Melanie

A Mama’s Broken Heart

The world was stunned by the deaths of Carrie Fisher at 60 and her mother Debbie Reynolds just one day later in 2016.

And it should have been.

Carrie’s death was undoubtedly hastened by a combination of mental illness that led to addictive behavior that led to physical damage that made her a likely candidate for the early heart attack that took her life.

Each of those contributory factors run amok in our society-often undiagnosed or untreated because of the stigma attached to them. She was rich, famous and had lots of resources available to her yet was still unable to escape the clutches of addiction until late in life.

Debbie Reynolds died of a broken heart. The cause of death may be declared “stroke” but any mama who has buried a child knows full well that the moment they told her about Carrie, her heart gave up.

Mine did when I received the news of Dominic. I wanted nothing more than to lie down and die and make this awful, unbearable pain disappear.

But I didn’t. And neither do so very many other mothers and fathers-they keep going.

They sweep together the broken shards and bundle them up and choose to fight.

It’s hard. It’s tiresome.

It’s discouraging and it takes every once of energy they can muster.

It saps the strength of the strongest among us.

I don’t wish child loss on anyone.

But I do wish that the shock and sorrow the world feels over the deaths of Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds might raise awareness of how child loss affects parents and siblings left behind.

Look around.

There are people in your own life living this horror. People who are still striving to carry on when they want to give up.

Take their hands,

encourage their hearts,

help them hold on.

Love is Writing a New and Better Ending

I shared most of this on my personal Facebook page yesterday,

It was written before out sweet girl was gathered in the arms of Jesus.

But honestly, whether she lived or died, the words are still true.

Love has the last word ❤️

Saturday I got to see my little granddaughter,Holly, for the first time and hold her tiny hand. It’s heartbreaking to walk through double doors and down a hallway where alcove after alcove is filled with hopeful parents keeping watch over their precious children.

Many people point to such suffering and ask, “Where is God?”. Or they assert that if there is a God, He is neither good nor loving. Often believers rush to His defense and make things worse by offering weak and illogical arguments that only add confusion and more doubt.

A lot of my time is spent with broken hearts walking broken paths and I know that for many circumstances in this life there are simply no answers. Definitely no answers that will satisfy the deep ache left by profound suffering or loss.

So I don’t offer answers. I don’t toss platitudes like confetti from the sideline as weary ones plod on in the marathon of a fiery trial.

I don’t know why babies are born so very sick or born straight into the arms of Jesus. I don’t understand why on the hall opposite the NICU there is a pediatric cancer ward. I don’t have any idea why one despicable person wreaks havoc on a school full of defenseless children and another kind soul suffers some terrible disease.

I do know that the world is not as God intended or first made it. Sin has wrought calamity from the beginning. Atrophy is the goal of this broken place.

But God…

The Story isn’t over yet. From Genesis to Revelation, Love is writing a new and better ending.

Knowing and trusting in that Truth does not make suffering less painful, it only makes it bearable.

I have no idea how Holly’s life will be woven into the eternal story God is writing but I know she matters. Her beating heart and fragile fingers were created for a purpose. Jesus loves her.

Yesterday she joined her Uncle Dominic in Heaven.

It is unbelievably hard and sad to feel afresh that familiar ache of sorrow.

But our family is choosing to live in that mysterious and supremely uncomfortable space between what we can know in this life and what we will never understand until Eternity. ❤️

A Wounded Faith

It is possible to go through life without having to question your faith.

But I’m not sure that is a good thing.

Although I would never, ever have chosen this path, child loss has forced me to entertain questions I might have ignored and to dig deeper than I might otherwise have done if life had been easier and less challenging.

My faith is not blind faith.

My faith is not unchallenged faith.

I am facing the fact that terrible things happen even to those who love and trust God. I will not parrot empty phrases that promise smooth sailing to new converts if they will “only turn their lives over to Jesus”.

I don’t even know where we get that idea. Every single disciple was martyred except John and he was boiled in oil and exiled to the Isle of Patmos.

There are faithful believers starving TODAY, dying TODAY and suffering TODAY.

Why should I be exempt?

‘No heart is as whole as a broken heart.’ And I paraphrase it differently: No faith is as pure as a wounded faith because it is faith with an open eye. I know all the elements of the situation; I know all the reasons why I shouldn’t have faith. I have better arguments against faith than for faith. Sure, it’s a choice. And I choose faith.

~Elie Wiesel

Where Is God in the Suffering?

It’s not uncommon for those of us who have faced the fiery trial of child loss to wonder if God is still listening, still cares and remains near.

