I started this post four months ago. All it had was the title. I have no idea what I had on my mind in June, but rather than dump it, I thought I’d sit with it and consider what is not lost.

My sanity.
It’s pretty close to being lost — some days I think it’s gone altogether — but overall, it’s still hanging in there.

My hair.
It started falling out almost two years ago at an alarming rate. I was going through an especially stressful time, and with fluctuating hormones, I was certain there wouldn’t be any left. I could actually feel it getting thinner. Thankfully, I found a supplement that worked for me. Now, two-ish years later, it’s all come back. I even got brave, added highlights, and cut bangs.

My faith is not lost.
A little over two years ago, my daughter left for school at the Naval Academy. I thought I would never survive it. I knew I’d see her again, but I don’t know if I’ll ever fully recover, honestly. I started crying her senior year and… well, I’m still crying.

She’s doing incredible things. I’m so proud of her. It’s hard to believe she’s only been out of high school for two years — she’s light-years ahead of where I was at 21. The amount of responsibility and load she carries is unreal. Honestly, I don’t know how she’s surviving.

Then, twenty-one months ago, one of my sons passed away. I felt sure I would never survive this — and yet here I am. Forever changed. I’ll certainly never “recover,” but I live now with a son who will forever be nineteen.

One hundred days ago, we made the absolute gut-wrenching decision to send my youngest to a youth ranch for “kids at risk.” If I wasn’t crying before (I was), I definitely am now.

If I’m being truthful, my identity feels lost. I’ve spent the last twenty-five years momming kids around. My fairly straightforward road map is missing sections now. Places I used to navigate with ease— even hard places — feel perilous. I’m on a road with no GPS, feeling a little like the female version of Job. What is up with all this stuff with my kids?!

I hadn’t read the story of Job in a while, but in my misery, I went back to it. His trials were unreal — he lost his children (ten of them), his health, his friends, and his possessions. All the things we’d consider earthly gifts and joys. This guy was wrecked.

Job even questioned God. In Job 13:24, he asks, “Why do You hide Your face and consider me Your enemy?” Later, in Job 17:13–15, he says, “If the only home I hope for is the grave… where then is my hope?” He talks about his spirit being broken.

And that’s the same old question we’ve all wrestled with: Why do bad things happen to good people? Why is there suffering in the world?

When I got the call that my son had passed away, I fell to the floor of my dining room screaming. It came from the very depths of my soul.

When I got to where he was — surrounded by emergency personnel — I somehow pushed through them and dropped to his side. I can’t remember everything I said, but I know I was screaming his name and something along the lines of, “How did this happen?”

EMS had to pull me off of him. It took several hours before the detective finally showed up so I could go back to him. It was brutal — something I wish on no mother, no parent, ever.

The autopsy later revealed he had passed from a sudden and devastating illness. One of my son’s physicians has a husband who works in infectious diseases for the CDC. After they reviewed his autopsy, I learned there was very little that could have been done. Maybe, maybe if he’d gone to the hospital there could have been a chance — but we’ll never know.

Back to that question: Why do bad things happen to good people?

I’ve wondered that more than once. By most standards, I’d call myself “good.” I’m not out taking lives, doing drugs, or sitting in jail. But then Romans reminds us, “There is none righteous, no, not one.” That verse hits differently when life falls apart. It’s not saying we’re all terrible people — it’s saying that none of us can measure up to perfection on our own. “Being good” is surface-level; righteousness is something deeper — alignment with God’s heart, not just moral behavior.

About eight or nine years ago, I stepped away from the church. It was the era of Rachel Held Evans, Jeff Chu, and Jen Hatmaker all publicly wrestling with faith — deconstruction was the word. Maybe it still is. But I never lost my faith in Jesus. I had plenty of opinions about the church (especially the fundamentalist corners), but Jesus stayed steady.

Then life tilted. My daughter left home. My son died. Nineteen months later, my youngest was sent to a youth ranch. My world stopped. The only thing I could do was… nothing. I went to work because that felt like the only normal thing left. Even then, I felt utterly lost, and I still do if I’m honest. And yet, faith was the one familiar thread I could still hold onto.

People asked if I was angry at God. I wasn’t. My anger had nowhere to land. Instead, I started praying — really praying. Job 42:5 says, “My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you.” Job’s pain turned knowledge into intimacy, and I began to understand that verse in my bones.

If you grew up in the church, you know the stories. Flannel graphs. “Deep and Wide.” AWANA verses. (I even got the Timothy Award — IYKYK.) Later, YWAM. I knew God. I’d prayed through loss before — my dad’s death, my marriage ending, the usual human heartaches — but losing my son and then not being a full-time mom anymore broke something deeper. I started fasting, anointing, praying over my home, reading everything I could on spiritual warfare. Somewhere in the middle of all that desperation, I started hearing Him again.

And this is where All Is Not Lost comes in.

Suffering isn’t a punishment. “Good people” aren’t protected from tragedy. God doesn’t owe us an explanation, and He’s not late when we can’t see His hand. I don’t believe the cliché that “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.” I’ve had far more than I could handle. But I’ve learned this: it’s never more than He can handle.

All is not lost because He carries what I cannot.

Maybe that’s the point — not that everything works out or even makes sense, but that He doesn’t leave when it doesn’t. Faith isn’t tidy; it’s showing up when it’s ugly and trusting that He still knows what He’s doing. I don’t have to understand it to believe it.