At the Cliffs of Abandonment: Finding Hope After Tragic Loss and Suffering

By Alicia White

Will you let the Master heal your crippling and most visceral wounds? In this book, Alicia goes to the place where so many more are, kneeling at the feet of the Father questioning "Why?" and pleading, "Help me, I can't take anymore." Alicia is raw and intense about her faith and brokenness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trilogy Christian Publishing
• Release date: Oct 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9798890413253

Alicia White

Alicia White, along with her husband, Jason, are the founders of Chosen Stones Ministries. Using their daughter's own journals and words and their testimony of brokenness to healing, they are becoming a voice of hope to a generation plagued with hopelessness. Help starts with a cry; their mandate is to initiate that cry through the power of the Holy Spirit. They also minister hope to move forward to bereaved parents. They travel by invitatation.

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At the Cliffs of Abandonment

Alicia White

At the Cliffs of Abandonment

Trilogy Christian Publishers A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Trinity Broadcasting Network

2442 Michelle Drive Tustin, CA 92780

Copyright © 2023 by Alicia White

Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from THE MESSAGE, copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.TM Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.TM. Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. Scriptures marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version (NKJV) Copyright c 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Public domain. Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible. Public domain.

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Trilogy Christian Publishing/TBN and colophon are trademarks of Trinity Broadcasting Network.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Trilogy Christian Publishing.

Trilogy Disclaimer: The views and content expressed in this book are those of the author and may not necessarily reflect the views and doctrine of Trilogy Christian Publishing or the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

Manufactured in the United States of America

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN: 979-8-89041-324-6

E-ISBN: 979-8-89041-325-3

Hope Noelle White

December 28, 2002–January 29, 2020

Dedication

I dedicate this book to our sweet and beautiful, forever seventeen, Hope Noelle. Every moment with you, every touch, every sound of laughter, every heart-filled conversation, every prayer, every family worship time, every special event or occasion, and every opportunity to be your mom transformed me. You have taught me to let go and laugh more. You have taught me to give more. You have taught me to be present in the moment more. You have taught me to love bigger, to love better, and to love deeper. You have taught me to keep my eyes fixed on the kingdom perspective. I am forever grateful the Father allowed us to steward His daughter for a time here on earth. There are not enough words in the universe to describe my love for you and how much I wish I could pour it out upon you still. Your life on earth ended too soon. But until I lock eyes upon you in eternity, I will find my sweet Hope in the forward.

I promise I will take all the should haves and could haves to be transformed into a better mom, wife, and woman of God. I promise I will be your voice to bring Hope to the hopeless.

Hopie, you are beautiful.

Endorsements

Losing my beloved son, Christian Matthew, in 2019 left a wound that only the Holy Spirit can heal. In the midst of such devastation and, at times, paralyzing grief, this book took me to the depths I needed to go to feel understood. Suicide grief is so very isolating, and there are so few resources for the born-again believer for this heartbreaking experience. Alicia tells it raw and real. Her very words can be felt. If you have lost a child in this manner or know someone who has, please read this book. It will give you Hope to carry on in this painful journey because that Hope comes from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I am so grateful the Holy Spirit brought this book into my life and inspired and gave Alicia strength to write it.

—Christy Connaughton

As I started reading this book, I found myself saying to the Lord, Please, Jesus, never put me through this, the pain is too unbearable. Over and over, I found myself weeping for the sorrow that this mother went through. Then I found myself weeping for the depth of care and love she found in her Heavenly Father. I felt like I entered a sacred place between father and daughter. I find myself reading and rereading in search of understanding this depth of God’s wisdom. Most of us will never experience the truths that this mom found as she makes her way through layer after layer of excruciating grief. This book is absolutely necessary for this generation. May I tell you that Alicia White is my friend, and, in many ways, she and her family are still finding their way. But she knows that her life and wholeness are found at the cliffs of abandonment. Her Hope is found there also.

—Beth Ritter

Introduction

After the suicide death of our daughter, Hope, my heart became a battlefield between finding answers that can put all the pieces back together again, and peace and courage that enabled me to forgive myself and even God. I wrestled with moving forward, being okay with leaving the shattered pieces right where they are, and embracing the new life canvas my heavenly Father had placed before me. This is my journey at the cliffs of abandonment. It is a place of death, loss, hopelessness, and fear. It is a place of wrestling with who the Father truly is and who I am in Him. It is a place of courage to embrace the Father’s cup of suffering He has permitted for me and to invite Him to drink of it with me. This will be a place of transformation, where the Father’s love and ways invite me beyond the veil of suffering and into the holy place of abandonment. Each jagged cliff beckons me to come closer to the edge, finding a deep place of trust I may not have known yet in the Father.

