kelly: Well, Cheryl, there’s one other thing I wanted to mention for our listeners cause I found it so fascinating is that you, you’re a super creative person and you even started a company and a whole bridal line that was even in Paris. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah.

Cheryl: Yeah. Yeah, I did.

and that really came out of the death of our youngest son. I had the need to just change everything about in my life. And so I went back to school, I got a different [00:04:00] job and I went to Paris and went to the Paris American Academy and got together with Cinta Zainer.

So that’s another part of my life, another chapter. Yeah.

Kelly: Yeah. Well, you know, your story , is truly impossible for us to comprehend those profound losses that you walked through with two sons and a grandson. And I’m sure it’s even hard as you have told your story over the years I am sure that people have just had a hard time wrapping their hearts around all those losses and really the implications of all those losses.

But I’d love for you just to take us through your story. Let’s start with. Austin, your youngest son, tell us about him.

Cheryl: Let me give just a wee bit of background here. My husband and I married very young. I graduated from high school at 17 and from college at 20. And my husband started working when he was 15.

He’s a photographer. And so I was 19 when we married and he was [00:05:00] 20. And we had three children and then we had Austin he was six years younger than our, our next child. So, I had a preschooler at home for 17 years with the way that our children, with the way that the ages of our children, but after all three of our older children had graduated from college and married and were independent.

We only had Austin at home and Really, the night that it all started, my husband and I had been photographing a wedding and came in late, and I was kind of listening for Austin to come in. He was due, you know, before midnight, and there was a knock at the door, and opening the door, I saw three of Austin’s friends, and the boys were visibly shaken.

There’s been an accident, they said. It’s Austin. They’ve got the jaws of life. And my husband and I threw, we’re throwing some clothes on [00:06:00] and ran, we’re running out to our car when a patrol car turned into our driveway to tell us that our son had been pronounced dead at the scene of an accident.

My husband carried me in the house.

I was not able to go to the scene. It was only about two miles away. My husband called a friend to come over and stay with me and he went to the scene of an accident. There was a pastor who lived next door who kind of saw the commotion. And he came over and he knelt beside me and said, Cheryl let me pray with you.

And I was like, No, I do not speak to the Lord in my presence. I am not talking to him as a go in the other room and pray for the boy who was driving . He’s still alive and pray for him, but don’t speak the name of the Lord in my presence. But the Lord continued to speak to me and he said, he’s like, don’t push me away, Cheryl.

I know what it’s like to lose a son. [00:07:00] And He told me that several times in my heart, you know, I could hear him, , telling me, don’t push me away, , and later, he said, I still have a plan, even in this but of course, I didn’t believe him and I would not speak to the Lord.

Yeah, I didn’t know anything. I didn’t know very much about grief and how to how to grief when this happened.

Kelly: Yeah,

Cheryl: I’d always handled everything on the inside of me. And so. That’s what I did. I tried to hold it in. There was like a hell inside of me that frightened me. I didn’t, I didn’t know what would happen if I let it out.

I feared falling into a pit that I would never climb out of. I’ve since learned that grief is what we feel on the inside after a catastrophic loss. But mourning is what we, is that expression of that grief. You know, by crying and screaming and, sighing and all [00:08:00] these things that that you do and it’s the morning that allows us to release some of the pressure that is inside.

And so it people describe grief as a wave hitting you. And it is like a wave hitting you, but if we, if we are fateful to just grieve and allow the grieving process to happen, then it’s kind of like going with the flow instead of trying to stand up against it when the waves would hit you, like if you were in the ocean, you know, you do feel like you’re drowning sometimes.

But. I have this need, I said a while ago, Kelly, to change everything about my life and so we had just built this house for the three of us, you know, with our other kids moving on and it was, there was room for them to come back and visit but I just couldn’t live there. I didn’t want to live there any longer after, without Austin and so after the first year, we waited the first year and I asked my husband to He, he put it [00:09:00] on the market.

It did not sell. And my husband and I were, had a beautiful view and we were sitting in a swing one evening and the sun was setting and he said, isn’t that beautiful? And I didn’t say anything. And He got so angry at me and he said, can’t you even enjoy a sunset anymore? And I said, I don’t want to live here.

We built this house for three people. It’ll always be empty to me. And I told him, I said, he said, I love it here. I love it here. And I said, I’ll make you a deal. If the house doesn’t sell in two more months, that would be two years. I’ll find a way to live here and I’ll never mention it again. And in my heart, I prayed and I broke my silence with the Lord and I said, Lord, please sell this house.

