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• We admitted that our sense of control was an illusion. I am a firstborn of six preacher's kids and grew up in a home where my father always said, "The oldest child in the house at any given time gets to be the boss." With my background as the chief babysitter for four younger sisters and a younger brother, I was very used to being in charge, and control came naturally to me. I was a people-pleaser and loved to do things perfectly and to be known as a competent person who "got the job done well." I was obsessive-compulsive about following through with my personal goals and would often work on projects for ridiculously long hours, having little respect for getting sleep or setting realistic expectations of my limits. Much of the time, I felt like there was nothing I couldn't "handle" or "manage." I was wrong.
• We were humbled as never before. Often my goals (and Gene's too) were spiritual in nature, which probably made us even more frustrated when we faced this huge tragedy with our son and hoped that God would be more direct with His answers to our questions. I realized that there was a part of me that thought, Don't 1 deserve better than this after all I've done for the Lord? 1 love Him so much; why is He letting me be crushed like this? I learned quickly that I wasn't unique and that pain is pain is pain. And I needed comfort, like a baby.
• We had to arm or reject our faith. For years I had been telling audiences that God is good and He is trustworthy. "No matter what happens to you, God has your best interests in mind," I preached. "He will never walk away from you. He is your advocate. He is your provider. He is your victor."

During the early days of our crisis, I wondered about all of this. Where was God on the Sunday afternoon when my son shot Douglas Miller Jr.? Was God busy with affairs in the Middle Fast that day? Was He preoccupied with the issue of international terrorism? Was He distracted by a worldwide crisis? I agonized, "God, since You are omnipresent, why didn't You give Jason a flat tire that would have prevented him from entering that parking lot? Lord, why didn't You make his vehicle break down between Panama City and Orlando? You had six-and-a-half hours! Why didn't You stop this awful thing from happening?"

Gene and I were reeling from the shock and the loss of our son's future, and we were also grieving for the unspeakable loss the Miller family was experiencing. In a deeply personal way we realized that when unthinkable circumstances enter your life, there comes a point when you either stand by what you believe or you walk away from it. Over time, we chose the powerful reaffirmation of our foundational posture in the universe: God was God and we were not. We were utterly dependent on Him, and if we were to continue living with a sense of purpose and passion, we knew that our only hope was in His infinite mercy and His unshakable plan for redemption regardless of sin, sorrow, and shame.

Excerpted from When I Lay My Isaac Down, copyright 2004 by Carol Kent. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2004 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

When I Lay My Isaac Down is available from Christianbook.com and other book retailers.

More information is available from the publisher.

Christianity Today sister publication Today's Christian Woman interviewed Kent in 2001 and again in their current issue.

Coverage of the Kent trial is available from CourtTV (background) and The News Herald.

Author Carol Kent is president of Speak Up Speaker Services.

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August (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48