How Do You Survive Losing a Child? | Tim & Aileen Challies on the Death of Their 20-Year-Old Son

Summary

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Episode Overview

Podcast: The Jinger & Jeremy Podcast
Episode: How Do You Survive Losing a Child? | Tim & Aileen Challies on the Death of Their 20-Year-Old Son
Date: November 19, 2025

This episode features a moving conversation between Jinger and Jeremy Vuolo and their friends, Tim and Aileen Challies, who share the story of losing their 20-year-old son, Nick. Drawing from their personal experience, faith, and Tim’s writings (notably "Seasons of Sorrow"), the couple discusses walking through unimaginable grief, the process of clinging to faith amid sorrow, and how the hope of the Gospel sustains them. The episode is a resource for anyone dealing with loss, offering comfort, realism, and encouragement rooted in Christian faith.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Moment of Loss and Immediate Aftermath

• Nick’s Sudden Death:

  • Nick, a seminary student, suddenly collapsed and passed away while playing a game at college in Louisville, Kentucky.
  • Tim and Aileen learned about the incident through a text message while at home in Toronto, Canada, hundreds of miles away ([06:10]–[08:39]).
  • COVID restrictions added complexity, forcing them to fly (instead of drive) and quarantine afterward, deepening their sense of helplessness ([08:39]; [36:39]).

• Initial Response:

  • Tim recalls a sense of immediate testing:

    "We knew in that moment that we had to either live according to what we had always professed ... or we were just going to walk away from this Christian thing altogether." – Tim ([07:50]–[08:39]; [11:58])

  • Aileen describes trauma affecting her memory and how clinging to "deployed theology" was their anchor:

    "Your emotions are lying to you...God doesn't feel good...and yet you know the truth of it. So you have to cling to that truth and just deploy your theology" – Aileen ([13:44])

  • A poignant moment between Tim and Aileen as they prepared to go to the airport:

    "Tim took me by the shoulders and looked at me and just said, 'No, we can do this. We don't wanna do this, but we can do this.'" – Aileen ([14:51])

2. The Experience and Nature of Grief

• Effects of Trauma:

  • Both Tim and Aileen admit to having blocked out parts of the night due to trauma ([11:58]).

• Missing the Future:

  • The loss is not only for who Nick was, but everything they’ll never experience with him:

    “You realize after somebody's been taken, you miss what they were, but you also grieve what they will never be, what you will never have with them.” – Tim ([22:48])

• Stages of Grief and Differences:

  • Aileen didn’t relate strongly to the classic “stages of grief,” saying the second year, not just the first, brought unexpected hardship:

    “The second year everything feels a lot more than the first year.” – Aileen ([24:46])

  • Tim discusses how parents often grieve at different paces, risking relational tension:

    "He [a bereaved father] just very soberly warned that the divorce rate after the loss of a child is very, very high, alarmingly high...you process in different ways and at different speeds." – Tim ([25:45]; [26:08])

  • Both credit a letter from another grieving parent warning them to show grace and not expect each other to grieve the same way ([26:08]).

  • Aileen illustrates this by their differing relationships with the cemetery ([26:54]).

• Grieving with Hope:

  • Tim emphasizes that Christians should “grieve the most or the best because we really understand the brokenness of this world” and simultaneously look forward to its restoration ([47:36]–[48:18]).

  • "We grieve. And it's right and good to cry. We're not stoics. We're Christians." – Tim ([47:36]–[48:18])

  • Jeremy connects their story to Job and the Christian hope in eternity:

    "Because of the hope of eternity...Job now has 20 [children]. He gained 10 because he still has 10, because he will yet see them again..." – Jeremy ([47:02])

3. Struggles in Faith and Trust

• Wrestling with God:

  • Aileen unpacks feeling hurt but not angry at God:

    “I was hurt that he chose this for me. It hurt me that God decided to take my son, and I had to work out that aspect of my relationship with him.” – Aileen ([30:50])

  • Tim reframes suffering as a stewardship:

    "For some people, God gives them great sorrow or great pain or great weakness. And those people, too, are, I think, meant to receive it from the Lord and say, great, I'm going to serve you with this, and I'm going to trust you with it." ([32:31])

4. Supporting Family and Surviving as a Parent

• Parenting Through Grief:

  • Aileen:

    “Grief is physical pain as well. That’s one of the most surprising things ... my heart was actually going to be physically hurting.” ([33:07])

  • Abby (daughter) directly witnessed her brother’s death and experienced PTSD, requiring specialized counseling ([33:07]–[34:05]).

  • The Challies acknowledge the sustaining power of church community:

    “Our church stepped into that void. And we're so thankful for that because I don't know how we would have managed without them.” – Aileen ([34:09]) “The church was incredible. The pastors cared for us. ... There's this community of people who want to help you and feed truth to you and pray for you and just carry you through.” – Tim ([34:50])

• Isolation During COVID:

  • COVID restrictions meant the Challies family was forcibly isolated initially, delaying the communal grieving process ([36:39]).
  • Their first real experience of communal support came at the one-year anniversary service for Nick ([38:26]).

