176 | Suffering Is Not Meaningless with Austin and Valerie DeArmond

Austin and Valerie DeArmond are the parents of a daughter, Addie, and a son, Gabriel, a joy-filled little boy who was known for his enthusiastic and sloppy open-mouth kisses. Gabe was the life of every party, and he relished that role. Austin and Valerie enjoyed 366 days of blessing with Gabriel until the Lord took him Home following a sudden and unexpected illness. We have a wide-ranging discussion today, discussing sensitive issues such as infertility, adoption, medical mistakes, the vital importance of good theology in grief, marriage after child loss, and parenting a young child who’s grieving.  The DeArmonds are less than a year into their loss, but God has gifted them with a great deal of wisdom … I believe you’ll be blessed by listening in. 

Austin's blog is full of wonderful articles.  Click HERE to check it out! 

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Transcript

Jill
Hi, Austin and Valerie. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.

Valerie
Thank you for having us.

Austin
Glad to be here.

Jill 
Yeah, I'm glad you're here, too. It was so good to meet you guys at our While We're Waiting Weekend a couple months ago, and I just feel like your story is a really important one to share. I want to get started by giving you guys the opportunity to tell a little bit about yourselves, tell us where you're from and what life is like for you there.

Austin
So my name is Austin.

Valerie
And I'm Valerie.

Austin
We've been married now for about eight years. We live right outside of New Orleans in a little town called St. Rose.. You know, we get all of the beauty and culture of New Orleans, but we're enough out of the city that it still has a small town feel. We have two beautiful children, Addison, who's our daughter, and Gabriel, who recently went to heaven. We're not originally from this area if the accent doesn't give it away. I'm from north Alabama. And then Valerie is from west Louisiana. My background is in biblical studies and theology, and then I work for a ministry called Spoken Worldwide, which is a missions agency that focuses on oral learners. And so I work in Bible translation, creating oral Bibles for people who are not literate and trying to meet people where they're at.

Valerie
Yeah. And I stay at home, and I now do different things than I had first anticipated, but I'm able to reach out to elderly couples in our church and do Bible studies with women in our community, and so I've been enjoying that.

Austin
Yeah. And we live in this area. We tell people all the time that we live in St. Rose, Louisiana, because of St. Rose Community Church, which is our local church here. A wonderful body of Christ. It started out as a church plant and became, you know, neither one of us are from this area, but we're here for mission and ministry and have been here now for years.

Jill
Wow, that's awesome. When you have a church that you love that much and that is so meaningful and helpful to you. And I know you guys are a blessing to your church, and that's your draw to actually live there.

Austin
Absolutely.

Jill
Yeah. And I know you do a lot of traveling with your job, right, Austin?

Austin
Oh, yes, recently. Just got back from Indonesia … about a month before that, I was in the Philippines, and I was in Peru in February for our church. But our projects are across the globe, most of the time in the Global South and in and so, you know, we visit the projects and help train translators and work on the scripture.

Jill
Wow. Yeah. That's awesome. What a valuable ministry, that is, very good. So when we met you at the retreat, you shared your story with us, and one of the things you shared was that you all really didn't think you could have children. Right, right. And you adopted your daughter, Addison. Tell us a little bit about her adoption story.

Austin
Oh, absolutely. So it is not your typical adoption. It was a private adoption, so we didn't go through an agency. We got married, we waited for a little bit, and we just had this assumption that once you begin trying that you just have babies. And then, to our surprise, that's not always the case. You know, Valerie and I both have worked overseas with children, and I've actually been involved with a few pro life industry ministries. And so we knew that we were open to adoption and open to just how the Lord works in that area, and so we began praying about it. My superintendent at the school that I worked at also ran a crisis pregnancy center. And so I remember after work one day going to him and saying, Mr. Ricky, if there's someone that is looking for a couple that will raise a child, we're willing. And I was kind of nervous about it, but I felt like the Lord … It was almost like one of those tests that the Lord gives you. And so I went and told him, and he said, I'd keep you in mind. And then a week later, unconnected to that, I'm driving home and my mother calls me, and her exact words when I got on the phone was, do y'all want a baby? And I laughed and I said, I'm going to need more information. Then, you know, there was a young lady in Tennessee who was in dire straits and had already had children and didn't really have a place to live, and she was making that difficult, though noble decision to put her child up for adoption. And so we got connected and we hit it off. And then within two months, Addie was born. And Addie was here. Valerie was in the room. Our church threw a baby shower the next weekend. I mean, we had to get everything because we had nothing at that point, but the Lord just worked it out, and Addie was here in March, and then she's been a little spitfire or a little blessing ever since.

