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You’re tired.
Not just physically; though yeah, that too.
You’re tired in your bones. In your soul.
Trying to be a steady husband, an intentional dad, a man of God… but deep down, you feel like you’re falling short. Like you’re carrying more than you know how to hold.
Dad Tired is a podcast for men who are ready to stop pretending and start healing.
Not with self-help tips or religious platitudes, but by anchoring their lives in something (and Someone) stronger.
Hosted by Jerrad Lopes, a husband, dad of four, and fellow struggler, this show is a weekly invitation to find rest for your soul, clarity for your calling, and the courage to lead your family well.
Through honest stories, biblical truth, and deep conversations you’ll be reminded:
You’re not alone. You’re not too far gone. And the man you want to be is only found in Jesus.
This isn’t about trying harder.
It’s about coming home.
I wanna tell you about some important dates that we have coming up in a couple weeks. We are doing our dad tired annual retreat, and that is going to be in North Carolina on September 20th to 22nd. You are in the final weeks before we launch that. We will not take registration, I think about a week or two before we go, just so we can have all the final things prepared.
If you want to go to that, make sure you go to dad tire.com, click the annual retreat tab and get your last minute tickets for that. That's gonna be, again, at North Carolina from September 20th to 22nd. We do that once a year. It is the highlight of what we do here in the ministry. Simultaneously, we have some brothers in the UK who are going to be doing their own retreat, and they're going to be live streaming and watching recordings.
So sometimes it'll be live streaming and sometimes it'll be recordings from our sessions here in the us. But they will be doing their own retreat there with their own activities, but again, streaming or watching the recordings depending on time over in the uk. So if you want to go to that mixture, you go to Dat Tire UK to get more information on that.
That's put on by some dat tired volunteers over there. We have a dad's hired one day conference coming up on September 28th in Knoxville, Tennessee. We have one in a military base on October 12th. I think that's private. You know, I don't think that's open to the public, but I just wanted to tell you about that.
It's really cool. We have our soldiers who are going to be learning what it looks like to be the husband's, fathers, and disciples that God has created them to be. So again, that's on October 12th and just really cool. I wanted to let you guys know that that's happening on November 9th. We have a dad tired one day conference in Meridian.
Idaho. If you're anywhere in that area, we'd love to have you show up to that. If you are in Perold, Arkansas, there's a church we're partnering with to do their men's retreat. That's gonna be on February 27th and on February 8th, right before that, we're gonna be in and Dover, Minnesota doing our dad's hired one day conference.
If you want to come to any of these events or get more information, go to da tire.com and look. You'll see under our conferences tab all the events. You'll also see the opportunity and the information on how to host one of these. So if you wanna bring one of these to your churches, we would love to partner with you and do a dad's hired one day conference at your church if you're willing to host us, or if you already have your own events going and you're just looking for speakers, we'd love to partner with you in that way.
Again, go to dads hire.com and you can get more information on all that. Don't be deceived by today's title. This episode is for everyone. I promise you, if you are a parent or even just a human, today's episode is going to be very helpful. Before we jump into that, I wanna thank my friends over at Reformation Heritage Books for sponsoring today's episode.
If you've ever considered or thought about or wanted to start diving into the wisdom of the Puritans, but you didn't know where to start the Puritan Treasures for today, that's the title of a series of books that Heritage Reformation Books puts on. It's called Puritan Treasures for today. They make these Puritan classics, just timeless classics accessible to all the modern readers.
Sometimes if you're trying to read some Puritan stuff, it can feel overwhelming because the language is not in our today, our language of today, but they have done such great work in making this available again for the modern readers. They've. Updated the language and they've added insightful introductions so that you can pick up one of these and you can dive into the wisdom of the Puritans and it will be more readable for you.
In our day and age, they have authors like John Owens, Jeremiah Burrows, and a lot more. Again, these are all updated language and tons of insightful introductions. Very, very helpful resource that I put these on my nightstand and try to read a chapter before bed along with some scripture just to have my mind right before I head to sleep.