• Building Community Before Crisis:

  • Tim and Jeremy stress the importance of cultivating both theology and authentic community before hardship strikes:

    “When the storm comes...You've established what is true. But the same goes for community...” – Jeremy ([38:26]) "It's through those very ordinary means that I think God prepares and equips us so that when these difficult times do come again, we're just faced with a choice. Am I going to believe what I've said I believe in this moment, or is this a big exception to it?" – Tim ([39:36]–[40:44])

5. Heaven, Death, and Hope

• The Reality of Heaven:

  • Losing Nick made heaven feel more real and personal:

    "[Now] I have Nick waiting for me...that hope and that joy...is really compelling." – Aileen ([41:15]) "Heaven has become realer and closer in some ways...knowing that our son is there waiting for us." – Tim ([42:05])

  • Tim draws on John Donne’s poem "Death, be not proud":

    "Tell you what, you [Death] don’t have any more power than God has given you, and only for a limited time. Enjoy it while you can, but your day is coming. Death itself will die." – Tim ([42:05])

6. Addressing Fear and Future Suffering

• Living with Fear Post-Tragedy:

  • Aileen admits to heightened fear for her remaining children’s safety:

    “We would be waiting to hear them wake up in the morning, and if they didn't wake up fast enough, we'd be going up to make sure they were still breathing.” – Aileen ([44:18]–[45:51])

  • She shares honestly about still struggling with fear, but also the discovery that:

    “I know that I can survive what God hands me. I wouldn't have told you that I would have been able to survive a death of a child, but I can and I did by his grace.” – Aileen ([45:51])

  • Tim:

    "There is joy on the other side of grief ... we're responsible to grieve the griefs and enjoy the joys." ([45:51])

7. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On The Test of Faith in Suffering:

  “We knew in that moment that we had to either live according to what we had always professed…or walk away from this Christian thing altogether.” – Tim ([07:50], [11:58])

• On Deployed Theology:

  “You know what's true…you just have to go with it. It doesn't feel right…your emotions are lying to you.” – Aileen ([13:44])

• On Christian Hope in Grief:

  "The Christian grieves with hope, but I just want to back up—the Christian grieves." – Tim ([47:36])

• On Community Before Crisis:

  "You can't react to that and build true community at the moment of crisis." – Jeremy ([38:26])

• On Heaven’s Reality After Loss:

  "Heaven has become realer and closer...just knowing that our son is there waiting for us, whatever that looks like.” – Tim ([42:05])

• On Emotional Honesty with God:

  “I didn't have to forgive him because he did nothing wrong, but he still hurt me in the process of it.” – Aileen ([30:50])

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Nick’s death, learning the news: [06:10]–[08:39]
• Initial faith response, trauma, and deploying theology: [11:58]–[14:51]
• On missing not just what Nick was but what could have been: [22:31]
• Stages of grief, couple differences post-loss: [24:46]–[27:46]
• Stewardship of pain, trusting God’s sovereignty: [30:50]–[32:31]
• Parenting and walking children through grief: [33:07]–[35:27]
• Church community, isolation, and communal grieving: [36:39]–[38:26]
• How suffering has made heaven feel real: [41:15]–[43:11]
• Addressing fear and survival after tragedy: [44:18]–[45:51]
• The gospel hope summarized: [50:45]

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The Hope of the Gospel

• Tim offers a concise, contextually-rooted articulation:

  "When somebody dies, we all know that death isn't natural or normal or right or good. It's an intruder into this world. And there's death in this world because there's sin in this world...But Jesus Christ came into this world to fix this world, to make right all that has gone wrong. He did that by suffering, by dying in our place, by taking our sin upon Himself..." ([50:45])

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Tone and Takeaway

The episode is deeply personal, raw, and anchored in Christian faith. Tim and Aileen speak with humility and candor about loss, pain, and survival—a tone that is gentle yet profoundly hopeful, never minimizing the reality of grief or offering trite solutions.

This conversation will resonate with anyone walking through suffering or seeking to support those in sorrow. As Tim and Aileen make clear, the answer is not stoicism or quick fixes, but the daily work of faith, grace-filled community, and hope in Christ.

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For Listeners Impacted by Loss

• Deploy what you believe before crisis hits; faith and community are built in the day-to-day ([39:36]).
• Grief is personal—honor your own and others’ journeys, and extend grace.
• Seek and accept help from faith communities; don't self-isolate in pain.
• Share truth with those in suffering, and allow others to do the same for you.
• There is real hope and joy possible after loss; neither dismisses nor erases the grief.

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Transcript

[A]

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[A]

Intelligence Yesterday, the Lord called my son to himself. My dear son, my sweet son, my kind son, my godly son. My only son. Nick was playing a game with his sister and fiance and many other students at his college in Louisville, Kentucky, when he suddenly collapsed, never regaining consciousness. Take us back to that day.

[B]

Yeah. We were six, 700 miles away at home in Canada. We didn't know that something that could happen to a young man, that his heart could just stop.

[C]

I was hur. It hurt that he chose this for me. It hurt me that God decided to take my son and I had to work out that aspect of my relationship with him. I didn't have to forgive him because he did nothing wrong, but he still hurt me in the process of it.

[B]

The divorce rate after the loss of a child is very, very high, alarmingly high.

[A]

Interesting.

[B]

And that's because parents tend to stop communicating. They might blame one another. All sorts of negative things can happen, but a lot of it is that you process in different ways and at different speed. We knew in that moment that we had to either live according to what we had always professed. Always. It was always true and it was still true. Or it was never true. And we were just going to walk away from this Christian thing altogether.

[D]

Today's conversation is one that we pray will be a help and a blessing to any of you who have walked through sorrow and loss.

[A]

Yeah. Today we're talking with our dear friends Tim and Aileen Challis. And their story is one of unexpected tragedy when they suddenly received the news several years ago that their 20 year old son Nick had suddenly passed away. And they're dear believers and I think their story is going to be useful to bring so much comfort to the grieving. We all have tragedy we walk through in this life. And so we're very eager for you to hear from them.

[B]

And.

[A]

And we're very excited that you guys are here. Welcome to the Ginger and German podcast.

[C]

Thank you.

[B]

Yeah, thanks for having us.

[A]

You guys are hailing from the north. We are all the way from Toronto. Canada, eh?

[B]

Yeah, you got it. Long flight down here.