I don’t think I can live here. You have two months. And the phone rang in the house and my husband got up from the porch to go inside. And he said, that’s probably someone wanting to buy this dang [00:10:00] house. And it was. And it was, and it’s like that day, the Lord kind of opened the door of heaven and showed me a little bit more of himself that he still heard me that he was close, even though I kept him at arm’s length.

And I think that was kind of the beginning of us kindling our relationship again. And I knew that, I always knew that he was nearby, but I just. Was too angry to let him in.

Kelly: Yeah, I can understand that.

Cheryl: And so when we sold that house, we moved back into town.

And I put my sofa that I called it my grieving sofa, my tear laden sofa. I said, put that thing out on the street. I never want to see it again. It was a gorgeous green sofa. And so we moved to another house. And you got

Kelly: rid of the sofa that had held you through so much of your grief.

Yes, yes. [00:11:00] Well, I’m wondering how many years was it before you lost your.

Cheryl: Our oldest son. Yeah. And that’s when I when we moved back into Beaumont, I I couldn’t go back to work. I mean, I had continued to work. We did a lot of society work and all kinds of work, you know, but we were in front of people all the time.

And I had a need to. Not be with, not feel as though I was being looked at. I don’t know if people in grief imagine that or if it’s true, but that’s how we often feel that people are checking up on us and seeing how we’re doing and things like that. And it’s all meant with a good heart, but still it’s, it’s hard to bear sometimes.

So I went back to Lamar and took a few classes. I got a different job and I did that for a while. And then I went to France and took classes there and did all that collaboration with The bridal gown business, but 9 years later, we, my husband got a text from our daughter and she said, dad, I’ve [00:12:00] gotten a strange text from Wes, our oldest son, and, I think something’s wrong. I can’t get in touch with him. And so my husband tried to get in touch with Wes, but he couldn’t get him. He got Wes’s wife, and she said that Wes had taken his life. And for people who lose a loved one to a suicide, It has a very profound effect. I didn’t want to feel anything.

And so I pretty much shut down. Somehow we got through the funeral and all that. But I had a hard time getting out of bed. All I wanted to do was sleep. Yeah. And this time maybe about two weeks after Wes’s death, Gary got a call from a friend of his that he knew through golf. His name is Judge Tom Mulvaney.

Tom had cancer, and we knew that he was terminal, but he told my husband he needed to speak with me that the Lord had given him a word. And so Tom came over, and he [00:13:00] told me the story of his his aunt. And he said, Cheryl, she was just a beautiful woman, but my, my family always said, Tom, we wish you’d known her before.

And of course, he was a child, you know, and he said, I never knew until I was a grown man what the story was. I mean, why would they say we wish you had known it before? And he said that her son, her oldest son, had fought in World War II. And when he came home, he, Just wasn’t himself anymore. It doesn’t seem like he spent a lot of time in his room.

He tried to get a job, but nothing really happened for him. And he said, she was the one that found him after he had taken his life. And he said, it’s as though a part of her had died that day as well. And he said she never smiled the way that she had before. She was not vivacious the way that she was.

And he said, Cheryl, the Lord. told me to come over here to tell you that he doesn’t [00:14:00] want that to be your story. Hmm.

He wants you to live fully every day that he leaves you on this earth. Don’t give up now. And you know, Kelly, when I looked into that man’s eyes, that man who I knew wanted to live, but wouldn’t we Both, he and I both knew that he would not live as he encouraged me to use the time that the Lord gave me on this earth.

I listened to him and I decided that I would walk through that grief again. But that I would live that I wouldn’t stop living and, you know, I pray that for every person listening to this podcast that has lost someone to suicide I pray that they would live. More fully and love more deeply because of what’s happened not in spite of it But because of it because that’s the Lord’s will for us and we need to fight for our own lives it’s as hard [00:15:00] as we wish we could have fought for theirs and That’s my prayer for them.

Kelly: Mm hmm. Wow, that is profound. I love that the Lord Gave that man the courage to come to you to share that with you and that you have the ability to hear it and receive it. It’s so powerful life changing. I would like for you if you can speak to the difference of how it landed on your heart, the difference between losing a son to an accident and losing a son to suicide.

How is that different for you to process?

Cheryl: As parents, that we feel responsible for our children’s happiness for their well being and when a child takes his life or her life. We are aware of a suffering that often we did not know of [00:16:00] and there’s guilt I have found with any death. There’s always guilt when there’s death and I should have gotten clinics and I think that the guilt is intensified when there is a suicide.