You can go to heritage books.org/puritan treasures and use the promo code. Dad tired to get 10% off your order. Again, that's Heritage books.org/puritan treasures. Use the promo code. Dad tired at checkout. That being said, let's dive into today's episode.
So the irony of today's podcast is that I hope you never have to use this. If you are, maybe you're just searching through Google and you're saying, what do I do when I. I've experienced loss or trauma in my family, and yet I've got kids that I have to try to explain this to. What? What do I do when deep loss and grief hits me?
And yet also as a dad, I have a responsibility to shepherd in this moment. It's one of the most trying, I think, circumstances is when you need help. And you also need to be a help at the same time when, when you're grieving, but you're also the stalwart of a group of people that are looking up to you. And this is something that when I found out my, my wife passed away in 2021 and I had five young kids and I, I remember one of the first things that I thought she was 28.
I was 32 or 33 or something like that when it happened. And. Knowing that I had a lot of people to tell. I didn't really process. I had a few different thoughts about what I was gonna tell my kids, but it's a really difficult thing to help them walk through. And so I think there's a preparedness that it, we're almost obligated to as dads to say, am I ready for this to happen?
Or again, maybe you're. Google searching what to do and this just came up, or you're a dad tired listener, and, and this is perfect timing for you because of something in your life and a tragedy has befallen you, or whatever it might be. You just know this is gonna break a kid's heart. You know, this is gonna break the heart of one of your babies or one of your loved ones, or one of whatever it is, and, and you don't know how to tell them you don't know how to talk, you don't.
Or maybe you're built like me, you're a little bit more left brain. You kind of see the world cerebrally and. Through that lens, and, and so you process everything and like everything is a lot more systematized and, and you're emotional. Sure. Right. You're a thinker. And I think sometimes people think that thinkers like us, we don't feel emotion.
That's not the case. It's just that it doesn't really govern our decision making process, but. Now you're walking around your house and people are crying or you're tucking your kids into bed at night and you're praying with them, or you're sitting with them and they have their head on your chest, and you start to feel just this wetness on your chest and you recognize your kids just got tears streaming down their face and they're experiencing this moment of pain or hurt or grief.
And it's an ongoing thing, and it's not just subject to the moment you tell them that this loss has happened, they've got recurring grief. They've, it's the first Christmas that that person is missing. It's the first time that you had a birthday party without them present, and that comes back up. These feel like really important moments.
These feel like things that you just go, I don't wanna fumble the ball here. I don't wanna Biff this, I, I I wanna do a really great job. And yet, a lot of the times I don't think we've kind of thought about like. What do I do? And, and the reason that I think for me, having a system that I walk through is so important is because a lot of the times when we're experiencing a lot of emotions, we don't become great thinkers or we can just be led by our emotions.
And I love what one theologian said that our emotions are like a check engine light, but not like a GPS. Meaning we want to feel what we feel, but we don't want it to control us. We'll talk about that a little bit more later, but in the middle of those hard moments, I think it's, it's imperative that we as dads recognize that this is an amazing discipleship opportunity.
And for me, for so long, because there were so many instances where kids were just experiencing this deep, and they still do. I mean, I, it's still at, at least once a week, if not. We talk about age, who passed away every day. Every single day we talk about her. And then there's just some of these nights that it's just, you know, it's gonna be a rough night and you know that there's gonna be a lot of questions.
And you know, not that long ago, we were up till midnight with all of the kids except my youngest who fell asleep quickly and. Just processing through these things. And these are our moments, right? The, it's kinda like we j, the Olympics just finished up here and you watch these people who have prepared for so long and they've got, it's like this one balance beam routine and this last time they were all falling off of it.
