Wrestling With GOD Through the Loss of Three Children, with Roxanne Hutchison

We sit down with Roxanne Hutchison to talk through the unthinkable reality of losing three children and a son-in-law and what it takes to keep living when your family feels shredded. We explore honest faith, the loneliness of stillbirth and child loss, and the slow work of learning to grieve with hope instead of pretending you’re fine.
• how Roxanne and Craig’s early faith and marriage foundation shape their endurance
• the trauma of stillbirth and why neonatal loss is often dismissed or misunderstood
• grief as a roller coaster and why isolating silence can hurt as much as words
• the myth of “do everything right and life works” and what a broken world exposes
• mental health, rare diagnoses, and the long shadow of medical crises
• what life looks like after the funeral when routine tasks become triggers
• what grieving parents actually need from friends: presence, listening, practical help
• lament, the Psalms, and rebuilding trust in God over time
• the Romans 8 promise that becomes a lifeline
I hope that you'll rejoin us again in two weeks to hear another story of hope and healing in the life of another grieving parent.

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Transcript

Welcome And Why This Story Matters

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Welcome back for a new episode. I'm your host, Greg Bufkin, and today you'll be hearing a conversation I had recently with Roxanne Hutcheson. If you need a fresh word of encouragement or hope today, you don't want to miss this conversation. This is a story of resilience and faith in the face of unimaginable suffering and grief in the life of a mom who has lived through the trauma of losing three children and a son-in-law. I hope you'll find comfort and hope as Roxanne shares the impact of these losses. How she learned to navigate life again and experience God's healing power over seemingly unrecoverable wounds. And now here's my conversation with Roxanne. Well, Roxanne, welcome to our podcast. It's so good to have you with us today.

SPEAKER_04 1:43

It's great to be with you, and I'm really appreciative of the time that you've put into these podcasts to share the stories for with other families. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Yeah, I'm so glad to do it. It's it it really is a privilege on my part. One of the things that I love about it the most is getting to meet people like you. Thanks. And others who have been through the absolute worst and hear their stories of of what God's done on that healing journey. Well, Roxanne, let's just uh talk a little bit about you and your husband, Craig, and you know, where you guys live and how you met and that sort of thing. We'll we'll try to keep that you know to a couple of minutes before we dive into your story. How about that?

SPEAKER_04 2:29

Well, Craig and I met at Expo 72 in Dallas, Texas. It was Bill Bright's student congress on evangelism. There were 82,000 youth from all over the world. I was from Lutheran Church in Parma, Ohio, and Craig was from a small Methodist church in Neo-Doshe, Kansas, and we met in a Baptist bookstore in in Fort Worth, Texas, and literally got married a year later. We will be celebrating 53 years of marriage this coming June,

How Roxanne And Craig Met

SPEAKER_04 3:01

and it's been it's been an emotional ride for sure.

SPEAKER_03 3:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:07

I I don't know that we could have gotten through what we've been through without the commitment that we made to each other and to God when we were married. But we never expected, when we got married, we never expected this life that we lived. We we had no clue of what was ahead for us.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

So if you had had a clue, you might have made other decisions.

SPEAKER_04 3:32

Well, seriously.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Seriously. I mean, really.

SPEAKER_04 3:35

It the it this has been it because it's been a lifelong or endurance. It's been an endurance. It literally has been an a run. When you talk about that, you know, I've run the race, uh that really applies to the world.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Yeah, because you guys were you guys were young when you started on your initially on your on your grief journey after losing your daughter to to stillbirth, right?

SPEAKER_04 4:03

Right. Well, because we we actually both I I we both had been involved in ministry. We were running Bible studies, we did mission trips, we did missions to like on Indian reservations and all kinds of different things. So we were always really active. We were actually part of the Jesus movement that and so a lot of the people from California we knew, and we were all part of that whole thing. So that movie that that came out, the Jesus movie, that was our story. That was us. And wow, so we had a our we had a really strong foundation, we thought we had a really strong foundation.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:40

Um, and literally our commitment to each other and to God was the framework for our marriage. And and I don't think we could have gotten through what we did. We our first child was born in 77. That was that's Kristen. And then Jennifer was born in 79, and Jennifer, I had sent a previous with her, so I we nearly lost me and Jennifer at seven months along. And they had said that we could have a natural delivery like a week before I had I was on bed rest then, and they said I could have a natural delivery, and then five days later she was dead because when she tried to be born, she strangled on the cord. So it was the hardest thing. I thought it was in labor, and I went, we went to the hospital, and of course, they couldn't find a heartbeat. That is one of the hardest things to hear as

Stillbirth And The Shock Of Silence

SPEAKER_04 5:39

a mom. And especially when you're full term, you're ready. We had the camera, everything like we did for the first baby, and I did everything natural, no medicines or anything. And so that was really it was hard for me. I didn't, I I couldn't understand how God could have allowed that because I had given him credit that while this was an answer to prayer, we had gotten through this whole thing of possibly losing both our lives, and and then she was gone.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

How how did you process that Roxanne?

