For many children, the death of a beloved pet is the very first time the 'Great Dark Unknown' enters their world. It is the first time they experience the heavy, confusing weight of grief. And in that moment, they don't just need a dad who can dig a hole in the backyard; they need a Spiritual Shepherd who can answer the hardest 'Why' they’ve ever asked.

Dads often feel ill-equipped for this conversation. We want to be 'tough,' or we offer clichés like 'He’s in a better place,' without really knowing how to explain God’s heart for the creatures He made. But the Bible tells us that not a single sparrow falls to the ground apart from the Father’s notice. If God cares for the sparrow, how much more does He care for the animal that taught your child how to love and be loved? I brought a dad to join me remotely who has been in the trenches with pet loss and has written a book of wisdom to share with us.

Paul Granger, author of Missing Chloe has spent deep time navigating these waters, helping parents move past the awkward silence and into the sacred unknown. He’s here to show us how to use the loss of a pet as a foundation for a child’s faith—teaching them that God is a God of detail, a God of compassion, and a God who restores.

To purchase Missing Chloe or to connect, visit: https://www.wheredidyouseegod.com/books

To be a guest on The Fatherhood Challenge visit: https://podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/thefatherhoodchallenge

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00:07.06

Jonathan Guerrero

As a sentinel, you spend your life guarding the perimeter. You protect your children from physical harm, digital threats, and moral decay. But there is one breach that no offense can stop.

00:18.26

Jonathan Guerrero

And it usually arrives on four paws. For many children, the death of a beloved pet is a very is the very first time the great dark unknown enters their world. It is the first time they experience the heavy, confusing weight of grief.

00:33.69

Jonathan Guerrero

And in that moment, they don't just need a dad who can dig a hole in the backyard. They need a spiritual shepherd who can answer the hardest why that they've ever asked.

00:44.80

Jonathan Guerrero

Dads often feel ill-equipped for this connect for this conversation. We want to be tough. or offer our cliches like, he's in a better place, without really actually knowing how to explain God's heart for the creatures that he made.

00:51.81

Paul Granger

you

00:59.67

Jonathan Guerrero

But the Bible tells us that not a single sparrow falls to the ground, apart from the Father's notice. If God cares for the sparrow, how much more does he care for the animal that taught your child how to love and be loved?

01:16.34

Jonathan Guerrero

I brought a dad to join me remotely who has been in the trenches with Pet Loss and has written a book of wisdom to share with us in just a moment. So don't go anywhere.

02:08.74

Jonathan Guerrero

Greetings! Greetings, everyone! Thank you so much for joining me. My son and co-host Isaac is on a trip, so it's just me today in the studio with my remote guest, Paul Granger. He's the author of Missing Chloe.

02:22.65

Jonathan Guerrero

Paul has spent deep time navigating these waters, helping parents move past the awkward silence and into the sacred unknown. He's here to show us how to use the loss of a pet as a foundation for a child's faith, teaching them that God is a great God of detail, a God of compassion, and a God who restores. Paul, welcome to the Fatherhood Challenge.

02:46.84

Paul Granger

It's great to be here. I'm excited for our conversation.

02:50.81

Jonathan Guerrero

Yeah, me too. Let's start with my favorite one. What is your favorite dad joke?

02:56.39

Paul Granger

Oh, man. You know what? One of my big frustrations in life is I'll hear a fantastic dad joke, and then I will forget it. And then I was trying to think of one, and then I couldn't because i am exhausted today.

03:04.91

Jonathan Guerrero

Thank you.

03:09.70

Paul Granger

So then I got online, and I found a few good ones. But this one I had never heard before, and it's... You know, i got I got to tell you, Jonathan, I don't know if you realized, but I got fired from my job and all I did was give up my seat to a blind lady on the bus.

03:27.78

Paul Granger

Anyways, that's why I'm not a bus driver anymore.

03:34.14

Jonathan Guerrero

Oh, wow. That one is a good one.

03:39.63

Paul Granger

there's some good dad jokes out there.

03:41.85

Jonathan Guerrero

i like it.