 Jill
Wow. And how old is she now?

Austin
She's five going on 25.

Valerie
She just started kindergarten.

Jill
Yes. I love that. That's wonderful. And what a know what a gift that Mama gave you guys. Wow. And gave Addie as well.

Austin
And we tell people all the time, the hero of that story is the birth mom.

Jill
Absolutely.

Austin
It's not the DeArmonds  It is that mother that made that very costly sacrifice for the good of her child. And so she's certainly the hero in the story.

Jill
Absolutely. 100%. Yeah. Love that. So it wasn't too long after that, I guess, that you discovered that you were pregnant. Talk about that.

Valerie
Yeah. So when Addie was about three, I guess we had started thinking oh, we want another. And so we began trying and it was negative test after negative test. And a week before I finally got that positive test, I had surrendered to the Lord. Like, God, I really want a baby, but I also know that you know what's best. And so I just kind of surrendered that up to the Lord in prayer. And then a week later, I tested positive. And I was like, I got to do this again and again. And so I tested like three times and they were all positive. And it was just the most joyous, one of the most joyous moments in my life. And then I had to wait till he got home from work at the end of the school year, and it was just so wonderful to be able to surprise him with just such a wonderful gift. So, yeah, Gabe came, I guess not long after Addie was turned.

Austin
Yeah. And I remember it was the last day of school, and as a teacher, there's just this great sense of relief that it's over, like they're your children, but you're glad that your children go to the next grade. And I came home and in the midst of that great relief, there was great joy just to see that positive pregnancy test. And then it wasn't even really goodness. We had just resigned ourselves to the will of God in that area. I didn't think that we would ever get pregnant. And so from the very get go, there was this tangible sense of knowing that this was God's work and God's doing. Just know it wasn't expected.

Jill
Yeah, it makes it just extra sweet, doesn't it?

Austin
Absolutely.

Jill Sullivan
Yeah, for sure. So Gabriel was just this incredible gift of God to your family when he was born. You know, just what a blessing he was. Tell us a little bit about his personality. What was he like … help us get to know Gabriel.

Valerie
Yeah. So he was a joyful little boy. He was always smiling and he had like, wide open mouth smiles. He loved people. He was so excited when people would come in the door, he would swing his head over and see who was at the door around his high chair. And he was just such a smart little boy who loved music. I'll tell you a story. One day he was sitting in his high chair and he was looking over at the Alexa and making noises. I thought, I bet he wants music. And so I told Alexa to play some music. And he just was so content and just was like, loving the music playing. He wasn't even eleven months and he was figuring out what made the music. And he could throw a ball at like nine months old, like a little pro. It was so precious. So, yeah, he was just a fun little boy who loved to enjoy. He loved animals, he loved going outside. Yeah. He loved playing with his little sister. They were like best buds. And that was one of the most precious things as a parent, is to watch your children play and get along with one.

