Her 7-Year-Old-Daughter Was Killed In Front of Her, Now This Mother Helps Others Heal

The Christmas season is a time of celebrating the birth of Christ with family and friends, but for some, the holidays are a reminder of loved ones lost. 
    
For Pastor Cyndi Foster of Beauty For Ashes Ministries, the unexpected death of her 7-year-old daughter Lauren changed her life forever.

Over Memorial Day weekend in 1992, a branch snapped off a nearby tree, hitting her daughter and instantly killing her.

Pastor Cyndi witnessed the entire incident.  

"My daughter was sitting in a chair beside me on a little beach towel beside me at the little wading pool in the yard, and I heard a tree branch snap and it happened so quick," Foster said in an interview on CBN News' Facebook show Prayerlink.

"It was like a nine foot, 90-pound branch and it basically fell and went right through her head right in front of me and it instantly killed her" she explained.

Foster, who was a faith-teacher at the time, said she immediately went into complete shock and never imagined something like that happening to her.

She says in the midst of the tragedy God gave her victory over sorrow and grief.

"People want to know how do you get through something like this," she says. "From the very beginning, I began to praise the Lord. Even the day she died and I got the reality that my daughter I will see again and because I know Jesus Christ."

She continued, "Because I know Jesus Christ, the cross meant more to me the day of my daughter's death than it ever meant to me before. I realized he paid that price for us to have a reunion."

Foster said that revelation also caused her to fall in love with Jesus like never before and she now ministers to others who are grieving the loss of a child or other loved one.

"You have to cling to the Lord," she explained. If you want this to turn to good, the Bible says all things work together for good to those who love God and who are called for his purpose, and so you need to determine in your heart I'm going to love God. I'm not going to blame him for what the enemy did."

"Where Satan's trying to draw you away from God, God wants to draw you to him," Foster said.

Meanwhile, God did turn Foster's tragedy into good. 

Today oversees a church in Newport News, Virginia, and travels as an international missionary.

She also hosts an annual Christmas outreach that blesses parents and hundreds of children.

This story was originally published on Dec. 14, 2017.