[A]

Yeah. Seriously, Sorry that it's not like a little more sunny and bright, you know, while you're here, it's warmer than at.

[C]

Home, so it's good.

[A]

Oh, is it? Well, yeah. Canada. It's got to be snowing a few feet by now, I imagine.

[B]

And less rainy than last time we were here anyways.

[A]

Yeah, that's right. I remember. You came and there was a monsoon.

[B]

Yeah, it was. It was impressive.

[A]

Yeah, wild. So, okay. Very eager for this conversation and have been anticipating for this. This for a long time. 1. Because I'll just say this to our listeners, your resources that you've put out just over the years, decades, really, you were kind of at the front end of, like, the blogosphere, you know, creating Christian content in the blogging world. And it's just been such an incredible foundational resource for so many people. So we're excited for our audience who might be new to some of your content to be familiar with that. But then also your testimony through what can only be described as the hardest, you know, trial and grief that a person can go through as a parent especially, has just been incredibly encouraging as we've watched you from afar. And Tim, as you will talk about this, as you've written about in Seasons of Sorrow, the pain of loss, and the comfort of God. But here's where I want to begin, is getting into your heart and mind when you heard the news of your son's passing. And maybe I'll begin by actually reading your opening to the book. So you turned your journal of grief into a book, and this is how you began it. And it's dated like a journal. November 4, 2020. In all the years I've been writing, I've never had to type words more difficult, more devastating than these. Yesterday, the Lord called my son to himself. My dear son, my sweet son, my kind son. My godly son. My only son. Nick was playing a game with his sister and fiance and many other students at his college in Louisville, Kentucky, when he suddenly collapsed, never regaining consciousness. Students, paramedics, and doctors battled valiantly but could not save him. He's with the Lord. He loved the Lord. He longed to serve. We have no answers to the what or why questions. Yesterday Aileen and I cried and cried until we could cry no more, until there were no tears left to cry. Then later in the evening, we looked each other in the eye and said, we can do this. We don't want to do this, but we can do this. This sorrow, this grief, this devastation. Because we know we don't have to do it in our own strength. We can do it like Christians, like a son and daughter of the Father. Who knows what it is to lose a son. We traveled through the night to get to Louisville so we could be together as a family. And we ask that you remember us in your prayers as we mourn our loss together. We know there will be grueling days and sleepless nights ahead. But for now, even though our minds are bewildered and our hearts are broken, our hope is fixed and our faith is holding. Our son is home. Take us back to that day.

[B]

Yeah, man, that's going back five years now. And sometimes it seems like it's been much longer than that. Sometimes it seems much shorter than that. But five years ago, Nick was a seminary student down at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, doing really well in life. Just gotten engaged to a lovely young lady and. And had lots of plans for the future. Really dreamed of finishing his seminary education and returning back to Canada. There's just a lot of need in Canada, a lot of spiritual need. And he really felt convicted that he should return to his homeland and pastor a church there. And so everything was going well, we thought. But, yeah, that evening, we were just hanging out in our house, doing chores around the house, just doing what people do. And just got this text message, actually, from a young man we had never met. We knew of. My daughter was dating him. He sent a text message and just said something along the lines of, I don't know if you heard, but neck collapsed, and they think he's breathing or something along. They think he had a seizure. They think he's breathing. And that was the first inkling we had that something had gone wrong. And just over the course of the next hour or so, the news got more and more concerning, and we heard about ambulances coming and being taken to the hospital. Then at last, the doctor just called and said, I'm sorry, we did everything we could, but there's nothing we can do. And so just. I mean, literally, just out of the blue, we had no idea there was anything wrong, anything, any medical issues. And yet, just very suddenly, his heart stopped and he was taken. And we didn't know that something that could happen to a young man that his heart could just stop. And yet it can. And it did. And so just in that moment, we very suddenly entered into this, what I called a season of sorrow.

[A]

Did you both receive the text message, or did you have to share that with Alien?

[C]

I actually received the text message. So Nathan had just started dating Abby. So it had only been maybe a month, I think. And for whatever reason, I had been texting him about her birthday. Cause her birthday's October 30th. And so he had my number, and Abby hadn't even told him. I believe there was. He was at the park within his entire hall. And one of the guys from the hall texted Nathan to let him know. And then Nathan texted me.

[B]

Wow. Yeah. We were six, 700 miles away at home in Canada. And, yeah, just very hard. You can't just swing across town and go and be there. So it was very hard to be at that distance. Just total helplessness. Yeah.

[C]

The borders were closed at that time because of COVID So we could drive. We couldn't drive down. We wouldn't have been able to. We had to fly. So that added a lot of complexity to the situation as well.

[A]

What surprised you in that moment or as you look back on that? Because you can't prepare for that kind of news. And yet I think there's. I don't know about you, Ginge. I've thought about receiving a text message. And in fact, there was. You know, I'll never forget when you received a call on a Sunday morning. The Sunday we were going to drive out here, and we were playing a game with some friends at church, and she said, mom's calling me. And then I looked over in the. In the living room, and I just. She just started weeping and fell to the ground. And it's something you imagine like this. At any moment, we could receive a call.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Having lived through that, now, as you look back, was there anything that surprised you about your response to that? Where you go, why did I respond that way? Or how did I respond that way?