03:47.00

Jonathan Guerrero

Well, I just I wanted to start off with a dad joke because we're about to enter a really serious topic. That's really not a whole lot of fun to talk about, but I think really, really essential.

03:54.39

Paul Granger

Thank you.

03:57.39

Jonathan Guerrero

And if you've been a dad long enough, you're going to cross these dark waters and And it's great to have that topic now before you have to cross that again. So, Paul, you point to the fact that God notices every sparrow.

04:08.31

Paul Granger

well yeah

04:12.76

Jonathan Guerrero

For a child who's devastated, how do we explain that the the pet's life wasn't just a biological accident, but an intentional gift from a creator who cares about details?

04:25.24

Paul Granger

Yeah, you know, it's interesting when you lose a pet, whether they pass away or they get lost. It's interesting when you talk to someone who has never had a pet because to them, oftentimes, it's just an animal.

04:40.66

Paul Granger

um But when you talk to someone who has had a pet, you know that there is something deeper that can happen in that space. and And it's you know really funny, those people who have never had pets, they may actually have ah some kind of a priceless souvenir or something you know from their childhood that if it was ever lost in a fire, they would be crushed.

05:04.44

Paul Granger

How much more so a living thing that can provide you comfort when you are sad or joy when you need a good laugh. And And so when I think about the the pets in my life, I could see moments where God has allowed there to be spaces for him to use what could seem like to others is just an animal to bring those moments of comfort, to bring those moments of joy. and And definitely our most recent pet, Chloe, was that for everybody in the family. You know, my daughter,

05:41.21

Paul Granger

would sometimes call Chloe her sister because as she was processing hard things that were happening at school, she would do so with Chloe, just sit in her lap and have a conversation that someone looking on could think it was a one-sided conversation. But my daughter knew that it was an ah important way of expressing herself, processing hard emotions. But even for me, you know being decades older than her,

06:06.58

Paul Granger

there were times i would come home and feel deep stress from so many things that I was carrying. And Chloe, I don't know if she just knew, but she would come up to me and, you know, reach her front paws up for me to pick her up. And I'd drape her over my shoulder.

06:24.02

Paul Granger

And, and it was such a simple thing, but ah you know, lovely, one of the love languages is physical touch, you know, being able to ah feel the closeness of that, of her and, the warmth and the softness of the fur, i came to realize that was one of the ways that God wanted to provide comfort. And so, you know, to some people, pets are just an animal, but to others, they realize it is one of the many creative ways that God chooses to express his love. I mean, we can sense the same kind of thing through a sunset or a cool breeze. You know, there's things in nature, the rustling of leaves that we wouldn't hesitate to say, oh, wow, God is in that. So

07:05.05

Paul Granger

How much more so in a living thing that can breathe and think and make decisions?

07:13.18

Jonathan Guerrero

So the here's the tough question. What happened to Chloe that started the whole story, that started the book?

07:21.08

Paul Granger

Yeah, you know, Chloe was getting old. We had had her for 15 years. She was 16 years old. You know, cats can live into their 20s, but she was starting to show signs of of aging. And so there had been many scares where we're like, oh no, is something wrong with her? One time she had gotten fleas and she had never gotten them before. And she was acting in strange ways. And we're like, is this the end? And so we had prepared ourselves for her to to pass.

07:51.90

Paul Granger

um So what happened crushed us so deeply because we had prepared for her passing, but not for her disappearing.

08:02.84

Paul Granger

And it was just one of those days where it was series of events that led to her seeing an open door, getting curious, walking out. And we live in the city, so walking out to the sidewalk is not a small deal.

08:21.69

Paul Granger

It was also just a series of events that led us to be away from the house. We left the house that night, didn't come back until over 24 hours later, which was just enough time for her to really disappear.

08:33.17

Paul Granger

And so though we were ready for her to pass away, her disappearing crushed us because we were left with so many unanswered questions.

08:45.05

Paul Granger

Was she still alive or was she dead? Was she near or was she far? Was she out in the wild and suffering in the elements or did somebody take her in? Would that person call us if they took her in?