And so you go like, man, you really train a lot for moments like this. And I think as dads, these are some of those crescendo moments we don't want to miss. So one of the things that I've found really helpful is having a system by which we know, I think this is a good strategy, a good game plan to walk in with that we can kind of rest assured that if we even walk through these things, that maybe we could have done it better.
Maybe it's other things that we could have said. But I think this is a really great job of summing a lot of what we find in scripture when Jesus interacts with people. Who are dead or dying or grieving or in the middle of trauma or loss, it gives us a good game to work out of. So kinda what I've constructed, and feel free to steal this as much as you'd like to because in my grieving, I would talk to a lot of people or a lot of counselors or a lot of, and just kind of asking the question, what do you do?
In these times of grief, and I was blessed enough to have, uh, Rick Warren, he lost his son to suicide and so he called early on right after Paige passed away and helped me through some things. And one of the things that I recognized is there is a method. Inside of understanding grief that we can use to kind of help people walk through that as we ourselves are walking through that.
And that's one of the pivotal things that's difficult about walking your kid through grief is rarely is your kid gonna lose someone that wasn't important to you. You might have a friend who their mom dies and so you, your heart's not super. Torn because you know your only responsibility is to be a good friend there.
And so you're not in the middle of your grief as well. You're just kinda walking them through it. But with your kids, it's almost impossible for them to have a deep loss that you're not feeling 'cause it's your mom. It's your father-in-law, it's your brother, that's their uncle. It's your mom, that's their grandma.
It's your dad, that's their grandpa. And so it's your family friend who's their family friend and. So that's where it can get really, I think, tenuous and, and stressful even I. Sometimes it's kinda like the stop, drop and roll thing we've talked about previously on this podcast is when you're in the middle of tragedy or brokenness or hurt or deep pain and emotions, it's good to have something simple like that.
Like when you're on fire, you don't want to be thinking about a, what should I do here? You want something simple? Stop, drop and roll. So here's kinda the process that I've laid out, and you can feel free to steal this. You can reject it as much as you'd like to, but. This has really served me well in parenting my kids through grief and trauma.
It takes this idea of we are kind of created in Christ, that we have this head in the heart. We've, we've this dualistic idea that we are both flesh that feels and emotes and everything, and we're also. Spirit and that spirit has understanding. And so if, if you think about the, the head and the heart being two different parts of the human condition and it's oversimplified, but the heart tends to be where we desire, where we want, where we feel, where we emote, and the head being kind of what makes sense of those things and compartmentalizes parts of our mind and helps us to understand things.
And really what I want to do as a parent is to teach them the unity of those two things that neither one should be. All by itself. They should work together like a reconciliation of friends. They should be hand in glove, as it were. But I really don't wanna teach my kids that emotions should be what they govern their life after.
We all know someone whose emotions are out of check or out of control. This is the difference between having proper pressure or concern and worrying. Right. This is the difference between seeing someone attractive and lusting. This is the difference between having something upset you and lashing out in anger and, uh, a tantrum are your emotions in check.
And so in the same way when our kids are experiencing grief, we want to teach them the unity of these two things that emotions don't need to control you, but they're also not a. Problem. You want to use one to instruct the other, and you want to use emotions in order to understand things in your life.
But we're not doing them a great service. If every time they have emotions, they just stay there, right? And, and they don't teach them something or, so emotions are important, but they're not our guiding principle. You're not gonna find that anywhere in scripture. That says, when it comes down to it, how do you feel about God?
It really talks about John 17. What do you know to be true about God and, and so many of the things we know about about God can come through emotions like this. If you said, what do you know about God? I would say He's a strong tower. The righteous run to it and they're safe and they're saved. How do you know that?
Well, 'cause I lost my wife. And in the midst of being in a puddle of myself on the floor, I felt the comfort and compassion of a God that I never understood fully before. And he was there with me in the middle of that brokenness and darkness. And there was hope in the valley of the shadow of death for me and my pain.