Austin
Yeah. Always giggling. He was known for giving those open mouth kisses. I mean, when you got a kiss from Gabe, you had evidence of it running down your cheek. My mother, his granny, had gotten him a little red wagon and so we would spend a lot of time just walking through our neighborhood and he was known by so many people just because he would see him and he would begin smiling. One of our best friends, a dear friend, moved here and she talked about how the highlight of her day was pulling in the neighborhood. And it just so happened to be the time that we'd be on our walk. And Gay would always be so happy to see her. Loved to dance and he loved to clap for himself. He would do something and then he would sit on his bottom and begin clapping for himself with his tongue sticking out. He loved to eat. He's much like his daddy. He could eat his weight in whatever. Towards the end, of course, he had his little preferences. He was always into bread, but I mean, he's like the hungry, hungry caterpillar. He would eat through just about anything and everything. My office where I work remotely is full of books and he would come in here and pull little books off and mess with them. And that was always so sweet. He had little things that he had learned along the way, like, we would say, know, growl like a bear and then he would growl. And so he ended up getting the nickname Brother Bear because of it and like, you know, one of the greatest joys is seeing him and Addie play together. They were such good siblings. She was such a good big sister. He was such a good little brother. And I mean, from the beginning there was very little jealousy and Addie just wanted to take a bath with him and sleep with him and feed him and do everything. And he loved it. He looked up to her. You could see the pride and joy in his eyes. And he was just such a sweet, sweet boy.

 Jill
Yeah. And you guys had the opportunity as a family to go on a cruise together in January. Right? And I hear he was quite the hit with the old ladies on the cruise.

Austin
Oh, yeah. He might have been the youngest kid on the cruise ship. I mean, it's a little audacious of us to take a twelve month old on a cruise, but he had just hit that age where we could take him. And so, of course, with him being affectionate and giggling and smiling, every person we saw, he was beaming. And those sweet elderly women and men were just swooning at the end of it. They do this Dr. Seuss parade, and you go from one end of the ship to the other end, and you just make a complete racket, and all the kids are given noise makers, instruments, and you say, Dr. Seuss is on the loose, and you go through everything to get to the other end. And Gabe was the caboose, and he had his little tambourine. And so the parade is going through the cruise ship, and the old women would see him, and they would lose it. And then, of course, he thought it was for him, the parade. So he's laughing, shaking his tambourine and all that, and so he loved it. And then another thing on the cruise ship, those international workers are so often separated from their family for nine months, six to nine months at a time. And we just remember the international workers would stop, and they would interact with Gabe, give him little ducks and hug him and rub his head, and he was just all about it. And so they would tell us that they have a one year old at home, or they have a three year old at home, and he reminds them of them. And so that was just such a sweet thing. And so on a cruise, a baby can so often not be able to do a lot. But, I mean, I think he really enjoyed it, and of course we enjoyed it, and those old women and international workers enjoyed it.

Jill
Yes. What a blessing for everybody on board. So after you got home from the cruise, what happened?

Austin
Yeah, so he had a little cold. He started to get a little congested the day we got back. That night was unique. Do you want to talk about that night?

Valerie
Yeah. So the last night that he was home, I knew he was sick, and he was more cuddly, and normally I would put him in his bed, he'd cry for maybe a few minutes, and he'd go to sleep. But this night was different. He was crying longer, and I was like, well, let me go in and spend some more time with him. And so we sat in the chair, and he wanted me to read books, and I'd finish a book, and he'd point for another book. And so it was just a different kind of night, and he just wasn't feeling well.

Austin
I remember it being, now, with my project, being in Southeast Asia, I work late at night, and I remember thinking, man, Gabe is up, you know, fussing and crying. And then I could hear Valerie singing God is So Good to him, and I could hear her reading, but I remember it being late in the evening that he was up and then that next day I had an outpatient surgery. I've never had a broken bone or a surgery in my life. It's the one day in all of my many days on this earth that I had to go in, go under anesthesia. And so he was fine. He really didn't eat a lot, but he cuddled with me and I took extra time with him just because I thought something could happen to me. I've never gone under anesthesia. You never know what could occur. And so I took extra time with him and I took extra time with Addie. And he was so sweet. He went to sleep on me. And then eventually, we went and dropped him off to a sitter who's a friend of ours. And while I'm in the know, he begins to run a fever.. Nothing out of the ordinary, common cold. And so eventually, the surgery is over. It's a success. Valerie gets me home, puts me on the couch, and then she goes to pick him up. And when she arrives, she walks into the house and he's having a complex febrile seizure. And so she walks into Gabriel seizing. And our friend was tending to him. They called the EMTs. And then that just began, this sort of, you know, snowball turning into an. You know, a lot of things didn't quite go right. Mistakes were made, and as a result, Gabriel, his heart stopped, his lungs gave out, and he was without oxygen for a good 54 minutes. And so that's a long time to be without oxygen. And so the damage had been done. And a few days later, we had to make the decision to turn off the machines and let them go to the Lord. So completely unexpected. I didn't see it coming. I thought it could be me that day. And then it was not me, it was our only son.