There’s also a bit of a stigma attached to having someone in your family die by suicide, I’ve I never even heard that word growing up, you know, I never even heard it. And if it was ever spoken, it was always kind of like whisper, you know, as though it was just, you know, and also that we’ve gone through so many times and people talk about people who’ve taken their own life that it’s the unforgivable sin.

Which if we know scripture, we know that’s not the unforgivable sin. Exactly.

Kelly: Yeah.

Cheryl: And we had the comfort of knowing that all of our children knew the Lord and knew him personally had given their lives to him, but not everybody knows that, but [00:17:00] we still don’t know, even though someone may have rejected Christ their whole life, we don’t know what’s going to happen in those last few seconds.

Absolutely. We really don’t. And surely, surely to someone who has at the end of their rope. All of heaven bends low to hear those last thoughts, and sometimes something so simple as, remember me, is enough for someone to. To enter the gates of heaven, you know, sometimes Kelly, we think of God as we see him as being small and snooping around looking for some way to condemn someone while the truth is he paints pictures of himself over and over in scripture.

Yeah. You know, he’s a loving father. He’s running down the road to meet his failure of a son to embrace him.

Kelly: His arms are thrown open wide. Yes. He has a welcoming [00:18:00] smile on his face. Yes. He knows our hearts. And yes, I’m just so glad you brought that up . We do not know what happens as someone passes into unconsciousness.

Even then, Jesus is with them. He talks to them. You just don’t know. . I have had several moms on here who shared about their son committing suicide and how they had to just say, I have to take my thoughts captive. I have to say, you know, I have to discipline my mind and discipline my imagination and I think you say that in in your book as well I have to discipline my imagination And make sure that I don’t listen to the lies of condemnation, but I remember the heart of our very good god

Cheryl: Yes.

Kelly: Well, I’d love for you to continue with your story if you don’t mind.

Cheryl: Okay. So, this time we changed everything about our life. We sold our house. We [00:19:00] sold our business. We moved to the Texas Hill country. And we spent 10 years there just drinking in the beauty.

That’s when I started painting and just, you know, trying to rebuild our lives again and Wes left three sons when he died. Brock, his oldest, was almost eight, and he had the most vivid memories of his father. His second son was six, and then the baby was three. There was three boys. Brock had a difficult time in school, and he had a difficult time at home.

I don’t know he had some emotional problems, I think, that none of us ever really quite understood. Of course, , losing his father would be difficult. Had a big impact on him. Of course. But he spent a lot of time with us. He would call us and ask us if we’d come get him and we’d come get him.

The last four years probably of his life, he lived, he lived off and on with [00:20:00] us and went to school there in the hill country for probably his when he was 15 for that year. Most of that year. But one afternoon Well, really it was evening. I was at home by myself painting. My husband had gone on a golf trip with some friends. And so he was out of town. So I was painting and all of a sudden I felt the embrace of a hand on my shoulder. A warm hand on my shoulder. And the room kind of just filled with a peace.

I don’t know. It was very, very peaceful. And I I was it frightened me and I was like, is that with you Lord? Because I, I didn’t know what was happening and I said, is something going to happen? If something’s going to happen, you’re going to have to tell me if you want me to know and so sitting down.

I opened my Bible. I don’t usually do this. I usually have a study and I read, but I opened my Bible and it fell [00:21:00] to Ecclesiastes 7, 1 through 4, and I’ll read that to you. These words just jumped out at me. The day of one’s death is better than the day of one’s birth. It is better to go to a house of mourning than to a house of fasting, feasting, because this is the end of every man and the living takes it to heart.

Sorrow is better than laughter.

Kelly: Hmm.

Cheryl: It was just a few hours after that that I received a call that our oldest grandson Brock had taken his life.

Kelly: Oh, Cheryl. So sorry.

Cheryl: And it was pretty late by then. It was probably after 10 and so I didn’t call anyone. I’d learned that bad news is best heard in the morning and there was nothing anyone could do.

And so I got my little poodle and we got in bed together and, made it until the next day. [00:22:00] Wow.

Kelly: I love how the Lord so gently met you that he put his hand tangibly. You felt it, his hand on your shoulder. That is so sweet and so tender. And then he prepared your heart to hear bad news, but you knew he was with you in such a peaceful, tangible way.

That’s just beautiful.

Cheryl: Well, I thought, you know, I thought about it. I just think he wanted me to know that. He knew, what was going to happen and , it was under his control and he didn’t want me to lose heart. Again, and do you know, I’ve, it took me a long time before I mentioned that to anybody.