SPEAKER_04 6:10

It it was really difficult because I'll tell you what, in 79, there wasn't much out there for help. The only Well, I believe that that's when they were really strong with Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's five stages of grief, which cr Kubler Ross corrected that later on and said that she was doing that with dying people. It wasn't meant for people with grief. And precisely, so a lot of people still don't understand that. They still think that those are the five stages of grief. Well, that no, not necessarily. Grief is a roller coaster.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Indeed.

SPEAKER_04 6:42

And so uh for for me, uh it was a very isolating experience for me because there was just nothing. That finally we we moved back from we were in Oklahoma at the time and we moved back to Ohio where I'm from. I just couldn't take the heat out there. Uh and I wanted to I wanted to be by family. I needed, I thought I needed to be by family. And I I'm the eldest of six kids, and my I have such a close-knit family, so I thought, well, there's my support system. What was so strange is when I came back, they didn't know what to do with me because my sister was pregnant, and she didn't, you know, it was hard for her to be around me. So it it was very difficult. It was a very lonely, lonely time. And I I got to the point of where I really one night I was just up really late and sitting in the rocking chair that I should have had a baby being rocked in. And I just said, you know, I I I just can't take this pain anymore. I the pain I I needed the closeness with Jesus. I just needed that closeness. And I I just said, what whatever it takes, I just whatever it takes, I just need to know that you're near. And I and I got some peace, and that that helped. But we we joined uh compassionate friends. There was that group, but it was for children of all different ages. And then when you go in with a neonatal death or a stillborn death, you're it's not the the same for a lot of people. So it it's really difficult for people to experience that.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

It's it's a loss that's very misunderstood by by just about anybody who hasn't experienced it themselves. Uh I've had a number of guests who have lost a child to stillbirth or lost a child to miscarriage. And and it is a very lonely grief because so few people understand it. A lot of people dismiss it because you actually never had the child, you never got to know the child, and and all of those those misconceptions that go into it. So I I get what you're saying, and I suspect a lot of our listeners get that as well.

SPEAKER_04 9:03

Well, and and the thing is, is that that child was li was that was a child of God, and and that child was waiting for me when I get to heaven. So and but I'm really the only one that knew her. You know, we now Craig would read stories to her when she was when I was carrying her and that, but he didn't get to know her the way I felt I knew her. And so it is it is it's a lone it's a lonely thing, and and and it gave me a much more of appreciation for people that have miscarriages too, because that's a child. And so that that was hard. I I think that I I I was 27 at I was no, I was 29 at the time. And I I remember thinking about C.S. Lewis's quote about you never know how strong a cord is unless you have to hang from it from a precipice. You know, if you use it to cord a box, that's one thing. But if you have to hang from it from a presses, but so it's like you don't know how strong your faith is until it becomes a matter of life or death to you.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

And it's tested, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:14

And that's how I felt. And I and I and I I was like, okay, this is this is the most horrible thing that's going to happen to us. I watched my mother raise all six of us and end up with grandchildren and then great-grandchildren. And I thought, okay, and we're living a life that's honoring God, and and that. So I thought, okay, we're gonna be all right. But we we just kept having things happen, like near misses with each of the kids, and and odd, strange things. It's not like they got cancer or were in accidents or whatever. They got rare things. I I took Kristen and Chris Nathan, I had trouble getting pregnant with Nathan because of the damage that was done trying to get Jennifer out. That I I had damaged. So

Isolation And Misunderstood Grief

SPEAKER_04 11:04

I did get pregnant with Nate, and I had Nate in 1982, and I took him to our his four his um one-month checkup, and Kristen was for her her her school checkup. And at that checkup, they told me that Kristen had abnormal lymph nodes, that she could be in a that she could have possibly cancer, and that Nathan had r a rare form of tumors. I was like, I I I looked at them and said, What is this disease of the day? I like I just came here for a baby checkup, a well baby checkup and a school checkup. I I want a different doctor. I I I'm not Yeah, I'll bet. You know, I I I I couldn't believe it. So we went through two years of operations and that with Kristen, and and she grew out of it. They said that what happens with kids like that is that sometimes it comes back later in their life. And so, but it never did. That's not what ended up killing her. But and Nathan, it took about five years for the tumors, his histamine tumors to to go away. And we think that it actually is part of a disease that I have and was finally diagnosed when I was in my 40s. I have Ahlers Danlos, which is a rare genetic disease, and it affects the collagen in your bodies, in your body, and you can have histamine tumors. And I we think that Nathan possibly had that as well, which may have contributed to him trying to self-medicate as as well when he got older. So that's a possibility. Adam was born in 1985, and and that was a surprise because I had such difficult pregnancies. I was like, if I had been in a wagon train, I would have been across by the side of the road. I would have never made it. So I I I was really just thrilled that we got the three kids. Kristen, we had so because Jen died, we had Kristen for five years with no other child children, and literally it was magical. She was just magical. We look back on it and it and we we still can't believe we were just so blessed with her. She was an amazing human being. And she knew from day like the when she could talk that she wanted to be a doctor. And when she was a little girl in her car seat, she would say, Mommy, stop an accident. We need to help people. And she knew then, and she did. She became an emergency room physician. So she knew way back then. She was, she she was uh, she went on mission trips in Haiti, she was a leader, she was with doctors without borders, she she was just amazing. And it just I don't understand. I I think that's the hardest cut part of grief for us. And with Nathan, when Nathan got through the tumors and that, but then we

