Carol Kent allows us to enter her private world which has been turned upside down and inside out. Her one and only son, a 25 year old Lieutenant in the Navy, graduate of the Naval Academy, devout Christian, husband and father, kills a man... his wife's ex-husband. This is not a self-defense situation, not a heat of the moment, not a protecting my family thing... it is willful, premeditated murder. Carol and her husband are overwhelmed with grief for their son and what could have been... for his young family... for the family of the victim... and for themselves and all they have lost. But through it all they cling to God. Are they angry with Him? Yes. Disappointed? Yes. But they live out Job's cry "Though thou slay me, I will yet praise You." And while this story is tragic, God is at work. He does not abandon this family. And we, the readers, have a lot to learn from the Kents. We all have Isaacs in our lives. Theirs was their child. Yours might be a career, a home, a hurt, a dream or many other possibilities. We have to learn to do like Abraham and fully surrender EVERYTHING to the Lord, even our Isaacs. Abraham withheld NOTHING from the Lord, not even his son.
Kent's story will tear at your heart and, if you are a parent, you will feel the need to pray more and in a different way for your kids. It will also encourage and inspire and challenge you to let go of that to which you are clinging... that which you won't fully and completely give to God.
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