And these are all things that I felt. I. Then after that, what did I do? I, I turned that into a understanding through the scriptures. I construct a theology of what God says about those moments, and I make sense of my pain through my understanding of God's word. And now I know him to be a strong tower. I, I've experienced him as a strong tower.
And you know what? If Paige would've never died, he still would've been a strong tower. But now I've felt him as a strong tower. And so some of the things I know because I read the scriptures and some things I know because I've read the scriptures and I felt it, but I don't stop at feeling because if I did, sometimes it feels like God's very distant, but I know that he's not.
I. So I want to translate my feelings into understandings and those can be useful for me in my life. And so this simple system, it's two different parts. Both of them have four different parts, and it's an acronym. And the acronym is Prep them. That's what we want. We wanna prepare our kids for moments like this.
We wanna prepare them because. I'm not always gonna be around. In fact, if I create, I think about maybe you've got a daughter who really struggles with self-worth man. As a dad, do I ever want to be someone who comforts and tells my daughter that she's beautiful and that she's worthy and that she's lovely and that she's worthy of being pursued?
I want all those things, but you know what? I want more than that. Is to have a day where she graduates out of that. That whether I'm there or not, whether I'm consistent in my telling her or not, whether I'm thinking about those things at certain times, whether I'm there in a clutch or not, that Jesus is.
So I don't really want to be her source of, if Daddy doesn't tell me I'm beautiful, then I don't know that I am because I don't know that I'm always gonna be there. I don't know what our relationship, what turns our relationships are going to take or. When she's 13 and 14, those words won't matter as much from me, and then she's gonna go seek him from some other guy.
I want her to know the truth, that she's beautiful through the lens of Jesus Christ, who made her and John chapter one. Through him, all things were made. Colossians three, Colossians one, that everything is too from and through Jesus. That's what I want her to know. Same thing with grief man. Do I wanna do a good job of being a comfort for my kids when they're in grief and my main objective?
Is that one day they would graduate from that and go, oh, I love when dad's around when I'm in pain, but I know what to do when he is not, man. I love when dad's around when I'm experiencing these moments of tumult in my life, but I love when dad's around when I have a really hard thing that I'm going through.
But you know what? Even when he is not, my dad's like cherry on top of the cake, but the sponge of my cake, the substance of my faith is Jesus, not my dad. So what I'm doing is I'm partly becoming. A help to them. But more importantly, just like Jared writes in his My Daddy's hero book, I really want to teach them who, my hero.
I wanna tell them who my strong tower is. I want to be my kid's strong tower, but then I almost do a bait and switch where I go, do you wanna know why daddy has been a strong tower for you? Because I clinging to a strong tower. I'm just a part of the process. I'm not even the secure thing. Right? The Lord is the rock.
I'm dangling off that rock and I'm holding onto you, but you can grab the rock yourself and it's a lot sturdier than Daddy is. So part of this process of systematizing what we think and what we believe and what we walk through is. Trying to take and link and say, I hold onto this rock and I'm trying to grab my kid's hand and put them there.
Sure. In the meantime, I might be acting like a set of training wheels for them, but I really want to take the training wheels off at some point and go, you can run straight to the strong tower. Did you know that Peyton? Did you know that? Even when I'm not here, these truths are still true. I don't ever want to tap out.
I don't ever wanna not be there, but I can't guarantee that I am going to be there. So I wanna teach them to run straight to the strong tower, to the rock of ages, to the precipice of our faith, to the one who is going to be there. That's the beauty of an omnisci, omnipresent, omnipotent God, is that even when I'm gone or not there, or whatever happens in our relationship.
My main objective is that I connect them to the father. I connect them to the heart of Jesus, not that I connect them to myself. So one is a set of I, I'm like a set of training wheels in my kids' grief. But the two wheeled bicycle that they can ride for the rest of their life is they would learn to interpret these things to the lens of the scripture.