Rare Diagnoses And A Body Under Strain

SPEAKER_04 14:03

found out that he had learning disabilities. His IQ was high, but he had learning disabilities. Thankfully, I'm a teacher, and my minor was in special ed and learning disabilities. So I knew how to intervene with him. We did everything we could. Everything. We intervened. I mean, I was very knowledgeable. I knew what to do. So we thought, you know, God's gonna take we're doing the right things. God's gonna take care of this. And, you know, you had talked about sometimes we live this formula, we think.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Like, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

You might want to s say what you had said before, like that we Yeah, I I think it happens to a lot of us, particularly when we are younger and when we're less mature in our walk with the Lord, that you know, we kind of we kind of sometimes see life as being a bit of a formula, and that you know, if we do everything right in in terms of what we think is right and what we're reading in scripture, then this is how our life is gonna turn out. If we refrain from doing certain things, then this is how God's gonna respond to that.

SPEAKER_04 15:20

Right. Well, and unfortunately, and and that's not good theology.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

No, it's not because it it's not it it's not true. No. Bad things happen to good people. Yes. Bad things happen to godly people, and bad things happen to ungodly people. Right. It ch you know, there we don't get to control those things. The only thing that we can control is how we respond to those things.

SPEAKER_04 15:43

That that's the key. That really is the key. And that's where we can get help from God and and and and how Christ taught us to live. That's w where how we look at how do we respond to it. The

When Faith Stops Feeling Like A Formula

SPEAKER_04 15:59

it's a broken world. That literally what we live. I didn't realize the truth of that until we probably, I think, when Nate they had put him on some medication for his learning disabilities, and it was before they had found out that that medication can trigger bipolar in kids who are susceptible to bipolar, and it triggered a manic episode in his when he was in high school, and he ran away. He was in 11th grade, and he and he the ran away from the school. He had a a total meltdown, and we didn't know where he was for three months. We didn't know if he was alive or not. And the principal had called me and said, uh, we don't know what happened, and it was just such a shock because he was so well liked, and he was just an amazing guy. He his heart was as huge as could be, and he would do anything for anybody. He I showed dogs in in in the show ring and that, and he would go with me to dog shows and and he he would be the raffle ticket seller for like big shows, big,

Bipolar Crisis And A Medical Tragedy

SPEAKER_04 17:09

big ones, like that are on TV. Like he he would do stuff like that. He was and he when he I'd take him to school when I was an administrator in this in school, he would like help people in the offices and that. He everybody loved Nate. He in fact, he was the kind of guy like Norm at Cheers. When he walked in a room, everybody would be like, Nate, you know, that's the kind of guy he was. Just a super, super guy. And and it just broke our hearts to I think that's when we finally felt the brokenness was when he ran away and we didn't know where he was, and we were broken. We were we were just like we had gone through Jen's death like 30 years prior to that, and and now Nathan is gone, and we don't know if he's alive or dead. And Kristen had gotten into med school. She was she had finished med school and now she was an intern, and she had a simple medical procedure done, and the guy that did it did it incorrectly, and she ended up with three bleeds in her head. And the thing is, is that she told us that she said to her father, Dad, I'm bleeding out in my head. I know I'm bleeding out. And she was in the ICU, and we told the doctors, we told that doctor, and he didn't do anything. And finally I went and got her supervisor in the emergency department and said, You've got to come upstairs because they're not listening to us. And they did find out she had a massive stroke. There was a 10% chance of her living.

SPEAKER_03 18:51

Oh God.

SPEAKER_04 18:52

And this was this was after she she married, she got married in between college and med school. She met a great guy. Andy was a just amazing human being. And he they served the Lord together. They both went to Haiti together and mission trips and stuff. They we we loved Andy and his family so much. And we I I truly believe that, you know, God's intention was that Kristen and Andy were to have a full life here, and that that Andy's mom and I were to share grandchildren together, that that's what God wanted for us. But we lived in brokenness, and our lives intersected that brokenness. And those things were taken away from us. And and that's the part of grief. You feel not only do you feel a failure, like that you didn't protect or do enough, you can't help it, no matter if it's not your fault or not. You still feel that. But you that's true, but you also are like, What did I do wrong, God? Well, what did I do wrong? I was doing everything right. What did I do wrong? And yeah, that's hard.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

I think I think most parents experience some degree of that or other. I know, I know Kathy and I did, and I've talked to so many others who have as well. But I think it it's just part of being a parent because it's our job to protect, it's our job to nurture, and when something happens that's out of our control, it it's hard to process that when it relates to our child. Yes. It's different when it's, you know, we experience lots of losses in our lives, whether it's a parent, which is expected, we know that that's going to happen at some point, or a friend or a grandparent. But we just don't expect it to happen with a child because it it is out of the natural order.

