Last Thursday evening one of my wife‘s pre-K4 students was tragically killed. On Monday morning Jenni had to inform her students that their little friend would not be coming back to school. Here’s a lightly edited excerpt from a moving letter she sent to parents Monday afternoon.

I just wanted to give you a quick update on this morning and how gracious God was to us and to the children as we discussed KC’s loss.

When the children came into the classroom, rather than having our “leader of the day” pray for the absent children as usual, we asked the children if they knew who was not here today. They all responded, “KC!” because they are always so aware of who is present and who is not. Then I explained to them that I had sad news for them: “KC will not be in our classroom anymore because last week she went to heaven and is with Jesus now.”

I completely expected confusion and sorrow to follow. However, this is exactly how the children responded:

“Wow!”

“KC’s in Heaven? Already?! But she was here last week!”

“So now she’s up with Jesus?”

“Wow!”

The children all shared their excitement about KC being in Heaven with Jesus.

“But are her Mommy and Daddy in Heaven with her, too?”

We responded, “No, they are still here. So we need to pray for them because they will miss her.”

“Then is she all by herself in Heaven?”

We responded that God is taking care of her now. They seemed excited by that thought!

“Are there any children in Heaven?”

We responded by saying that while normally people do not go to heaven until they are much older, some children do go to heaven, and there would be lots of playmates for KC!

“What will she do there?”

The children followed this question by brainstorming things that KC could do in heaven! One child added,

“Did you know it’s not cold in heaven? Here [in Chicago] it’s still snowy and cold, but it’s not snowing in Heaven! KC can go outside and play!”

I was so rebuked by the children’s faith. They were honestly excited that KC had gone to heaven and were delighted at the idea of her being so happy with God. We need grace to view heaven with so much expectation!

The rest of the morning went very smoothly. KC was not mentioned again. If she is, we plan to redirect the conversation to heaven again.

Thank you for your prayers. We could not have made it through the morning without God’s amazing, sovereign grace in the middle of a very tough morning.