I’m not brave by nature.
If I have a choice, I will run every time. But there are just some things worth fighting for.
My family is one of them.
I will not let the enemy have them.
I will not allow despair to overtake us, fear to bind us, hopelessness to sap our strength.
I will not let death win.
Read the rest here: I Will Not Be Moved
Last year around this time, my eldest son received his captain’s bars and had just begun Officer Training School.
This year, it’s even more real to me that one of my own children may be called upon to risk or give his life for the life and liberty of another.
And the number of mothers I know whose child has died in service or because of service related wounds or PTSD has grown ever larger.
Memorial Day is not “just another holiday”.
It is a solemn occasion that merits our deepest reverence.
We must never forget: Freedom isn’t free.
Read the rest here: Memorial Day
I am thankful for Brene Brown.
She has helped me put words to my feelings, helped me see a way forward when I felt there was none and helped me own my story even though it is hard.
I keep her quotes around to encourage my heart and remind me that I am brave.
This is one of my favorites:
I remember the night of Dominic’s visitation-a few of us, including our pastor were there early and prayed together for strength and for God’s Presence.
In that circle of loving friends and family I was overcome with the need to kneel. My body had to acknowledge the fact that my heart was humbled as it never had been before. I was in the dust and ashes were my food.
What could be worse?
But in the days and weeks and months that followed, as the fog of disbelief lifted and the reality of pain, sorrow and missing became undeniable, it did get worse. Part of the “worse” was a sense of shame.
A sense that I should have been able to protect my son, keep him safe, make sure he lived-but I couldn’t.
The pain of child loss is often accompanied by shame:
Shame that I couldn’t save my child. Shame of suicide, addiction, being in the wrong place, with the wrong people at the wrong time. Texting while driving. Not wearing a seat belt. The shame of missing something. The shame of waiting to intervene. The shame of pushing too hard.
The shame of just not being there when it happened.
The list is endless…
Often that shame keeps bereaved parents from reaching out, imprisons them in their own minds and sometimes in their own homes.
But it shouldn’t be that way.
Child loss is a tragedy, not punishment.
It highlights the fact that I am not in control-and neither are you. It happens even when a parent or a child does “everything right”. And some kids survive to old age even when they have done “everything wrong”.
Shame tells me that I am unworthy of love and unworthy of belonging.
And that is a lie.
It “erodes our courage and fuels disengagement” (Brene Brown) If I allow shame to overwhelm my heart it drives me away from the very help I need to make it through this awful Valley.
I have to shake it off.
I have to refuse it’s cold creep into my soul, toss it out and bar the door so that it can’t come back inside. I will name it and drag it from hiding for others to see.
It cannot survive the light of day.
There is NO shame in burying a child.
A few weeks ago I came face to face with a fear I thought I had under control.
Hurrying, one of my kids almost ran a red light with every surviving family member in the car.
In that moment all my fears of losing another someone I love bubbled to the surface. I reacted. My child reacted. And ugly oozed out all over the place.
I hated it. And I was so, so sorry.
I am trying to be brave. I am trying to not be afraid of what MAY happen and cherish what IS happening.
I love each of my children-the one that has run ahead to heaven and the ones that walk the earth with me. That love makes me brave.
I will not waste the time I have with them worrying about what MIGHT happen.
I will not allow the enemy of my soul to steal my joy, kill my passion for life or destroy my relationship with my living children.
It is a lot of work and it’s exhausting.
But it’s worth the fight.
I won’t give up.
We’ve all been there-we ask a routine question and someone refuses to play the social game.
We say, “How are you?” and they answer honestly instead of with the obligatory, “I’m fine. You?”
Suddenly the encounter has taken an unexpected turn.
“Oh, no! I don’t know what to say,” you think.
It can end badly-both of you walking away uncomfortable and wary.
But it doesn‘t have to. There are ways to express compassion and empathy, words that can comfort and encourage.
What should you say when I, or anyone, shares their heart-their pain?
Brene Brown has done some amazing work in the area of shame, hurt, compassion and empathy. I’ve found it valuable in my own valley and also instructive in serving others in theirs.
This short video based on her work is incredibly helpful. Please take a moment to watch it: Brene Brown on Empathy
Courage is a heart word. The root of the word courage is cor – the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage meant “To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.” Over time, this definition has changed, and today, we typically associate courage with heroic and brave deeds. But in my opinion, this definition fails to recognize the inner strength and level of commitment required for us to actually speak honestly and openly about who we are and about our experiences — good and bad.
~Brene Brown
I grew up in the Deep South where ladies were supposed to keep silent about anything “unmentionable”.
Problem is, that included many things that SHOULD be spoken aloud.
Because a conspiracy of silence forces those who are suffering to hide. It creates huge gaps between what goes on behind closed doors and public image.
And it causes those who are wounded to question the authenticity of their own experience.
In recent years we have dragged many topics into the light. We’ve made space in the public square for discussion of things we used to pretend didn’t exist.
But life after child loss is still a hushed topic.
The long road to healing after burying a child is rarely acknowledged outside the community of bereaved parents.