Pain is such a giant presence, taking up all the space in our hearts, that there is barely room to imagine a good and loving God could be part of this.

I’ll be honest, when the deputy brought the news of Dominic’s death, peace did NOT descend on me like a dove. Unearthly howls filled my foyer and I dropped to my knees, begging it not to be true.

But I knew that my feelings weren’t always (or even often) the best arbiters of truth so even then I recited facts out loud to my shattered heart. God is with us. God will sustain us. God’s grace and mercy are sufficient.

And God has been with us, IS with us and sustains us.

Now our family faces another kind of awful.

I see my adult children choosing brave and compassion and steeling themselves against what might be while hoping, hoping, hoping things turn out better than predicted.

One of my favorite passages in the Old Testament is the story of Hagar and Ishmael in the desert. Abraham sent them away because Sarah was jealous for Isaac to receive all his father’s love and energy.

It’s the only time (as far as I know) a human named God.

Hagar calls the Lord, El Roi, “the God who sees me”, because He spoke to her and promised a future for her forsaken son.

I believe that while our Heavenly Father does not always intervene in miraculous ways, He always SEES us in our suffering. He does not abandon us. He does not condemn us to walk this rocky path alone.

I don’t understand or even always like what God allows. I can’t fit my life story into a neat box labeled “Blessed by God”. Many days feel like I’m being beaten and bruised, not blessed.

But I do not think I am left alone.

We just celebrated Christmas and the gift of Immanuel-God with Us. In suffering, we have to hold on to that truth.

When I am afraid, I remind my heart of the fact that the Creator of All Things chose (voluntarily chose!) to become flesh. He chose to subject Himself to the vagaries of human life. He actively entered the world of His creation for the express purpose of proving His love for us (for me!).

Jesus is love made flesh. The Babe in the manger is God’s promise that He is with us and He is for us.

So, where is God in my suffering?

He is here.

As close as my next breath.

When It’s Anything BUT a Happy New Year

I don’t know how you have responded to the chipper “Happy New Year” messages flooding your social media and inboxes but they generally land painfully on my fragile heart even after all these years.

It didn’t take long for me to realize after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven that so much of what we say in casual conversation is not helpful to those going through a hard time.

Even asking, “How are you?, “if you aren’t prepared for an honest answer, is an affront to an aching soul begging for someone, anyone to help bear the load.

New Year’s Eve I exchanged texts with someone who is well aware of all our family is going through only to have her send back: “Happy New Year! I hope your year is full of blessings!”.

At first I wanted to throw up. But then I literally laughed out loud in the darkness of my son’s truck because she has. no. clue.

Right after Dom left us, I was a walking nerve. Everything that anyone said or did that hit me as less than compassionate felt like a punch in the gut. It was physically painful. I didn’t want to be around anyone for very long except those in my immediate grief circle.

But over time, by the grace of God and by doing the work grief requires, I grew stronger and better able to carry this load. It wasn’t any lighter. I didn’t miss my son any less or “move on from” or “get over” his death.

I was able to gain perspective, though.

I could accept that before it was ME, I was just as ignorant as those who were saying and doing what they thought was the right thing (or maybe just the easiest thing) yet were causing pain instead of bringing hope and light.

If you are early on this journey, you may have to set strong boundaries to protect your broken heart. That’s not only OK, it’s good. Don’t expose yourself any more than necessary to those who (especially!) demonstrate repeatedly that they are not willing to learn more about how to compassionately companion the bereaved.

But be willing to expand your world a little bit as you heart begins to heal.

I don’t believe we will ever be “healed” until eternity. Yet when we invite Jehovah Rapha to do what only He can do, He will bind up our wounds.

There will be scars and tender places. We will never be able to walk in the world as those who have no enduring pain. But we CAN learn to walk in the world again.

Happy anything just isn’t something I say to folks anymore.

Instead I wish them a gentle and peace filled whatever the holiday might be.

And that’s what I wish and pray for you, my dears.

May this year be one in which the Lord’s Presence is very real and in which you feel seen, loved and held.

New Year’s Day 2026: Prayer For Hurting Hearts

Some of us enter trembling through the door of a new year.

This last year wasn’t so good and our hearts are broken.

What if the next year is worse? How will we manage? Where can we hide from bad news, bad outcomes, disastrous trauma?

Truth is, we can’t.

So here we are, bravely marching in, hanging on to hope and begging God for mercy.

Read the rest here: New Year’s Prayer for Hurting Hearts

New Year’s Eve 2025: Auld Lang Syne

We don’t know what tomorrow will bring. We plot and plan and hope and dream but in the end we have very little control over how our story ultimately plays out.