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[B]

So a lot of that evening has just sort of been blotted out of our memories. So we don't have, we have a few vivid memories of the evening, but a lot just disappeared. And partly that's because we purposely haven't gone back to remember it. It's just very painful. And so memories have to be kept, maintained often. And so we haven't maintained those. But we do have some vivid memories. And I think, to answer the question, I think that what stood out to me is just we knew in that moment that we had to either live according to what we had always professed. Always. It was always true and it was still true, or it was never true and we were just going to walk away from this Christian thing altogether. Do we love God enough To say that in this moment of our hardest moment, our greatest trial, in this moment, are we going to stay true to God, or are we going to just turn our backs and say, okay, we understood there was good in calling ourselves Christians, but now that there's pain involved as well, are we still going to say, no, God is good. We still love this God? So, yeah, we knew in the moment there was kind of a test going on and it would come to us in that moment to either deploy what we had always believed to be true, just enact it and start to live it, or immediately start redrawing things and say, hang on, if this is true, then, well, maybe God isn't actually good, or maybe God isn't actually in control of this world.

[A]

I mean, you were cognizant of that thought in your mind. Were you having to preach that to yourself? Were you having to preach that to Aileen in the sense of, like, was there a disconnect in how the two of you responded where you had to have a moment where you're going, hey, remember these truths?

[D]

Or.

[A]

What was that like together?

[C]

I don't think so. I think, again, my memories are very scattered throughout a lot of it. I think a trauma does that to you to some degree. So I think that's part of why my memories are so kind of hit and miss with it. But I distinctly remember that. That concept of just deploying your theology, you know what's true. It's been in your. In your life now for so long, you just have to go with it. It doesn't feel right. Right. Your emotions are lying to you. Nothing feels true. God doesn't feel good. He doesn't feel just. He doesn't feel all these things. And yet you know the truth of it. And so you have to cling to that truth and just deploy your theology that you know to be true. And I think we did that right from the get go. I remember very clearly in the middle, we were getting ready to go to the airport and Tim took me by the shoulders and looked at me and just said, no, we can do this. And that is one clear thing. And that very much sticks with, no, we can do this. We don't wanna do this, but we can do this. And we can do this knowing what's true and acting out in that.

[B]

Another thought I had very, very early on in that evening was just, if my family has ever needed me, they need me right now. And so I can't check out. I've got to keep loving my wife, got to keep Loving my girls. I've got to be present now. So I can't just withdraw. I can't tap out. If ever I have been needed to be a husband, to be a dad, it's right now.

[D]

Was there any particular, even verse or hymn or song that came to mind that the Lord was using, even in those deep, dark moments when you said there was just. I can't even begin to imagine the pain and confusion and hurt, all those things coming together at once. But was there something that the Lord used, even in that time, that you now look back on as a memory like a verse or a song that the Lord brought to mind?

[C]

I think it was very hard for me to focus on Scripture in the beginning. I found it. I could take little tiny pieces at a time. But any more than that was just very overwhelming for me. I think a lot of. We had so many people praying for us, and those saints praying for us really upheld us through this time. And we could feel their prayers almost tangibly so. I think that more than anything for me is what I remember is having so many people praying for us and supporting us and giving us that strength to kind of keep going when we felt like we couldn't.

[B]

Yeah. And some of our pleas to friends were really just along the lines of, pray for us and tell us something that's true. And sometimes, you know, our minds can be so confused, and if you've experienced grief, you've experienced, you know, just that very sudden point of grief. You know, your brain just doesn't work right. We're just not meant to be able to handle these things. These are beyond what God created us to be able to handle. Death is an intruder into this world. Grief, trauma, they're all intruders. And so your mind gets so overwhelmed that you just can't think straight. But to have a friend come and say, I'm going to tell you something that's true, something that's true about God, something that's true about Scripture. And I'm just going to pray for you briefly to the point. A huge, huge help and such a blessing.

[A]

Take us back. Because it's Nick and Abby. Right. And take us back to their childhood. And Abby's. Is she older than Nick?

[B]

No, no, it's Nick, Abby, Michaela.

[A]

Three. Nick, Abby, Michaela. Take us back to. I mean, what kind of kid was Nick growing up and. Yeah. What was it like raising the three kids? We're in the season of life where our kids are young and we've got the three. And it looks like our caboose is full. Right. We got our caboose. I think that means the last train on the tracks, but, yeah, take us back to their childhood and did they grow up in Toronto? Have you been there your whole life?

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

So this is where I struggle. I struggle a lot to talk about Nick. I can talk about my grief and I find that pretty easy. But to talk about him is incredibly difficult for me. Nick, he's the oldest. He was the most serious child. He was my bookworm. He was not athletic at all. He had a.

[A]

Sounds like you're describing Tim so far.

[B]

Yeah, a little bit. He inherited my abilities there.

[C]

He was incredibly smart. He really was so intelligent in so many ways. He had a very sweetheart. He was compassionate. He had a way of seeing people who weren't necessarily seen. We found out later in church he would always go up to some of the older people and make sure that he said hello to them and make sure that they felt seen. And we also found out much later that he'd been mentoring a couple guys that we had absolutely no clue about. And one of those boys texts us or calls us every November 3rd, make sure that we know how important Nick was to him. So he was very unique. Quirky. Very quirky.

[B]

Yeah, quirky. A little bit eccentric, but, you know, the really smart kind of eccentricity. Great guy. Yeah. And he was really. One of the joys of raising your kids is there comes this time where they're still your child, but they're also your friend. And you start thinking, oh, I'd hang out with that person even if he wasn't my kid. And that's where you want to get it in parenting, right? So you love these people not just because they're yours, because they're just good people. And Nick was very much there. He was just fun to hang out with. And he had more theological education than I did, so I would call him up and ask him my Greek questions. And he was top of his class in Greek, so doing really well there and just a good resource. So, yeah, I think part of what we struggled with was it felt unfair that he was finally coming into his own, that we were starting to see who he really was. He had just a few difficulties, social difficulties, in his childhood and didn't have a ton of friends. But then he went off to Boyce College and just really connected with boys and was really starting to develop good friends and found this lovely young lady and was just engaged to her and looking forward to be married. And then he was gone. And so it feels like we never got to see him at full bloom. And I think that's part of the tragedy of it.