And through Jesus who's an ever present help and trouble, the righteous run to him and are saved. He is always gonna be there even when I'm not. So prep is the first part of it. It's the more heartfelt part of it. It's the one that is able to bring calm into the emotions a lot, and it's able to empathize.
So it's PREP, and then the second part is more of the head part, to translate them into a system of truth and how do we make sense of these things? If you think of the first part as grace, right? I'm coming in, I'm just. Feeling with you. It's like, I'm fileting, open my chest and I'm experiencing this moment with you, and I'm gonna be present with you and I, and I'm gonna empathize with you.
That's that first part. And then when we've walked them through that, we've done a really good job of that. We go, okay, now it's time for a, a moment of teaching. And through empathy to say, but let's, what's true about our situation? What's true about our Jesus? And then walking 'em through a little bit more of that truth piece.
And so that's kinda what we're gonna walk into next. So we'll start with the first set, which is prep, PREP. So what's really helpful is the reason that I use acronyms and the reason I use mnemonic devices is oftentimes when you walk into a situation where your kid is sad or experiencing trauma or loss, it's very easy to get wrapped up in it so much and not to be.
In those moments, a tower for them to clinging to that. Being a tower doesn't mean that you don't feel, it just means you're not out of control. And so sometimes too, what I found is I quickly jump to wanting to solve it or to get them stop crying or whatever it is. And so if you use this process, it can help you to recognize, to slow down and see that there's a, there's a really strong discipleship opportunity right here.
So prep. The first part of prep, the first P in prep is just presence. So just sitting next to them to making a physical touch. The breaking the physical touch barrier with them, putting your arm around them, having them come and sit on your lap. There's powerful literature to understand what happens when you.
Break the touch barrier with your child, whether it's a hug or it's holding them or whatever it is, there's just a security. Cortisol goes down, serotonin goes up, oxytocin goes up. These connecting chemicals increase. And so one of the first things that we wanna do is just create that safety for them. And this doesn't stop when they're 17, 18, right?
They, if they're experiencing loss as a 25-year-old, we're still gonna break this touch bear and let them know that they are safe as dads too, part of our job is for them to understand their security, and I was reading this book by. Professional in, in the parenting realm of the day, and it just said, as often as you can with your young boys and your young girls, wrap them in your big fatherly embrace and hold them tight and hold them strong to let them know that you're there to protect them so they can just feel that security in that, right?
Even when your kid's 13 and 14, every once in a while, just go in and put your big old bare arms around them and squeeze so they know, right? Like, don't mistake dad's kindness for weakness. Right? Like, you are safe here in my arms. So presence, the practice of presence, of sitting still, of clearing your calendar for the next 10, 15 minutes and not having them feel like, okay, uh, yeah, what are you going through?
I'm late for this. I think Paul Trips says it like this, where he says, the biggest problem we have as parents is not that our kids disobey. But that what God had planned for our day as a parent and what we had planned for our day are not in cahoots. Sometimes they're not in alignment, and so when you see your kid in grief or in trauma or in the season of loss and they're losing it, you've got nothing more important to get back to.
That's the most important ministry you're called to, and so practice presence. Clear your calendar. Sit down. This is what I'm gonna do until I've walked through this. That second is R in prep. PREP is to reassure. So that can just be as simple as Dad's with you. Daddy's with you. Here I am. I'm here with you.
I know it hurts. I know it hurts. This is goes into the E, which is next, which is empathy. So reassurance is I'm here with you. I'm not going anywhere. I've got you. I'm gonna sit here with you. As long as it takes reassurance, I know. And then jump into empathy. I know this hurts. Daddy hurts too. This is so, it seems so unfair.
You're saying everything, you think they're thinking out loud and telling them that that's okay. Right. I know this is confusing. I, I know this is hard. I know that This is so sad. I I miss her too. I miss him too. I feel that with you. And remember talking to, shortly after Paige passed away, Rick Warren was kind enough to jump on the phone with me, and he called me and just said one of the things that he was, he deals with world leaders.
