“Why did God make me this way? I’ve asked him to change me every day, but he never does. My life is hopeless — there’s no point to trying anymore.” My child curled up in a heap on the floor and sobbed.
I sat down next to him, empty of words and fighting my own feelings of despair and weariness. After nearly eleven years of watching his mental illness turn our sweet, smart, thoughtful child into someone who has no control over his words and actions, pain that I never knew a human heart could endure had filled every crevice of my life.
Words can’t express the grief we feel as parents as we helplessly watch our child suffer. It is one of many intense and debilitating griefs Christians experience. The grief arrives, wave upon wave, until you feel you can no longer remember what calm waters felt like. It comes and goes as it pleases, comes around the least expected corners, and changes you along the way. You cry to God, asking him to mend the brokenness. I know I’m not alone.