[D]

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[A]

Here's the cool thing. For the first 1000 listeners of ours that sign up, you will get $100 credit towards your membership. Visit functionhealth.com ginger use code ginger100@signup to own your health.

[D]

We want to take a break from this episode to tell you about Nanet.

[A]

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[D]

Yeah. I think that's why so many families are jumping on board with this. Because I remember in the early years, I would wake up all the time, you would in the middle of the night, just worried about your little one. So even if they're in a nursery, it's nice just to be able to have your eyes on them. And so definitely, Nanit is like my absolute favorite baby monitor I've ever had.

[A]

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[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So there's like this. It's not even an aspect of what you do miss. It's what you've never experienced that you miss.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I imagine that's hard to put into words, but must be harder to experience.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. You realize after somebody's been taken, you miss what they were, but you also grieve what they will never be, what you will never have with them. And there's just this big aching void because we all live with a picture of the future, what the future is going to be. We have this conceit that we think we can picture the future, but then suddenly somebody's removed from that future, and now you're moving into a future that's so different from what you thought.

[A]

Doesn't that scream at us, the reality of eternity?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

C.S. lewis wrote of fish to his friend Sheldon Van Aken that fish never complain of being wet because they were meant to be in the. In the water. And yet we always complain of time. Oh, how quickly time passes. Oh, this is either lasting too long or not long enough. And Lewis says, you know, basically what Solomon says in Ecclesiastes is eternity is written upon every person's heart. But even that reality of what you're saying makes me think, like, we're always excited about tomorrow. And so the death or the stopping of tomorrow is so unnatural because it's like, yeah, I love my son. I love who he was when he was born and two years old and five, but I wanted to see him tomorrow.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it just. It reminds us in these moments of how unnatural death is and the shattering of God's design.

[B]

Yeah. And there's this. Naturally, we understand that death does exist in this world, but we naturally assume that children will outlive their parents. And there's some terrible inversion that many people experience where suddenly their child is gone and they're left. And, you know, if death is unnatural, even more so when the young die before the old.

[A]

People talk about the stages of grief. Do you relate to that? You know, the four different or five different stages, or what were the stages like for you as you've gone on from that day?

[C]

I don't think we broke it down in stages so much. I think the first year was very difficult. The second year was less so, but still hard. Everyone says the first talks about the first year because of all the firsts, but there's a lot of firsts that extend into that second year as well. And the longevity of what you're experiencing is now far more real because you're not as numb as you are that first year. So the second year, everything feels a lot more than the first year. So I'd say it was two years before I was functioning on a new normal at all. And I think Tim was a little bit faster. But I think in large part that's because he poured everything out into seasons. So he wrote out that first year of grief in ways that I was not able to look at it so directly as he did. I had to kind of glance at it and then do life and glance at it and do life.

[A]

Did that ever cause tension in the two of you grieving?

[B]

I don't think it did, but it very much could have. And so shortly after Nick died, I got just a lovely letter from somebody who reads my website. And he had lost his son 10 years before, and he just gave some. It was like a guidebook almost. Here's some of what you'll experience in this year. And he just very soberly warned that the divorce rate after the loss of a child is very, very high, alarmingly high.

[A]

Interesting.

[B]

And that's because parents tend to stop communicating. They might blame one another. All sorts of negative things can happen. But a lot of it is that you process in different ways and at different speeds. And so he said, typically, a dad will sort of be discovering his equilibrium again, or his new normal, if you will, in maybe four to six months, and he'll be ready. Now, okay, we're going to press on in life. Whereas the moment might take two years, and it's that time between where one person's kind of feeling okay again, the other's still not there. That's where so much tension and resentment can come in. And so he just really warned us not to expect a mom to grieve as a dad and not to expect a dad to grieve as a mom, but to both give each other lots of grace. And that was very, very helpful counsel.

[C]

We could see it certainly even in how we relate to the cemetery. I think that's a really good example for me. I needed to go frequently and for much longer than Tim needed to. And I could have seen that as well. He doesn't love Nick as much, or he's just not grieving properly. But that letter really helped us understand that how I. What helps me, helps me. And it's okay that it doesn't help Tim that way, but in all of that, it also can make you feel Very alone in your grief, because grief is so very personal. And nobody can really relate to you the same way because everybody grieves so differently. And so that's something that I think people can find very hard. Is that sort of aloneness in it because it's such a personal experience and nobody can really help you do it. You just kind of have to do it.

[B]

You mentioned the stages of grief. So, you know, I think it was Elizabeth Kubler Ross who came up with those stages of grief. And they're helpful in terms of. They show that there is a way progressing through grief. And for many people, there are those stages of grief, bargaining and acceptance and all that. But I think for us, the main thing we had to solve was just related to God himself. Would we submit to God in this? Would we just bow the knee to God in this and say, God, in some way you were involved in this in one way or another. You could have prevented it and didn't. Or in some way, you willed it. This was your plan for Nick's life, that he wouldn't have a great adulthood. You know, he would be gone at 20 years old. Or were we going to kind of fight against that and start to think, well, maybe God did something wrong, or God did something less than it could have been if he had just done it my way instead of his way, it would have been better. And so I think the most important stage for us was just looking God in the eye, so to speak, and saying, you did no wrong. Whatever else happened here, we love you, we trust you, and we're willing to just live in that way.