Jill
Yeah. And I can't even imagine you're still under anesthesia … Groggy, trying to recover from surgery.

Austin
Absolutely.

Jill
And, Valerie, you walk in on something that you just can't even imagine what you're just that had to be just a really difficult set of circumstances for you guys to walk through.

Austin
Yeah. And, I mean, I had to find somebody to get Addison. I had to find someone to take me to the hospital. I rolled into the hospital in a wheelchair, which is wild, and so you just couldn't have imagined it. It was wild.

Valerie
Yeah. It was the worst, absolute worst. Four days, three days of our lives. Yeah. I wish it upon no one.

Jill
Right? Yeah. I remember you talking at the retreat and sharing some things that really made it sound like God was preparing you in advance for what was coming in your life. Talk about that a little bit.

Austin
Absolutely. We're believers in the providence of God. Puritan writer John Flavell said, the providence of God is like Hebrew words. It can be read only backwards. And so, looking back, we just saw God's providential hand just at work. From the very beginning, Gabriel, again, was a gift. We never thought we were going to get pregnant. He was an unexpected blessing. And so there was the sense of gratitude throughout. But months before, I had reread a book by Christian philosopher named Nicholas Wolterstorf called Lament for A Son. You know, I have hundreds of books, and I went on my shelf and pulled out that one and just remembered how good it was. And I reread this book about child loss, a couple months before I lost my own, that it was the only surgery I'd ever had in my life. And then it happened to be on that exact day the month before, I had had some time off from work, and so I got ahead and had completed 20 lessons of Bible study that were coming for that spring semester. I teach a theology class. I completed all of my notes for that, thinking, oh, the cruise is going to throw a monkey wrench, and so I need to get ahead and get a lot of things done. I had no idea that getting ahead meant something greater than going on a vacation was about to happen. But even that cruise the week before, we had uninterrupted family time for a whole week that just would have not been there otherwise, was teaching through the Book of James with some international friends on Zoom. And the passage that I taught on that morning was from James, chapter one, verses two through five, which is what God has to say about suffering and how suffering builds character and maturity in the believer. And I remember someone asking, can you give us a real world example of how this applies to our life? And I fumbled through an answer, not knowing that I would have a real world example. Just hours later, there was a poem by a hymn writer named A. M. Overton called He Maketh No Mistake that I shared that morning, and that poem was in my heart and mind for months before, and it remained in my heart and mind when everything began to go south. And even the idea that I was sovereignly sidelined, I mean, I would normally be at the forefront of something like this, an emergency, and yet the Lord sovereignly sidelined me and pushed Valerie to the front. And so there was this tangible sense of we're completely dependent upon God, even physically. He's got to do it or it can't be done. And the last thing I'll mention is goodness. I just think about the negative or a doomsday type of thinking. But I had thought before Gabe passed, how would I respond if something happened to me and that summer, I had been working the summer before, I was working in my classroom, and Valerie called, and I remember her first words was, something terrible has happened. And my first thought is, something happened to Gabriel or Addie, you know, stuff like that. I had thought about child loss before it ever occurred to me, and even Valerie experienced similar things.