SPEAKER_04 20:55

It is out of the natural order. It's against everything that God ever intended.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Yeah. For you, Roxanne, how did you walk through this three times? How did you do this without getting bitter?

SPEAKER_04 21:11

I uh there were times I was. I I mean that that's just it. I there were times I was. I I I really think that you have to be honest with God and you have to be honest with yourself, brutally honest. And and I think God, I not I think, I know, I know God can take it because he I've lived my worst nightmares, and and he has walked with me kicking and screaming through that valley of the shadow of death. He's done that with me three three times, and and and then just two years ago, Andy died, and so we lost Andy as well, who was a son to us for 15 years. Kristen and Andy were together 15 years, they were married 11. And so, you know, it we had experienced other deaths. We I lost my best friend when I was 14, and and and that was difficult for me. I've lost grandparents, I've lost aunts, uncles, I've lost a cousin. When we were in Tulsa in a ministry there before we had kids, one of the girls in our Bible study was murdered. And so we went through that loss. And so we faced evil. And and then that's what it is. It's evil. For us, you know, after Kristen had the stroke, there were seven years of her in and out of hospitals. She got over the stroke. So we thought, wow, another answer to prayer, but yet she had problems with her pancreas, and we we don't. Know really why she died. Nathan, he went, he got, he, he got his GED because he had dropped out of high school, and I ran a really large GED program. He got his GED, went to college in Arizona, where and Adam joined him and went to college there too. And Nate graduated with honors from college and was clean the whole time in college. So we thought, okay, we're we're we're all right. And and Kristen's gonna be all right, and it's gonna be okay. Adam ended up with seizures, and we nearly lost Adam. We went through two years of him with narcolepsy. He has narcolepsy, but he's learned to live with it in that. And and thankfully, we still have Adam, and he's married, and and his wife that he married had a child already. So we have a grandson who we didn't get, I never got to go through having a child see my child's child. I never got to see that. I never got to hold a baby because when when Danny came to us, he was already six going on seven. But he is as much my blood as as if it were true that that that he was from Adam. But yeah, he's 13 now. I had to give up. There's so many things along the way that I've had to give up. I'm a I'm a teacher. I I did GD graduations and stuff, and and yet my kid dropped out of high school. You know, I Kristen didn't get to fulfill her dream being, she was a good doc. She was a really good doctor, and everybody loved her. Nate died first, 30 years after Jen died. It was Thanksgiving Day, and Nate was home from Arizona to cook Thanksgiving dinner and have Thanksgiving with a huge I like I'm the eldest of six, and we have a huge family. There's like 40 to 50 people at our Thanksgivings and Christmases. So we but he was out with some friends the night before. The last thing he did was to, and thankfully he did this. He he he said, Mom, I love you. We're gonna have a great time tomorrow. We'll cook together because he was a really good chef. He was a oh, he he he was a manager of a restaurant in Sedona, Arizona. And so

Thanksgiving Loss Then Easter Loss

SPEAKER_04 25:09

on Thanksgiving morning, we found him on our lunar floor. He was he was lifeless. I I didn't scream or anything. I just dropped to my knees and started CPR and told Craig to call the 911. We we got him pinked up again. We thought we were gonna do it. We really thought it was gonna happen. But God gave us this. I I can't explain it. It didn't happen with any of the other kids, but with Nate it did. He gave us this overwhelming piece of it wasn't audible, but it was audible to me. I've got him. Don't worry, I've got him.

SPEAKER_03 25:45

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_04 25:46

And I think that God did that because he knew how much we needed to know.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:51

Although Nate had gone down for several altar calls and had, you know, he had been up and down and up and down. And so, but you know, it's everybody, it's their own personal relationship with Jesus. So you dry, you know, so you pray that yes, they had that, but Kristen we knew for sure, because she because she really lived it. Nathan lived it off and on, but so and and literally the dust had not even settled on Nate's grave. And four months later, Kristen was found dead in her hospital.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

I can't imagine. And cannot imagine.