[A]

That is something that's a supernatural fruit of the spirit.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

Like, as you look at Job, he's losing everything. And the start of this 42 chapter book, and he says, the Lord gives, Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. I'll never forget I've mentioned this before on the podcast, but my cousin, her son passes away in the morning, calls me, and I call her in the evening. I go, how you doing, cuz? And she goes, the Lord gives. The Lord takes away, Blessed be his name, in tears, like weeping. And you go, that's not natural. That is not normal. That is not a human response. Because if God is in control and he didn't stop it, or if he even planned it, like this is somehow in his overarching sovereignty, then I don't like it, and I don't like him. Like there's an anger that, you know, us as creature, want to shake our fist to the heavens. Which we see in human experience like we see it in the psalmist. I mean, that's, I think, why we've related so closely or deeply to the Psalms at points, because it's so raw and unfiltered humanity, and yet it always ends with, but I trust you.

[C]

Yeah, I think that's one thing for me that speaks most to God's grace in my life. Because anybody who knew me prior to this would have said to me that they would have thought that I would have been incredibly angry about this. Tim certainly would have said that. And I've never been angry at God for choosing this. I'm hurt. I was hurt, deeply hurt by it. But that's not the same thing as being angry. And it's by his grace, truly, because it's nothing in and of myself.

[A]

Tease that out a little bit. What do you mean, being hurt versus angry?

[C]

So I was hurt that he chose this for me. It hurt me that God decided to take my son, and I had to work out that aspect of my relationship with him as well. I had to figure out how you. I didn't have to forgive him because he did nothing wrong, but he still hurt me in the process of it. And so it's taken a lot to kind of come to peace with that concept. And Tim talked a lot about stewarding what God has given us in this. And I think some of the stewardship has helped heal some of that hurt that I had, realizing that, okay, this is what we've been given, and we're gonna steward this well instead of not well.

[B]

Well, yeah, God asks us all to do different things, to fulfill different roles, whatever it is. And all of us have these certain hurts that come through life. And yeah, the question is, are we going to think that God might have done something wrong, or are we just going to accept those and say, I am precious to God? I believe that he's proven that through the gospel. He's proven that through the cross I'm precious to him. And therefore what he gives me is precious to him, even if it's something that's very painful. And so I can trust that God has given this to me for a reason. My task before the Lord, then, is to be faithful with what he's given. And we all want to be the ones who are given great wealth or great power or great fame and say, I'm going to steward that for your glory, God, thanks for making me so incredibly athletic. I'm going to go out there and just show the world. But for some people, God gives Them great sorrow or great pain or great weakness. And those people, too, are, I think, meant to receive it from the Lord and say, great, I'm going to serve you with this, and I'm going to trust you with it.

[A]

Wow.

[D]

So as you guys are processing this and walking through these seasons, how did you shepherd your girls through this? Because as a parent, I couldn't imagine being in that place where you are. So you're wrestling with so much. Like you said, you have people who are praying for you and you're saying, speak truth to me. But then you also need to speak that, the word of God, and you need to speak truth to your own kids. How did you all shepherd them in this difficult season?

[C]

It certainly wasn't easy because you're dealing with your own physical pain. Grief is physical. That level of grief is physical pain as well. That's one of the most surprising things about it, is I didn't realize I was actually going to. My heart was actually going to be physically hurting. So you're living with that day by day. And at the same time, you know, our situation was particularly difficult because Abby and Wren were both there that night when Nick passed away. So Abby had some particular challenges that came because of that. She ended up having some PTSD and needing some pretty specialized counseling, which I've asked her if I can share that, and she's agreed that that's fine, to be clear. So that we had to obviously look outside for help for her because we couldn't even begin to cope with that. And so she got some pretty specific biblical counseling to help with some of those issues that she was having.

[B]

That was tremendously effective, too, and really helped her with coping mechanisms.

[C]

It was really good. And our youngest, Mikayla, ended up being at home with us, which was. Abby had gone back to school about two months after Nick passed away. She went back down to Boyce College, which was the right place for her. It was very hard to have her go down. Kayla was still in high school, so she was home with us, and we really relied quite heavily on our church for that. A lot of the young women in the church came and they took her out for meals and took her for walks and really loved her well through that time. And I think when we couldn't, our church stepped into that void. And we're so thankful for that because I don't know how we would have managed without them.

[B]

Yeah, no, the church was incredible. The pastors cared for us. Well, we've often said we've seen people go through great grief like this, without a church. And people can emerge on the other side with their lives intact. But why would you want to when there's this community of people who want to help you and feed truth to you and pray for you and just carry you through? It was just such a blessing to be able to rely on the people that we had covenanted with in our church and just to see our church really, really serve us well. It was just such a tremendous blessing. We're so thankful.

[D]

That's something that I think that, like you said, for people who are outside of that community, of being in a church, who genuinely is laying down their life for one another, serving one another, when it's not easy, when it's uncomfortable, when you don't have any words to say, when there are no words to say. That's something that I would just say, even for anybody who is listening, if you are not a believer, if you're not in a local church, to go and get connected to a local church, because that is where you will find the grace that God's giving you in the body of Christ, in the body of believers. And so, yeah, I want you guys to speak to that as well. Because even having that community, you know, it's there, you're in a season of difficulty. Was there also a tendency to want to just isolate fully, like not let anybody in because of the pain? And you know, it's there. But at what point were you like, yes, serve us, and I don't even know how.