I was like, they’re going to think I’m you know, a wacko, you know, I think I’m a crazy person, a few fries short of a happy meal. And so I didn’t mention it, you know, for a long, long time to anybody.

But when I did, I asked several other women that I knew who had [00:23:00] lost children if they had had ever had you know, some assurance from the Lord that their children were alright or that something was going to happen. And many did not, but many did. Yeah. Many did. Huh. Yeah. And so, I don’t know. I think sometimes the Lord meets us, you know, and gives us the things that we need.

Kelly: Absolutely. You have a whole chapter where you talk about this, how people met you, how God met people in those moments, just before the grief or in the grief. That was so tangible and so encouraging. And I’d love for you to share some of those.

Well, I have one friend who she lost her son. He was he was adult.

Cheryl: He was a doctor. He had a cough that kind of started, didn’t live very long, really. He had a very, very rare kind of lung disease. But after his death, the day of his death, I think she saw, you know, some butterflies.

Kelly: And

Cheryl: every day for a year, She saw a butterfly.

Kelly: That’s amazing.

Cheryl: [00:24:00] Every day. One day, she got into her car and there were, there were two butterflies in her car and they were, you know, flying around.

And one day it was, she’s an artist and she has lots of art books and things like that. And one day she was like, it’s freezing outside. I won’t see a butterfly today. And she said, she opened an art book and there was a butterfly. Monarch butterfly spread across two pages. Oh, the photograph of it and one of my friends who, who lost her son and that was to a suicide.

He, she had a friend walking past his house like a few days after the funeral, and she, her friend called her and said, Have you seen your son’s yard? Have you seen the Redbirds? And she’s like, What do you mean Redbirds? And she said, His yard is filled with With red birds and no other yard. There was not a red bird in any other yard and every time I read where a red bird would [00:25:00] appear, you know, it would assure her that the Lord.

You know, was thinking of her and knew of her loss and wanted to comfort her and people have seen double rainbows and I have one friend who’s of Indian heritage and Really the lord spoke to her with a with really it was to her son who was having such a hard time By an eagle’s feather that came from Heaven and came down to the earth in front of him.

Wow. And so that, that spoke to him. That is beautiful. What

Kelly: did you say about this woman? A woman who, what? I didn’t hear. Oh, she’s

Cheryl: of Indian heritage.

Kelly: Oh, okay. Yeah. She had passed away.

Cheryl: Yeah. Her her son had passed away and the other son was struggling with it because they had had bad words before his brother’s death.

And so he was out in. In the wilderness, you know, and he felt like his brother, the Lord had given him [00:26:00] that sign from his brother, that there was peace between them.

Kelly: Wow. I love that. Well, 1 of the things you write in your book is, it is my aim to remind those of you in your own darkest days that God is good through my struggles.

I have found that God is still telling a good story with our lives, including yours. So, I’d love for you to talk to us a little bit about how you restored intimate relationship with God after. These losses you can pull from any part of your life, but I know there were times when you were, you’ve already talked about you were angry.

You were broken hearted. You were offended with God. You did not want to hear from him, but I, I would like for you to speak to the timetable of grief and maybe how to process the heartache with the Lord.

Cheryl: My path has not been like most people’s most people. If you lose a child, you grieve a child the [00:27:00] rest of your life, you know, but. It is, there are many ups and downs on the road, unfortunately, for us, when we would go on the upswing, we would have another terrible loss. And so, as far as processing, it’s very chaotic and confusing.

Kelly: Yes,

Cheryl: but let me say this. In the beginning, when we lost Austin, I felt as though the Lord people poured their love out on us in so many ways. I cannot tell you of all the gifts and the love and the food and the presence of people that came and just stayed with us. Yeah, it was a wonder. It was a wonderful experience.

Not everyone has that experience. If they’re not a part of a church or if they’re not, I know that we were known very widely in that community. The second time when we lost Wes, he sent his [00:28:00] word through another man. And then the last time I felt as though the Lord showed up himself. And so I would say if, if someone has never met the Lord, then It makes it the journey so much more difficult because you really perceive that you are all alone.

Kelly: Yeah,

Cheryl: the comfort that the Lord can give on any difficult journey. It is so much better to have someone with you. And when you’re grieving, you’re not even really with your spouse because your journeys are different.

Kelly: Yes,

Cheryl: that’s very different. And so for me, I would say that I did little to reestablish my relationship with the Lord.

He did it all.

