By Kathryn Barney

“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. . .The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain” (The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, p. 17).

This imagery is so powerful—sorrow carves into my being. At times, it feels like a deep, jagged crevice.

Like most people—maybe all people—I’ve known heart-wrenching sorrow. I’ve felt the kind of heartbreak that leaves you wondering if you’ll make it through. The kind that drops you to your knees, rips at your soul, and creates a physical ache in your chest.

I’m sure you can relate.

One of the deepest sorrows of my life has been watching my youngest son, now 17 (and doing so much better), struggle with mental illness and rebellion. He’s the youngest of seven children in a blended family, and from the moment he was born, he’s been my heart. We’ve always shared a special bond—a soul-deep connection.

But around age 11 or 12, something shifted. He began to pull away and head down a darker path.

That was the beginning of five years of trauma. There were run-ins with the law, appointments with countless therapists, medication changes, school transfers, shifts in living arrangements, and in-home parenting coaches. He spent four months in a residential treatment center. At one point, he went missing for eight days and was listed as an endangered child with the NCMEC.

I could write chapters about everything we tried. And despite it all, things just kept getting worse.

The most devastating part? The hatred he directed toward me—and only me. Not his dad. Not either of his stepparents. Just me. It was soul-crushing. It nearly destroyed me.

The sorrow those years carved into my spirit felt unbearable. And I say that now—on the other side—because it truly was. What got me through was turning to the Lord. That was the only way I survived.

The Law of Polarity teaches that everything has an opposite. And through all that pain, unexpected blessings began to unfold.

During those difficult years, I immersed myself in the scriptures. Slowly, they began to transform in my eyes. They became more than doctrine—they became the most powerful parenting manual I had ever encountered. I’ve now marked more than 620 verses that speak directly to parenting, using our Perfect Parent as the ultimate example.

That changed everything. My relationship with my Heavenly Father deepened. I began to see my children differently. It reshaped my nature—made me more peaceful, more patient, more loving, more Christlike.

And now I feel called to share that transformation.

On the other side of the storm, with healing taking place in our home and my relationship with my son restored, I’ve begun writing a book about using scripture as a parenting guide. I’ve outlined several courses and launched a new website for a coaching business. With my son’s blessing, I plan to share the lessons we learned—lessons that can bring hope to other parents navigating the heartache of raising a struggling teen.

Because there is always an opposite, the joy I now feel in our renewed relationship—along with the blessings that grew from the sorrow—not only balance the pain of those years… they far outweigh it.

And for that, I can now say with full honesty and a full heart: I’m grateful for what we went through.

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