09:00.05

Paul Granger

All these questions without answers, which then left us with no idea how to respond. And this became a challenge within our family because different family members wanted to respond in different ways.

09:14.14

Paul Granger

Complete opposite end of the spectrum. I had one child who had determined from the start, I will never give up on Chloe. I will never stop looking for Chloe.

09:24.73

Paul Granger

I will never lose hope. She is going to come back. I believe God is going to bring her back. And another family member who said, i can't carry the weight of this. i it is It would actually bring me more peace to lean into the idea that she was getting old, her health was declining, and maybe it was actually a loving act to us that she chose till to go and pass away from us so that we didn't have to experience seeing her dead and everything in between.

09:59.54

Paul Granger

And i as a father and a husband, wanted to position myself to be there for each of my family members. But when they are in wildly different places, I find myself struggling with knowing what to do.

10:15.10

Paul Granger

But I knew for the very at the very least, for the children who weren't ready to move on, I needed to be ready to stand in that gap. So that meant miles and miles and miles of walking through our community. That meant A lot of prayer, a lot of really hard conversations with God, frustrating conversations with God. God, would why would you do this to us in this way? Why couldn't she just pass so we could bury her and have some closure? Why are we left with this unknown, this open-ended pain?

10:48.34

Paul Granger

And days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, And there are moments where i I began to struggle with what does it mean to even hold hope? What do i hold hope in?

11:00.38

Paul Granger

At one point, we had someone else who had been looking for their pet for a year, who God brought us together in a very clearly God way. She was so touched by our family for some reason that she ended up starting a GoFundMe to get us a pet tracker.

11:16.63

Paul Granger

And she's like, I've never done anything like this. I've never you know raised money for someone else looking for their pet while i'm looking for my own. But I felt like God's doing something. And so, you know, hope started to bolster again. What if this is the way that God's going to do it? What if this is going to be a miracle? And miraculously, the money was raised and the pet tracker arrived and the dog seemed to find a scent and went places that I had never walked. And, you know, we're hoping maybe we'll see her on this walk. But if not, we we know where she is now, right? We know she's at least been alive within the last week. And so you can imagine how crushed I was when days turned into weeks.

11:54.42

Paul Granger

and weeks turn into months. And we never even got ah call from our posters up on the the light post until months in. And so it for us, this was the the real challenge. It was a pet that had been with us for 15 years, that my kids had never known a life without her, that for me had been a source of of deep comfort And not only was she gone, but there was no clarity around whether she was alive or dead, near or far, safe or at risk.

12:26.62

Paul Granger

And man, oh man, conversations with God when wrestling with that can be a difficult thing. And yet, Scripture invites me to believe that He is God and good, that He is powerful and loving. So it's been a journey, man.

12:44.02

Paul Granger

It has been a journey, not just for me individually, but then for me as a father to know how to process this with my kids.

12:53.21

Jonathan Guerrero

If the question every dad, it's the question every dad dreads because we don't want to lie, but we don't want to crush hope either. How do you answer this using the missing Chloe framework in a way that is both biblically honest and deeply comforting?

13:09.37

Paul Granger

Yeah. So I came to realize that my family was probably going to remain in very different places for the for probably a long time.

13:21.72

Paul Granger

And yet, if we didn't do something to come together and find some way to heal as a family unit, we might fall into isolation. We might even get mad at another because, you know, I'm ready to move on and this person's trying to let go and vice versa.

13:39.86

Paul Granger

And so my wife and I were walking one day looking for Chloe and we started a joke to use humor to kind of bring some joy to our hearts. And we started telling stories of what Chloe might be doing.