So he said, I was dealing with a world leader one time who had lost his son and. He said, I, I, I don't understand why my wife and I are, are so drawn away from each other ever since we lost our son. And he was explaining to Rick what he does whenever his wife starts crying. And he always tried to make her unsaid.
And Rick Warren said, never try to make your child unsaid. Never try to make your loved one unsaid. Don't try to fix it. Just sit with them in it. And that's one thing that I did not realize early on. I always wanted to fix it. I just kept, you know, if they were crying, I'd walk in and go, oh, bubba, well.
Tonight's ice cream night, you know, or I know it's really sad, but you know, we're gonna see Mommy again. I jumped right into, you know, I was almost telling him Buck up, you know, it's, it's buck up buttercup. It's time to move on. And that's not what I meant. But that's, I think, so that's how it can come across.
So empathy. I know it hurts. I, this is so hard. I miss her too. I miss 'em too. Just tell them that their emotions aren't crazy. They're not wild. This isn't weird that they're feeling this way. It's a completely natural response. You'd be very concerned, right? If my kids lost their mom and they walked around just smiling and laughing, I would go, there's something wrong with you.
There's not something wrong that you miss your mom. So reassuring them that. So, presence, practice, presence, take it off your calendar. Reassurance. I'm here with you. I'm not going anywhere. I've got you. You're safe here. Empathy, and I know it hurts. I miss them too. I don't know why we have to go through this.
I don't think this is fair either. I recognize these things and then prayer. Let's pray about this and then jump into a prayer with them. Just a simple one. God, we are confused. This is hard. This is painful. We know that you experienced pain while you were here on Earth too. We watch you suffer and, but in these moments, Lord, we need your presence more than ever.
Would you just, so what we've just taught them. In discipleship is a very quick method to jump into appealing all this to the king. So as we do that, they're gonna start subconsciously experiencing that both for themselves and then also as they grow and they mature and they become parents themselves.
Someday that I. Mom took everything off her calendar. Dad took everything off his calendar. He let me know that I was there. He told me that my emotions were okay and then we went to the Lord, which means that my son, Peyton or Brady or whatever, if they wake up in the middle of the night, I hope they do still call me and I can come in and help them.
But even if I wasn't available, that they start, their subconscious mind begins to run through this process because we've been faithful to do it. Over and over again. So Prep, PREP. This is the grace side of things. This is the heart side of things after our prayer, and they know that what they did was that their feeling is okay, I'm reassuring them of those things.
Then I'm willing to move into more of a moment of teaching and what I would consider the truth side of things, or more of the head side of things. So we confirmed the emotions of the heart are appropriate, and now we're gonna try to translate that into a usable thing that our mind can understand. This acronym is T-H-E-E-M.
So prep is the heart piece to practice presence, to reassure them to empathize and then pray. Then once we say amen, we can get into, okay, let's talk through some of this. Right? I've already affirmed your emotions. Now let's talk about what do you do with this? What do we, what should we think about this?
And so the, the first thing is it's teaching them from scripture. We should have these things in the back pocket. At least this is what the Shama talks about, to write the law in our hearts, to have it impressed upon our forearms and on our, in our minds, that we would be thinking about these things in prayer.
And so finding a few different passages that bring peace is gonna be really helpful. You might again at, at Luke 12 or Matthew were, were tux them. The passage of consider the ravens. They do not oil, they don't grow gardens. And yet God sees them considered the lilies of the field. They do not sow or reap, and yet not even Solomon and all the splendor was glowed like one of these.
So you son, how much more does the Lord think about you? You're not alone in this. I just want you to remember that the truth of scripture, remember what the scripture says in Psalm chapter 23, that even though we walk through valleys like this, it feels like the valley, the shadow of death itself. He's with us here and he's got good hopes for us, and there's a table prepared before us in the presence of our enemies, including death and sin.