Valerie
Yeah, one thing that I can remember very vividly is just like one or two nights before Gabriel had the seizures. And I had a dream that something had happened to him in his brain while he was at a daycare and never would have imagined that maybe it was preparing me for something that might actually happen. And so, yeah, that's one of the first things I had thought about when all of this had happened to Gabe, is just that, wow, the Lord was preparing me and I didn't even know it. And I think just all of the years of being at our church and hearing good, solid sermons and preaching and being in the Word, it was all preparing us absolutely for what we're experiencing now and laying that firm foundation in Christ that we could stand on when everything else is shattering and falling.

Austin
I told somebody I've been a believer now going on 16-17 years, and every Bible study up until that point had been preparing me for that difficult moment. And so I just agree with Valerie. Being in the Word all those years and thinking deeply about suffering and providence and healing and prayer, all of that was swirling in our hearts and minds and had been doing something even if we didn't know it, and preparing us for that moment.

Jill
Yeah, we had a similar situation with Hannah where there are evidences of God preparing both us and her ahead of time for what was to happen. And I think a lot of times it's just having our eyes open and looking for those and being able to recognize those in retrospect. But like you said, everything all of those years, you think back, even I grew up in Sunday school and children's church and all that was all preparing me that long ago for what was to come in my life. And what a gift that yeah, and I know you've got Addie and all of those things, and she's being prepared for what's to come in her life. We'll talk about her a little bit more in a minute, but just a little bit of a sensitive or a tender question here. You mentioned when you were talking about the things that happened with Gabe that there were some mistakes made. How have you dealt with that? The fact that mistakes were made that might have resulted in a different outcome if those things hadn't happened?

Valerie
Yeah, so there were some things that I saw firsthand that went wrongly, and then there were some things that we discovered months after that went wrongly. And when we found out those big things, right away, we were shocked, of course, and we were frustrated. We felt deceived by medical professionals, and we couldn't believe that this might have been prevented somehow. And so we kind of were talking back and forth and just frustrated about it. And then what we had to do was just say, Lord, this stinks, and we hate it, but we know that ultimately it's the Lord that numbers our days. It's him who is in control of all things and that he does not make mistakes. And so we had to just rest in that truth that he sees it all and that he knows it all, and that even if man makes mistakes, he's the one that's in control.

Austin
Yeah, a verse that clearly says this is Psalm 139:16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. So we got 366 days of blessing that we didn't deserve in having Gabriel. And so the sovereignty of God has been a pillow, not a sledgehammer, but a pillow in our life. Again, Puritan John Flavel says, “If we pluck a rose in the bud as we walk in our gardens, who will criticize us for it? It belongs to us. We can cut it off when we please. It is the same in your situation. Your sweet bud, which was cut off before it was fully grown, was cut off by Him who owned it, by Him who created and formed it.”  And so the sovereignty of God has been a bedrock for us. At the same time, having a background in systematic theology and all that. The sovereignty of God does not mute human responsibility. Divine sovereignty undergirds human responsibility. And we can never use the doctrine of divine sovereignty to deny human accountability or responsibility or choice or culpability. And so mistakes were made and insofar as possible, we believe it's the right thing to pursue justice. And people ask, well, you're a Christian and you're a believer, and so aren't you just supposed to forgive and forget, live and let go? And so it's been good for me to really think through what's the relationship between forgiveness and justice?  God's sovereign … man's responsible. And Tim Keller was really helpful in this area, the last book he wrote was a book on forgiveness, which again, another providential thing. And he says, Why should a Christian seek justice? And he says, Because injustice grieves the God we love. It mars the creation we love. It harms the people we love, and it even harms the wrongdoer whom we should love and not hate. What is seeking justice? It is to speak the truth in love and to not shield people from the consequences of their actions. And he was so helpful because he teased out the relationship between forgiveness and justice. And he made this point that forgiveness precedes justice. If we don't forgive the people who did this, then our justice seeking will only be petty revenge.

Jill
That's right.

