Beauty From the Ashes
The rain had never stopped in Kelso—not really. Nestled deep in the mossy hills of the Pacific Northwest, it was a town where the trees whispered secrets and clouds lingered like unspoken grief. For Sarah and Jason, the rain had become more than weather. It was a metaphor. A reflection of what had settled in their marriage since that awful day three years ago.
The day they lost Ava.
She was their second child. Vibrant. Joyful. The peacemaker of the home. One moment she was running through the backyard with a fistful of dandelions, the next she was gone. A rare heart condition no one saw coming.
After the funeral, casseroles came and went. The church pews felt colder. Friends stopped knowing what to say. Jason buried himself in work at the mill. Sarah became a robot of routines: school drop-offs, meals, laundry, homework. Their three other kids needed her—but she had nothing left.
They stopped touching. They stopped laughing. They stopped praying together.
Jason started sleeping on the couch—not out of spite, but because silence felt safer than sharing a bed filled with pain and unshed tears. Sarah didn’t ask him to come back. Some nights, she didn’t even notice he wasn’t there.
Grief has a way of isolating even the most united souls.
But God.
One Sunday morning, almost by accident, Sarah overheard a woman at church whisper about LF3 Love Factor, a Christian counseling and coaching ministry based out of Coeur d’Alene ID, with remote sessions available. The woman’s eyes lit up as she described how her marriage had been rescued through it—how she and her husband had found each other again.
Sarah scribbled it down on the back of a receipt, stuffed it in her Bible, and said nothing for two weeks.
Then, on a Monday night when Jason returned home after missing dinner again, smelling like sawdust and exhaustion, Sarah finally said the words:
“Jason… I think we need help. I don’t want to live like this anymore. We’re surviving, but we’re not living.”
He stared at her, eyes hollow—but something in his heart cracked. He nodded.
They met Matthew Rowe, who does marriage and couples counseling and coaching at LF3, through a video call. He wasn’t what they expected. He wasn’t soft-spoken or overly clinical. He was real. Grounded. He spoke from Scripture but didn’t preach. He asked hard questions.
“What would Ava want for your family? Is this how she would want her parents to live?”
Silence.
Tears.
Over the weeks, Matt walked them back through their grief. He helped them name the pain they never dared say out loud. Jason admitted he blamed himself for not seeing the signs. Sarah admitted she resented God—and Jason—for not being more emotionally available after Ava’s death.
Matt helped them rediscover each other—not as co-parents, not as two people tolerating grief—but as a husband and wife, bound by covenant and still deeply in need of grace.
They started praying again. Not perfect prayers, but honest ones.
They built new traditions with their three kids. Ava’s memory became a cherished part of their story, not the shadow of it. They made space to laugh again. To hold hands. To dream.
Jason moved back into their bed.
Sarah looked at him one night and whispered, “I missed you. I didn’t think I’d ever say that again.”
He kissed her forehead and replied, “Me neither. But look what God is doing.”
Now, two years later, Sarah and Jason host a small group for grieving parents. Their home, once filled with silence, now echoes with laughter, board games, and worship music.
They say their marriage isn’t perfect. But it’s redeemed!
They found their new normal, not by pretending the pain never happened, but by letting God meet them in it. By reaching for help through LF3. By doing the work.
Beauty from ashes – Hope in the rain.
And a deeper heart connection than they ever thought possible.
