When the Pastor’s Family Suffers

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Garrett Kell

If you ask me what I’ve learned about God through this, I would say he’s good. It’s good that he allows ordains, uses all of whatever words, all of it like he’s a father who loves his children. So don’t be so afraid of being under surgery that you that you’re not allowed to be patient like your God’s changing. He’s a good father, and you can trust him, and he only ever does good, even if his ways are mysterious.

Matt Smethurst

Welcome back to the everyday pastor, a podcast from the gospel Coalition on the nuts and bolts of ministry. I’m Matt Smethurst and I’m Luke Duncan, and we’re joined by our friend Garrett Kell, pastor of Delray Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia. And we want to think about when the pastor’s family suffers. This is something that is not just recent memory, but something your family is still walking through. And so we thought it would be good to just hear what the Lord has taught you and your family over the past year plus, and what wisdom you would commend a pastor. So can you just kind of share with with listeners, what’s happened in the life of your family in terms of of the timeline? Yeah,

Garrett Kell

thanks, and great to be here with you brothers love Yeah. So this path, 2024 was, I would say, the hardest year of my life and certainly of our family’s life, December 21 of 2023 we took my my family went to amusement park in Richmond. And while we were there, my daughter had a seizure, that 16 year old, yeah, 16 year old, daughter named Eden, she had a seizure, and it lasted 26 hours, which is a long time for anything, especially for a seizure. So it resulted in ambulance coming, taking her to local hospital there in Richmond. They tried a drug to stop the seizure, and it her, she responded poorly to it stopped breathing, and so they had to intubate her. My wife was, you know, obviously she, she comes in. I’d ridden in the ambulance, and, you know it, yeah, we were in intensive care for, you know, weeks she was in a coma for at least 21 days. There were times in there where there was no brain activity. And we, you know, we, we thought we were going to lose her constantly through there. You know, early on in that, I remember my wife and I just, we just got our knees and we just, we prayed and gave, gave her back to the Lord like she was, she was always the Lord’s but there’s times like that. You you, you feel it and recognize it. You feel very out of, out of out of control. And so it was a long, a long time. We were in the hospital for some 51 days between there and then Children’s Hospital in DC. And she had to, she began to recover, which praise God for but it was very, very slow. She had to learn how to breathe again. Her body forgot everything. She had to learn how to breathe, she had to learn how to eat, how to drink, how to talk, how to walk, how to do all of the stuff. You know. I think the Lord actually used the whole thing to save her. I remember at one point she said through tears while she’s laying there, you know, having to get help to do all this stuff. She goes. You know, I’m she goes. This is hard, but I’m really glad it happened. She goes. I think she goes. Before all of this, I had been really wrestling with God as to whether, whether he loved me and whether he heard my prayers. And I know now that he loves me, and he hears, He hears my prayers. And, you know, at this point, like a lot of people, became aware of what was happening. It was, you know, I had written some posts about it, and it had gotten some broader attention from Christians, really, around the world. So she was getting letters, I mean, hundreds of letters, and like, prayer encouragements and videos and all kinds of stuff. So she was seeing the body of Christ loving her in the midst of that, which is really remarkable, our church, like rallied around your church when we were in Richmond, loved us well. So it was, it was, it was a parent’s worst nightmare, you know, in the midst of that, and you know, near the end of her being released to go home, my we got word that my mother was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer, so they had just moved down to North Carolina to retire, like two years before. So we decided to move my mom and dad. And up to basically live across the street from us in Virginia, to help there. So, I mean, I mean, there was, there was a time where I’m going to, going to take Eden to rehab, either carry or taking Eden to rehab, and then going over to take mom to chemo appointments and helping dad navigate, you know, getting older and memory things were going on there, and all that kind of stuff. And say, how many kids you have? Well, well, we had six kids. Yeah, the day we bring Eden home from the hospital, my wife wakes me up with a punch in the arm, and I’m like, Hey, yes, I was like, I assumed I did something wrong. I didn’t know what it