October 25, 2026 — Carol Brown
I’ve never met a grieving parent who doesn’t have questions surrounding the death of their child. A giant question mark becomes the elephant in the room that refuses to leave and it feels as if that elephant is sitting on our hearts, weighing them down and threatening to stop the beating altogether.
When our daughter Jackie died suddenly in a car accident, my nicely ordered life shattered into a million pieces. The space in my mind that had been filled with excitement at the thought of her future, was now a muddle of endless questions that at the time, I was afraid to ask.
I don’t think I had the words anyway. The God I thought I knew became an enigma, pieces scattered in a puzzle box. Either He could have set aside the laws of physics that night and saved my daughter, or He was incapable of doing so. These were two very bad choices to my way of thinking, and both ran counter to the way I’d always believed. I felt I had to have resolution for my world to ever make sense again.
Years ago, back in the dark ages, I had the chore of reconciling our checking account each month. Simply put, it meant that I had to make sure my check register matched our bank statement. It was easy to make a mistake, and sometimes I spent hours trying to find my accounting error. These days, my husband has taken over our finances, easing one of the burdens I could no longer handle after the loss of our daughter. Of course, it’s much easier for him since he has the advantage of computer technology that allows him access to our account anytime, 24/7. I sometimes wish I had access to a super computer, some type of algorithm or AI program that would instantly reconcile what I believe to be true about God with the inescapable fact that my Jackie died on an Alabama highway, miles away from me. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.
How does one reconcile God’s goodness with His sovereignty after such a devastating loss as that of a child? Isn’t that the root question of all the others? This issue arose at our last online mom’s gathering. I’m not sure I gave a satisfactory answer other than a simple, “I can’t. But I’ve learned to trust that those two characteristics of my heavenly father work together for my good in ways I cannot yet understand.”
That night as I lay in bed, the thought came to me. There is a better explanation.
1 Peter 1:18-19 says, …knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
Where can we see and understand God’s sovereignty ? We see it clearly in His son Jesus Christ who was “foreknown before the foundation of the world.” Before the sun lit up the heavens or a single star was hung, before a bird flew in the sky or a fish swam in the sea, before man drew his first breath, God knew sin would corrupt His perfect creation, and in His sovereign plan, He decreed that His own perfect son would pay the price for that sin, so that the people He created could be saved. All through the Old Testament, we see that plan being worked out, and Satan himself could not stop it.
Just as the inspired prophets predicted, Jesus the Messiah, God in human flesh came into the darkness of sin and shame, flooding the hearts of all who would believe in Him with grace and truth. It happened just as God had promised.
Isaiah 1:18 — “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”
2 Corinthians 5:21 — “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
God’s goodness, mercy, and grace are personified in Jesus Christ crucified upon a cross where He shed His own blood as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. He took the punishment every human being deserves, because everyone has offended a righteous and holy God. All who repent and trust in Jesus receive forgiveness and more than that, His own righteousness! True goodness can only be measured by the metric of a sovereign God.
God’s sovereignty and goodness come together at the cross, and at the empty tomb. They connect in Jesus Christ.
God’s sovereignty is made manifest through the Lamb who was foreknown before the foundation of the world. God’s goodness is shown in the Lamb who was foreknown before the foundation of the world.
Do these facts answer all our questions? Probably not all of them, but when we take the time to meditate on the truth of scripture, we can start to look beyond our own circumstances and see more of the big picture. And we do have this promise to hold on to. 1 Corinthians 13:12, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”
