Brokenhearted parents have been on my mind as Easter Sunday draws near. Is this you? You’re depleted and hopeless. Things have gotten worse. You haven’t seen any change at all. Your child is still drinking, can’t manage to stay clean, keeps cutting themselves, got arrested again, trapped in a sexual addiction, binging and purging, angry at the world – that includes you.

Heavyhearted, you’re not looking forward to Easter at all. You know what Christ could do for your child and it grieves you deeply that they still don’t want what he has to offer. This has been wearing on you. Your joy is dampened, even though you know it shouldn’t be. You’re not so sure you can make yourself go to church on Sunday – maybe you haven’t gone in a long time. You’ve been mad at God. Disillusioned. Why bother?

The following story is for you. I pray it will renew your hope. May the truth of the gospel flow deeper into the wounds of your heart and mind to comfort you, increasing your faith that  Almighty God, who raised Jesus from the dead and breathed life into his broken body, can do the same for your son or daughter. Yes, he can do it.

This is Moment eighty-five from Moments for Families With Prodigals, by Robert J. Morgan.  It was written to the author  from a young woman who grew up on the mission field.

“I began experimenting with sexual activity as a senior in high school. My junior year in college I got pregnant and wasn’t exactly sure who the father was. I chose to have an abortion, which Satan used to keep me even more tightly bound.

My parents were still serving overseas and were not aware of any of this. Through conversations with church friends, they knew I wasn’t very active in church, but I managed to keep everything else from them. This in itself was agony.

But I finally taught my conscience to be quiet, so I could get involved in bigger, more life-threatening choices with decreasing discomfort. In retrospect, I see that God in lovingkindness and faithfulness never let me go. He brought me through by His grace alone and through my parents’ daily prayers for me.

There was nothing anyone could have said to me; their admonishing only brought deeper guilt and built the wall higher. My husband and I got married . . .  Eight and a half months later we had our first child. When she was about six months old, God finally got my attention and made me realize my need for Him and His salvation. 

He had been drawing me gently and quietly since (my daughter’s) birth. My husband and I began attending church regularly because we wanted to be responsible parents.

God spoke to me, forgave me, cleansed me, and made me wholly His one morning in my living room when I was all alone.

What an awesome God!”

Because Christ lives, our children, too, can live again.

Hold on to hope and have a blessed Easter!

“I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for Me?”  (Jeremiah 32:27)