Kelly: He really,

Cheryl: he really did it all. He sent his people, he sent his word, and he came himself. And you know, this isn’t a pretty [00:29:00] story. Yeah. It isn’t a, it isn’t a pretty story. I would not have chosen this story to be my story, but the Lord’s done a lot of beautiful things with it. With the despair.

My husband and I went back to a Young Life banquet. We started Young Life years ago in Belmont and there was a reunion of all the original committee. And so there were a lot of, my, My Austin’s friends there, you know, who came up and said how they had come to Christ through what had happened to Austin and through some of the money we had a memorial gifts given all to pay for buses to go to Young Life Camp and it paid for him for 13 years for those kids to go to Young Life Camp.

So who knows how many, how many kids have come to Christ, you know, because of loss of his life. That is so powerful. It’s just the Lord’s a [00:30:00] big and he’s good and he sees and he hears and he loves and he steps in. And but we do have to open ourselves to him. And sometimes in the midst of great tragedy it takes time for us to do that, or it did me some people don’t, you know, I’ve had some friends who have held the Lord close to them all the way through their grief journey, but I wasn’t able to do that.

Kelly: Hmm. Oh my goodness.

I know there was a pivotal moment, and I wanted you to talk about this because I think a lot of people who have walked through grief have these moments where they feel kind of isolated in the In the depth of their grief.

Kelly: So there was a woman that shared. Oh, I have an answer to prayer and you were in a group of women and she said, I was having this party and there was a downpour and I just prayed God, please stop the rain before the party and the rain stopped and so you’re sitting there thinking, Oh, God answered her prayer to save a party, [00:31:00] but he didn’t save my son So that was a moment when you really had to start dealing with unanswered prayer.. And I’m going to read this quote because I want you to respond to that story and this quote both.

Okay? So you say, I’ll never again speak of unanswered prayer. My prayers and your prayers are being answered in ways that we will one day understand and be amazed by. So can you just talk to all of that, please?

Cheryl: Sure. The last statement that you read, That’s not what I was thinking that day , when my friend told about how the Lord stopped the rain and her, you know, and it was a terrible, , it was a gully washer.

That’s what we call it in Southeast Texas. And we were like, I was like, wow, it’s gonna really wash that party out. But it stopped in the nick of time. And so I was like, Lord, how can you do that? You know, how can you hear her prayer? And stop the rain because of a party. And you’d have to know that [00:32:00] the last time I saw my son, Austin, I had taken a nap before going to that late wedding.

And I saw him jumping in the car out of my dining room window. And I prayed, Oh Lord, please watch over him and keep him safe. So that was the last time I prayed. Okay. And then my son died that night. And so that was one reason I had such a hard time speaking to the Lord again. Okay. and didn’t trust him to pray.

You know, I didn’t trust him. I’m like, I don’t trust you anymore. It helped me though. I really, I read a I guess I heard it maybe on a, on a podcast. Tony Evans is a pastor in Dallas, Texas, and his wife, Became very ill with cancer and he asked his congregation and all of Dallas and the United States and the world to pray for her to be healed.

But she wasn’t healed. She died and his son Jonathan was asked to give his mother’s [00:33:00] eulogy. And Jonathan said that when he was preparing her eulogy, he had it out with the Lord a little bit like me. And he was like, Lord, didn’t you hear us? I mean, couldn’t you see the cancer? I mean, people all over the world were praying for her.

It was a wonderful time, a great time for you to show your glory. And he said, and I was wrestling with God. And he said, and he answered me and he said, Jonathan,

you don’t understand. He said, either she was going to be healed or she was going to be healed. Either she was going to live or she was going to live. Either she was going to be with family or she was going to be with family. Either she was going to be taken care of or she was going to be taken care of.

The victory belongs to me because of what I’ve already done. And after I’ve read that, it gave me such a sense of [00:34:00] peace, and I thought, you know, I don’t, the Lord sometimes answers our prayers in ways that we can’t even fathom.

Kelly: Yeah. And

Cheryl: I’ve seen lots and lots of answers to prayer, but those prayers, the prayers that I wanted the most for him to answer my way, he didn’t do it.

He didn’t do it. And so it’s hard to live with, but. And that really helped me to understand that his ways were so much higher than ours. And we don’t see what he sees and we don’t understand. We just don’t understand. And you know, when I read the scripture, Jesus never speaks about unanswered prayer. , he doesn’t and so , I said, you know, I’ll never speak of unanswered prayer again.