SPEAKER_04 26:31

Now we I was out for the first time since Nate died. I was out for the first time with with my friend and her two kids, and Craig called me and was just Kristen's dead. And I I just I screamed then. I did. I just lost it. And we drove to Toledo, which is like two hours away where she was at a internship there, because she had gotten well enough to get back into another internship program. It just didn't make sense. None of this made sense to us. It was like it was like, okay, I answer this prayer and then I'm gonna dip you in the fire again. And that's just how our life has been. For like I said, we'll be married 53 years this June. And that's what it felt like. So I can remember coming home from Toledo, we walked in the door, and there were still flowers and cards out from Nate's funeral, and we were getting ready to prepare another funeral for our firstborn. So our firstborn, our secondborn, and our thirdborn were gone. They were not our family felt shredded. Just shredded. Three quarters of our family was gone, and Adam was left.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

Wow, wow, that by by anybody's definition, that that's too much.

SPEAKER_04 27:54

It felt too much. It felt way too much. And honestly, I think we just we just were numb. I for the first time I was I didn't feel that closeness to God. And I even said to my minister, I don't I don't feel it anymore. I it wasn't that I didn't believe in God, and it wasn't that I didn't believe in eternity, because that's the one thing that kept holding me on. Kristen died at Easter. So Nathan died at Thanksgiving, and Kristen died at Easter.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

I'm like Wow.

SPEAKER_04 28:29

Like, what? Are you kidding? And like, happy Thanksgiving, happy Easter. I'm like, no. But yes, actually, yes. I'm finally, it's been 47 years since Jennifer died. It's been 15 last Thanksgiving since Nate, and it'll be 15 next

Numbness And Relearning Trust In God

SPEAKER_04 28:50

week for Kristen. I finally, in the last five years, it's just been in the last five years. I'm finally so grateful that those children were mine and still are.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Oh, it takes a lot of faith to be able to come to the point where you can say that. And it it takes an incredibly close, intimate relationship with Jesus to be able to come to the point where you can say that, not only to yourself, but you can say that in a public arena for other people to hear. And and I'm glad that you shared that.

SPEAKER_04 29:30

Well, I've told people that literally I felt honored by God. He knew because he has foreknowledge. I I don't believe he did this to me. I I believe that it's the brokenness here. But he he knew this was going to happen to me because he has the foreknowledge, but I have free will. So things, you know, that's a whole theology thing that, you know, we'll never completely understand, probably until we're home with the Lord. But I I tell people that I feel honored that he chose me to be those children's mother because they were very special children and they had a limited amount of time here. And what we had was beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Yeah, and it and they each one left an indelible impression on their mom and dad.

SPEAKER_04 30:27

Oh so much. And and the thing is, I and I tell other grieving parents this our children are not just part of our past, they are very much a part of our present. We carry them with us. You never move on past your child. You carry your child with you and you move forward towards your child.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

And that's I haven't heard anybody else put it that way. And I'm glad you shared that because that that really is the visual that we should keep with us is that we are moving. If we know our child's in heaven, we're moving towards them every day we we get older, every year we get older, we're moving towards that reunion with them. And that is that's an incredibly hopeful thing to focus on.

SPEAKER_04 31:25

That's why that's how we grieve with hope. That's exactly and that's the scripture we have on we Kristen and Nathan are buried with one headstone. It's a it's a big headstone, and it's brother and sister, and it says, We do not grieve as those without hope. That's what's on there.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

Yes, that's from 1 Corinthians, I believe.

SPEAKER_04 31:46

Yes, it is, yes.

SPEAKER_01 31:47

I mean 1 Thessalonians, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_04 31:49

Thessalonians, yes. Well, we Jennifer is in another section in in this in the cemetery, and it was really interesting. When we buried her, we a lot of we saw a lot of it was she's in the baby section, and so a lot of people were like precious baby or precious angel or whatever. We decided that's our daughter. So we put daughter of Craig and Roxanne Hutchison on her headstone.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

And that's sweet.

SPEAKER_04 32:17

Because that's who she is to us. I don't think she's a baby anymore. I think she's whoever we are. Uh that yeah I I'm not going to sit and rock her one day. And unless she sits on my lap as a grown adult, but but I I I will share life with my children again. I think what for me, what happened the numbness we got through that Kristen's funeral, and and Craig and I then I was reading, of course, everything I could, and and Craig he he has done some seminary work and and we taught Bible studies and we did we we taught parent groups, we had parent groups in churches and everything. We we went we were like, okay, what are we supposed to do with this? Uh even when Jennifer died, they they did a a videotape of us that they use in hospitals of how to work with parents with neonatal deaths. So we've always done something positive with whatever's happened to us. We when Nathan was going through problems with self-medicating with drugs because it was a bipolar, Craig wrote a Christian AA thing. It's and I know people say, well, that AA is Christian. Not really, it's not. So Craig wrote one and we were able to get it approved by the courts so that other kids could use it for to for the requirement of their AA meetings. And we held that at the church. But when Kristen died for a year, we both were struggling with I I I tried to write a blog, I couldn't do it. I I I did like three, maybe three blog posts, that was it. We took a writing course. I'm I'm a pretty good writer. I've I I was a grant writer, so I I'm a pretty good writer. And yeah, so I we thought, well, we'll write a book. And and we thought and we even got there were people that were calling us to speak. We were just crushed. We finally got to the point of where we were just wore out.

