Grieving parents learn lessons about trust from tragedy

LUBBOCK—In the Lubbock-Cooper school district, seniors teach a seminar on a topic of their choosing. Kelsey Vines' turn came Sept. 2, 2008.

"You can lead the class on anything you want to, and she led the class on Matthew 6:34—which I don't think is a coincidence," said her father, Thom Vines. "It says, 'Don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of itself.'"

A few hours later, Kelsey was killed. She was driving home from school when the steering controls on a 48,000-pound dump truck broke and hit the car she was driving.

Kayla, her twin sister, was sitting next to her, but her physical injuries were limited to an ankle and a few scrapes and bruises.

The days that followed were traumatic for all the members of the Vines family, as well as for Kelsey's boyfriend, John Michael Vestal.

Her father turned to Scripture to heal his broken heart and bruised faith.

"As much as anything in the past years and months, it's Proverbs 3:5 that I keep coming back to. We don't know why this happened. We certainly don't like that it happened. But we don't lean on our own understanding. We trust God," Vines said.

That deep-seated trust led Vines and Vestal to write a book, Tragedy and Trust: Can You Still Trust God After Losing a Child?

Vines describes Vestal as "without a doubt the single best human being I've ever met—a deep, deep abiding faith and rock solid."

While he is glad his daughter chose to spend her last 11 months of life in a relationship with such an exemplary young man, Vestal's character also is the source of some pain.

"Kelsey was already a Christian, but we watched her faith flower with him. And what they lost together, could have had together, that's part of the pain," he admitted.

Vestal's spiritual maturity beyond his years served as a steadying influence for Vines after his daughter's death. "After the accident, as much as anybody, he became my spiritual teacher," he said.

Vines wrestled with the question: "Why do you trust God?"

"I thought long and hard about this, and then I suddenly realized the answer was right there in front of me all the time. The reason we trust him is because he loves us," Vines said.

"Why does he love us? Because he created us, and we are his children. Just as I love my children, he loves us on an infinite scale.

"So, I can accept it. I don't understand why this happened —how this was part of his will. But I know he loves us, and therefore, for some reason I do not understand, this is the way it had to be."

Even so, Vines acknowledged he still misses his 18-year-old daughter, even after three years have passed.

"To be sure, there's still human grief. The first thing we think of each morning when we wake up is Kelsey. The last thing we think of at night is Kelsey. Every day I have one or two of what I call 'Kelsey moments.'

"Despite all that, we love our Lord, and that's what keeps us going. And I remind myself every day that I will see her again," he said. "We will always have grief. On this side of the grave, it will never be over, but what awaits us beyond is wonderful.

"The last three years have been the most horrible and most wonderful time of my life.

"The horrible is easily apparent—we lost our child, which for a parent is as bad as it gets. But the growth and the coming to the Lord and the joy we've found in that has been wonderful."

Becky Vines finds solace in knowing her daughter is in the arms of her Heavenly Father. She recalls stories that remind her of her daughter's faith.

One story is of a young man Kelsey offered a Bible to at the end of her junior year in high school.

He refused, but on the second day of school following the summer break, he asked Kelsey if he could still have the Bible.

Days later, he was at the visitation at the funeral home asking her family if they wanted it returned.

"I told him to wear it out," her father said.

Kelsey's parents agreed healing has been a process.

"I know where she is, and that gives me peace. I say, 'I know where you are, and I know you're safe and that I just can't call you on the phone.' And that's the way I have to handle it," her mother said.

For her father, a couple of dates mark his healing. The first is July 22, 2009.

"The accident site had always been the place where Kelsey died. … On July 22, it just popped into my mind, 'That's where Kelsey went to heaven.' Not where she died, but where she went to heaven.

"It took me 10 months, but that was a real turning point—when I was able to look at the place not as a negative, but a positive. I go by that spot nearly every day, and it's still painful, but it's also a place of hope," he said.

The second marker was last fall when he made contact with the driver and the owner of the dump truck to let them know of his forgiveness of them.

Vestal, now 22 and a teacher and coach in the Lubbock-Cooper school district, said the book allowed him to track the spiritual journey and see God's hand in his life.

"It's been cool to see how far God has taken us. It's three years later, and we're still here. God has a plan for our lives, and the plan God had for our lives did not stop. It continues on. The plan God had for our lives did not change at all," he said.

Just as all their lives have continued, her mother said, Kelsey lives on as well.

"People still send her Facebook messages: 'I got baptized today because of you.' Kids go on mission trips and tell her story, so she's still giving testimony for the Lord."

Figuring out why is not something Vines worries about anymore.

"We don't know, but we trust—that's the core of the book, the core of our experience," he said.

The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and an e-book.