[B]

So part of the unique context for Nick's death was that it happened during the time of pandemic in a place which was pretty locked down at the time. And so we were forced to isolate because we had been in the United States. When we crossed back into Canada, there was a forced, mandatory 14 day isolation period. So right after Nick's death, we were on our own, literally, force of law. Nobody could come to our house and we couldn't leave the house. And so we were forced into isolation, which just forced us to, I mean, yeah, just grapple with these things on our own, really. And then we could hold the funeral on that 14th day when we were released from that quarantine. And so it was a little bit later on when we really started to realize how much the church family meant to us. And in some ways it was actually a year later, on the first anniversary of Nick's death. We thought, well, during the funeral itself, we were still so raw, but also it was under all sorts of restrictions. And so it was a very difficult Time to have a funeral. A year later, we said, let's just go to the cemetery. Whoever wants to come can. And we'll just kind of have a little service there like we couldn't have the year before. And it was really, I think, that day that we realized just how much our church had meant to us in that time. And to see them. Them grieving, them weeping. And we realized when you're in church community, that loved one isn't just taken from you. He's taken from us. He's taken from the whole community. They loved Nick. He was. He was a son of our church and deeply loved there. And so they had grieved as well. We just hadn't been able to see it because of the strangeness of that situation. But that's what it is to live in true community, is you are bearing one another's burdens, which means you're weeping with those who weep, as the Bible says. And there's something really lovely about that, to love others enough to weep over their sorrows.

[A]

And you can't react to that and build true community at the moment of crisis. No, like, the moment of crisis happens. Just like your theology. Like, what people are hearing in this conversation is. I'd imagine people listening are going, whoa. Like, those responses are pretty profound to go, God, you've done this. We worship you.

[B]

What?

[A]

Like most people, it's at that point they start wrestling, going, God, are you good? But because you've got this deeply entrenched theology that you believe to be true about God, it's like, when the storm comes, you're. You've already, like, what. What did Dave Muxlow say? You better get your theology right before you need it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, my mom would always say, don't doubt in the dark what God has shown you in the light. You've established what is true. But the same goes for community, where it's like, when something happens and you've been living this independent life, you can't go, hey, okay, can I get people to rally around me? And they go, I'm sorry, who are you? It's like, no, you've got to go. And sometimes it's crisis that leads us to get that community because we realize we weren't meant to do this isolated and alone.

[B]

Yeah, no, absolutely. So it's one thing to go and I guess go out and dig up a theology of suffering so you can prepare yourself to suffer, and that's fine. You know, can read some good books about suffering and equip yourself with that. But mostly it's just studying the Word, just sitting under the preaching of the Word. So in our church, it just so happened, coincidentally, if you will, that the pastor just preached through the Book of Job. And so we were just, you know, just listening to sermons. Nobody knew anything was going to happen. Our church entered into, you know, a series of losses at that time, but the Lord just worked it out where we had heard the series in the Book of Job, which is all about suffering. And now we were equipped, not because we had read books on the subject, but just because we've been part of a church and just living the Christian life, reading God's Word on our own. And it's through those just very ordinary means that I think God prepares and equips us so that when these difficult times do come again, we're just faced with a choice. Am I going to believe what I've said? I believe in this moment, or is this a big exception to it? You know, God wants me to trust him. Except for this. No, I'm going to trust him with this as well.

[A]

One of the profound moments, I mean, there's so many in what you write, Tim, but is when you speak to death directly and you say, death, did you do any harm by taking my son from my side? And then you immediately answer, don't even give Death a chance to respond, and you say no, for you delivered him to my saviors. What has this done to transform your understanding or your hope of heaven?

[C]

Yeah. I remember pretty early on you asking our pastor, is it okay that at the moment I'm looking more forward to seeing Nick than Jesus? Do you remember?

[B]

Yeah. In heaven. Yeah.

[C]

And I think there is a sense in which heaven seems so much more real to us now and so much more attainable in some ways because we have somebody there who's waiting for us. And so now it's not. Before it was a little scary, like, you want to get to heaven. You do, but there's this sort of. You don't really know, and it's a little unknown, but there's this desire now to, you know, one day when my work here is done, because my work here is not done yet, but when my work is done, I have Nick waiting for me. And so that hope and that joy that will come with that is really compelling in a lot of ways.

[B]

Yeah. Heaven has become realer and closer in some ways, like Aileen said, just knowing that our son is there waiting for us, whatever that looks like. There's so much about that intermediate state about heaven that's mysterious to us. But what we do know is that Nick's. Well, he's safe, and we'll be joining him. And so that just gives us that extra sense of anticipation. So what Ilene referenced, I spoke to our friend, my pastor, and said, you know, as I think about heaven, I want to see Jesus, but I also really want to see Nick. Does that. Does that sound like something a pagan would say? He said, no, it sounds like something a grieving dad would say. And I think that was a very good pastoral answer. And thankful for that. And the idea of speaking to death. There's this great poem by John Donne called Death Be Not Proud, one of his holy sonnets, and just well worth reading. Death, be not proud. And that's what gave me the idea of just speaking to death and almost mocking death. Death, you think you've got power. Tell you what, you don't have any more power than God has given you, and only for a limited time. So enjoy it while you can, but your day is coming. Death itself will die.

[D]

That's so powerful. And I have a question to follow up kind of with that in mind, because you guys, having been walking through suffering and all of that for this time, when you're looking at yourselves before that suffering, were there times where you would have seasons where you'd wrestle with fear and the what ifs of life and saying, okay, what if God gave me cancer? What if he did allow a tragedy? And you would have that fear come up and say, how would I handle that with those anxieties? I think we often, like, we wrestle with so much, especially with so much media, so much news, we're hearing so many things, and how has that changed? And what would you say to somebody who maybe is not yet in a season where they're walking through that deep grief and suffering, how would you encourage them beforehand to trust in God? Because I know on the other side, there's so much anxiety that we can feel in every day. But what have you learned through that process that you would share?

[B]

You kind of just described Aileen's life with fretting about things happening.

[C]

Absolutely.

[B]

You live in a lot of fear.

[C]

I do.

[B]

It's one of your struggles in life, for sure. Being fearful.