SPEAKER_01 34:20

Yeah, I understand that. And you know, I think it's Psalm 34, 18 that that tells us that that God is close to the brokenhearted and he saves those who are crushed in spirit. And what you just said triggered me going to that particular scripture because that that is very descriptive of a parent who's lost a child. We are left crushed.

SPEAKER_04 34:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

And only the Lord can help us to come out of that very dark place into life again. And you know, one thing I would I'd kind of like to turn the conversation to something at a very practical level that people on the outside don't see about our lives after we lose our child. And it's, you know, the reality for people after the funeral, after our child's funeral, you know, everybody else goes back to their normal, routine, everyday life. Time seems to stop for us. Yes, you know, the one who's who's grieving a child, and and nothing seems normal again.

SPEAKER_04 35:31

Because we're not.

SPEAKER_01 35:33

We're not, right. And we never will be. I mean, we'll never

Carrying Your Child Into The Present

SPEAKER_01 35:35

be the same people again. But the things that we have to do in everyday life, like going grocery shopping, going to the drugstore, going back to church again, going out to a restaurant, or even like the hair salon.

SPEAKER_04 35:50

Okay, I can remember after after Jennifer died. I remember I had Kristen in in a grocery cart and we were getting groceries, and I saw someone with a baby that would have been Jennifer's age, and I just left the grocery cart right in the aisle and walked out of the grocery store. I I couldn't do it. I was surprised at how little support I had. There were only a, especially with the stillbirth, uh, there's very very little support.

SPEAKER_03 36:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:18

I th when Nathan died, there was only four months there. So people were just starting to drift off. They give you like three months. They think three months is it. And I'm like, no, you don't have a clue. You're just coming out of a coma, maybe by a year, because you literally that whole first year, you're just like walking numb.

SPEAKER_01 36:41

And yeah, you're in shock.

SPEAKER_04 36:43

And then the second year, it's like a realization hits you. And so a lot of times that second year is even more difficult than the first year.

SPEAKER_01 36:51

That is so true.

SPEAKER_04 36:53

Because it the reality of it, like, no, they're never going to celebrate Christmas with us again. We're never going to get together again.

SPEAKER_01 37:00

So what's it like for people who, you know, who maybe they're listening today and they're not the one who's lost a child, but they know somebody who has. It's a family member, a friend. For us, you know, we we you just referred to going back to the grocery store. What people don't understand is that going back to doing those root those things that are so routine that we really don't have to think very much about. Triggers are everywhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. They are triggers. And when we try to do those things, sometimes we can't even do it. I I remember one of the things that Kathy, my wife, struggled with the most was going to the grocery store. And she told me there were so many times when she would drive up in the parking lot, she would park and have every intention of going in and getting the things that were on the list. And she could not bring herself to get out of the car. And so she would turn around and go back home. Absolutely. Yeah, and those were things that I could do for her because I could do that. I I don't, you know, it it affects everybody differently.

SPEAKER_04 38:15

Well, that's it. And that that yeah, that that's it. We we've got to understand that the grief is as individual as the relationship you had with that person.

SPEAKER_00 38:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:25

So like so I'm telling you my story from my perspective of, but there are many shared things that we have in common, but everybody is individual. The the best advice I can give to people, and and I don't even like to call it advice, but the best thing that the most common thing I've seen is that please don't try to fix us because we're not fixable.

SPEAKER_01 38:52

Oh, amen.

SPEAKER_04 38:54

It's not something to fix. God it it why would it be in the Bible that God will dry our tears one day if we're supposed to stop crying here?

SPEAKER_01 39:04

Good point.

SPEAKER_04 39:05

My tears still come. And and I know that they won't stop until God Himself dries them.

SPEAKER_01 39:12

Right. And we're not projects that need to be fixed after all. We're we're people who have who have experienced severe trauma, and all we really need from those people, I think you would agree, is quite often just their presence. Absolutely. Sometimes I think people get anxious and worried

Triggers In Daily Life After The Funeral

SPEAKER_01 39:33

and feel like they're going to be a failure in their efforts to try to comfort us or to encourage us. And so sometimes they just stay away and they don't do anything when, in fact, it's so simple. Just show up and offer the gift of your presence. And if they want to talk, they will. Right. And sometimes and all you need to do sometimes is just simply listen to them, be an engaged, active listener, right, and let let them talk. But please don't offer advice.

SPEAKER_04 40:08

No, and you don't want to hear script, you don't want to hear scriptures. You don't want to hear cherry-pick scriptures. Not not at the early stages.

SPEAKER_01 40:15

When you're No, the time will come. Not early on.

