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They also see God’s mercy extended to their families just before Chip’s time on earth ended. The weekend before his death, Aaron’s family had come into town and taken Chip on a solo trip to the beach while Lizzy took the girls to get haircuts. “That had never happened before,” Lizzy shares. “They got one-on-one time with him when they normally would have been with all three kids.” Just before Chip stepped into eternity, he spent the day with Lizzy’s side of the family, and she recalls his last day on earth as being one of his best days - spent laughing and playing with cousins. But, even through the blessings, there was so much to process. Aaron, whose father is a minister, was well aware of how easily his job could consume his family time and he wrestled with his absence that weekend. “My guilt was that if I’d said no to preaching - I could have been with my family that weekend. Maybe I’d have been sitting in a different spot and another pair of eyes would have made a difference.” Both Lizzy and Aaron struggled with guilt afterwards - any parent would. But, through counseling, they came to understand that their feelings were wrong. “We’ll probably battle that the rest of our lives,” Aaron reflects. “Paul talks about a thorn in his flesh—this is probably ours—always looking back and saying what could have been done differently.” The next week was a blur of grief and activity as they made arrangements and prepared for the funeral, at which Aaron would preach. But Lizzy knew she could not return to Chip’s bedroom as he’d left it. She asked her niece, Hannah, to pack up his room so she and Aaron could go through Chip’s things when they felt stronger. Their Vancleave church family came to help with their home also—cleaning, doing laundry and yard work, and leaving gifts and notes. “I can’t emphasize enough how good our church was to us. We had only been there about a year when Chip passed, and they treated us like we had grown up in that church our whole lives.” Lizzy remembers another terrible moment of the ordeal - walking into their home for the first time after Chip’s death. He had passed away on a Sunday evening, and when they arrived at their house on Thursday, they were struck by the immense silence. “Chip had such a big personality that the house seemed painfully quiet without him. I know people say things like this and maybe have a tendency to dramatize it but he truly was the center of the room. The house seemed so quiet because he was so loud. And when we walked into his bare bedroom I just remember bursting into tears and looking at Aaron and telling him that I didn’t think I could bear life without my son. At that moment I just didn’t think I had the strength to keep going.” “We had such a desire to minister to the people who came to see us at the visitation and funeral. And we had people just viewing us as these pillars of strength, which was totally untrue. It was a supernatural power from God that let us get through those days,” Aaron recalls. At this point one can sense a shift in the conversation. In an act of will, Aaron and Lizzy look up from these painful memories and focus their sight further ahead. “For a long time,” Lizzy says, “I looked for reasons this might have happened. People would share how they’d been touched or how someone might have been brought to God through it. I wanted to know the impact Chip’s death had made and that was an unhealthy place to be in. I was trying to get comfort from these other people so I could feel better.” Aaron continues, “As we’ve matured in our understanding, the Lord has given us opportunities to use our story to benefit others and I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful this article is going to be written. I’ve been told by people that God has ministered to them through our story, and I’m grateful for that. And if I could take all that good that has come and throw it out and have my son back, I would. But I can’t. Eventually we came to the truth that God has numbered our days.” “And if we believe the Lord gave Chip this number of days on earth,” Lizzy added, “then there’s nothing we can do about that. He was in control and He saw this coming. He had his hand over the moment Chip passed into heaven. He wasn’t absent. I had to ground myself in that. Even if I never know the reason - I have to trust Him.” The Sibleys left Vancleave about a year after their loss, a move, they emphasize, was a surprise to even to them. They had planned to be in Vancleave for a long time. But after their loss, they both felt a pull to be closer to their families. And despite asking God to remove that desire so they could continue serving their beloved church family, it persisted. They received the wise counsel that if they had this persistent desire, and God provided the means to fulfill it, perhaps they should be willing to listen. They began considering the move to Brandon not long afterwards. “First Baptist Brandon has already been so good to us. They didn’t live through this loss with us but they have loved us in it. We had a family who asked us to come over and share about Chip with them so they could know him a little. There were quite a few people from the church who came over and we showed videos of him and talked about him. And the church has been good to give us time off to mourn when we’ve needed to,” Aaron said. Two years later, their girls, Ava Grace and Addie, are continuing to process their own loss. Aaron and Lizzy are so obviously proud of them. “They have been gracious to us during all this. At first, we were grieving so much we probably weren’t the best parents. And they still have days when we need to pick them up from school because something has triggered them and they are upset. But I feel like they handled this way better than we did - they’ve grieved well,” Aaron added. Now the Sibleys are simply focused on doing their best to live daily life as believers - as husband and wife and parents and members of their church. But their loss is never far from their thoughts. Aaron preached Chip’s funeral from Romans chapter 8, and he refers to it throughout our conversation. There are a lot of verses in that chapter that would seem hard to process after what they lived through. So, I ask them - what would they say to people who can’t look at a tragedy like theirs and still believe in a good God? “Romans 8 says God causes all things to work together for good for those who love Him. Well that seems weird here. We wrestled with the idea of God being good after Chip’s 16 • OCTOBER 2023
death. It wasn’t good that I lost my son, but that doesn’t define who God is. One of the key things we did in counseling was learn to lament biblically. We honestly tell God how we feel. Maybe we are angry or sad or confused about Him. We had to be able to say - God I don’t feel like You are good right now but I’m going to believe that You are good. In the end, our faith is not built on us. I’m not a believer because of me. We really elevate ourselves too highly. What is right? What is just? What is fair? God, in His grace, has allowed us to live. He was gracious to give us four years with our son. Gracious to give us each other and our girls and our church. If you look at one moment, one situation - sure you could think God is not good. But you can’t define God by one moment and, even if you did, you’d still be making it about you. And it’s not. It’s about Him,” Aaron concluded. A couple of months after Chip died, the Sibleys’ church in Vancleave planted a magnolia tree on the playground in his memory. In the coming years, that tree will shade and bloom over children who never knew Chip - never met the Sibleys, and don’t know their story. It will stand in tribute to a vibrant, dimpled four-year-old boy who loved dinosaurs and once played and laughed there. How God chooses to use his story and why his earthly life was short will remain a mystery. But the Sibleys will leave that in God’s hands. And they will laugh, love their girls, enjoy each other, and teach the next generation about a God who can be trusted in all things—even with what matters to us most. Hometown RANKIN • 17
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