I’ll just face the fact that I don’t understand, but our Lord who is good, who sent his son to die for me, [00:35:00] the, the Lord who is for me in every way, you know, I just have to trust that he’s answering prayers the way they should be. And sometimes we’ll see the answers. And perhaps we’ll understand, but perhaps it won’t even matter when we really understand, , CS Lewis says for humans on earth, when we have something terrible happens, we think we’ll never get over this.

We’ll never get over this. And he said, they don’t understand that heaven once achieved, we’ll work backwards to make even our worst loss into a glory. And so I hold on to that.

Kelly: Oh, beautiful. Oh my goodness. I have thought before Jesus, when I see you face to face, when I look in your eyes and I, I feel tangibly your incomprehensible love that fills me up so much, I can’t even express it like a love I’ve never felt before.

I’m going to look in [00:36:00] your eyes and I’m not going to be able to put it into words. But everything will come together and I’m going to see, I’m going to see your glory. I’m going to see your love. I’m going to see your beauty. And suddenly it’s all going to be all right. Oh, beautiful.

Cheryl. I’m so glad you shared that story. I know that brought you a lot of comfort

Cheryl: Yes, it did!

Kelly: When I read stories about how tenderly and faithfully and powerfully God meets people and speaks to them in moments like that, that is what helps me the most.

I have told many people the fact that God speaks is what has rescued my heart more than anything else. God is a God who speaks. But the thing that opens our heart up to His words, so often is really asking questions like Tony Evans son did. Like, Lord, what do you do with this? How do I talk about this?

[00:37:00] Mm-hmm .

I brought my questions to the Lord in Philipp Yancy’s books. . Yes. And . And in the scripture and God is so faithful to meet us in those places, so tenderly and to walk us into trust and peace.

Cheryl: You know, I read something, speaking of another author there’s a book I love by Buell Kazee I’m trying to think of the name of it right now, but in it, Bill says that when we come to Christ, we’re no longer children, that we are soldiers of the cross.

And we need to expect lions dens and fiery furnaces and enemies to stand in our way. You know, we’re no longer babes in Christ.

, I know that for women out there, who’ve lost a child, who’s lost children, who’s lost a spouse,

We’re wounded. I mean, everyone is wounded in some way, but it’s a terrible wound. And just because nobody sees these wounds, [00:38:00] it, it, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t there. In many ways, the wounds that we carry over the hurts of our loved ones, are like battle scars, , but they’re different.

They’re different because they’re wounds of honor. These wounds have come about because of our loving. And there’s, going to come a great day though, for those of us who know Christ, there’s a great day coming. And, I know that you have deaf children, but there will be a day when the deaf will hear, and the blind will see, and the lame will run, and those of us who are grieving will shout and dance with joy, and the dead will rise.

Kelly: Amen. Amen. And you know, I was, sorry, I was going to have I’m having a hard time.

Okay. I was going to have you talk about how to restore joy in our lives after ongoing loss. And, but I think you have just laid it out so beautifully [00:39:00] throughout this entire podcast. And I will just close with this one scripture that I think you and I have both received comfort for, and it’s Jesus speaking.

And it’s in John 14, 27, where he says, peace. I leave with you my, my peace. I give you, it’s not as the world gives. So don’t let your heart be troubled and don’t be afraid. We can run to him. We can run to our God and he is right here with us and for us in all of his tender love and power at all times. And his peace will comfort us and heal us and minister to us in ways that we cannot even put into words.

Cheryl: Yes amen.

Kelly: Cheryl. Where can our listeners find you?

Cheryl: I’m at Cheryl Christopher author. com are I also have an email. C Christopher author [00:40:00] at gmail. com.

Kelly: Thanks for sharing that with us. And your book again is

Cheryl: I have actually 2 books.

1 is a portrait of grief the subtitle is hope and healing after the loss of a child. And the 2nd book is forget me not. And it is a. Survival guide for grief.

Kelly: Excellent. And I know Phillip Yancey has been taking a look at that second book too.

So do you have a release date for that?

Cheryl: Oh, no, it is released. It, it was released in January.

Kelly: Oh, wonderful. Okay. Excellent. Cheryl, thank you so much for your time today.

Cheryl: Thank you, Kelly. I enjoyed being with you.

If you were encouraged in your faith today, it’d be great. If you’d help get the word out by subscribing, sharing with a friend or leaving a review, I’d love to hear from you. You can reach out through my website, kelly hall. org and pick up some free resources while you’re there. Thanks for listening to the unshakable whole [00:41:00] podcast.