When the Unthinkable Happens at Home

When the Unthinkable Happens Finding hope when family bonds are broken and hearts are hurting.

This article will be coming out in the Summerville News on December 18, 2025. Pray that God uses it to help.

***This column addresses difficult realities facing families today. Reader discretion is advised.***

Every so often, the news confronts us with stories that feel almost unreal. Crimes so shocking that our first reaction is disbelief. That has happened this week. Headlines have told of parents killed by their own children—acts that defy our most basic understanding of love, family, and human instinct.

"When the Unthinkable Happens at Home," we are left asking, How could this happen?And perhaps more quietly, What is going wrong in our world?

Scripture does not ignore the darkness of the human heart. In Isaiah 49:15, the Lord speaks of something nearly unimaginable:

“Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget…”

The verse is meant to shock us. A mother forgetting her infant was, in Isaiah’s day, the extreme edge of human breakdown. Yet God acknowledges that even the strongest natural bonds can fracture in a fallen world.

But what about children rising up against their parents? That also feels like a line crossed too far.

The Bible has words for this as well.

In Romans 1, Paul describes a society unraveling after it has “changed the truth of God into a lie.” One of the symptoms he lists is being “without natural affection” (Romans 1:31). That phrase refers to the collapse of God-given family bonds—love that should be instinctive, protective, and sacred. The Scripture also states, “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. ² For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, ³ Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, ⁴ Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; (2 Timothy 3:1–4).

In other words, Scripture teaches us that when God is pushed out of a culture, even the most basic human restraints begin to fail.

This does not excuse sin. It explains it.

We are living in a time when wrong is excused, violence is normalized, authority is mocked, and self is enthroned. Children are increasingly shaped more by screens than by parents, more by outrage than by truth, more by impulse than by conscience. Add untreated mental illness, substance abuse, isolation, and spiritual emptiness—and the results can be catastrophic. We are witnessing it before our very eyes.

Still, we must tread carefully here. This matter must be approached with a tender humility.

Most people who struggle mentally or emotionally do NOT become violent. Most families who experience conflict do NOT end in tragedy. These headlines represent extreme breakdowns, not everyday life. But they are warning signs—like tremors before a larger collapse. We have been increasingly experiencing more and more tremors lately.

They remind us that something deeper is wrong—deeper than politics, economics, or social trends. This is a heart issue.

The Bible says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9). When the heart is untethered from God, there is no limit to how far it can drift.

Yet even here, Scripture does not leave us in despair.

Isaiah 49 does not end with abandonment. After acknowledging that even mothers may forget, God says:

“Yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands” (Isaiah 49:15–16).

Human love can fail. God’s love does not. God still loves and God is still reaching out!

In times like these, the answer is not fear—but return.

Return to God.

Return to truth.

Return to teaching children right from wrong.

Return to listening, not just reacting.

Return to faith, prayer, and community.

And perhaps most importantly, return to compassion—for families who are grieving, for communities that are shaken, and for a world that is deeply broken.

We must come together again to love and support one another.

These tragedies should not make us cynical. They should make us humble. They should make us vigilant. And they should remind us why the gospel still matters so much.

Because when natural affection fails, only supernatural grace can heal what is broken.