was. And, you know, she showed a pregnancy test, which Praise God. I know a lot of people struggle to have children. We had thought that six was a full quiver. Well, the Lord, the Lord, seemed to think another one. So we’re thankful, but, but my wife, pregnancy is hard for her very hard. So she’s very sick, and so she’s sick, trying to take care of of Eden, trying to take care of me, you know, and then trying to love my parents. And it’s just been hard. We’re doing rehabs, and it was like, I, if I never go to a hospital again, it will be too soon. It was I, I mean, I’m thankful for those who serve in that arena, and the Lord has used them mightily. But it was, it was a lot. I mean, then we during the summer, so we get home, that was about March in the summer. We had begun weaning, eaten off of some of the medicines. By the way, she was diagnosed with something like 100 people have. So there’s, she becomes kind of a guinea pig for treatments. We don’t know what to do the I mean, we had great doctors, but it was just, you don’t, you don’t know what you don’t know, auto immune. Just, it’s an auto immune thing that has to do with her, her thyroid and her body responds with seizures, and there’s some sort of inflammatory thing going on that we can’t detect, and it’s all this stuff. So so we start trying to wean some medicine off for her so she can experience, you know, life again, because a lot of life’s muted for her, it’s very hard. Medicines make her irritable and all the things. So we’re driving down to go to a basketball camp, to take one of our kids to a basketball camp, or on the car, and one of our kids is like, Eden, stop it, and thought she was messing around, and looked over and Eden’s having a seizure. And that kicked off a summer of seizures to where we were taken to UVA, then, and then back, went back home. She had about a week, okay, and then then 10 more seizures. One of the hard things was like when we were there, and I’m living at the hospital again during the summer, and I was on sabbatical during the summer, just a different sort of sabbatical than I anticipated, but God, carved out that time and I was able to be there with her. But, you know, they weaned Eden off of medicines for about three days to try to evoke a seizure so they could try and figure out where it’s coming from. And one of the hardest things to see was that when when the medicines were weaned off like she was normal, you know, she laughed at the stuff she left, she was herself, you know. So this whole time, it feels like she’s just trapped in there, and that’s hard because, you know, she’d come home and was doing, she was trying to go back to school and doing all the normal stuff, but she wasn’t herself, but like to see she was in there, you know, it was really hard. And then the whole time, you know, my poor wife’s like, she’s at home, trying to love our kids and, you know, trying to come, coming to the hospital, and then going back and forth and all this kind of stuff. And I will say a blessing in the midst of all those our church loved us, like, amazingly, we should talk more about that in a moment, but just to keep painting the picture so we’re there. And by the end of the summer, I think I we had spent like 40% of our year in the hospital at least. And it was, it’s a lot of days there, come home, and that’s around, you know, August, September, mom, mom really starts to to go downhill, and then she, she died. Just, you know, it’s hard. I praise God for them being close and us being able to have time with them and say the things you’d want to say. And you know, when she, when she went to be with the Lord, at the very end, I was, I read, read the last part of pilgrims, progress of, you know, Christian passing through the dark river. And by the time I’d finished that section, she had gone on to be with the Lord. And, you know, is hard then my dad, you know, now, Dad’s grieving. You know, they’ve been married 54 years, and it’s like he loses his left arm right, and I’m, you know, trying to walk with Him through that. He’s meeting new friends, but he’s alone, you know? And then, you know, Eden, you. She’s we love her, honey, if you’re listening, love you so much. It’s life’s not. She’s supposed to be driving. She’s a 16 year old supposed to be driving, supposed to have a job, supposed to be like she’s young for her class. So she’d be thinking about how she’s gonna do a gap year and what she’s gonna she’s all the dream, and she can feel and watching her feel her dreams have a barrier that she she doesn’t know she ever gonna get past. That’s a hard thing. And then with all the other kids trying to she gets special treatment, you know, I mean, and that doesn’t feel fair. And then explaining, yes, it’s not fair, but it’s also not fair that she’s going through this, and life is not fair. And you know, all the all of the things. And then my 38 year old cousin died of leukemia in there, just, just went to Atlanta to do that service.