13:53.34

Paul Granger

You know, did she come across this roving gang of street cats and, you know, get to know them and suddenly go on these big adventures and And I felt like God started to bring this idea to our mind of, you know, we don't know what happened to Chloe, but what could it be like to imagine um positive stories of what her adventures could be? What could it look like to use that to allow each of our family members from the oldest to the youngest to process what they're experiencing? And so... I've been self-publishing books for a few years now, and I realized this could be a fantastic medium to not just allow our family to process and to not so just create a keepsake for us, but to possibly come alongside other families who are in this space, who are wrestling with the loss of a pet and don't know what to do. And so what we did is we got together and I said to my kids and my wife, you don't have to do this, but if you would like,

14:52.50

Paul Granger

I want to invite you to create a story, to explore um a possible scenario of what adventure Chloe might have gone on. And to bring it to life in whatever way you want.

15:05.94

Paul Granger

In pictures, in written form, in comic form. And then I released them to it. And it was really beautiful to see how each of the family members not only wanted to engage it, but found their own sense of peace and joy in that process.

15:22.62

Paul Granger

My two youngest ones did comics. My oldest created a very short chapter book format. My wife wrote a letter as though it was from Chloe.

15:35.22

Paul Granger

And I did a children's book with images. And our stories ranged from Chloe coming back home to Chloe finding a new life.

15:48.38

Paul Granger

to Chloe realizing the end was coming close and she wanted to do a loving act for our family and pass in a way that our family wouldn't experience the pain. So this book captured the gamut of stories that could have happened to Chloe.

16:05.37

Paul Granger

And I packaged it together and i self-published it on Amazon. And then we got the book in the mail and we sat together as a family and we we processed it.

16:11.69

Jonathan Guerrero

Thank you.

16:17.37

Paul Granger

And what's been really encouraging to me is that act itself of using creativity, creativity by the way that God the creator gave us, using creativity to process hard, not just hard emotions, but unanswered questions.

16:33.69

Paul Granger

ah I was encouraged that it didn't stop just at that process, that now we are holding something physical that anytime we felt sad, or angry or confused, we could pull it out. And my youngest has probably done that the most. He'll feel the depth of the emotion. And I'll just see him curled up in Chloe's old little kit kitty house and sitting on the floor with his stuffed orange tabby a toy. And he's reading the book.

17:01.29

Paul Granger

It's been a way for him to process these ongoing hard emotions. And You know, for us, because there isn't that closure yet, and there may never be, this may be an ongoing journey. But then not just using creativity, but doing so as a family unit did something special for us, even though we were in different places.

17:22.97

Paul Granger

It brought us together and helped us to find some healing in the midst of the hardships.

17:29.82

Jonathan Guerrero

While I'm hearing everything that you're saying, I'm noticing an undertone that is very common throughout the entire experience that you've shared.

17:40.50

Jonathan Guerrero

And that is that what you've done with your family is you have invited a very safe, loving environment for each of your family members to open up and express their grief in very, very unique ways and to be able to discuss how they feel about everything and their thoughts.

18:00.02

Jonathan Guerrero

And I think that's really, really cool.

18:03.35

Paul Granger

Yeah, you know I think one of the hard things about us humans is we really don't like sadness. We don't like discomfort. We don't like anger. We don't like hard emotions. We don't like them within on ourselves, but we really don't like them within others because we can't control that.

18:19.96

Paul Granger

But we still try. What we try to do is give these quick answers, these quick platitudes. We try to do anything we can to get the person to not be sad or to not be mad or to not be fill in the negative emotion blanks.

18:33.75

Paul Granger

And when we do that, we're we're really doing a disservice. We're really failing to love others well, because sometimes it's not about finding the answer, but being able to be fully honest. And so, yeah, what you described, that's something that my wife and I have been learning throughout the lives of our kids.

18:52.44

Paul Granger

These moments where we're being invited to create space rather than to give answers, to create connection rather than to give solutions.

19:04.09

Paul Granger

And when it is something like this, where there isn't a clear answer, um the reality is is platitudes can actually do way more harm than good. When my wife and I experienced miscarriages, I can't tell you how often somebody tried to give a well-meaning platitude that really hurt us or tried to say, this is definitively what God's going to do when we knew that that might not be what God would do But what meant so much to us is when people met us in that space.

19:33.94

Paul Granger

And you know my wife and I were going through miscarriage, but that our kids and i it's it's the same type of pain, that pain of loss, that pain of injustice, of and unfairness, of lost dreams and opportunities.