The FACT that as long as I live, my son’s absence will be a shadow trailing me, the burden of sorrow will slow my steps, the heartache of missing will shape my world is glossed over and set aside.
I understand why.
It is scary to speak aloud what you hope will never happen to you. It’s unbelievably frightening to admit that we really have no control over whether, or when, we or the ones we love might leave this world.
But I am not going to keep silent.
Not because I want pity or special treatment, but because I want that parent who just buried his or her child to know that you. are. not. alone.
I want you to know that what you are experiencing is not unusual.
I want you to understand that the horrible pain you feel is absolutely normal.
And I want you to be assured that you are NOT Crazy!
I will tell my story because even though it is hard, it matters. And even though it hurts, it can help heal another. And even though it isn’t finished, it can blaze a trail for others to follow.
Join me, be BRAVE, tell yours.
It’s been [twenty-three] years since the Towers fell. Hard to believe-no matter how great the tragedy, life goes on.
Like many, I was watching things as they happened that day.
My husband, an architect and engineer, saw the wobble in the first tower and knew, he knew, it was going to collapse. Horrified I began to understand that whoever was still in that building was running out of time.
And I cried, oh, how I cried. It was awful.
Since then I’ve lived my own tragedy.
My son was unexpectedly and instantly taken from us in an accident.
So when I’m reminded of 9/11 my heart takes me right to those left behind.
And while politicians and pundits can debate the reasons for the attack, can argue about what could have been done, should have been done and why and when-they can never answer the real question in the heart of every family who buried a loved one because of the events of that day.
Why MY husband, wife, daughter, son? How do I make sense of this senseless tragedy?
The answer is, “You can’t.”
You cannot know why one person chose to go this way and lived and another went a different direction and died. It’t impossible to understand the series of events that made someone late for work that day but lead another to show up early.
Last minute travel plan changes saved some from being aboard the fateful planes and put others in a seat.
I can’t know exactly why my son lost control of his motorcycle that night. I will live the rest of my life without an answer to that question.
It’s an ongoing challenge to face the discomfort of things NOT making sense. It goes against human nature to acknowledge that the world is far less predictable than we like to believe.
It takes courage to greet each new day with knowledge that ANYTHING might happen-not only beautiful and wonderful things, but ugly and awful things as well.
If I let my heart dwell on the questions of “why?” and “control”, I am paralyzed, unable to take another step.
There’s no clear path through a world filled with the rubble of broken lives and broken people.
So I turn my heart toward Christ and His promise to never leave or forsake me.
And I am emboldened to take the next step because I know He is already there, even in the dark.
We walk past them every Sunday.
Those people who almost didn’t come to church. The ones who spent thirty minutes just talking themselves into getting out of bed.
And we never know.
Life is hard. Suffering abounds.
Since losing Dominic I have become ever more aware of how very many people are hurting. And how very many people are truly brave. Every. single. day.
It’s one thing to act in an instant-when adrenaline rushes through your veins and pumps extraordinary strength to your muscles and grants clarity to your mind to gather all your nerve and power to jump in and DO SOMETHING.
It is quite another when, without aid of chemical courage, you wake each day to a long list of “to do” items knowing all the while you will be dragging the heavy weight of grief and sorrow everywhere you go.
Read the rest here: Brave
I grew up reading and hearing tales of bravery, of one person risking their life for another, of people standing for their convictions and dying because of it.
The first time I read The Hiding Place, a book about Corrie Ten Boom and her family’s commitment to hide Jews from the Nazis, I cried and cried.
It cost them everything to do the one thing God had called them to do.
As the years rolled by, I learned of personal stories of rushing into burning buildings to save children and of others standing between violence and its intended victim.
All of these people were brave. All of them put aside fear of their own safety to do the right thing.
But I am here to tell you, some of the bravest people I know are mamas (and daddies!) who have buried a child.
It’s one thing to act in an instant-when adrenaline rushes through your veins and pumps extraordinary strength to your muscles and grants clarity to your mind to gather all your nerve and power to jump in and DO SOMETHING.
It is quite another when, without aid of chemical courage, you wake each day to a long list of “to do” items knowing all the while you will be dragging the heavy weight of grief and sorrow everywhere you go.
Brave is the mama that still participates in her surviving children’s birthdays and school plays and graduations and weddings–all the while marking in her heart the child that IS NOT THERE.
Brave is the mama who gets up, gets dressed and walks out the door to work. The one who manages to lay aside the overwhelming grief load and still get the job done.
Brave is the mama who boxes up what’s left of her child’s belongings, the things that speak of who he was and who he was going to be and lays them aside for another day, when the pain might be less and she can look at them again.
Brave is the mama with the broken heart who keeps on keeping on-who shows up to church, who goes shopping, who cleans her house, who refuses to give in to the cloud of doom that threatens to undo her.
And the very bravest thing about these mamas is that they know, THEY KNOW, that this side of heaven, there will be no relief, there will be no respite and they have no idea how close they are to the finish line.
These brokenhearted warriors are committed to continue to love the child they lost and those around them by bravely facing each day as it comes, giving the best they have to give, and persevering until the end.
thelifeididntchoose 