Garrett Kell

And in the midst of that, you have the normal church stuff. There’s there’s things that are sweet and things that are hard. And, you know, it was a very depleting, dark time that the Lord showed up in the midst of it, and the Good Shepherd will walk with you through those and give wisdom to parents and to churches. And it’s there’s more stuff, but that’s kind of the snapshot it’s been. It’s been a heck of a year, and

Matt Smethurst

as a pastor, someone who’s, you know, job calling is to give care. What was it like to be so much on the receiving end of care for months on end? Yeah,

Garrett Kell

I love the church. I mean, I just, that’s all I can say. I love our church, and I love the the church. I remember my son, one of my sons, hadn’t he, he said, you know, Dad, I’m really thankful that we’re a part of a church where people love us so well. You know, they were, they had people coming and giving rides because our kids play sports. They’re all given rides. They’re helping bring meals we didn’t cook for months, like all the like they, they just loved us, like love with skin on it. And they our kids felt that it was like a big hug. So it felt very encouraging in one one sense, right? I mean, we, there’s horror stories about the church, but I, we saw them rise to the them rise to the occasion. Our church and other other churches and Christians from all over the really the world in one sense. So I think our church uniquely loved us very well. And I think, you know, part of a pastor’s job is to train the people to suffer, is to prepare them for the fact that, don’t be surprised about fiery trials. They’re going to come. So we’ve, we’ve preached these sermons for a long time. So we’ve tried to build that into the DNA that we want to love one another at all times. We want to weep with one another. When we weep, we want to, you know, rejoice with one another. We want to do all of that. And we don’t do it perfectly, but we do think there’s a, there’s a we’ve built a culture over time where, where we rally around each other, you know. And when you guys preach for me, you preach job I did, you know, in Richmond, which is where it happened, which I was, you know, right? God’s strange. He has strange providences, you know, such weird ones. But, but our congregation, I think we were loved well, and they were ready to love us Well, I think our leadership, our elders, tend to lead very vulnerably and openly, and I think that it’s that served us well in this, this where we had people who would want to jump in one story, and there’s two sisters, single sisters, that that really just became a part of our family during they were already kind of in a part of our family, but one of them had gone home for Christmas and heard what happened, and got a return ticket and came back and said, I just want, you know, I’m coming back, and I’m gonna, I’m here the whole time for anything you need. And she just basically moved in, in one sense, and was there to help carry with the kids and driving and all this kind of stuff. And then would come home and let me go, you know, go to the hospital and sit with Eden, so I could go home and see the kids for a little bit and all this kind of stuff. And, like, they just they, they loved us really well. Wow. I want to

Matt Smethurst

ask some more about your story. But LIG, you’ve also maybe experienced yourself or seen many other ministers endure incredible suffering in their own family. So what lessons have you learned, what wisdom would you command for when suffering strikes the pastor’s family? Well,

Ligon Duncan

just that when, as pastors, those kinds of things happen, the Lord can use that in a mighty way, in your people’s hearts and in other hearts, I’ve been encouraged. I think my students and friends in ministry have suffered far more in ministry than I’ve ever suffered in life, and the privilege of watching them suffer in trust has made an indelible impression on me. I’m thinking right now of Jay Harvey, who was my executive director at RTS New York City. He’s planning a church city on a hill. Church in Midtown, New York City right now, when his son was born, he was because they some things had happened that shouldn’t have happened. They had not detected that he had cystic fibrosis, so they found out that he had cystic fibrosis when he was born, it was very traumatic for Jay and melody and right around the time that I preached the sermon at T 4g, on Elijah from First Kings 19, he wrote me a letter saying that his his son, Jacob, at that time, who was six years old, had started to realize that something was wrong with him, and had asked his dad one day, dad, am I gonna die? And he said, Jacob, you’re probably not gonna live as long as other people because of your condition. And I want you to know that, as your dad, if I could take that from you, I’d take it. But I want you to know this, your Savior only lived for 30 something years, and he did more than anybody has ever done, and he loves you. And he said, by by grace, I can say, Jacob knows and trusts in the Savior, and I would rather him be saved than well. And I just thought, Lord, I get to know people like this. I get to watch a dad love his son like this. As a minister, what a privilege to get to know people like this. So I’ve been so blessed. And by the way, that’s not like you. Garrett, Jay and melvi, then they had a situation. She she had something called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy, which was a chronic neurological pain condition, and she was just in excruciating pain. They had to put her in a coma for five days to try and reset her body’s nervous system. I mean, they have been through everything under the sun, and they’ve done it in trust in the Lord, and I just, I cannot tell you what that how that has blessed me so as a as a pastor, while you’re going through that, you’re just, you’re trying to hang on, you’re trying to trust the Lord, you’re trying to be a Christian. And you may not realize it then, but you are teaching people around you the reality of Jesus, the reality of the faith, the reality of the trust in the providence of God, your blessing. Friends like me that get to watch that, you know, a pastor really gets to show people, you know, I’m not just telling you to trust in the Lord. I have to trust in the Lord. I have to trust in the Lord. But I have no idea what he’s doing in my life or why he’s doing it, and that’s what an amazing thing that is, as a pastor, to do and so many good pastors have done that. I often think the Lord chooses choice servants to experience that, try to handle those things. He chooses choice servants to do that. And so I always feel like it’s a privilege to watch a friend walk with the Lord through those things

