How God lovingly used suffering to pry a false gospel from my hands

One of the ways I’ve witnessed God “work all things together for good” is through how He used Ethan’s life, diagnosis, and death to pry a false gospel from my hands—and give me something far greater.

For years, I held the assumption that loving Jesus meant my life would be easier and more prosperous. If I honored Him and did all the “right” things, I believed I’d be spared from suffering. And if trials came, I’d pray—and God would deliver me from my circumstances. Isn’t that what we’re promised? 

My eyes were on what is temporary, rather than on what is eternal. 

I was a believer and I’m thankful for the foundation I had. But somehow I had unknowingly absorbed cultural distortions of the gospel–false and dangerous ideas that placed my own physical needs at the center. When Ethan died, I turned to scripture like never before. I needed to make sense out of scriptures that suddenly felt confusing…assumed promises that felt unkept. 

And there–in the pages of my tear-stained Bible–I was met with Jesus, man of sorrows, who wept with me in my grief. I found the gospel. 

When sin entered the world through man’s sin and rebellion, death and brokenness touched every part of creation. But that God didn’t leave us there. He promised a Savior who would come and crush the serpent’s head. He sent Jesus to take the punishment we deserved, to rescue us from sin and death, and to offer adoption and eternal life for all who believe. One day, He will return and every tear will be wiped away. But until then, Jesus assured us that we would suffer–but to take heart, that He has overcome the world. 

The gift of redemption and eternal life in Christ is infinitely greater than any physical healing.

While I’m not grateful for my son’s death, I’m incredibly grateful for the way God has worked through it to give me a deeper dependence on Him, a firmer grasp on the gospel, and a greater love for His Word. 

God’s Word is our firm foundation, in grief, in doubt, and in every season. One of Satan’s most common tactics is twisting God’s Word. He asks, Did God really say...? Is He really good? He did it with Eve. He tried it with Jesus in the wilderness (John 4). He knew what God said and quoted it out of context. We ought to let that sink in for a minute. May we be women who know our Bibles. May we guard our hearts against out-of-context greeting-card versions of what God’s Word says and dig in to what is true.