Notes of Faith February 16, 2025
Shepherding Kids Through the Loss of a Loved One
Article by Kathryn Butler
For weeks, our two kids practiced reciting verses for the National Bible Bee’s Proclaim Day. When they finally took the stage, their hands trembling and the high ceiling dwarfing them, the sound of Scripture on their voices moved us to applause and thanksgiving. As the clapping died down, however, our 11-year-old son, Jack, surprised us by climbing onto the stage a second time.
“I want to share a verse that I find very comforting,” he said. “We read this a lot when we had a friend who was passing away.” He then recited 2 Corinthians 4:16–18 from memory:
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
My husband and I stared at one another in awe. We hadn’t practiced these verses with Jack. Rather, we’d read them during family worship as a dear friend of ours was dying in hospice, and by God’s kindness, Jack had harbored them in his heart. God had worked through a moment of heartache in our family to strengthen our son’s faith, and in doing so, he reminded all of us of his grace amid loss.
Guiding Children Through the Valley
When a loved one dies and grief swallows us up, we may struggle to discern how to guide our children. Their hearts are so tender, we think. Won’t the harsh realities of death bruise them? We wonder if we should suppress our own sorrow to avoid upsetting them. How much should we say? How much should we conceal?
As a retired trauma surgeon, I have sat beside dying friends and loved ones with unusual frequency. Walking through those experiences while raising children has highlighted the need for discernment and sensitivity in such delicate matters. Kids’ hearts are vulnerable to breaking, and we need to handle them gently. We must follow our Lord’s leading not to break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick (Isaiah 42:3; Matthew 12:20).
And yet, while our natural instinct as parents is to shelter our kids from pain, shepherding rarely means sequestering. Our kids will experience death at some point in their lives. Their time with us in the home provides a precious opportunity to give them a Christian framework for death and to model a response that emphasizes our hope in Christ. God can work through death and grief to draw his beloved closer to himself (Psalm 34:18; Romans 8:28) — even the littlest souls entrusted to our care.
How do we navigate the shadowy valley with our kids? How do we raise their eyes to the things that are unseen and eternal? Time and again, I’ve seen God’s grace and mercy at work in my kids’ lives during times of loss. Drawing from those experiences, I humbly offer the following five suggestions to help guide you as you shepherd children through loss.
1. Create space for discussion.
Jack was four when our friend David entered hospice, and before bed one night, I could tell his thoughts troubled him. When I inquired, he asked how David had developed emphysema and why death happens. Then he requested we see David every day until his passing — which we did.
Meanwhile, after the funeral of our friend Carolyn, our nine-year-old daughter, Christie, seemed uncharacteristically quiet. With some gentle prodding, she admitted that standing in the cemetery during the interment scared her. We had a long discussion afterward about how popular culture falsely portrays graveyards as places of horror, and we emphasized the truth: Carolyn was with Jesus, and only her body remained on the earth.
“The problem of sin has a solution. For now we groan, but Christ has swallowed up death in victory.”
As these anecdotes reveal, children wrestle with big questions and bigger feelings. After a loved one’s death, they may not voice troubling thoughts right away, but their silence doesn’t mean they aren’t wrestling. To best love your children during moments of loss, create space for them to talk with you and to share their fears, sorrows, and concerns. Check in with them before bed. Pause during family worship. Above all, invite them to talk with you and to ask questions. Give them permission to explore their complex thoughts and feelings with you. Assure them no questions are shameful and that their concerns won’t worsen your grief. Create opportunities for open dialogue in a loving context.
2. Normalize grief as a time to weep.
As parents, we rush to comfort our children the moment waterworks start. Given such a tendency, when kids see us crying, they may feel the same impulse and experience distress when our tears don’t stop.
Rather than suppress your tears or abandon your kids to process their emotions alone, walk them through the process of grief. Help them understand that sorrow and crying are normal God-given responses to the death of a loved one. To help cement your words into their minds, tie them to God’s words. Discuss how there is “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance” (Ecclesiastes 3:4). Review how Job tore his robes and fell to the ground in mourning when his children died (Job 1:20), how David wept over Absalom (2 Samuel 19:4), and how even Jesus wept when Lazarus died (John 11:35).
