When Rick Taylor agreed to direct a camp, he and his wife, Judy, expected a delightful time for the family, not the darkest season of their lives. | One April day, Judy agreed to let their three boys ride their tricycles while she ran inside to wrap a birthday present for another child's party. Instead, the 5-, 3- and 2-year-olds left the mobile home and rode their tricycles to a nearby pond.

They decided to walk around the pond, and Eric, the 2-year-old, lost his footing and fell in. "Go get Mom," shouted Kyle, the oldest, as he jumped in to save his youngest brother. "I have to save Eric."

Hearing Bryan's sobs, Judy ran to him. Through hysterical tears Bryan cried, "They're dying in the water."

Judy, eight months pregnant, dashed with her son back to the murky pond. The water was hauntingly still. "Where did they go in the water?" she frantically begged her 3-year-old. He couldn't remember.

After one attempt to wade into the deep water, she pulled herself out and pleaded with God, "Please don't take both of my boys."

Eric surfaced. Judy pulled him out. He was on the verge of death, so she performed CPR on him. At that point she was forced to make a decision: Should she rush Eric to the emergency room, where his chances of living would be far greater, and leave her oldest to a watery grave? Or should she look for Kyle and perhaps lose them both? Instantly she decided to whisk Eric to the hospital.

Eric lived, but his 5-year-old brother died in the pond.

Rick, a pastor, wrestled with God and chose to deal with the loss of his son alone in his head. However, Judy wanted to talk to someone about Kyle and the day he died.

After six months of dealing with a mutual loss mostly without each other, Rick finally came to Judy. "He started talking one day," she says, "and it was like Neosporin in my wound."

They had come close to losing even more than Kyle: Statistically, eight in every 10 couples divorce within two years of the death of a child.

"We made a commitment," Judy says. "We meant it." Now, the couple who has been married more than 30 years—23 of them since Kyle died—support other couples who go through similar tragedies. "We can waste our pain," says Judy, "or be different because of it."

They have chosen the latter. They tell their story at FamilyLife Marriage Conferences, weekend retreats hosted by Campus Crusade for Christ's ministry to families.

The tragic events of that day forced Rick to rethink his core convictions. "My theological training, including my personal study, was so much more theoretical than it is now," says Rick. "Crises like ours truly do reveal your beliefs about the sovereignty of God. They test whether we want to put life in the hands of God or hold onto an illusion of control."

"It's an easy choice to become embittered," Judy says about Kyle's death. "The rest of your life is affected by that choice. But Rick and I have chosen to take this pain and make something good, like Romans 8 says."

"[In Romans 8] the Father promises He will cause all things to work together for good," writes Rick in his book, When Life is Changed Forever. "He is not promising to make our loss 'good.' But He does make it clear that He will arrange and order and design things so that 'good' will come out of our painful, frustrating loss in life."

We may never fully grasp God's good purpose. Likely, His purpose is not simple, but, then again, neither is God.

Neither Rick nor Judy ever expected that they would lose a son. But God knew Kyle would drown that day. It didn't catch Him by surprise. The Psalmist writes: "The Lord has established His throne in the heavens; and His sovereignty rules over all" (Psalm 103:19). Good and bad, He remains in control, fulfilling His purposes for us and for the people around us. But they are His purposes, not ours.

When Kyle first died, Judy admits that she thought she didn't deserve to lose a son, because she had already "paid her dues." She came from an abusive childhood. When she and Rick married, they determined to raise their family God's way, and thought that meant built-in protection from pain.

Judy explains, "We believe that if we do some of those things that we are supposed to do, then God is obligated, in our book, to leave us alone and give [hard times] to somebody else who needs those lessons in life."

But even Jesus was killed undeservedly. As He prepared to face the Cross He confessed to the Father, "Not as I will, but as You will" (Matthew 26:39, New International Version). Jesus came to earth to be crucified on our behalf. This gruesome and seemingly unjust death didn't make sense to the apostles, but God understood. He sent His only son to purchase eternal life for us. God had a greater purpose.

The Taylors miss their son and think about him often. They don't have a good reason for why Kyle died. But they realize that God is indeed in control, and was so even on that horrible April day.

"Missing Kyle has lost its edge over the years in direct proportion to my focus on and trust in the Lord who is my Shepherd," Rick says. "I live now absolutely convinced that the Lord Himself is the only stability in life."

You can reach Jennifer Abegg at jennifer.abegg@ccci.org.