So we are left each New Year’s Eve with some good memories, some not so good ones and some we cling to like gold from a treasure chest because they are all we have.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot and days of auld lang syne?

Never.

Read the rest here: New Year’s Eve and Auld Lang Syne

Forged

Precious friends, the last quarter of 2025 has NOT been what I planned.

The “official” ministry of Heartache and Hope launched last year in October reached so many families walking the path of child and sibling loss but September brought an abrupt and unwelcome interruption when my dad suffered a devastating stroke. The fourth Moms’ Retreat had to be cancelled.

Like all of you, I’ve learned life does not stop because our hearts are broken.

After spending three months caring for Papa directly, I was able to arrange sustainable, long term plans for his care so I could join my immediate family as we welcomed the early birth of my third grandchild-a girl named Holly- just four days before Christmas.

Sadly, Holly’s entry into the world has not been smooth. She is currently fighting for her life in Dallas Children’s Hospital.

My heart is overwhelmed. I’m watching my son and daughter-in-love walk a rocky road as they wait with hope, begging God for grace and mercy.

I have learned so much in these last months.

About caregiving, navigating a complex and often baffling healthcare system, standing by as my own child faces the uncertain future of his, and how utterly helpless one feels when medicine has done all that can be done and only God can intervene.

The other day I was in the car and the word God laid on my heart was “forged”.

My youngest son is a blacksmith. I wear an open heart he crafted for me almost every day (so often my grandson notices it if I don’t!) to remind me that love is the force that lasts forever.

But in order to create that beautiful piece, Julian had to heat, reheat and pound, pound, pound the metal into shape. It took time and it took more fire than one would think.

The heart bears the scars of every hammer fall. That’s part of what makes it beautiful.

I’ve said before that Grief is Not a Hammer in the Hand of God. But I do think that grief shapes us more closely into the image of Jesus-if we allow it to do so. Because unlike dumb iron, we have a will and a voice and we can refuse the molding God longs to do in our sorrow. I want to be malleable. I don’t want to waste this pain.

I don’t know what tomorrow holds for our family.

I’m honestly afraid to look past this moment.

But I trust whatever comes, the Lord who loves us will sustain us.

New Year Reflections 2025

The funny thing about New Year’s resolutions is that they are pretty much the same, year after year. We all have particular struggles and the turning of the calendar seems like the perfect moment to commit to action to try to overcome them.

But most of us fail miserably and find ourselves back at precisely the point from which we started, regardless of our best efforts to change.

Truth is, we are terrible at remaking ourselves. Habits wear ruts in our thinking and in our behavior. It requires more strength than most of us possess to climb out and start fresh.

But God has promised that those who trust Jesus will be “made new”–they will be changed dramatically, like a caterpillar to a butterfly. From the inside out and no turning back.

“Therefore, if anyone is in the Messiah, he is a new creation. Old things have disappeared, and—look!—all things have become new!”

I Corinthians 5:17 ISV

In the five years before Dominic died, I had slowed my Bible reading to a crawl–limiting myself to one chapter a day and writing it out in my journal. After decades of church attendance, I realized that the stories had become too easy to rush through, the verses too familiar to resonate deeply in my spirit. I had just finished my journey through God’s Word in this way when my son was killed.

No one is prepared to bury their child, but God did lead me in the years before Dominic’s death to commit to reading Scripture in a slower, more deliberate way.

Having those Bible verses in my heart and in my head gave me a safe place to land when I received the awful blow.

So may I suggest that this New Year’s, choose the one resolution that can truly transform–if you don’t know Jesus, ask someone who does to introduce you to HIm.

If you are a Christ follower, commit to reading His Word. Store it in your soul. Write it on the tablet of your heart. You never know what a new year will bring…

And so, dear brothers, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living sacrifice, holy—the kind he can accept. When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask? ²Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but be a new and different person with a fresh newness in all you do and think. Then you will learn from your own experience how his ways will really satisfy you.

Romans 12:1-2 TLB

Holidays 2025: Emotional Overload

There are so many ways child loss impacts relationships!

Some of the people you think will stand beside you for the long haul either never show up or disappear right after the funeral.

Some people you never expected to hang around not only come running but choose to stay.

And every. single. relationship. gets more complicated.

When your heart is shattered, there are lots of sharp edges that end up cutting you and everyone around you. It is pretty much inevitable that one or more relationships will need mending at some point.

Read the rest here: Emotional Overload and T.M.I.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: