Learning to See Easter Again
A father’s reflection on loss, love, and seeing the cross through grief
I want to begin with honesty.
I am a Christian. I always have been—though not without seasons of doubt, frustration, and questions that felt too heavy to carry neatly inside a Sunday morning.
I am not writing this to persuade you into my beliefs. Your convictions are your own, just as mine are my own. My hope is simply that you would stay with me through this story—because it is not just about religion, or Easter traditions, but about fatherhood, loss, and the fragile, often difficult act of trusting God when life does not make sense.
For most of my life, faith felt familiar—but not always deep.
I grew up in a small church in rural Iowa, the kind where attendance was noticed and absence was questioned. I went through all the motions—Sunday school, Christmas programs, Vacation Bible School. I learned the stories, knew the rhythms, and understood what it looked like to be a Christian.
But if I’m honest, much of it felt inherited rather than owned.
As I got older, moved through college, and eventually into adulthood, I carried that same version of faith with me. I attended church, read Scripture, sang the songs, and tried to live the life that reflected what I thought a “good Christian man” should look like.
But beneath all of that was a quiet disconnect.
It wasn’t until I met my wife and we became deeply rooted in a church community together that something began to shift. For the first time, my faith felt alive—intentional, growing, and personal. I wasn’t just going through the motions anymore; I was learning, engaging, and beginning to understand what it meant to truly follow Christ.
That season, leading into becoming an earthside dad, felt like a mountaintop.
And then, I became a father.
And then, I experienced loss.
Losing our son, Davian, changed everything.
There are no words that fully capture what it means to hold your child and then have to let them go. Preparing for fatherhood had already begun shaping me—teaching me responsibility, love, and a depth of care I had never known before. But grief reshaped it entirely.
In that season, faith didn’t feel strong—it felt shattered.
The church we attended became both a refuge and a place of tension. I am deeply grateful we were surrounded by people who cared for us, because truthfully, I don’t know if I would have survived that season without them. And yet, internally, I was unraveling.
Worship felt empty.
Sermons felt distant.
God felt silent.
I found myself echoing the words of David in Psalms 13:1:
“How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?”
I was a father who had lost his son, and I didn’t understand how a good God could allow that.
So I pulled away.
I placed my faith on the backburner and focused on surviving—on caring for my wife, my family, and myself. And for a while, that was enough to get through each day.
But even in my anger, even in my distance, something remained.
A quiet pull.
A longing I couldn’t completely silence.
The turning point came on Easter.
I had heard the Gospel message countless times before. The story of Jesus—His betrayal, His death, His resurrection—was not new to me.
But that year, something was different. That year, I heard it not just as a believer… but as a father.
The message centered on the story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22—how God asked Abraham to offer his son, the very promise he had waited a lifetime to receive. Abraham obeyed, trusting that God would provide.
And God did.
At the last moment, a ram was given in Isaac’s place.
A substitute.
A provision.
A mercy.
But what struck me wasn’t just Abraham’s obedience—it was what the story pointed toward.
Because where Abraham was stopped…
God was not.
As it says in Romans 8:32:
“He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all…”
For the first time, I began to grasp the weight of that truth.
God is not distant from our pain. He is not detached from loss. He is a Father who knows exactly what it is to give up His Son. And unlike Abraham, He went through with it.
That realization did not erase my grief.
It did not answer every question or suddenly restore everything I had lost. But it changed something deeper. It shifted my understanding of trust.
Trust is not believing that God will always give us the outcomes we want. Trust is believing that even when He doesn’t, He is still good.
Even when the valley is long. Even when the silence is heavy. Even when the loss feels unbearable.
As Proverbs 3:5-6 reminds us:
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.”
I had spent much of my life trying to understand God.
But in my grief, I was invited to trust Him instead.
Fatherhood, for me, now carries both joy and sorrow.
It holds the memory of tiny hands that once fit perfectly in my palm—and the ache of knowing I cannot hold them again in this life.
But it also gives me a glimpse, however small, into the heart of God.
A Father who loves deeply.
A Father who sacrifices greatly.
A Father who makes a way, even through unimaginable pain.
Easter is no longer just a story I’ve heard. It is a truth I cling to. Because the resurrection reminds me that death does not have the final word.
That loss is not the end of the story.
That through Christ, there is hope beyond what I can see.
As it says in John 16:22:
“So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy…”