SPEAKER_04 40:18

Right. The time will come, but you have to allow, you have to get those feelings out. And if you can't talk it out, if you can't have somebody listen, you're not going to be able to talk that out. So there were very few people. And it and and I I'm a part of several support groups that are online and I write to several people. And the most common thing I hear is that there's nobody that will listen. There people aren't there for me. They and it's like they're avoiding me. Grief is so isolating. For a long time, I was, I I actually even got angry. Like about the three-year period, I was like, I am just angry. Like, where are these people? I thought, especially by the third child that had died, I thought, oh, surely they'll be there for me. No.

SPEAKER_01 41:11

Not so.

SPEAKER_04 41:12

No, not so, not so. And there were a few, there were just a few. And you know what? What I found out is that those were the very special few that God put in my life. And they they helped me through it. And I will forever be grateful to them for that. And we have such a close relationship. The other thing I had to realize is that there are some people I had to let go. They are they are not my friends anymore.

SPEAKER_01 41:40

Yeah, it's unfortunate that that does happen. And it's it's very consistent in so many conversations that I've had with other guests, Roxanne. So many people want us to, I think what they want is for us to be who we were before. They want us to get well, and they they want the old version of us. Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:07

In fact, I've had people say that to me. But we can't give them the old version. And I'm that I said that's never gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 42:15

There is no old me anymore.

SPEAKER_04 42:17

No. I'm forever changed. And and Exactly. I think what people don't realize is that that the it's death, the death of a child is not a one-time event. It's not an illness that you get over. It is a lifetime of lost hopes and dreams. Every milestone, every holiday, even like I at Christmas, we get these cards with everybody's families that are just growing huger, more huge, and more huge. And we're we're we're down to five people. We've got, you know, and I had four kids. And and so, but and people who had two kids have like 30 kids in their 30 people in their families. And sometimes it's really hard for me. I can remember the first few years when I would get those cards at Christmas time with the big family pictures. We throw them out.

SPEAKER_01 43:11

Yeah, I can understand that.

SPEAKER_04 43:12

I I we couldn't even look at them.

SPEAKER_01 43:14

It was like sometimes you you have to protect yourself. It's uh you know, I know we both have talked about this together, but you know, Ron Deal, who was a guest of mine just uh a few weeks ago, and talks about the you know, the gr the grief garden.

SPEAKER_04 43:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 43:32

And and you and you have to be so careful about who you allow into that grief garden. Absolutely. There are people who who are safe, the people you were just describing, who who get us, they may not understand us, but they have embraced the new us and they still love us, and they they're willing to do life with that new us.

SPEAKER_04 43:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 43:57

And and they're kind and compassionate, and they are willing to listen and and treat us like normal people again, even though we're not normal, right? But to just to treat us normally, you know?

SPEAKER_04 44:09

And I I would say to those people that are that might be listening that that haven't lost a child, but do have a friend or a family member that has, honestly, if you can be that person for them, because there's very few of them, it's a very sacred position. It it is a gift to you to be that person. The the few people that did that for me, they my heart is so full of love for them because they they didn't just say, Oh, what can I do to help? They just did it. They would come and pick me up and take me someplace. They would Get me out of the house. They would call me. They would like talk to me. They would take me to the grocery store, or they would go get groceries and just drop them off at my house. Right. Those kinds of things. If you can do that for people, you've it's got to be an active thing. The problem that we have in this society is we do not know how to do lament or grief very well. And we don't talk about it that much. Some of the best people that helped us, Michael Card does a lot of things with Lamette, Jerry Sist Sis Sister, I think. He did a great a grief disguised. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And a grief revealed. He did, and he did them 10 years apart. And he lost his wife and daughter and mother in or in the same accident. And his books really helped me. So and like Mark Rogoff's book, Dark, I can't remember what the name of it was. It's Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy. He he talks about lament. And Tim Chally's Seasons of Sorrows, he talks about lament.

Lament As A Path Through Sorrow

SPEAKER_04 45:53

Michael Card's A Sacred Sorrow or Hidden Face of God, both of those were things that taught me about lament. And and I I finally, what I just started doing was praying the Psalms and reading Lamentations and really working the grief. And it is work. It's hard work.

SPEAKER_01 46:13

It is.

SPEAKER_04 46:13

There are people that really can't do it. And like I said, for a while, I was really angry. I'm finally to the point now where I've forgiven them because honestly, you cannot understand what it's like to have your child die unless you've gone through it.

SPEAKER_01 46:32

Right. And we don't want them to understand.

SPEAKER_04 46:35

No, I don't want that for anybody because it is horrible. I think for the first time in my life, I really understood how broken the heart of God was when we rebelled and left him.

SPEAKER_03 46:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:52

I and I came into a fellowship of suffering with Christ is where I went. And that's what that's who I am now. I had a head knowledge of God. I could talk, I could write, I could do all these things. I I did word studies in Greek and Hebrew. I I I was really good at all of that. But now for me, I just want God's presence. I I just I love to be in nature. I love to be helping people. I love, not that I didn't do a lot of those things before, but it's like that's my life now. It it's a very real, it's just a reality for me. Prayer isn't just a scheduled thing, like it's a daily dialogue. It's just a constant dialogue.

