Our Testimony: God Carried Us Through the Darkest Nights … and days

Hello Mothers, Brothers and Sisters. If you consistently read our posts, you may have noticed that we stopped posting for a few weeks. We questioned sharing our story partly because it’s not over yet but also to be completely honest the fear of being judged as we have been in this case many, many times since getting our daughter taken into protective custody.

This fight has taken us through the darkest valleys we have ever walked. Not some of the darkest, the darkest. Nights where sleep never came, when our bodies were exhausted but our minds would not quiet down. Nights where we cried ourselves to sleep, holding each other because the pain was too heavy to bear alone and the house felt too empty without her. Nights where we laid in the dark, listening to the clock on the wall and wondering how time could move forward when our lives felt frozen in place. Nights where we opened the Bible again and again, searching, hoping there was a way out, even wondering if there was scripture that could justify giving up, flipping through pages with shaking hands and tear-blurred eyes. Nights when the silence felt unbearable, when the air itself felt heavy, and the tears would not stop, no matter how much we prayed or tried to steady ourselves.

Sometimes we wake up from dreams of holding her, and it feels like she was taken all over again. In those dreams, we can feel the weight of her in our arms, the way her little body fits against us, the way her presence fills a room and makes everything else fade. For a few seconds after we wake up, we reach out as if she is still there, as if we can pull the dream back into reality. And then the truth hits, she is not in the room, and the ache in our hearts tears open all over again. It is a kind of grief that repeats itself, over and over, each time sleep tricks us into believing, even for a moment, that everything is okay.

At every visit she cried and begged to be taken home. Her tears, her emotions, her desperate cries to come back with us, instead of being seen as proof of her love and longing to be with her parents once more were used against us, twisted into evidence that harmed rather than helped. What should have been seen as a child longing for her parents was turned into an accusation. Her pain, which should have broken hearts open to compassion, was treated like a problem to be fixed on paper. We had to watch her suffer and then listen as her suffering was re-written, re-labeled, and used to paint a picture that was not true. That kind of injustice carves deep wounds, not just because it hurt us, but because it misrepresented her heart. Her cries were obvious to us, sacred proof of a bond that should never have been questioned, yet they were handled like weapons in the hands of people who did not understand or didn’t care to understand.

We wrestled with questions no one should have to ask. We wondered if God had forsaken us. We asked why the hurt was so deep, why the nights felt endless, and why it seemed like every door was closing. We questioned why the very places that were supposed to protect felt like they were against us, and why our prayers sometimes seemed to bounce off the ceiling and fall back at our feet.

And even now, we still go through it. We still face the pain, the sleepless nights, the suffering, not because we don’t trust God, but because we know the time lost with our only child can never be replaced. There are moments, days, seasons and now years that were meant to be filled with her laughter, her milestones, her firsts, and we cannot go back and live them again. Time has been stolen from us, and no court, no system, no explanation can give it back. We carry the weight of birthdays missed, holidays altered, ordinary afternoons that should have been spent together. That loss of time is its own kind of grief, a quiet ache that lives beneath everything else, and we bring that ache to God over and over, trusting Him with what we will never fully get to hold on this side of eternity.

Yet even in those moments, God was still there. Not in the way we thought He would be, not by suddenly fixing everything or erasing the pain, but in a steady, quiet way that kept showing up when we were at the end of ourselves. When we could not see a way forward, when our prayers were reduced to groans and whispers, He did not step back. He drew near.

He didn’t show up in thunder or lightning. Instead, He gave us small reminders, a verse at the right time, a word from someone who didn’t know our struggle, a whisper in our spirit that said, “Hold on.” Sometimes it was a scripture we had read a hundred times that suddenly felt like it had been written with our names on it. Sometimes it was a song on the radio at the exact moment we felt like giving up, lyrics that spoke directly to our situation. Sometimes it was a text message or a random call from someone who had no idea what had just happened that day, but they said the exact words we needed to hear. In those moments, we felt seen. We felt known. We felt the gentle hand of God reminding us that He was not blind to our tears or deaf to our cries.

Those reminders were enough to keep us standing. Enough to keep us fighting. Enough to keep us believing that God had not forsaken us. Our faith was tested in ways we never imagined, not in theory, but in the raw, daily choice to keep trusting when nothing made sense when you just dont understand why. We learned there is a difference between questioning God and losing God. We brought Him our anger, our confusion, our “why” and “how could this be” and “where are You in this?” But even in the questions, we never stopped talking to Him. Even when we did not understand His ways, we clung to who we knew He was. Our faith shook, but it did not shatter, because underneath every question was this quiet, strong belief: God is still God, and He is still good.

And in the middle of the pain, God began to speak. He placed a calling on our hearts — not just to survive, but to preach. To testify. To reach others who are walking through the same darkness we walked through. This calling does not erase our grief or make our story easier, but it gives our suffering a holy weight. When we open our mouths to share, we are not speaking from a distance; we are speaking from the middle of the fire, from tear-stained pillows and long nights of prayer. To preach out of this pain means we stand before others with our scars visible, not pretending to have all the answers, but pointing to the One who has held us together when everything else fell apart. To testify means we refuse to let our story be defined only by what was taken; instead, we declare what God has done and is still doing in us. We speak so that others will know they are not alone, and so that hell will know our faith did not die in the dark.

We want our lives to be an altar where this story can lay before God — where others can come and see that even when the nights are long, even when the tears are heavy, even when the suffering feels unbearable, God is still present. God is still faithful. God is still carrying His children.

We still grieve. We still cry. We still feel the ache of lost time with our child. We still walk into moments where we think, “She should be here for this,” and we have to steady ourselves all over again. But our suffering is not a sign of doubt — it is the cost of love. Deep love always carries the risk of deep pain when something is torn away. And God understands that kind of pain. He is not distant from it; He knows what it is to watch His own Son suffer, to feel the weight of loss and separation. Because He understands, we can bring Him the honest, unfiltered version of our hearts and know He will not turn us away.

Through every tear, every sleepless night, every moment of fear, God has held us together. There were days when the weight of it all could have easily pushed us apart, when it would have been simpler to turn our pain against each other. But instead, He drew us closer. He has kept our marriage strong when the world tried to break it. He has woven our broken pieces together in a way that only He can, teaching us to pray together, to weep together, to stand together when the storms rise. He has kept our faith alive when the enemy tried to crush it. He has kept our hope burning when everything around us felt cold, fanning even the smallest spark so it would not go out.

This is our testimony:

We walked through the darkest fire, but God walked with us.

We were broken, but God held the pieces.

We were hurting, but God never let go.

We were lost, but God called us into purpose.

We were pressed on every side, but God did not let us be destroyed.

We were misunderstood and misrepresented, but God knew the truth and kept His hand on us.

And now, we share our story so others will know — you can survive the darkest nights, because God stands in them with you. If you are reading this and you are in your own dark night, know this: you are not forgotten. Your tears are seen. Your questions do not disqualify you from God’s love. The same God who has carried us through the fire is able to carry you. You may not feel Him, you may not understand His timing, you may not see the way out yet — but He is there, even now. Hold on to Him with whatever strength you have left, even if your grip feels weak. He is strong enough to hold you, to keep you, and to bring light back into places that feel permanently dark. You are not walking alone.