This past weekend, I attended the funeral of a young child. She was only five years old; just starting kindergarten. A disease that no one saw coming took her too soon.

As I sat in the pews during the evening service, listening to the pastor preach about loss and belief in God, my mind wandered. I began asking myself: If I were the one speaking on grief and loss, what would I say? Would I say it was God’s doing? That God sent this child to save her parents? To bring them back to Him?

Then I thought of Job.

Job was blessed because of his faith in God. His life was good; full and abundant. And then Satan entered the story. Every terrible thing that happened to Job, from the loss of his children, his wealth, his servants, his livestock, to even his health, came only because God allowed Satan to test him. It was a test of Job’s faith.

That led me to another question: How are we, as humans, supposed to truly know God’s thoughts or His plans?

Maybe this child did come into her parents’ lives to draw them closer to God. I thought of Naomi and Ruth; how Ruth stubbornly followed her mother-in-law back to her land, where Ruth came to know God and met Boaz. That single decision placed her in the lineage of King David, and eventually, Jesus Himself.

Or perhaps God allowed Satan to step in, just as He did in Job’s life, to see whether her parents would lean into God or turn away from Him.

We will never know.

But one thing I do know is this: God knows both our birth and our death. They were known and appointed before we ever took our first breath. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5). “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (Psalm 139:16).

I want to believe, deeply, that this child is now fully wrapped in God’s love. Scripture tells us that God’s love flows through generations: “But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children” (Psalm 103:17). That love flowed from God to her parents, and from her parents to her.

And so I want to end with this:

As humans, we do not know what God’s plans are. But we are called to have faith; that through faith in God, we will see our children and loved ones again one day in the Kingdom of the Lord. In times of grief, lean on God for strength. Lean on Him for support so that you may continue living your life for Him and for the children who remain in your care.