19:48.65

Paul Granger

They're experiencing it on a smaller scale, but for their little bodies and little hearts and little minds, it's huge. It's huge. But man, if we can cultivate healthy connection in these kinds of moments,

20:01.46

Paul Granger

then we're actually preparing them for the inevitable hardship that lies ahead. And Jesus says, in this life, you'll have trouble. They're going to face more heartbreak. We, as parents, want to instill in them an understanding of who we can be in that space. Not people who run from pain or try to cover it over or try to ignore it, but are honest.

20:24.36

Paul Granger

But are honest about what's going on while being open to who God is in the midst, even if he seems distant.

20:33.27

Jonathan Guerrero

When I think about the purpose of pets, it makes me wonder, why do you think God uses animals to teach our children the mechanics of unconditional love? And how does that love point them towards the character of the father?

20:48.76

Paul Granger

Yeah, i you know, it makes me think about how Jesus confronted a lot of adults one day when they were trying to get the children away from him. And he's like, well, let let the children come to me. And then he pushes it further and says, unless you become like little children. And what Jesus recognized is the children came to him with this openness, with this awe and wonder that the adults had lost.

21:16.54

Paul Granger

you know The adults had gotten skeptical. The adults had gotten restricted. The law adults had this limited ah understanding of what was possible. And so in that same way, just as the adults needed to be confronted by the innocence of children, you know children are given this opportunity to process how things function by the innocence and simplicity of pets.

21:41.50

Paul Granger

That, you know, there's, the pet's not gonna throw bad theology at them. The pets aren't going to, you know, talk back to them and argue with them. You know, the pets are gonna exist and the pets are gonna purr and they're gonna snuggle and they're gonna play.

21:57.66

Paul Granger

And so it gives kids a safe space to learn relational interaction, but to also, navigate these hard questions. When the cat hissed at my kids, for example, they had to sit with, oh, I just did something that made Chloe not happy.

22:16.92

Paul Granger

I love Chloe. But Chloe is not happy right now. So what did I do? They begin to process their actions in a safe space. um And the same thing if Chloe responds well, oh, what did I do here that allowed this positive reaction? And these small social skills, right, ah are being built up so that when they interact with their peers, when they interact with parents, they can apply those. But just as I shared about with my daughter, you know, she she was struggling to know how to

22:48.38

Paul Granger

process these hard emotions. And part of the challenge was her her friends were a part of the problem. The people that she wanted to process with, she couldn't. And our our cat, this little furry orange creature,

23:05.43

Paul Granger

became a sounding board for her, a safe space to work through things. And so, you know, i think God in his creativity knows what we need um and he knows how to reach us. And as I noted before, it could be through something as simple as a breeze or a sunset, but he also knows that he can use living things to reach us in deep, powerful ways. Because oftentimes with a pet, we've let our guard down.

23:32.09

Paul Granger

We are our most vulnerable and most trusting. We are in a state that we might not be with other people, but with the pet, we are open. And sometimes God uses that to reach to the innermost parts of us and help us to be true and real to who we are in that moment.

23:53.02

Jonathan Guerrero

This next one is a tough one for me, a very personal one for me that I've struggled with. Dads often feel that they have to be stone-faced and strong. Why is it actually more durable for a father to let his kids see his own sadness when a pet passes away?

24:09.69

Paul Granger

Yeah. You know, there are times where it can be valuable to be strong. But I think the question we have to ask is, why are we doing that? And if we're honest, sometimes we're being stone faced and strong is because we don't want to look weak or we don't want to invite questions or we don't want to lean into our weakness. We're trying to avoid it Or, like I noted before, sometimes we don't want our kids to be sad or weak or insert whatever negative emotion into the blank. And so we get produced this strength as a way to avoid um hardship within us or within others or within the situation.

24:54.23

Paul Granger

And I wrestle with this that first night because we knew she was gone and we had searched the whole house, whole yard. And it was clear to me that she was she was lost. And we had walked around it and we suddenly realized there's nothing we can do. And it was getting so late that i was like, there's nothing more our kids can do. My wife was out of town.

