The Part of My Story I’ve Never Shared

There is a part of my story I’ve kept quiet for a long time. Not because it didn’t matter, but because I didn’t yet have the words for it.

After losing my 2½-year-old son, I went searching.

I searched for answers. I searched for meaning. I searched for God in a way I never had before. I opened Scripture day after day, desperate to understand how a good God could allow something so devastating, not just death, but a tragic death, to touch the life of a child. My child. I wrestled with questions that felt too heavy to carry:

Why would He allow this? Why didn’t He intervene? Why wasn’t my faith enough to save him?

I had always believed that even faith as small as a mustard seed could move mountains. But in my grief, I felt like I had brought God a mountain of faith, and still, my son wasn’t healed. And somewhere in that searching, my view of God began to shift. Without even realizing it, I started seeing Him differently. Not as a loving Father, but as distant. Not as kind, but as harsh. Not as merciful, but as someone who ruled with an iron fist.

I began to wonder if this was punishment. If I had done something wrong. If I had somehow fallen out of favor with Him. Those thoughts didn’t come all at once, they crept in slowly, quietly, disguising themselves as logic while I was desperate for understanding. I was trying to make sense of something that the human mind was never meant to fully hold. And in doing so, I lost sight of who God truly is.

When Questions Go Unanswered

The truth is, some of the questions I was asking, don’t have answers this side of heaven. And that realization can feel unbearable when your heart is aching for clarity. But what I didn’t realize at the time was this: In my pursuit of answers, I had started anchoring my faith in explanations instead of in God’s character. I was measuring His goodness by my circumstances. I was defining His love by my loss. And that will always lead to confusion. Because if goodness is based on outcomes, then suffering will always make God seem distant. If love is defined by what is spared, then loss will always feel like abandonment.

How God Met Me There

But even in that place, in the doubt, in the questioning, in the quiet wrestling of my heart, God never left me.

He did not turn away from my questions. He was not offended by my grief. He did not withdraw His presence because I was struggling to understand Him. Instead, He met me with patience. A steady, unwavering patience that didn’t rush my healing or demand quick answers. He met me with love. Not a distant love, but a close, personal, gentle love that reminded me I was still His. And slowly, over time, He began to shift my focus. Not by giving me all the answers I was searching for, but by reminding me of who He has always been. He brought me back to His character. A God who is near to the brokenhearted. A God who collects every tear. A God who did not spare His own Son, and therefore understands suffering more deeply than I ever could. A God whose goodness is not diminished by tragedy, even when I cannot comprehend it.

Remembering His Goodness

I may never fully understand why my son’s life unfolded the way it did. But I have come to understand this: God’s goodness is not proven by the absence of pain, it is revealed in His presence within it. He was good when I was searching. He was good when I was doubting. He was good when my heart was breaking. And He is still good today.

Not because I have all the answers, but because He has never changed.

What I Know Now

If you find yourself asking the same questions I once did, you are not alone, and you are not wrong for wondering. But there is a gentle truth I have learned through this journey:

You don’t have to understand God to trust Him. You only have to remember who He has shown Himself to be. And even when your faith feels fragile, even when your heart is full of questions, He is patient enough to hold you there, loving enough to stay, and good enough to carry you through.