And we're gonna dwell in the house of the Lord forever. It's a, the teaching from scripture and then to point them to the hope that is to come. And this is what's difficult is sometimes when we lose. A loved one, they're walking with Jesus. And so it's really easy to say, well, we're gonna see them again in glory, or as we follow Christ, we get to have the assurance of salvation that we'll be with them again in heaven, all those who believe.
But the reality is, a lot of the times when we lose someone we don't know, and we don't wanna lie to our kids and say, well, we're gonna see them again someday. I don't think necessarily because you're gonna get to heaven and go, but Mom said, because I think things will be revealed in that moment. But as they get older and they start doing the math themselves and they go, I.
Wait a minute. You said we were gonna see them again, but it's also very clear that they weren't, so you don't wanna give false hope. One of the most difficult things to do as a pastor is to do a funeral for a non-believer, because for a believer, it's almost like we're grieving for the wrong people.
Right. I remember being at my wife's funeral going like, what are all you people sad about? So it's very selfish sadness because. Paige is living it up. She's dancing in glory. She has no more pain and suffering, but us we're the ones to be pitted here. You know, you even though it's still sad and it's so broken and, and you just weep through the whole thing, you know on some level that we are really the ones who are sad.
She's not the one that's sad if she's with Jesus. So we have celebrations of life and we memorialize all the things that they did here on Planet Earth, but we want them back selfishly, but they don't want to come back. They're in their glory. And when you try to do a funeral for someone who's not a believer, it's difficult because you can run out of true neutrality, right?
To go, you know what? And we hope for this. We hope for that. We, we trust that God is gracious. You stay more on, you focus on all the great things that they did in life and everything. And you wanna do the same thing with your kids. You don't want to tell them something untrue that Jesus needed another angel up there or that.
If they're not a believer that you don't wanna stray them in the wrong direction, you certainly don't need to explain all the deep catechisms truths of Christian belief is to them if they're not a believer. And just going, just so we're clear, this is what's happened to this person. But I think there's other ways to bring hope without, we hope in this that we serve a good and gracious God and that he is sovereign over all things He.
Knows the end from the beginning. He is in control and sometimes that's the only comfort we have is that God's in control of all these things. So that's T is teach from scripture, H is hope and what's to come. So we wanna move to hope. We do not mourn as those who have no hope the scriptures teach us, but instead, we mourn as those who are different, who are built different and have a different assurance.
Hebrews faith is being sure of what we hope for and certainly what we cannot see. We're we're sure of what we can't see yet, so teach from the scripture, hope in what's to come, and then embrace any questions. This is where I like to just ask. Anything you're wrestling with or struggling, any questions you have, anything just not makes sense to you right now.
And it's okay if it doesn't, but if there's a way that I can help answer these things. So how can I continue to assist you as you're walking through these things? Embrace any questions. So teach from scripture. Hope in what's to come. Embrace questions. And then finally. Mention healthiness of this, assure them at the end.
You know what I'm so proud of? I'm proud that, I'm proud in, in my situation. I'm, I'm so proud that we had a mom that it hurt so bad that she's gone. I'm, I'm so proud that you understand God's love for us and his grace and the value of life so much that you are weeping over the loss of life. It's so healthy for you to process these things like this.
You are on the right track, my man. You're on the right track, little girl to know exactly. This is what life's all about and it's okay to experience these things and just mention this is so healthy and I appreciate having these conversations. And you know what? This won't be the last time you have this.
Just letting them know, reassure mention, this is not gonna be the last time this happens. We're gonna keep, I don't think that grief ever truly goes away in completion. It hits you in weird waves and letting them know it's going to hit it at weird times, but you always have permission to process this with me.
So just kinda walking back through that system, the heart piece of it, practicing presence, that's the P-P-R-E-P presence, reassurance. Of your presence with them. I'm here with you. I'm not going anywhere. I'm gonna stay right here until we walk through this together. Empathy, letting them know that all their emotions are appropriate and okay that they're feeling.
