“And I think that is so often what we miss, is really just sitting with people in the pain and not being afraid to step into it with them,” Smith said. “And just being honest and saying, ‘I love you. I hate that you’re going through this, and I’ll be here with you.’”
One “pivotal moment” Smith went through as she walked through her grief came when God revealed that she had made River an idol. “I realized that I was sitting in my sorrow instead of seeking my Savior,” she said. “And God revealed that to me one day when I was on the floor in my bathroom and I had just been crying so hard because I desired so much for my life to be the way that it was, to be with my son.”
“I wanted him with me,” she said. “And the Lord revealed to me, he basically said, ‘Enough. Seek me.’”
“That can seem like that’s harsh or mean, but it wasn’t. It didn’t feel that way,” said Smith. “It felt like an encouragement and a challenge and basically like a father was lifting his daughter’s eyes and saying, ‘Look to me. River is a gift. I’m the giver. Look to me. I am the only one who’s going to help you or heal you. I have River. I have you. Look to me.’”
“And so that was a big shift in my perspective and my seeking of the Lord was I realized, ‘My gosh, I have made my son an idol. I’ve made my son bigger than God,’” she said.
“And we can do that with anything. We can do that with our kids, our husbands, our work, our bodies,” said Smith. “We can make anything an idol if we’re seeking whatever that is above our relationship with Christ. And that was really challenging and encouraging for me and basically where God called me to get up off the floor and to seek him. And I have.”
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