What if the peace you’re looking for isn’t found in changing your child’s choices? What if it comes from becoming more certain about what you already know?
As parents, we spend a lot of time wondering what our children believe. We worry about their choices, their faith, and the direction of their lives. Yet one of the most powerful questions we can ask ourselves is this:
What do I know?
That question came to me as I reflected on the beloved hymn, I Know That My Redeemer Lives.
Not I hope, or I think, or I wish.
“I know.”
Those words carry a different kind of strength. They point us toward certainty when life feels uncertain.
Ep: 25 Have You Forgotten What You Know
The Problem With Empty Seats
Lately, I’ve been thinking about a phrase we hear often in our culture:
“No Empty Seats.”
The image is beautiful. A family gathers around a table. Every chair is filled. No one is missing.
However, I wonder if we’ve sometimes turned that phrase into something it was never meant to be. For many mothers, an empty seat becomes evidence that something has gone wrong.
Maybe it’s an empty seat at church. Perhaps it’s an empty seat at family home evening. Sometimes it’s an empty seat at a wedding or a holiday gathering.
Before long, that empty chair starts telling a story.
A story about failure, a story about loss or a story about a future we fear.
Yet what if an empty seat today doesn’t mean an empty seat forever?
What if we’ve forgotten who is in charge of the seating arrangements?
Are you carrying the weight of empty seats. You don’t need to figure it out alone. Let’s talk on a FREE connection and peace call. You can schedule a call with me here.
Job Knew Something More Important Than the Outcome
The hymn I Know That My Redeemer Lives was inspired by Job’s declaration:
“For I know that my redeemer liveth.” (Job 19:25)
What’s remarkable is when Job said those words. His life had fallen apart. He had lost his children, his health, and his wealth. Moreover, he didn’t understand why any of it was happening.
Still, Job declared, “I know.”
Notice what he didn’t say.
He didn’t say he knew when his suffering would end or he knew how the story would turn out. Instead, he said he knew his Redeemer lived.
Many of us want certainty about our children. We want to know how their stories will end. We want reassurance that everything will work out exactly as we hope.
Job didn’t receive that kind of certainty. Instead, he received something better.
He knew the Savior.
Even when life wasn’t unfolding the way he wanted, that knowledge held him steady.
The Difference Between Believing and Knowing
Belief and knowledge are not the same thing.
Belief says:
- I think this is true.
- I trust this is true.
- I’m willing to move forward even though I can’t see everything.
Knowledge grows from experience.
Over time, it develops through answered prayers, moments of comfort, personal revelation, and spiritual witnesses. As a result, faith becomes rooted in something deeper.
The women I work with already know that Jesus Christ lives. The challenge isn’t a lack of testimony. It is living as though everything depends on them.
So here’s a question, if you know why are you carrying the weight of being my child’s savior? Why do I spend so much energy trying to control things I cannot control?
Why do I act as though my child’s future rests entirely on my shoulders? Sometimes I think we know things in our heads that haven’t fully settled into our hearts. We know Christ loves our children, He sees them.
We know His reach is longer than ours.
Yet fear often makes us forget what we do know.
Why This Matters for Mothers of Adult Children
Many mothers unknowingly make peace conditional on things they can’t control, if my child comes back, then I’ll be okay.
If my child changes, then I’ll finally have peace, when my family looks the way I hoped, then I’ll feel successful.
That’s an exhausting way to live. Fortunately, the truth offers something better.
If Christ lives, then He is actively involved in your child’s story. He loves your child and understands your child’s heart.
Furthermore, He is working in places you cannot see.
Because of that, you don’t have to carry the entire burden alone.
I find great comfort in knowing we have Heavenly Parents whose understanding extends far beyond our own.
How Knowing Changes the Way We Show Up
When I truly remember that Christ lives, a different question emerges. Not, “How do I get my child to change?” Instead, “How do I want to show up today?”
I can show up with peace instead of panic, choose curiosity instead of fear.
Likewise, I can focus on connection instead of correction.
Rather than operating from desperation, move forward with confidence. Most importantly, hold onto hope.
Knowing changes behavior.
It changes the way we enter conversations and relationships.
Why the Hymn Matters
Samuel Medley didn’t simply say Christ lives and leave it there.
Throughout the hymn, he repeatedly reminds us why that truth matters.
He lives to bless me with His love, He lives to plead for me above.
He lives to calm my troubled heart, He lives my kind, wise Heavenly Friend.
And He lives to grant me daily breath.
Medley wasn’t trying to convince us that Christ was alive.
Instead, he was reminding us what a living Savior does.
He loves, He helps, He pleads, He comforts and He guides.
Most of all, He carries burdens we were never meant to carry by ourselves.
Every time life gives us another reason to worry, this hymn gives us another reason to trust.
The Cost of Love
Recently, I heard Terryl Givens discuss an idea from W. H. Vanstone, the Anglican author of Love’s Endeavour, Love’s Expense.
Vanstone referenced the medieval theologian Anselm, who emphasized the cost of sin. Then Vanstone offered a different perspective.
He said, “You have no idea what the cost of love was.”
Not the cost of sin. The cost of love.
Vanstone also suggested that love cannot mean something different for God than it means for us.
If I ache for my child, how much more does God ache for His? Or if I worry about my child, how much more does God care?
If I continue loving my child through disappointment, confusion, and heartache, God’s love must be even greater.
That realization changes how I see your child’s journey.
If I haven’t forgotten my child, God certainly hasn’t.
Remember What You Know
Maybe you’ve been staring at an empty seat. Perhaps you’ve allowed that empty seat to tell you a story.
A story about failure or a story about fear. A story about an ending that hasn’t happened.
Yet an empty seat today is not the same thing as an empty seat forever.
Job didn’t know how his story would end. You and I don’t know how our children’s stories will end either.
However, we do know this:
Our Redeemer lives.
And sometimes that knowledge is enough. Enough to take the next step. To stop carrying what belongs to the Savior.
Because we may not know the outcome.
But we know the Redeemer.
You can schedule a FREE connection and peace call with me. We’ll talk about where you are.