Are you suffering? Are you experienced such pain, loss, and tragedy you feel crushed under the weight of it? Perhaps you have lost a son or daughter, maybe your loss is a spouse, or maybe it’s a marriage. Your place of suffering may not be exactly like mine, but I believe you will find your own story in this story of hope. And the God of hope will radiate power and strength to heal and restore you. You will stand, kneel, or lay at the edge of the cliffs until the place becomes an altar of worship. You will have the courage to drink from the cup of suffering with Jesus until His tears mix with yours, and you become one with the Father, healed and restored. Through abandonment and suffering with Christ, you will become a roadway of resurrection and hope.

Note from the author

I do not walk alone on this journey. My husband, Jason, is here with me as well as our three children left on this earth—Samuel, Faithanna, and Isabella. At the time of Hope’s passing, Samuel was twenty-one, married, and lived in Dallas. Faithanna was eighteen, lived at home, and was only fifteen months older than Hope. Isabella was ten and adored, and still does, her much older siblings.

Chapter 1: When Time Stood Still

When you have kids someday, you will understand that I did it out of love for you. Those were the last words I spoke to my forever beautiful seventeen-year-old Hopie.

Would I have changed the words I spoke to her if I had known they would be the very last words I would ever speak to our sweet daughter, Hope, whom I affectionately called Hopie? My words seem to replay in my mind like a cruel joke. What a fool you were, the accuser sings in my ear.

Time stood still as life and Hope filled our world. Congratulations, Mom and Dad. What a beautiful little peanut she is. As parents, we look into the eyes of our baby as if looking into a mirror. Suddenly, the meaning of life becomes clear. Pure, holy love has a place to be poured out in every way. Our purpose has taken on a generational vision. One seed to another, one generation to another, we have participated in the cycle of life created by the Father Himself. We hold our future in our arms, mapping out first steps, first words, first date, marriage, grandchildren. It is all there, wrapped up in swaddling clothes. The promise of the Father to bless our home, to bless our children, to protect them from the evil one, to keep them in righteousness and cover them with the blood of Jesus, runs through our mind as we count their toes and fingers and hear their cry of utter dependency upon us. We rest in the assurance that they are just as much His as ours. Our joy is set before us. The fruit of our womb will continue the inheritance of the Lord in our family to the next generation and beyond. We will grow old watching the Father do His best work in the child that lays asleep in our arms. Hope arises within the depths of our hearts.

Isn’t this the heart of every mother and father who serves the Lord? Isn’t this how it is supposed to go? Am I such a fool?

Time stood still as life and Hope was sucked out of our world. January 29, 2020. Every dream, every purpose, every hope, everything I had rested in and was sure of was gone. My arms were heavy and empty, not even able to hold a glass of water to my lips or hold my eighteen-year-old daughter’s hand crying beside me. My arms and heart were trying to process the reality that I no longer held Hope. My future had no map, no purpose, no light—only darkness and despair. Hope seemed lost forever. Every detail of the last two days played like a movie on the dark, empty TV screen in front of me in the motel room I did not even remember walking into.

It was Tuesday, January 28, 2020. Hope had gone to work at 2:00 p.m. at Kroger and arrived home around 10:30 p.m. She came into our bedroom and began to tell us of an incident that happened that evening. A stranger had come into the store and approached her. He followed her around her department and proceeded to ask her questions, eventually asking her to come with him after she got off work. Soon after, her co-worker came over, and the stranger left. The manager on duty filed an internal report, and her co-worker walked her to her car after clocking out for the night.

As she shared with us, you could hear the anxiousness in her voice. Hope kept most things to herself and did not offer up to share her concerns or her feelings with us. Most would describe her as an introvert, but I believe now it was much more than just being shy or private. The fact that she shared this incident with us showed how much it bothered her. We offered to call the manager the next day so that we could reassure her—and us—that if it happened again, the police would be called. She, being a typical seventeen-year-old, told us not to get involved and that she could handle it herself. But after she left the room, we discussed further our concerns about what had just happened. Jason and I agreed that I would call the store the next day despite her wishes that we would not. Although she was a young lady and almost an adult, we still desired to protect her and keep her safe.

News reports of sex slaves being rescued from all over the United States started to run through my mind. I decided to text a prayer warrior and one of my closest friends, Cindy, who lived in Fort Worth, Texas, to ask for prayer concerning the situation. After she reassured me that she would pray, I texted her back a declaration that Satan couldn’t have my girls!

I was not about to let our Hope become a victim of a kidnapping and God knows what else. I realize some might think I was really