Austin
A revenge that leads to bitterness. And the bitterness will ultimately destroy us. It may not do anything to them. But making that point that forgiveness comes first and then it frees you up to then pursue justice was so helpful and beneficial to us. He says, again, a desire for justice is not wrong. A person can both forgive and strive for justice. Wrong is still wrong and must be punished. Mercy does not abrogate justice. It transcends it. And so we believe in the forgiveness of God forgiving others, as we've been forgiven by Christ. Our billion dollar debt of sin was paid for by another. He paid a debt we did not owe, or that he did not owe, as the hymn says, and so we're to forgive others as Christ has forgiven us. At the same time, there's nothing wrong, there's nothing unbiblical with seeking justice. And then as a former history teacher, goodness, we live in a society that has the best justice system in world history. And so my father in law rightly said, the way you love Gabriel now is to pursue this … in a Christian fashion, but pursuing it nevertheless.

Jill
Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I think that's going to be helpful to folks who are listening that may find themselves in a similar situation to know that forgiveness and justice can coexist and should coexist. So thank you for that. I think that's very helpful. Have you experienced any anger with God as a result of what happened?

Valerie
No, there's been anger, but not at God, because we've trusted in the character of God and who he is and who he's revealed Himself to be to us in the Scriptures and in our lives. And so we've been angry, but we've been angry at sin, at the brokenness in this world that has ultimately led to Gabe's death. And so we've made sure that we have brought our emotions of frustrations that we do experience to the Lord and remind ourselves of who he is and speaking that truth to ourselves constantly. And so, yeah, I've never been angry at God because of his character and who he is. He's good and he's just and everything he does is right. And so we might not see why or understand why this has happened, but we can trust that the God of all knows why.

 Austin
We've thought through this and discussed it. You really need your best theology at your deepest moment of suffering. Yes, you need your best theology when you lose your child. And it really functions as a sort of protective guardrail. What we believe affects what we feel, and what we feel affects what we do. You know, over these last months, we've been intentional, though done haphazardly. We're still sinful, but we've been intentional to remind ourselves of these scriptural truths that we're undeserving, that Gabe was a gift, that we are stewards, we're not owners, we're not his creator. God owns Gabriel. God owns everything we have. God is good. God is loving. God is righteous. God is wise. He wastes nothing. Suffering is not meaningless. He is near. Jesus empathizes and feels our pain. We've always treasured the idea that Jesus wept and that Jesus understands. And we have a great high priest who sympathizes with us. But how much more, even over these last months, and he will and is making all things new, and our son is in heaven. And so those truths, those bedrock truths, have acted as guardrails that have protected us, and the enemy is active in trying to steal that and undermine it. And so constantly preaching the gospel to ourselves and reminding ourselves of truth and letting friends and church members and family members pour into us and speak those truths has been just so required, so necessary, and ultimately so good.

Jill Sullivan
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Preaching the truth to yourself is really important, and knowing what that truth is and making sure that you're preaching that to yourself, because, like you said, the enemy is going to be coming at you, too, and you've got to have truth to fight back with. So thank you for that. So how have the two of you managed your grief together as husband and wife? And I realize you guys are still early on this journey, and you're still probably kind of figuring that out. How are you managing that?

Valerie
Yes, we realized early on that we grieve differently yes. And that we need to be okay with that and giving the other time and space to process and grieve how they need. But also at the same time, we've tried to be intentional about, hey, what are you thinking? What are you feeling right now? And just trying to verbalize with one another, because you can start to feel distant when you're grieving differently. And so we found that it's very important and necessary that we take time to be intentional in our communicating about what we're feeling. And so that's been very helpful. And then just as a family, like, speaking about Gabe and speaking together with Addison and praying together as a family has really helped us as well. But I think the main thing has been just being patient with one another and as we grieve separately, individually.

