One country musician and his wife suffered a devastating tragedy with the loss of their 3-year-old son and have now found a way to deal with their pain and help others grieving.

Becoming a parent is one of life’s greatest blessings. Children add so much joy and happiness to life. But for a parent, no pain is worse than losing a child. Unfortunately, that’s what happened to country singer Granger Smith and his wife, Amber.

Granger and Amber’s three-year-old son, River, fell into the family’s pool and drowned about five years ago. What a devastating loss that would have struck the heart of anyone with immense pain and sorrow. 

In a clip posted on YouTube, Granger and Amber mentioned how they are using that experience and hurt into a mission to help others going through a dark valley.

Granger recently wrote a book about losing his son and compared life to a river. He mentioned that similar to a river life takes unexpected twists and turns. But what happens when that river meets a waterfall? he asked. 

“What happens when your happiness goes off a waterfall, and you can’t control the flow of your river?” Granger said. “What happens when you can’t choose happiness because you literally have no other choice in life? You’re at the rock bottom of your river. That’s what ended up happening to me in a place of total surrender. The only thing I could do was completely surrender.”

Granger added that writing a book about his late son and sharing his story, which he hopes will help others struggling and hurting, is a way for him to find healing. 

Granger also talked about how his faith grew and how he learned to surrender everything to God after River’s passing.

“It was a moment of realizing that there are things in life that you cannot control,” Granger said. “And if you surrender that, if you can completely surrender that and say, ‘God, take, take control. You have planned this. You have purposed this. I can’t affect this in any way.’ There is such peace and rest in handing that over.”

2 Corinthians 12:9 “And he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest on me.”