Validate your children’s feelings as they grieve. Especially when they’re young, children may not feel sorrow at the loss of a loved one and worry their response is somehow wrong when everyone else is sad. Come alongside your kids and help them understand that grief is complex. It ebbs and flows, affects everyone differently, and stirs up emotions that may vary dramatically. Normalize confusion, sorrow, and tangled feelings — all of which we see in the psalms of lament (such as Psalms 22, 77, 130) as believers struggle with their grief.
3. Frame death as a consequence of the fall.
No matter the age of the person pondering them, questions about death cut to the heart of our fallenness. Illness afflicts us because sin stains all of God’s creation (Genesis 3:17–19). Death is the wages of our sin and comes to all (Romans 5:12; 6:23). It is grim, dark, and painful because it reflects a corruption of God’s original design (Genesis 2:9).
Speaking openly about death as a necessary consequence of the fall helps kids to cope when it strikes their own circles. They learn that death is a part of life in this fallen world, something to accept rather than to fear. Most importantly, when we explain death to our kids in the context of the fall, we can point them to Christ. The problem of sin has a solution. For now we groan, but Christ has swallowed up death in victory (1 Corinthians 15:55–57).
4. Model trust in God.
When possible, reflect with your kids on God’s sovereignty and provision in the face of death. Model trust in him even when understanding fails. Lean into the truth that his ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:9).
Psalm 23 is an excellent passage to read together. Although we all will walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we need not fear because God will be with us (Psalm 23:4). Elsewhere, he has promised never to leave us or forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:8). Our times are in his hands (Psalm 31:15). His word assures us that nothing — not even death! — can separate us from his love for us in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:38–39).
5. Point to our hope in Christ.
For the believer, Jesus’s sacrifice and resurrection have transformed death from the last enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26) to the path to our heavenly home. “I am the resurrection and the life,” Jesus told Martha. “Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25–26). Although we are all wasting away, our sufferings and death are but a light momentary affliction preparing us for our eternal dwelling with God (2 Corinthians 4:16–18; Revelation 21:3).
Point your kids to this truth early and often. As you wipe the tears from their cheeks, remind them that although it’s right to cry after loss, we also cleave to joy. We cling to the truth that a loved one with faith in Christ has quit the travails of this sinful world and now rejoices before God’s throne, where death, pain, and crying are no more (Revelation 21:3).
Some children worry that loved ones who didn’t attend church or profess faith in Jesus will not be in heaven. In such moments, point them to God’s faithfulness, mercy, and sovereignty. Teach them about the thief on the cross, to whom God granted salvation even in his dying moments (Luke 23:43). Remind them that while we may be uncertain about a loved one’s faith, God is faithful, just, and forgiving (1 John 1:9), and we can trust his good and perfect will wholeheartedly, no matter what questions trouble us.
After our Bible Bee experience, Jack elaborated on his fondness for 2 Corinthians 4:16–18. “It helps me to remember we have hope because of Jesus,” he said. His words capture the answer for all of us — from age 0 to 99 — when death strikes: faith in Christ. Solace, peace, and rest reside in him (Matthew 11:28). Even as we weep in the face of death, by Christ’s wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53:5).
Kathryn Butler is a trauma and critical care surgeon turned writer and homeschooling mom.
Our family has just received word of the “loss” of a loved one. We know that they are not lost, but as a believer and follower of Christ, they are now with the Lord, eternally! We have lots of questions and why things happen yet trust God to use every circumstance, even death, to lead and guide those still on this side of the grave for His glory and our eternal good. The pain and sorrow of loss is evident in Scripture. Job indeed was sorrowful of the loss of his children and yet knew that he would see them again with God in his eternal life prepared for all of them. Jesus wept, expressing His human emotions when his dear friend Lazarus died, though knowing that He had the power and authority to raise Lazarus from the dead and was going to do so. We grieve the loss of someone being with us but as followers of Jesus know that we will be with them again when we are changed from this body and life of decay to that of the glory that God has prepared for us! See you soon, dear friend!
Pastor Dale