Austin
Yeah, I agree. Our grief is different, but I don't have a closer ally in my grief other than Valerie. I mean, only she truly knows what it means to lose Gabriel as a parent. And so we grieve differently, but we also recognize, man, nobody understands like each other. And I had to learn kind of early on to verbalize and to communicate what's going on because my silence was miscommunicating a problem with her. And I'm like, Valerie, it has nothing to do with you. I'm grieving over our son.  We had a conversation once, and my silence was perceived as somehow implicating her, and she was worried that I was blaming her. So, you know, I needed to say, and I did You did nothing wrong. You’re the best mother in the world. You did everything right. It's not your fault. Others are at fault and not you. But I had to communicate that. I thought it the whole time. I never once thought Valerie was implicated or did anything wrong, but I needed to state that out loud and I think that was helpful. And then we realized if we're going to go through it, we might as well learn something. And so that's what we've tried to do, and talk through it and just allow the Lord to use it.

Jill
I think that's so important, what you just said about you had to tell her you were thinking it all along, but you had to tell her that. I think we as husbands and wives, and maybe we wives are a little bit more guilty of this, of assuming that people can read our minds or that we think we know what our spouse is thinking, and if we don't tell each other, we don't know. So I'm glad you guys figured that out. In the middle of grieving and walking through this together as a married couple, you are parenting a grieving child. How are you guys walking this out with Addison?

Valerie
Yeah, very hard to see our little girl just have moments of just sadness and missing her brother. But we've been so blessed early on. Well, in our church, we have a child counselor, and she right away offered up to serve us in that way. And so Addie began counseling the next week or something, like, really soon. And so we're just so grateful because that has been so helpful. And it's like almost a place of a sanctuary for her to go to and talk about her feelings about Gabe without feeling like she's going to make us sad.. And, you know, it's like a safe place for her because she often worries about us crying, and she doesn't really want us to. But she also asks, Are you crying for Gabe? It's okay if you cry for him. That's one of the biggest blessings is her being able to be in counseling and us to be able to have conversations with her and say, you know, Addie, this has happened, and it's really bad. But God is still good and just being able to teach her of the goodness of God and just his grace and his love towards us and her hopefully getting to see us still love Christ through it and glorify Him in it.

Austin
And our life has known no harder moment than when Gabe went to heaven. It was a moment where we clearly felt the presence of the Lord, his sustaining hand and grace, but nevertheless, it was our life's most hardest moment. The second most difficult moment was telling Addison. It's been difficult for her, but we are just so proud of her because she's overcome so much. And we realize very quickly that her grief is different than even our own. She grieves intermittently and differently. Like Valerie said, that sweet sister in our church, wonderful, godly woman who immediately stepped in, offered her services free of charge, came over before the funeral, and has walked with us, has been a gift of God. Only heaven will reveal what that means to us. And the rewards that that sweet lady will receive. And so getting her in counseling immediately was important. We found good Christian children's books on grief, and I emphasize the Christian part because we learned also that there are not helpful children's books on grief. We talk about Gabe constantly. She'll bring him up and we go down that road joyfully and willingly, though sadly, because she's thinking about her Gabe, her brother. We're not going to pretend like he doesn't exist. He's in heaven. He's more alive than any of us ever dared to be, right? And then we do things with her. Like we paint little rocks, we call them Gabe rocks. And we paint them using stencils. And then we put a little sticker of him on the back. And then we put them in parks and around his favorite trees. And then those little stickers we put on books that she wants to donate to those little makeshift libraries at parks. We watch videos of him. We talk about him. And so we laugh because Addison is like an elephant. She forgets nothing, we went to Disney when she was two and she remembers it vividly and so she remembers her. So, you know, we talk about Gabe.. We want to keep his memory alive and we just remind her of truths all the time. Now, the other day we were in bed and she was talking about him and I was showing her videos and showing her pictures, and she said, I'm still his big sister.

Jill
That's right.

Austin
And I said, oh, absolutely, Addie, and you are such a good big sister. You're still his big sister. He's just with Jesus so, you know, stewarding parenting with her now is different, but it is a stewardship. And our job is to honor the Lord by not only stewarding our own pain, but stewarding hers and helping her do it. And so again, we're so proud of her.

Jill
Yeah, she sounds like just an exceptional young girl and yeah. Oh, I know she misses her brother. I'm so thankful that she'll get to see him again one day.