Before my mother’s illness and death, before the frighteningly early arrival of our little Captain and the less-frightening and less early arrival of his brother, LT, before an overseas deployment, a destructive hurricane, Covid19, and too many other stressful events to list.
I have watched my kids meet every challenge-sometimes with grace, sometimes with grit, sometimes with both.
They are different people than they would have been if Dominic still walked beside us. They know things their peers can’t even guess.
We all lost so much when we lost Dom. But we still have each other.
And that’s a treasure.
❤
I never thought it possible to love you more than I already did.
But I do.
Your brother’s untimely departure has opened my heart in a whole new way to the glory that is your presence. It has made me drink you in like water in the desert.
One of the most challenging things I’ve had to do is walk alongside my surviving children in this Valley of the Shadow of Death.
Not only have they been forced to face and deal with death earlier than many people, they’ve also been forced to face and deal with the fallout for themselves and their family.
Sometimes I feel like an ineffectual first aid worker just trying to minimize damage and hopefully pass them off to a professional who can actually work on repairs and healing.
Other times I’m a young mama once again kissing boo-boos, applying bandages and invoking magical thinking to distract them from their oh, so very real wounds.
I’ve not done it perfectly or even adequately sometimes. But I’m trying.
❤
Bereaved parents often have several tasks before them in the days and months and years following the death of a child.
One of them is to help their surviving children navigate loss.
I have three earthbound children. And they are grieving.
Their world changed in the same instant mine did.Their hearts are broken too.
I found it hard to watch the pain I saw written on the faces of my kids.
If I read the Gospels and really put myself in the story, I would have to admit that I may well have wanted to “protect” Jesus from some of those that sought His help and His blessing.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of deciding who might be worthy of God’s time and attention.
The disciples decided Jesus was too busy and too important for children to be brought near. Our gentle Shepherd not only welcomed the little ones but told his followers that they must all become as children.
How often do I undervalue someone else’s Christ encounter because it isn’t expressed in eloquent or even coherent words?
How often do I minimize the power of grace and mercy to change a heart or a life because the changes I expect or want to see aren’t the ones I can observe and fit neatly into categories?
Religious profiling is a thing, y’all.
We tend to interpret others’ experiences in light of our own and the traditions with which we are familiar and comfortable. When someone comes to us with a tale of an authentic spiritual encounter that falls outside those boundaries, it’s easy to dismiss it.
Imagine Moses walking back home after meeting God in the burning bush and trying to explain THAT to those he lived with!
It’s not my place to authenticate or validate how the Lord chooses to work in another person’s life and heart.
As long as what they share is consistent with Scripture I should welcome them as Jesus does.
Whom do we spiritually underestimate? The elderly? The young? The poor? The wealthy? The beautiful? The disabled? What group or class of people would we have turned away from Jesus?….Today ask God to shine His light upon any form of religious profiling in which you are dismissing those Jesus would welcome.
Alicia Britt Chole
This video and song are particularly dear to my heart. William Wilberforce fought for the abolition of slavery in Britain for most of his adult life.
He was considered lots of things-crazy among them-but stayed the course in spite of illness, discouragement and seeming failure because he was convinced God had called him to the task.
Many well-meaning Christians questioned whether or not he had really heard from the Lord.
Hindsight makes it clear they were wrong.
**As promised, I am sharing thoughts on 40 DAYS OF DECREASE (a Lenten journal/devotional). If you choose to get and use the book yourself, I’ll be a day behind in sharing so as not to influence anyone else’s experience.**
February is not the only month in the year that tempts me to give a token and walk away instead of giving myself and sticking around to help in meaningful ways.
So I try to keep Jesus’ words before my eyes:
For the greatest love of all is a love that sacrifices all. And this great love is demonstrated when a person sacrifices his life for his friends.
~John 15:13 TPT
I try to focus on love in action instead of only love in words.
Thou hast given so much to me, Give one thing more, -a grateful heart;
Not thankful when it pleaseth me, As if Thy blessings had spare days,
But such a heart whose pulse may be Thy praise.
George Herbert
“As if Thy blessings had spare days”.
I love that!
I remember as a young mother being overwhelmed by the responsibility and work raising a human soul required. Sometimes I would get frustrated that my family didn’t seem to appreciate the effort.
I thought, “Here I am, day in, day out with no break and you only seem to notice when I can’t always meet every expectation or desire.”
I wonder how often God looks down on me, His child, thinking the same thing?
Of course He is fully CAPABLE of doing anything. He’s not hampered by the frailty of humanity. But in His infinite wisdom He only acts for my ultimate good and His glory.
There is not a single day when God is not blessing me.
Even when Dominic took his last breath, God provided.
This was not my experience-all my children were adults when Dominic ran ahead to Heaven-but so many grieving parents want to know: Should I let my younger children see me cry?
How much is too much for them to witness, process and hear?
Do I need to shield them from the awful truth of how much this hurts? CAN I shield them?
I remember thinking in the first days and weeks after Dominic’s accident that the world really needed to justSTOP!
Sunrise, sunset, sunrise again felt like an abomination when my son was never coming home again. Shouldn’t the universe take notice that something was terribly, terribly wrong?
But it didn’t.
So life (even for me and my family) carried on.
Some days lingered like that last bit of honey in the jar-slipping slowly, ever so slowly into nights when my brain betrayed me by replaying all the ifs, whys and should haves as I tried in vain to get some sleep.
Others flew by and I found myself months further into a new year unable to remember how I got there and what I’d done for all that time.
My adult children married, moved, graduated, changed careers, and had their own child (another on the way!).
My mother joined Dominic in Heaven.
I got older.
We’ve celebrated birthdays, anniversaries and holidays.
Daily life isn’t as difficult (most days) as it was in the beginning but my husband’s retirement has forced me to figure things out once again.
I can’t blame it all on the fact we’ve buried a child. I’m pretty sure most couples struggle to find a new normal when one or both give up long term employment for staying home.
Suddenly my little house kingdom has been overtaken by my husband’s love of music in the background (I’m a work in silence kind of gal), his tendency to leave a trail of breadcrumbs (paper, gum wrappers, tools) wherever he goes and a completely different wake/sleep/work cycle than my own.
I have a plan for the next day thenight before. He treats every morning as a blank slate and takes a few hours to decide what he will do. By the time he gets going, I’ve nearly finished my list.
Trying hard to accommodate these changes has laid bare one of the main waysI’ve managed my grief for almost eight years.
I can’t make time stop but I work hard to control it. I schedule and plan and execute the plan in an attempt to reorder life so I don’t feel as vulnerable to its vagaries.
It’s a vain attempt.
My husband’s sense of time is challenging my coping mechanism. Once again I need to figure out how to navigate a changing world, how to carry grief and carry on.
This happened three years ago but when I read the account, my adrenaline rushes again.
When the worst thing you can imagine becomes reality, your heart is never far from panic.
I’m learning to take a breath, think logically and try hard to contain wild ideas when my phone rings in the dark but I’ve got to admit, it’s not easy.
❤
Last night I woke to my youngest son’s ringtone at nearly midnight.
I missed the call but when I looked, realized it was the third time he’d tried.
My heart skipped several beats as I dialed him back only to have it go directly to voicemail. I tried again and a second later, he answered.
thelifeididntchoose 