And then to pray with them. And then after that prayer, to jump into the truth, into the head part, part of things, THEN, to teach from scripture to point them towards the hope of salvation that we have and that God is a good God and he's in charge of everything. Then to embrace any questions, what can I solve for you?
And lastly, to mention the healthiness. So Teach Hope, embrace and mention, Hey, this is a great thing that you're processing and I'm so honored to get to do this with you. So let thanks for letting me be a part of it. Treating it like a true honor that you get to be part of that, because I think it really is what a cool gift we get to be part of our kids' process, and that got us, put us in that place.
And when I see my kid crying, it's not that all the other parents were busy. That's, that's that God's uniquely called me to be his ambassador in that moment, to give hope and to teach scripture and to point towards Jesus. Those are things that we can continue to carry on in our life and and to hope for, I don't know if you're in a season of pain or grief or whatever it might be, but I do know this that I.
Jesus has us playing this role of, of mediator between us and him. Not that we are doing it, you know, in, in some way as like a, a saint would or whatever, any of those teachings, but really what we're saying is it's just like, I love the book that Jared writes where it's talks about, I. Dad's real hero is Jesus.
And so I don't want to be someone who walks in stoic. I don't need to be stoic 'cause I'm not trying to teach them that emotions are improper. I can go into a pile of myself, like just a, a puddle of myself. But then go, let me tell you where my hope comes from. Lemme tell you that Dad has the exact same feelings.
And then I turn to Jesus, and Jesus is my only hope. So while I'm assuring them that I'm there, that's why I'm moving to scripture because I ultimately want 'em to understand that no matter what they experience in life, that Jesus is gonna be with him. That's the beauty of omnipotence. That's the beauty of omnipresence.
That's the beauty of, of this omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, God we serve. He knows all things. He's there at all times. So I don't really wanna make the connection that when dad's here. Then I can be comfortable, but that when dad's here, he points me to Jesus. So even if dad's not here, I'm still gonna point myself to Jesus and the scriptures.
And so I think walking through this is a great way to say, almost like training wheels. I'm gonna help walk you through some grief in life, my man, or, or I'm gonna walk you through some grief in life for your daughter, for your son, whatever it is. But I also want to one day take off those training wheels.
So that I can be assured that no matter what you go through, that you're gonna turn to the cross in those moments, if that's helpful. I hope that, again, I hope you never have to use this. The reality is you're going to have to use this. For some of us, it's just a good thing to have in our back pocket. For others of us, we're gonna need to use this actively.
But I think those moments where we see our kids struggling or having to break deep. Hard news to them are really important pastoral moments as parents, especially as dads, for us to make sure we don't fumble that football and that we, we do a really good job of practicing those things. So if this is a helpful system to walk through, I think that's a great resource to use.
Presence, assurance, reassurance, empathy, and then prayer. And then, you know what? And now let's find a way to bring this under understanding so that we can use it in our life. Let's teach the scripture. Hope for what's to come. Let's create an embrace to the questions, not a problem with them. And finally, let's talk about how healthy this is and how I'm honored to be a part of this process.
As always, uh, dad tired, we're here for you guys. Anything we can help with, if you've got follow up questions, you can find me on Instagram or just send a an email to Hello at dad Tired, and we'd love to follow up. Or you can email me directly, chris@dadtire.com, and I'd love to help with any questions you have if you're a parent that's going through grief right now, while you're trying to navigate it with your kids.
I'm here for you and I'm sorry that you're going through that. It, it seems very unfair, but it says that whatever we've been brought to, we do. We're not given a spirit of timidity and fear, but of power, love, and self-control and what God has called us to, he's equipped us for. So you're ready and prepared for this even though it.
Oftentimes doesn't feel like we are. So I'm here with you and I'm here for you. And we at Dad Tired, love you. And we, uh, we appreciate you checking in today.