Matt Smethurst

right. Second, Corinthians one being able to minister comfort out of the comfort we have received. And of course, Garrett, as we hear your story, your story is unique in the sense that all of the twists and turns are not things that pastors listening can directly relate to, but the experience of anguish in a fallen world and fear is common to man. And so what are some lessons learned through this experience that you would commend to every pastor as they think about suffering in their family.

Garrett Kell

I mean, I think the first thing is to remember that your own faith in the Lord is being refined, and it’s okay to let that happen. So sometimes pastors are afraid to ask questions of you know, because there’s things expose you think things about God that you never thought. You would think, I’ve never just really wrestled with being angry at God ever. I had a moment this was, this was a few weeks ago. We’re home. Life is, you know, things with eating are still they’re hard. And we have our our youngest Now, second youngest daughter, Tobin. She’s three. She is like the incarnation of joy. She’s this little radiant, like, and I just feel like, through the whole thing, God has used her uniquely, her just obliviousness to anything, being sad, like, She’s always so happy and sweet. Well, it was Saturday morning, and she loves on Saturday morning to help Mommy make coffee for daddy. And what that means is go downstairs and Carrie will, you know, do it, but let her push the button and let her, you know, be there and do the stuff. And I’m upstairs and laying there getting a minute rest, and then I I hear a bad. Hang, and I hear her scream, and ran downstairs, and she had, she was, she was just trying to help get daddy’s coffee, and she she poured it on her, and it burned her. And I remember grabbing her and ran upstairs. And I’ve had burn history before, so I know a little bit about it, but turn a lukewarm shower and got in there with her, and I’m holding her, and it just came on me, and I just like, What are you doing? God, right? I mean, I knew his sin, but it I there’s stuff that comes out of you that you just don’t expect. And that quickly is like, Lord, I know you love I just don’t understand why her like she’s, she’s not doing anything wrong. It just felt like, it felt like he’s being a bully, you know, and as a pastor who tells, you know, the Calvinist and all this stuff, like, you don’t talk about God like that and everything like but it’s, it’s where it’s stuff comes out of you, right? Yeah, and I prayed and asked the Lord to forgive me, and, you know, we went to the hospital and she’ll probably have some scars, but she’s okay. But I think as a pastor, you got to be able to, you gotta be able to talk about that kind of stuff, right? And you gotta be able to talk about that with somebody, yeah. So don’t be so afraid of being under surgery that you that you’re not allowed to be a patient like you’re God’s changing. He’s a good father, and you can trust him, and he only ever does good, even if his ways are mysterious, right? And you know what? I think, in His providence, he needed to poke something in me that I’ve just been protecting myself, and I needed some stuff, some pus needed to come out, I guess, in my soul, and I that was he knew. He knew. I mean, like the fear that’s grown in me over of like, What if something happened to one of my other kids? And like, there’s a there’s stuff that he wants me to deal with, you know? So another thing that would say is the realization that your wife does not grieve in the same way that you do, and that you need to patiently love her by allowing her to be who she is and grieve in way she has, right? So my wife really resonates with the i with the struggle of Why is God being cruel? And my wife loves the Lord. She’d been through some stuff too, and that’s a whole other podcast, but like, and I, and I will say just a side to her, I’ve seen Jesus more in my wife. Like