[C]

And I think having the worst happen. For a long time, we struggled a lot with fear for the girls right after it happened. We would be waiting to hear them wake up in the morning, and if they didn't wake up fast enough, we'd be going up to make sure they were still breathing. It was a rough time right after Nick passed away because we saw what God could choose to do, and we always knew he had that option, but now we knew he actually would possibly do something like that. So I think. And I still struggle with it if it's. If I don't get a text message back fast enough, if I. Once we find a friend on our phone, and once I found my daughter, she was at a coffee shop across the street, but it put her in the hospital. And that was a bad. A bad few moments. So I don't have an answer for that because I don't know that I've solved it completely yet. I know that I can survive what God hands me. I wouldn't have told you that I would have been able to survive a death of a child, but I can and I did by his grace. So I know that I am able to do these things, but it doesn't take away the fear that he might ask me to do it again.

[B]

Yeah. So you're a testament to the fact that God can take what you love most and what you fear most, and you can still press on loving him and not hold it against him, but just press on in love. And I think as well, just that there is joy on the other side of grief. In the moment of grief, of course, it feels like I'll never laugh again. It would be a betrayal of everything for me to laugh or to find joy again. But there is a lot of joy in this world despite our griefs. And I think we're responsible to grieve the griefs and enjoy the joys. And if God is going to lavish blessings upon us like he does, we're still responsible to receive those and give him thanks for them.

[A]

As Christians, we do not grieve as those without hope.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I think what's so beautiful about your testimony is that that's not theoretical. That's true. And I think of Job, we. You know, your pastor preached through Job right before this season in your life. And you think at the end of Job, God had taken everything from Job and he promised he would give it twice, twofold back. He gives him 10 more children. And I think any parent would say a visceral response to that would be, yeah, okay, but you still took 10.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, oh, great, I have 10 new ones. Ah, forget the old ones. No parents responding that way. Except for the fact that because of the hope of eternity. No, no. Job now has 20. He gained 10 because he still has 10 because he will yet see them again, as David says, of his son who passed, I will see him again. And so the Christian grieves with hope, knowing, well, you're going to see Nick again. You're going to hug him and you're going to tell him you love him. This isn't the end.

[B]

What I love about what you said is the Christian grieves with hope, but I just want to back up the Christian grieves. And it's good to grieve. I think Christians of all people should grieve the most or the best because we really understand the brokenness of this world. We understand that sin broke everything, but we also understand that sin will end and with it, all the effects of sin. And so we really can look ahead to a better day. So we grieve. And it's right and good to cry. We're not stoics. We're Christians. Right. We don't just keep a stiff upper lip and say, well, it'll all be okay in heaven. We truly grieve because this world is so badly broken. And that should break our hearts. It should grieve our spirits. But we have this hope that someday grief will end. Someday this grief will end.

[A]

Death will be no more.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Jesus comes and embodies sinless humanity. And he was referred to as a man of sorrows. And he looked at Lazarus Tomb and wept. He looked at the widow who lost her son in Luke 7, and he grieved. He feels deeply. And so you're not more holy for having a stiff upper lip?

[B]

Yeah, no, not at all.

[A]

That's so comforting. And I think your story will. Well, I know your story will resonate with so many, because really, it's the story of God's grace. I think both of you would testify, even have, in this conversation, like, this isn't me. It's not like, oh, this happened to the right couple, you know, because they've really got it all together. It's like, no, I think you'd both testify this has been the hardest thing in our life, but by the grace of God.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And the hope for me and Ginger, the hope for those listening, is that that same grace is available to us because life isn't promised and trials are coming.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. And I think for all of us, our hope, hopefully, our great desire, is just to be faithful. Right. Be faithful with whatever it is that God decrees for our lives, whatever it is that comes our way through the hand of God, one way or another, be faithful with it. And again, all of us want to be the one who's faithful with money. Or fame. But many of us have to be faithful with grief or illness or unfulfilled longings or shattered dreams. And man, how many people do we know who have given a testament of just loving God despite the circumstances in their life, things that seem like it would be too much. And yet we honor those people. We love those people. I often say we're all so glad there is a Joni Eareckson Tada. But none of us want to be Joni Eareckson Tada. Yet for years she stood as just this testimony of faithful joy through suffering. And we honor those people to some degree. Each of us should be willing to be that person because God needs those people to just show shine as a light that shines all the focus, all the light onto him and his grace in their lives.

[A]

That's so good. Could you close this time, Tim, by sharing the hope of the Gospel? Because I know there's going to be people listening who say, I want that, but I don't know how to get that. And it begins with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. How would you share the Gospel?

[B]

There's so many different ways to share the Gospel. But maybe in the context of this conversation, the gospel answers the question of what is broken in this world. Because we all know that something's deeply broken when somebody dies. We all know that death isn't natural or normal or right or good. It's an intruder into this world. And there's death in this world because there's sin in this world. Human beings sinned and shattered everything, broke everything. And all the pain, all the sorrow we experience in this world is just a consequence of that. But Jesus Christ came into this world to fix this world, to make right all that has gone wrong. He did that by suffering, by dying in our place, by taking our sin upon Himself and satisfying God's wrath against sin. And so all we need to do is trust in him and ask him to forgive our sins. And he does. And as he forgives our sin, he promises us eternity with Him. He promises that we will get to enjoy this world, but with everything that's been broken, made right and made whole and made good, we'll be in his presence in the fullness of joy forever and ever. And all those who love him will be with Him. And that'll be a place of first being with him, which is our deepest and greatest longing, but then also the blessings of that which is being with one another and being with our loved ones again.

[A]

That's a good word, Tim. Aileen, thank you so much for coming out, hanging out. I know this isn't easy. And, Tim, you speak a lot, podcasts, writing books, you have this outlet. But, Aileen, this isn't something you do. And so thank you for being so vulnerable. It means a lot. Well, thanks, guys, for tuning in. That was a good conversation. Helpful one. We will look forward to having you back next week. And we'll see you later.