A Friendship Begun
In 2021, Braden, who was fifteen, had endured his first month of one of the harshest forms of chemotherapy a child could receive. The hospital was still in lockdown because of Covid, so we couldn’t have any visitors. Not even our whole family could see Braden on the oncology floor. We were isolated and alone. Our nurses and the families on the floor became our community.
I did my best to foster Braden’s socialization with friends through FaceTime, texts, phone calls, and even Xbox, but over a few short weeks, Braden’s friends slowly lost touch. He had gone from feeling like the most popular guy that everyone was rallying around, to forgotten. It was absolutely gut-wrenching as his friends went on with their lives. I prayed that the Lord would send him one friend to remain constant.
Several days later, Braden was cleared to have a “field trip” to the teen room. At first, he didn’t want to go, but the only other teenager receiving treatment at Children’s Hospital of New Orleans (CHNOLA) was in there playing Fortnite and was hoping they could meet.
Marcus was a charming, dimple-cheeked, charismatic nineteen-year-old who shamelessly flirted with all the nurses. Marcus was determined to make Braden, who was shy, angry, and bitter, his new best friend, and that is exactly what he did. Our time at CHNOLA can best be described like a vacuum: no outside influences, no real-world situations. It was cancer, chemo, side effects, repeat. Who better to understand what you were going through than another teenager trying to survive?
I can’t adequately explain the depth of the relationship Braden and Marcus developed. It was a brotherhood rooted in excruciating loneliness, fear, and diminished dreams, but out of that grew understanding, laughter, hope, and brotherly love.
Marcus had a horrible cancer called Sinonasal Cancer. Over weeks his face became distorted as the cancer slowly started affecting his vision, hearing, and eventually metastasized to his brain. After months of treatment, one of our nurses told me that there was no more that could be done. Braden and I tried to prepare ourselves as best we could.
A Seed Planted
It was January 2022. Braden had been home for a few weeks and had jumped right back into baseball. Christian and I so badly wanted B to be normal that we (in hindsight) pushed him back into life too quickly. B was dealing with survivor’s guilt over leaving the sick kiddos whom we came to love on the fourth floor of CHNOLA, leaving Shelby, Lauren, and Claire—our nurses who had become like family (and still are), and leaving his new best friend, Marcus.
Braden had just wrapped up baseball practice when Marcus’s mom, Michelle, called me, “Brooke, Marcus isn’t going to make it through the night; he is asking for B. How fast can y’all get here?” Although I drove as fast as I could, we didn’t make it in time. Marcus passed away while we were en route. When we arrived, Marcus was surrounded by his family and our beloved nurses. Marcus’s grandmother, Mrs. Opal, said, “I praise God for Braden. He planted a seed weeks ago when he asked Marcus about his faith in God. Since then, Marcus has asked me about the Lord, leading to wonderful conversations, and two days ago, my pastor led him in a prayer of salvation. I know that God brought Marcus and Braden together to use Braden for God’s glory.”
That following week, Braden gave the most heartfelt and Christ-centered eulogy at Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church in Baton Rouge to a packed house. Braden stood next to Michelle as she received family after family. The son I thought I knew—shy, quiet, unsure—had been and was continuing to be molded, not into a stellar athlete, an academic savant, or a résumé-building machine, like so many of us parents dream of, but something so much better: into the likeness of Christ.
Romans 5:3–5 says, “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” I remember the moment I learned the severity of Marcus’s cancer, thinking, I need to protect Braden from this. How can I begin separating him from Marcus? The thought of Braden having to suffer any more than he already had was more pain than this mother was ready to watch her son endure, but—praise God—my attempts failed, Christ was glorified, and souls were won despite my futile efforts. Through Braden’s suffering and pain, God was sanctifying him for the role he would play in Marcus’s life and his family’s.
A Heart for Our Children
As parents we so very often think we know best: if they could just make the team, get this particular teacher, win this accolade, be spared from any hardship, suffering or pain—all will be right. Instead of our parental desires being vertical—our children’s spiritual growth and sanctification, even if that means suffering—our desires become horizontal—putting the burden of our identity, expectations, and hope on our children to carry.
I encourage all of us parents to stop trying to prevent, control, or minimize hardship in our children’s lives—it’s a futile persuit. Instead, let’s come along side them in their suffering. Teach them how to suffer well by helping them lean into their personal relationship with God. Encourage ongoing self-reflection by guiding them with questions like: “What is God teaching me? How am I being sanctified? How can I glorify God through this situation? How can I use this to positively impact others for God’s kingdom?”
Suffering is inevitable in this life, which make it essential that we equip our children to walk through it with faith, purpose, and spiritual maturity. Only Jesus can satisfy a sinful heart that’s searching for hope, worth, peace, and strength in the face of life’s devastation—not us, and not our children. As Jesus declares in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Praise God that because he is sovereign over all, we as parents can rest in the freedom of knowing that when our children suffer—and when they fall—God is at work. He is using every trial to sanctify their hearts and shape them into the likeness of Christ.
What God-fearing parent would want to stand in the way of that?
If you’re looking for resources to disciple your teenager toward Christlikeness, check out Rooted’s 31-day devotional on identity.