to see my wife lay down her life. I’m good in the trauma situations, like, I’ll get in the hospital, I’ll be in the ambulance, I’ll be there when a kid cuts a finger off, we gotta get his sewed back on. Like, I’m there, I’m there, and I’m kind of good at that. I’m built for that. I’m not so good at. How are we going to navigate patiently helping Eden figure out whether she can push herself a little bit here and do this or that, where Carrie has just laid down her life, she laughs with Eden and spends time with Eden and just she, she has, I’ve seen because she loves her, I mean, but there’s a sacrificial sort of love that I’ve seen in her that has just taught me so much about about Jesus. But her grief is different than mine and she I need to not be a self righteous, prideful fool who thinks, Well, if you if you’re not responding the same way in the same pace that I am, yeah, that you’re not getting it. And I just think there’s, there could be a temptation sometimes for pastors to to be too much of a pastor and not a not a husband. And you just remember your your first a Christian, then a husband, if you have a wife, and then a father, and then a member of a church, and then you’re a pastor. I just think that that’s got to all stay in order. You get weird, and you can hurt people, including your wife, so and you listen and you learn, because you’re gonna learn stuff from her. I mean, I’ve, yeah, I’m, I’ve been big on God’s sovereign. He’s in control. He’s ruling, and that’s totally true, but she has been so helpful to show me, Yeah, but he’s also sympathetic, like he’s the shepherd in the valley of the shadow of death, when Jesus on the earth, He wept at the at the tomb of Lazarus, like he’s, he’s, he’s sovereign, but he’s also sympathetic. And she has really treasured that nearness, even when she’s like, God, why are you being cruel like she does, it humbly and trying to hold on to hope in a way that is just marvelous to me. So I think we want to be be patient with our wives, because we are under construction, and so are they, and we’re not the same, and that’s okay. So I think some freedom there. And then I think thirdly, I would just say, be willing to be ministered to by fellow elders and not feel guilty about that. Be willing to be ministered to by fellow members of the church and not feel guilty about that. We have been loved embarrassingly, just the amount has been been been wild, you know. But those, I mean, those brothers and their wives and the families that the church have have come alongside. And I think sometimes you be like, Oh, we’re. Okay. We’re okay. We don’t need anything. That’s just not true. You’re not okay, right? You’re You’re a stinking mess. Your whole life’s a mess. And just let, let God love you through his people right now. And don’t be, don’t be prideful about it. And if you do have a congregation that’s not responding, well, that’s that is very hard. But find someone who you can reach out to and just say, I don’t know how to make it through this. Can you just help me and call in some some reinforcements?

Matt Smethurst

That’s good. You mentioned how He’s sovereign. Got a sovereign and sympathetic, and if he were only sovereign but not sympathetic, that would be terrifying. I think of Lamentations three, where it says in verses 31 and 33 for the Lord will not cast off forever, but though he caused grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love. And then this really interesting phrase, for he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men. I think the Christian Standard Bible translates it as he does not enjoy afflicting us. And so it’s this idea that he is sovereign. He does cause grief. He’s ultimately behind all the hardest things in the universe, which, if you think about it, I mean, what are the alternatives? Either, if he’s not in charge, it’s either Satan is in charge, or it’s you who are in charge,

Garrett Kell

or just chance, or just chance, like, yeah.

