If someone were to ask you, “Who are you?” how would you answer?

You might start by saying you’re a wife or husband. A mom or dad. A sister, brother, daughter, or son. Maybe you’d mention your career, your church, or the things you enjoy doing. Our identity is made up of many different parts of who we are.

Then our child dies.

Suddenly, everything we thought we knew about ourselves seems to shift. We don’t just lose our precious son or daughter. We lose the future we imagined, the role we cherished, and even the person we thought we would always be. Somewhere in the middle of all that pain, many of us begin asking a question that we never expected to ask:

“Who am I now?”

There was a season after Becca died when it felt like her death had become my identity. If I had introduced myself honestly, it would have sounded something like, “Hi, I’m Laura… and my daughter died.”

Of course, I never actually spoke those words out loud. But deep inside, that’s how I saw myself. Ahead of being a wife, the mother of my other children, having an international children’s ministry, being a daughter or a sister, I was a bereaved mom. Everything about the way I viewed myself, and even the way I assumed others viewed me, was filtered through the death of my daughter.

If you’re a pareavor, I’m guessing you’ve wrestled with those same feelings.

Maybe you’ve wondered if you’ll ever recognize yourself again. Maybe you’ve thought: I’ll never get past this. I’ll always be nothing more than a grieving parent.

If that’s where you are, I want you to know you are not alone.

Several years ago, I created a series of workshops called Rebuilding Your Life with Hope and Healing, based on the principles in my book When Tragedy Strikes. One of the lessons is called Sitting on the Porch of Your Identity, because before we can rebuild our lives, we need to understand what has happened to our identity after the death of our child.

I’d like to share some of that lesson with you here. As you read it, don’t worry about trying to fix yourself or figure everything out today. Simply allow yourself to recognize where you are and let God begin speaking truth into the places where grief has shaken your sense of who you are.

Being a parent, especially as a mom, is part of our identity. It’s part of who we are. That’s why the empty nest can be so difficult. We have to figure out what that role looks like when our children are no longer home and under our direct care.

As pareavors, we know we are dealing with so much more than our children simply moving out of the house, knowing they are still just a FaceTime away and we will still be able to spend most holidays with them.

Our identity as a parent hasn’t just shifted to look different; it has been completely taken from us. Those who have lost their only child have an added layer of grief and loss of identity that leaves them totally disoriented in a whole different way. 

For those of you who have lost your only child, or all of your children, I am so very sorry. I cannot even begin to imagine what that is like. There is a group called Alive Alone that may be helpful.

Since part of our identity is wrapped up in being a parent to each of our children, it makes total sense that when our child dies, that becomes our identity. “I am the mother of a child who has died.” Like I shared in the book, I wanted people to know that is who I am now.

As we go along on this journey, we must ask ourselves who we want to be: a victim or a victor. Many of you will answer that you don’t have a choice. “I am a victim,” and you are right. But at some point, if we continue to insist on our child’s death being our identity, it becomes self-pity and keeps us spiraling downward into the darkness.

You have to get to the point where you want out more than you want to stay there, no longer wanting the death of your child to be the identity of who you are. You have to want to see the light of hope that you don’t have to stay in this place. The only way out is to change how you see your identity, and no one else can do that for you.

First, you will need to admit that is where you are, and that you are there because you choose to be there. I am not saying you chose to be a parent who lost your child. What I am saying is that if your identity has become the self-pity of being a parent who has lost your child, you are choosing to allow it to continue, even if it is only to yourself.

Then ask yourself: Am I going to choose to get my identity from the circumstance, or am I going to choose to get my identity from the truth of who I am and who I belong to? Your true identity is a child of the Most High God. And that same God made a way for this separation not to be permanent! I want to identify with that! I don’t want my identity to be that my child died, but that my child lives, and I will see her again because of how much my Heavenly Daddy loves me and how much power He has.

The loss of our child shakes us to the very core of our being. The grief is more than intense; a part of us has died with our child. But it is not a place we have to camp out and stay for life. Our grief is an experience we can go through and come out on the other side, releasing ourselves, with God’s help, from allowing it to be our identity.

So how can you tell when you are turning that corner and your identity isn’t wrapped up in the loss of your child? When you can introduce yourself without the urge to add, “…and my daughter died,” after your name.

If this resonated with you, and you found yourself thinking, “This is exactly where I am,” I want you to know you don’t have to figure out the next steps on your own.

A few weeks ago, I shared a podcast episode about rebuilding your life after the death of your child. It received more responses than almost any episode I’ve ever done. What stood out to me wasn’t just how many parents responded, but what they said. Over and over, I heard things like, “Rebuilding my life feels impossible,” or, “I don’t even know how to begin.”