SPEAKER_01 47:45

I like that. It's a dialogue, a conversation that goes on continually, just you know, different parts, different times of the day. Right. Different things can trigger it, but it's a it's a just sort of a continual conversation.

SPEAKER_04 47:58

It's not so much that I'm seeking knowledge about God is like I used to. I'm seeking God. I'm seeking his own.

SPEAKER_01 48:06

There is a difference. There is a decided difference.

SPEAKER_04 48:09

And I and I think when you think about, especially at Easter, we just went through Easter, and and you think about how God took human form and he went through betrayal and hunger and even death, he he went through, yeah, so that he could identify with what we go through. Jesus knows everything that we're going through. And the the problem is that people they think, well, okay, he's resurrected, so why aren't things better? Why are bad things still happening? Because it's not done yet. It says it's in 1 Corinthians 15. 1 Corinthians 15, it says that the final enemy is death, but that's when he comes back and finishes it that off. What he's done right now through going dying on the cross, that literally was God on a cross. That's what when I look at not it's not just Jesus, that's really God on the cross. That's a humbling feeling to feel that to think, wow, that's really the creator of the universe is is doing this for me. And what he did was he removed the power of death to separate me from him. That's what he did then. But we still are living in brokenness. We are still fighting the battle.

SPEAKER_01 49:37

On this side of heaven, we will continue to do that. But the the key is having him with us in those battles and in those challenges. Let me ask you one final question because uh we're gonna run out of time here. Roxanne, what has grief taught you about living?

SPEAKER_04 49:58

Well, just how precious it is.

SPEAKER_01 50:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:01

And how precious we are to God Himself. The gratefulness in my heart, I I can't even explain it. I I can't explain my faith to anybody else. It's not a logical, rational thing. What I tell myself is when things happen, I have to say, either I don't have the mind to understand it or I don't have enough information yet. And I have to then trust God. And it's taken, it's literally taken almost 15 years to really rebuild that trust in God again. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:40

Yeah. That's not that's

What Grief Teaches About Living

SPEAKER_01 50:42

not uncommon. And if that's how you're feeling today as a listener, just know that you're in good company. It's not unusual to, you know, for people to feel that way. Right. God sees you, he understands you, and he still loves you regardless of what of what you're feeling, and despite the fact that you might be feeling like you are that there's some barrier between you and God, there's really not. And if you'll just continue to lean into him and be honest with him about that, he will authentic. He'll help heal that.

SPEAKER_04 51:23

I think my faith is more authentic than it's ever been. I I it's more real, it's more true, and honestly, I have more love and gratitude than I ever dreamed I could have.

SPEAKER_01 51:36

Yeah. And and you know, that's something that I mean, that's a huge gift that come that's come out of something so incredibly tragic and horrific that that you can say that today. And I did want to ask you this too. I said it was that was the last question, but you just this just triggered another one. So for somebody listening today who who just needs something to hang on to, was there a particular passage of scripture that that the Lord really used in your life, Roxanne, that that was just like a uh a lifeline for you that that you would share with our listeners?

SPEAKER_04 52:19

The tether for me is that there is nothing that can separate me from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus. And that's from Romans 8, 38, and 39. For I am convinced that neither life nor death, neither angels or demons, or the present or the future, nor height nor depth, nor powers or anything in all creation can ever separate us from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 52:47

That I love that scripture.

SPEAKER_04 52:49

That is what I hold on to. And he has never let me go.

SPEAKER_01 52:54

Nope. And he never will. That this is an incredible way to close our conversation today. I appreciate so much you sharing that. And I hope that that offers some hope and encouragement

Romans 8 And A Final Lifeline

SPEAKER_01 53:07

to somebody else who's listening today. Roxanne, thank you so much for your transparency, for your honesty and your willingness to just to share all that you have today from the heart of a mom who has been crushed so many times, but who has who has come through to the point where God has done so much healing that you're able to sit here today and and express the joy and express the hope and the faith that in Him that you have today. I know that that's that's gonna make a difference for people that are listening.

SPEAKER_04 53:47

That's that's we're supposed to comfort others with the comfort that we've received, and that's what Precisely I put off doing something like this for so long. So this was the right time to do it. And so I thank you for this opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 54:03

Oh, I'm so glad that you did, and I am so thankful that you're willing to be my guest.

SPEAKER_04 54:09

And it was a fun thing.

SPEAKER_01 54:12

I think it was fun too. People that are listening have no idea what the fun that we're that we're talking about. In order to get to this point and have a successful, a successfully recorded conversation. So God does have a sense of humor.

SPEAKER_04 54:30

Yes, yes, I agree. Thank you so much, Ray.

SPEAKER_01 54:34

Yeah, thank you very much, Roxanne. And for our listeners, thank you for teening in and listening today. I hope that you'll rejoin us again in two weeks to hear another story of hope and healing in the life of another grieving parent. Thank you.