25:10.65

Paul Granger

And so i said, look, kids, we've we've done our due lit diligence. We've searched. Let's go and sit by, I'll start a fire pit and let's just be together for a little bit and breathe.

25:23.93

Paul Granger

And I was trying to be strong for them because I knew they were sad. But at one point, man, it hit me like I could not hold it back as I was sharing with them. For me, it was sharing the that how much the unknowns were hurting me. And I just started weeping.

25:42.49

Paul Granger

And let me tell you, that is probably one of the most beautiful moments that's happened in my fatherhood because my kids got up and came around me. My sweet daughter got behind me and wrapped her arms around me. My youngest sat in my lap and we all just kind of wept together.

25:59.61

Paul Granger

And it gave them an opportunity to see, they were able to see my strength and and there was strength that I was conveying that was healthy and was true.

26:11.26

Paul Granger

But in seeing my vulnerability, they were able to recognize that it's okay to be sad. It's okay to have questions. It's okay to even be frustrated and to have hard conversations with God.

26:23.83

Paul Granger

um Because what they also saw in that is that I stayed at the table. I stayed at the table with them and I stayed at the table with God. And so they were able to see what it can look like to be feel strong emotions and to have so many unanswered questions, but to not give up.

26:42.58

Paul Granger

And then they witnessed who I was after that moment of weeping, that I did continue to walk, that I did continue to stay with them, that I you know created this book project with them.

26:55.61

Paul Granger

And so I think we've got to be, if we convey something that is not honest to our children, at some point that's going to have ramifications. You know, we want to be wise with what we convey and how we convey it, but any form of deception, even if it's well-meaning, is going to have reverberations.

27:14.33

Paul Granger

And so... You know, I would encourage fathers out there to be prayerful and mindful around the choices we make, but also to be open that if God invites us to convey something that we don't want to convey, that's going to make us maybe look weak, ah to be willing to do that. Because in that moment, we can actually demonstrate verses like, in my weakness, he is strong.

27:37.94

Paul Granger

That I can convey to my kids that it doesn't all fall to me, that i even I am relying on a loving God to carry me through.

27:47.96

Jonathan Guerrero

Is there a tactical value in the backyard ceremony? How can a father lead a simple service that honors the animal and provides the child with a sense of holy closure?

27:58.55

Paul Granger

Yeah. You know, like i shared, that's one of the sadnesses for me is that I, I had always put it in my mind of what it would look like when Chloe passed. My mom and stepdad have a little pet cemetery on their property that several of the family pets, ah their family pets have gone to and my brother's pets have gone to. And I had always thought Chloe would go there. And ah even when she was lost in,

28:26.39

Paul Granger

We thought that she had probably hadn't made it. We even thought of doing a a ceremony and we have not yet been able to do that because couple of our kids aren't ready to say goodbye yet.

28:38.97

Jonathan Guerrero

Bye.

28:39.96

Paul Granger

And so it creates this hard space of what does closure look like and, And so what we did is we had a memorial service that wasn't saying goodbye, unless that's what somebody needed and they personally wanted it to be that.

28:57.75

Paul Granger

But for us to be able to share stories together, to share memories, to share heart emotions. You know, created a photo slideshow and we just sat there and watched together and there were plenty of tears.

29:12.06

Paul Granger

um But I think in those spaces, it's it's an opportunity for us to not just be honest about what's happened, but to be clear about who we want to be moving forward.

29:27.10

Paul Granger

And so in the moments where there can be closure, a service like that can be a space to say, I am not happy with God that he allowed this to happen, but I want to believe that God is still loving and still powerful.

29:44.82

Paul Granger

And so I'm going to choose to move forward trusting him even as we have to say goodbye today to this love beloved pet, right? um You know, I think when we're not, sometimes we get so focused on the here and now that we're not honest about the past and we're not realistic about the future.

30:03.00

Paul Granger

And I think scripture makes it clear that we're called to have a mindfulness in all those directions. There's plenty of scriptures that talk about remembering who God was, remembering what happened.