That’s exactly why I created the Rebuilding Your Life with Hope & Healing workshops.

The lesson you just read is only one small portion of Working Through the Darkness, the second workshop in the series. Together, these three workshops gently walk with you through some of the hardest parts of this journey, helping you understand what you’re experiencing while offering practical, biblical guidance for taking those next small steps.

You can purchase each workshop individually, but they were designed to build on one another, so I encourage you to consider the complete bundle. Whether you’re asking, “How do I even begin?” or you’re ready to start looking toward your future with hope, my prayer is that these workshops will remind you that you don’t have to walk this road alone.

As I look back now, I realize that in those early years after Becca died, I couldn’t separate who I was from what had happened to me. It wasn’t because I was weak, and it wasn’t because I wasn’t trusting God enough. It was because grief had shaken me so deeply that everything else seemed to disappear behind one overwhelming reality.

If that’s where you are today, I want to say it again: there is nothing wrong with you. When a child dies, it is only natural to feel like you’ve lost yourself along with them. We don’t just grieve the absence of our child. We grieve the loss of the parent we used to be, the dreams we carried, the future we imagined, and even the person we thought we would become. 

But here’s what I’ve discovered over the years. Grief may change us, but it doesn’t get the final word on who we are. The death of your child is part of your story. It is a very real part of your story, and it has shaped you in ways you never wanted and never would have chosen. But it is not all of your story. 

You are still the parent of your precious son or daughter. Nothing, not even death, can take that away from you. At the same time, there is still so much about you that God sees and loves. There are still gifts He has placed within you. There are still ways He wants to meet you, strengthen you, and gently lead you forward. 

So today, instead of asking yourself, Who am I without my child? maybe ask a slightly different question:

Lord, who do You say I am… right here, today?

You may not know the full answer yet, and that’s okay. Just be willing to ask the question. I have found that when we begin looking to Him for our identity instead of looking only at our loss, He is always faithful to meet us there.

NOTE: This was partially taken from the Grieving Parents Sharing Hope podcast episode 359. Click here to listen to the full discussion, or look for the Grieving Parents Sharing Hope podcast on your favorite listening app.

When you’re ready for the next step, the Rebuilding Your Life After Child Loss Workshops will be here to walk that path with you.

GPS Hope & Healing retreat, October 16-18, in Sarasota, FL

Check out all the GPS Hope resources here.

To support this podcast and, keep it ad-free, and get exclusive content, visit us on Patreon

Download our FREE GUIDE. Rebuilding Your Life: A Gentle Guide Toward Hope and Healing After Child Loss. Discover gentle encouragement for your broken heart, practical support for the days ahead, and hope that meets you right where you are.

AWARD WINNING AUTHOR, LAURA DIEHL, has written several impactful books that provide comfort and guidance to those navigating the painful journey of child loss, after the death of her own daughter in 2011. Her most acclaimed work, When Tragedy Strikes: Rebuilding Your Life with Hope and Healing After the Death of Your Child, has received multiple accolades, including the 2017 Gold Medal Centauri Christian Book Award for Non-Fiction and a Silver Medal in the 2018 Illumination Awards. Several of her other books have won awards as well.

In addition to her writing, Laura is an ordained minister and has an extensive background in international children’s ministry. She is a sought-after speaker and singer at grief conferences and churches, known for her compassionate approach and deep understanding of the grieving process, especially the unique loss of a child. Through her weekly award-winning podcast, her writings, and other resources provided by GPS Hope, Laura and her husband, Dave, continue to provide hope and healing to thousands of parents worldwide, helping them find light in the midst of profound loss and darkness.

For more information about Laura’s award-winning books go to gpshope.org/books.
To find out more about Laura Diehl and the ministry of Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope) visit gpshope.org.

The link to Hope for the Future is an affiliate link, allowing part of the purchase price to go to GPS Hope. 

If you’ve been on this unwanted journey for any length of time, you’ve probably asked yourself the question, “Where do I go from here?” It’s a question I have heard from countless grieving parents over the years, and it’s one I asked myself after the death of my daughter, Becca. 

Whether you’ve just finished reading When Tragedy Strikes, have been listening to the Grieving Parents Sharing Hope podcast, or have simply reached a place where surviving each day isn’t your only goal anymore, you may find yourself wondering what comes next. 

Finding your next step after child loss is something nearly every pareavor wrestles with at some point, and I want to encourage you today with something I’ve learned along the way.

We Long to See the Whole Journey

One of the hardest parts of grief is that we desperately want someone to hand us a map. We long for certainty because so much of what once felt stable has been taken from us. Yet as difficult as it can be, God rarely gives us the entire blueprint. Instead, He gently gives us enough light for the next step.

That isn’t always what we want. We ask for answers, but so often God offers us His presence instead. We want to know where the road leads, while He lovingly reaches out His hand and says, “Trust Me with today.” Looking back now, I can see that He wasn’t withholding something from me. He was teaching me to depend on Him one step at a time.

One Brick at a Time

Years ago, when I wrote When Tragedy Strikes, I used the picture of rebuilding a house to describe what happens after the death of our child. I wasn’t talking about replacing our child or somehow becoming the person we were before our loss. That is impossible. I was talking about allowing God to begin rebuilding our lives on a foundation that has been shaken to its very core.

Think about building a house for a moment. It doesn’t appear overnight. One brick is laid, then another. One wall is framed, then another. If you stood at the construction site after the first day, you might wonder if any real progress had been made at all. Yet every single brick matters because each one becomes part of something much bigger than itself. Our lives after child loss often grow in much the same way.

Finding your next step after child loss usually isn’t about taking giant leaps forward. More often, it’s choosing one small act of faith. Sometimes, that next step is simply getting out of bed. Sometimes it’s opening your Bible for the first time in weeks. Sometimes it’s allowing a trusted friend to come alongside you, returning to church after a long absence, or giving yourself permission to smile without feeling guilty. 

Those things may seem insignificant, but God has a beautiful way of using small steps to accomplish far more than we can imagine.

God Is Faithful to Show You the Next Step

As I look back over my own journey, I realize that God never asked me to figure out the rest of my life. He didn’t ask me to understand what GPS Hope would become or imagine that one day I would be writing books, recording podcasts, speaking to grieving parents, and creating resources that would reach people around the world. He simply asked me to trust Him with the next brick. Once that brick was in place, He faithfully showed me the next one.

That’s why I want to encourage you not to become discouraged if you can’t see very far ahead. If you’re asking God to reveal something down the road, you may be waiting for something He never intended to show you all at once. Instead, ask Him to reveal today’s step. That’s a prayer He delights in answering.

Sometimes We Need Someone to Walk Beside Us

Over the years, I’ve heard from so many parents who have read When Tragedy Strikes. Some have told me they finished it in just a day or two because they couldn’t put it down. Others needed weeks or even months because every chapter stirred emotions that they needed time to process. Regardless of how they read it, many eventually came back with the same question: “Where do I go from here?”

That question is one of the reasons I created the Rebuilding Your Life with Hope and Healing workshops several years ago. A book can encourage you, remind you that you’re not alone, and point you toward biblical hope. But sometimes we need someone to walk beside us as we sort through the questions, fears and practical challenges that come with learning to live after the death of our child.

A Gentle Way to Continue the Journey

Recently, I spent time reorganizing those workshops, not because the message had changed, but because I wanted the order to better reflect the journey so many grieving parents experience. The first course, How Do I Even Start to Rebuild My Life?, focuses on laying a foundation and learning to care for yourself during those overwhelming early stages of grief. The second course, Working Through the Darkness, helps you honestly face the ripple effects of grief, your changed identity, and even the difficult questions you may have for God. The third course, Looking Toward My Future, gently explores how it is possible to embrace the life God still has for you without ever leaving your child behind.

I love those three titles because together they tell a story. They acknowledge that rebuilding doesn’t begin with having all the answers. It begins by taking one step. Then another. And another. None of us walk this journey perfectly, and none of us walk it at exactly the same pace. Some pareavors are ready for a next step sooner than others. There is no right timeline; only your timeline and God’s faithful presence within it.

Trust God With Today’s Step

Perhaps that’s what you needed to hear today. Grief is not a race, and it certainly isn’t a straight line. Finding your next step after child loss will probably look very different from someone else’s, and that’s okay. God knows exactly where you are. He knows what your heart can carry today, and He is wonderfully patient as He leads you forward.

If you’re wondering where to go from here, don’t put pressure on yourself to figure out the next ten steps. Simply ask God to show you today’s step. It may be one prayer, one conversation, one act of obedience, or one decision to trust Him in a new way. Those seemingly small moments become the building blocks of a life that continues to honor both your child and the God who has promised never to leave you.

Finding your next step after child loss isn’t about reaching a place where grief disappears. It’s about learning, day by day, that God’s presence is enough for this moment and that He will faithfully meet you again when it’s time for the next one. You may not know what tomorrow holds, but you can trust the One who is already there, lovingly leading you one gentle step at a time.

NOTE: This was partially taken from the Grieving Parents Sharing Hope podcast episode 358. Click here to listen to the full discussion, or look for the Grieving Parents Sharing Hope podcast on your favorite listening app.

When you’re ready for the next step, the Rebuilding Your Life After Child Loss Workshops will be here to walk that path with you.

Check out all the GPS Hope resources here.

To support this podcast and, keep it ad-free, and get exclusive content, visit us on Patreon

Download our FREE GUIDE. Rebuilding Your Life: A Gentle Guide Toward Hope and Healing After Child Loss. Discover gentle encouragement for your broken heart, practical support for the days ahead, and hope that meets you right where you are.

AWARD WINNING AUTHOR, LAURA DIEHL, has written several impactful books that provide comfort and guidance to those navigating the painful journey of child loss, after the death of her own daughter in 2011. Her most acclaimed work, When Tragedy Strikes: Rebuilding Your Life with Hope and Healing After the Death of Your Child, has received multiple accolades, including the 2017 Gold Medal Centauri Christian Book Award for Non-Fiction and a Silver Medal in the 2018 Illumination Awards. Several of her other books have won awards as well.

In addition to her writing, Laura is an ordained minister and has an extensive background in international children’s ministry. She is a sought-after speaker and singer at grief conferences and churches, known for her compassionate approach and deep understanding of the grieving process, especially the unique loss of a child. Through her weekly award-winning podcast, her writings, and other resources provided by GPS Hope, Laura and her husband, Dave, continue to provide hope and healing to thousands of parents worldwide, helping them find light in the midst of profound loss and darkness.

For more information about Laura’s award-winning books go to gpshope.org/books.
To find out more about Laura Diehl and the ministry of Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope) visit gpshope.org.

The link to Hope for the Future is an affiliate link, allowing part of the purchase price to go to GPS Hope. 

One of the hardest things about losing a child is that life keeps moving forward, even when you wish it would stop. The sun comes up the next morning. People go back to work. Families continue making plans. The world keeps spinning as though nothing has changed, while for us, everything has changed.

At some point, though, we begin asking a question we never wanted to face. How do I even begin? Not because we want to move on from our child, which we never will, but because we are still here. We still have responsibilities waiting for us each morning. We still have people who need us. And somewhere deep inside, even if it is only the faintest flicker, we begin to wonder if there is a way to keep living without leaving our child behind.

If you have been wondering how to begin rebuilding your life after child loss, I want you to know that I once asked that very same question. This year marks ten years since my book When Tragedy Strikes: Rebuilding Your Life with Hope and Healing After the Death of Your Child was first published. As I have reflected on that anniversary, I realized that the message behind this book is just as important today as it was when God first placed it on my heart.

Looking for Hope

After my daughter, Becca, died, I searched everywhere for someone who could tell me it would not always hurt this much. I was not looking for someone to tell me to “move on,” because I knew that was impossible. I was looking for someone who had walked this road ahead of me and could honestly say, “I know where you are. I’ve been there. While the pain never completely goes away, it will not always feel this overwhelming.”

I wanted to know that it was possible to live a meaningful life again. Not because I wanted a different life without Becca, but because this was now the life in front of me, and I honestly did not know how to live it. I also wanted someone who understood not only the devastating pain of child loss, but the struggle of trying to reconcile that pain with my faith in God.

Back then, there were very few Christian resources written by someone who had walked several years beyond the death of a child. Even many of the online groups I found seemed consumed with hopelessness. As a fellow pareavor, I understood the darkness all too well, but I also knew I could not spend the rest of my life simply existing until it was my turn to die. Surely God had something more for those of us who were willing to keep walking with Him.

God Was Writing a Bigger Story

Looking back now, I can see that while I thought I was searching for hope, God was quietly preparing me to share that hope with others.

One night, a couple of years after Becca’s death, I woke up with three words echoing so strongly in my mind that I could not ignore them: When Tragedy Strikes. Along with those words came what felt like chapter ideas for a book. I climbed out of bed in the middle of the night, grabbed some paper, and started writing, so I would not forget what was coming to me.

At the time, I had no idea where those notes would lead. I simply remember climbing back into bed thinking, “Well, I guess I’m supposed to write a book.”

Writing the manuscript was emotionally exhausting. Some days I wrote through tears. Other days I had to stop because my heart simply could not take any more. But as the chapters slowly came together, I noticed something I had completely missed that first night.

The House God Showed Me

Many of the chapters fit together like different rooms in a house. There was a foundation, a bedroom, a kitchen, a porch, a roof and even a driveway. At first, I thought it was simply an interesting way to organize the book. Over time, though, I realized that God was giving me much more than an outline. He was giving me a picture of what grief does to us.

The death of our child affects every area of our lives. It shakes our faith. It changes our relationships. It impacts our thoughts, our emotions, our identity, and the future we thought we would have. It is almost as though every room in the house has been touched by grief.

That is when I began to understand what rebuilding really means.

Rebuilding Does Not Mean Leaving Our Child Behind

Sometimes grieving parents hear the phrase “rebuilding your life” and assume it means forgetting their child or somehow moving on. That has never been what I mean.

To me, rebuilding means allowing God to teach us how to live again while carrying our son or daughter with us in our hearts. Healing does not mean we stop missing them. It does not mean life goes back to the way it was before. There is no going back.

Instead, it means learning to function again. It means discovering that joy and sorrow can exist side by side. It means finding purpose in a life that has been forever changed by the child we continue to love.

When people ask me how to begin rebuilding your life after child loss, this is always where I begin. Rebuilding is not replacing your child. It is allowing God to lovingly rebuild the life you are still here to live, because your child mattered so deeply.

One Brick at a Time

One of the greatest lessons God has taught me is that no one rebuilds an entire house all at once. If you drove past a construction site every day, you probably would not notice much change. But if you came back several weeks later, you would be amazed by the progress.

Grief often works the same way. We become discouraged because we still cry. We still struggle. We still have grief waves that seem to knock us off our feet. Yet God is often doing His deepest work quietly, in ways we cannot recognize until we stop and look back.

That is one of the reasons I continue sharing how to begin rebuilding your life after child loss. I have lived it myself. I still miss Becca deeply. There are still moments when my heart aches because I wish she were here to experience life with us. That part has never changed. What has changed is the hopelessness. God has faithfully replaced despair with purpose, not by taking away my grief, but by walking with me through it.

Trust the Master Builder

Perhaps the greatest lesson I have learned over these past ten years is that God rarely shows us the finished picture. He simply asks us to take the next step.

If someone handed you the plans for an entire house and told you to build it today, you would probably feel overwhelmed and know that it would be impossible. But if they handed you one brick and asked you to place it where it belonged, you could do that.

That is often how God works in our grief. He is not asking you to figure out the next thirty years without your child. He is simply asking you to trust Him with today. Maybe today’s brick is getting out of bed. Maybe it is opening your Bible again. Maybe it is reaching out to another pareavor. Or maybe it is simply whispering, “Jesus, help me.”

If you are wondering how to begin rebuilding your life after child loss, do not focus on the entire house. Trust the Master Builder with today’s brick. One day, you will look back and realize that while you thought you were simply surviving, God was quietly and faithfully rebuilding your life all along.

NOTE: This was partially taken from the Grieving Parents Sharing Hope podcast episode 357. Click here to listen to the full discussion, or look for the Grieving Parents Sharing Hope podcast on your favorite listening app.

GPS Hope & Healing retreat, October 16-18, in Sarasota, FL

Check out all the GPS Hope resources here.

To support this podcast and, keep it ad-free, and get exclusive content, visit us on Patreon

Download our FREE GUIDE. Rebuilding Your Life: A Gentle Guide Toward Hope and Healing After Child Loss. Discover gentle encouragement for your broken heart, practical support for the days ahead, and hope that meets you right where you are.

AWARD WINNING AUTHOR, LAURA DIEHL, has written several impactful books that provide comfort and guidance to those navigating the painful journey of child loss, after the death of her own daughter in 2011. Her most acclaimed work, When Tragedy Strikes: Rebuilding Your Life with Hope and Healing After the Death of Your Child, has received multiple accolades, including the 2017 Gold Medal Centauri Christian Book Award for Non-Fiction and a Silver Medal in the 2018 Illumination Awards. Several of her other books have won awards as well.

In addition to her writing, Laura is an ordained minister and has an extensive background in international children’s ministry. She is a sought-after speaker and singer at grief conferences and churches, known for her compassionate approach and deep understanding of the grieving process, especially the unique loss of a child. Through her weekly award-winning podcast, her writings, and other resources provided by GPS Hope, Laura and her husband, Dave, continue to provide hope and healing to thousands of parents worldwide, helping them find light in the midst of profound loss and darkness.

For more information about Laura’s award-winning books go to gpshope.org/books.
To find out more about Laura Diehl and the ministry of Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope) visit gpshope.org.

The link to Hope for the Future is an affiliate link, allowing part of the purchase price to go to GPS Hope.