Some ideas arrive loudly.
They show up with momentum and excitement and a clear sense of direction — and you know immediately that you are supposed to do something with them.
And then there are the other kind.
The ones that arrive quietly. That settle somewhere deep and stay there. That you cannot fully explain and cannot fully ignore. That come back again and again over months and years until you finally stop pretending you are not supposed to do something about them.
For over fifteen years, God has been nudging me toward this.
Not loudly, but clearly. A quiet, persistent, unmistakable sense that the brokenness I had walked through — and watched the people I loved walk through — was meant to be more than a private grief. That it was meant to become something that could reach forward and offer hope to someone I would never meet.
I could not make that feeling go away.
Believe me — I tried.
The Morning Question
It started with my nephew.
If you have been following along these past few weeks you already know Madison Joy’s story — my niece, born on Christmas morning, gone thirty-five days later. You know what my sister walked through. You know what our family walked through.
If you haven’t read Madison Joy’s full story yet, you can find it here.
Let me bring back the detail that stopped me cold.
In the months after losing Madison Joy, my nephew — two years old, full of that particular toddler energy that has absolutely no interest in slowing down for grief — would wake up every morning and do what he had always done. Pad down the hall. Find his mama. And ask the question that had become part of his morning routine.
“Mommy, is Madison sleeping?”
He asked because he didn’t have other words — he had done it so many times before when Mommy was reminding him to keep his voice down because the baby was resting. He asked out of love and out of hope and out of the beautiful, heartbreaking logic of a two year old mind that had no framework yet for what death meant.
And every single morning — my sister’s heart caught in her chest.
When she told me about those mornings I felt something shift inside me. Not dramatically. Not with a trumpet fanfare. Just quietly and certainly — the way things feel when they are true.
Someone needs to write a book about this.
The Nudge That Wouldn’t Leave
I want to be honest with you about something.
God has been nudging me toward this book for over fifteen years.
Fifteen years of that quiet, persistent tug. Fifteen years of picking it up and putting it down. Fifteen years of “someday” and “when the time is right” and “I’m not sure I’m the right person for this.”
And fifteen years of God quietly, faithfully, persistently disagreeing.
I can only explain it one way — it never went away. Not when life got busy. Not when other things took priority. Not even when my own grief arrived and I wondered whether I had any business writing about something I was still living through myself.
The nudge stayed.
Because I think God knew something I was still learning — that the brokenness was not a disqualifier. It was the qualification. The very thing that made me want to set it down was the thing that made the message worth carrying.
You do not have to have it all figured out to be the right person for something.
You just have to be willing to keep saying yes to the nudge. And that’s how Old to New Creations was born.
You can read the full story of how Old to New Creations got its name here.
Why This Book Needed to Exist
Here is what I discovered when I started looking for resources to help families talk to their young children about death and loss — especially from a faith-based perspective:
There was not much there.
There were books for older children. There were books that addressed loss in vague, gentle terms that avoided the hard questions. There were secular books that offered comfort without Biblical hope. And there were a handful of faith-based titles that came close — but none that spoke directly to toddlers and preschoolers in honest, concrete language that a two year old could actually hold onto.
None that gave parents a real starting place for the conversation — whatever kind of loss had brought them to it. The death of a grandparent. A parent. A sibling. A friend. Anyone a child has loved and lost.
None that gave parents a guide for the questions children actually ask — including the scary ones.
None that validated the full range of a child’s grief response — including the anger, the resistance, the covering of ears and wiggling away — and called it normal.
And none that were written by someone who had sat on their own couch, held their own grieving child, and lived the conversation from the inside.
I had. Twice.
So I wrote the book I wished had existed.
If you are looking for additional resources for grieving families, “The Memory Box” by Joanna Rowland is a beautiful companion title.
“My Sibling Still” by Leah Vis speaks tenderly to families navigating sibling loss.
What Mommy, Is Madison Sleeping? Is
It is the story of a little boy named Owen whose baby sister Madison has died. It is the story of a mother sitting down on the couch morning after morning, taking his little hands in hers, and finding the words — honest, gentle, Biblical words — to answer the question he keeps asking.
But while Owen’s story is specific, the truths his mother speaks are not.
They are for any child who has ever lost someone they loved. Any child trying to make sense of an empty chair at the table. Any child asking why someone they loved isn’t coming back. Any child who needs an honest, loving, faith-rooted answer to the hardest question they have ever asked.
The book addresses the questions children actually ask: What does dead mean? Where did they go? Can they see me? Am I going to die too? Will we ever see them again?
It validates every feeling — the confusion, the sadness, the anger, the fear — and gives each one a name and a place.
It anchors every hard truth in Biblical hope — not vague comfort, not empty reassurance, but the real and certain promises of a God who has never broken one yet.
And it includes a comprehensive guide for parents and caregivers — because grief is not one conversation. It comes back, in new forms, as children grow. And every time it does, you deserve a resource to come back to.
A Book Born From Two Losses
This book carries two names in its heart.
Madison Joy — born on Christmas morning, gone at thirty-five days, whose brief life raised a question in her brother’s heart that took fifteen years to bloom into something that could help other families, too.
And Lucy Grace — my own daughter, delivered still, whose brief and beautiful presence gave me the courage to finally stop saying someday and start saying yes.
If you haven’t ready Lucy Grace’s story yet, you can find it here.
I wrote this book for my nephew — who deserved honest, loving words for the hardest thing his two year old heart had ever held.
I wrote it for my sister — who deserved a resource to come back to every time the question returned in a new form.
I wrote it for my own children — who asked their own questions alongside me and needed truth that was bigger than my grief.
And I wrote it for you — whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever loss has brought you to this page.
Because the nudge was never just about my family.
It was always about yours too.
What Comes Next
The book is currently on its journey toward publication — and I will be the first to let you know when it is ready to be in your hands.
In the meantime — if you are walking through a grief conversation with a young child right now and you need resources, I would love to help. Leave a comment below or reach out directly. And if you are a grief counselor, a child life specialist, a pediatric nurse, or a pastor who works with grieving families — I would especially love to connect with you.
This book exists because a two year old asked a question his mama couldn’t answer alone. This blog and ministry exists, because God wants to walk with each of us to make old things new – Old to New Creations.
And it is going to find its way to every family that needs it.
I am sure of that — because the same God who nudged me for fifteen years is not in the habit of starting things He doesn’t finish.
“Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” — Philippians 1:6
If this resonated with you today — share it with someone who needs it. And if you want to be the first to know when the book is available, subscribe below. This is fifteen years in the making. It is almost time.
In the meantime, if you are walking through grief right now and looking for a tool to anchor your faith, the Old to New journals were designed for you.