30:15.56

Paul Granger

There's plenty of scripture that talks about the here and now, but so much of scripture also points of what's to come. Prophetic voices, revelation, things that Jesus said. And so we're invited to operate in this very strange space as humans.

30:29.85

Paul Granger

that we are experiencing the here and now, but the past and the future matter. And for those of us who are believers, understanding who God is in those three spaces is incredibly important because it is so easy to dismiss him in all three of those spaces.

30:45.62

Paul Granger

This bad thing happened, so God wasn't there in the past. This bad thing is happening now, and so God's not with me now. I don't know that God's going to be with me in the future. Like, Those moments, like a service like you just described, become a a a an actual point in time where we can be honest about who God was, where he was in those past moments, who he is today and who he is going to be.

31:09.43

Paul Granger

And as parents, we can guide our kids in a healthy way to be honest about our feelings about God while also leaning into what it means to have faith.

31:20.92

Jonathan Guerrero

As we close, for the dad whose family just lost a pet and the house feels empty tonight, what is one specific thing that he can say to his kids before they go to sleep to anchor their hearts in God's love?

31:37.34

Paul Granger

Oh, man. You know, I think what immediately comes to my mind is sometimes it's not even about what you say, but what you do. And it might just be being physically with them and holding them if they want to be held, sitting next to them if they don't want to be touched at the moment, but but learning how to connect in that moment.

32:01.98

Paul Granger

Because I'm thinking of times where I have been in such a hard place and I just wanted God to give me answers. And instead it seemed he gave me silence.

32:13.75

Paul Granger

But then later on, I was able to look back and realize that what he was actually doing was being with me. I struggled to see it in that moment because I was wanting the answers. I was wanting the explanation, but he was there with me in very real ways.

32:29.34

Paul Granger

And you know for the parents out there, this is an opportunity to exhibit that to our kids, to not try to answer all the questions, to not try to get rid of all the hard emotions, but to simply say, I'm here, and then to be there, to be there for as long as is needed.

32:49.53

Paul Granger

And so that's what I would encourage, that moment with my kids all curled up together. ah had so much more value than any of the times where they wanted answers or I tried to give answers, that actual genuine connection is and not just a beautiful thing, but is incredibly powerful and is vital to our families.

33:12.12

Jonathan Guerrero

We've had a deep conversation with Paul Granger about the squeamish topic, about a squeamish topic, and the takeaway is a beautiful reminder for every father. You are the bridge between your child's pain and God's peace. The loss of a pet isn't just a sad weekend.

33:29.70

Jonathan Guerrero

It's a mission-critical opportunity to show your child that God sees their hearts and He sees their tears. He values His creation. And he is the ultimate restorer of all things.

33:43.77

Jonathan Guerrero

Tonight, don't just replace the pet. Honor the life. Sit in the sadness with your kids. Answer their questions with the character of God and show them that being a man means having a heart big enough to grieve, and the faith strong enough to hope.

34:03.32

Jonathan Guerrero

A huge thank you to Paul Granger for writing Missing Chloe and helping lead us and our families through the first storm. Paul, where can they find your book?

34:14.97

Paul Granger

Yeah, if you are interested in reading Missing Chloe or connecting with me in any kind of way, if you go to wheredidyouseegod.com, you can find a lot of things. But wheredidyouseegod.com slash books is an easy way to find Missing Chloe. and if Your money's tight. I'm happy to give you a free copy, PDF copy, because I really want to just cultivate space for us to be able to have these hard conversations, to sit in these hard moments.

34:45.66

Paul Granger

So if I can be that for someone, I'm happy to do so.

34:48.92

Jonathan Guerrero

And just to make things easier, if you go to thefatherhoodchallenge.com, that's thefatherhoodchallenge.com. If you go right to this episode and you look right below the episode description, I'm going to have the link posted right there for your convenience. Until next time, stay durable, stay compassionate, and remember that the Great Shepherd is walking with you as you shepherd your own.

35:14.93

Jonathan Guerrero

We'll see you in the next episode.