Matt Smethurst

So we want a god. You know, John Piper has said, God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them, but I love how this verse, it’s like, it’s like the author of limitations is going out of his way to say, Yeah, but that that grief is not, he’s not playing a cosmic game with you. He’s not delighting in in bringing that he remembers

Ligon Duncan

we are dust,

Garrett Kell

yeah, which I will say the strangest thing through this for me, you would think the world wouldn’t understand this, but if you ask me what I’ve learned about God through this, I would say he’s good through all of this suffering. And I just wanna be really clear, our suffering has been hard for us. There’s other people who are going through things that are far harder, you know, but whatever your suffering is, it’s hard for you and embrace that. But you would, it would just, it’s so the opposite of what you would expect to produce, right? But I’ve seen his goodness like he’s he’s good. It’s good that he allows ordains, uses all of whatever words, all of it, like he’s good in it. He’s a father who loves his children. And that has been so enriching for me. And I just want to say it’s okay if that’s not where you arrive at immediately. There’s lots of questions. I don’t think that was the fruit initially of what I was feeling,

Matt Smethurst

nor is it necessarily what you’ll feel tomorrow. No, in other words, it’s

Garrett Kell

in this season ups and downs that’s that’s that, yeah, I’ve been very unstable and unreliable and all those kind of stuff, but he’s held us fast and for that, man,

Matt Smethurst

yeah, Johnny Ericsson, tada, who, you know, became a paraplegic at the age of 18 from a diving accident, and has had such a fruitful ministry of testifying to the Lord’s sustaining grace in her pain, not just through the paralysis, but through all kinds of chronic pain. I believe she has said that God sometimes permits what he hates to accomplish what he loves, and we can’t always in the here and now see the other side of that, see the thing that he loves to accomplish, but he’s doing it. He’s accomplishing it, and the day is coming when we will be able to see all that he’s done in us and for us, for His glory and our eternal happiness. Like do you want to just close with with a word of encouragement, any pastors who might be going through a time of suffering, and would you also just say a prayer?

Ligon Duncan

Yeah, it could be so glib to offer generic encouragement in that situation. And I am hearing Garrett thinking about Jay, thinking about some of our other friends that have gone through trials in ministry, I am reminded that Job’s friends often told him things that were true but untimely. And I do think Be careful when when you offer words of encouragement that are untimely, we can say things true to our friends that are suffering, that are not actually the right thing to say to them in that moment. And. You really need to know someone well to offer the best encouragement. But I will say to pastors again, so many of the very best pastors I’ve ever known have had deep and profound heartbreaks and really difficult situations with family life, with health, etc, and I have seen their trust in the Lord blessed and increased, and it’s and it’s testified to the reality of Christ to me. And so I’m grateful, and so I’ll be praying for those of you that are suffering, that you will be able to believe what you preach, that you will be able to believe the scriptures, that you do believe, that you will be able to trust in the Lord when all the lights go out, and that even when you don’t know what God is doing and you don’t understand His timing, that you will be able to wait, that he will hold you fast, and that you will be able to trust and that the Lord will use that in your life and the life of your family and the life of your congregations. Let me pray for everyone now, Heavenly Father, thank You for Garrett and his willing to just talk to us about what’s been going on in his life, in the life of the family. And we know there are so many faithful servants of the Lord that are experiencing these kinds of challenges and more in their lives. And it reminds us, Lord, You are God. We are not. You are sovereign. We are not your ways. Are not our ways. So much of the time we don’t even know what you’re doing, but we do want we do want to love you. We do want to believe that you’re good. We do want to trust in your providence. We do want to continue to minister to our people, even in our pain, our heartbreak and the suffering our families and Lord, sometimes it’s harder to watch our family suffer than it is to go through suffering ourselves. And so in all of these things, help us to believe the gospel that we proclaim, help us to believe the Bible that we preach. Help us to trust the Savior who saved us out of sin and condemnation. You have been good to us at the cost of your own son, Heavenly Father, how can we possibly believe that you will withhold what we need so in the needs of your suffering servants show yourself to be sufficient. We ask this in Jesus name, Amen, amen, amen.

Matt Smethurst

Thank you for listening to this episode of the everyday pastor. We hope it’s been an encouragement to you, whether you’re walking through suffering now or whether you’re just preparing for it in a fallen world. Please do share this episode with any brother in ministry you know that is going through a difficult time so that they can find fresh perspective and hope and joy in the work of ministry.