On the other side of child loss, many things that used to be easy just aren’t anymore.
It takes so much energy to get through a day and navigate the minefields of conversation.
I wrote this a few months ago as I was pondering this aspect of my new life:
“One of the things I’ve been forced to embrace in the wake of child loss is that there are very few questions, experiences or feelings that are simple anymore.”
Read the rest here: It’s Complicated
There’s a common bit of advice in grief circles: Fake it until you make it.
It’s not bad as far as it goes and can be pretty useful-especially just after the initial loss and activity surrounding it.
Like when I met the acquaintance in the grocery store a month after burying Dominic and she grabbed me with a giant smile on her face, “How ARE you?!!! It’s SO good to see you out!!!”
I just smiled and stood there as if I appreciated her interest, a deer caught in headlights, silently praying she’d live up to her talkative past and soon move on to another target.
Faked it.
Boom!
BUT there comes a time when faking it is not helpful. In fact, it’s downright dangerous.
Because if I fake it long enough and get good enough at it, I can convince myself that I have done the work grief requires.
Grief will not be ignored forever.
It bubbles up in physical symptoms and sleepless nights. It boils over in anger and impatience and anxiety and nervous habits.
There is no way through but through. It has to be faced head on.
Life circumstances kept me distracted and busy for the first four or five months after Dominic ran ahead to heaven.
I cried, screamed and was heartbroken-I definitely had my moments. But for the most part I functioned at a pretty high level.
It wasn’t until things slowed down that I had my come apart. And it caught me by surprise.
I was forced to sit in silence and face the feelings. I was compelled to hear my heart shatter-over and over again.
I’ve now had 33 months of this burden of sorrow. Almost three years to think about, work on and pray through the pain.
I’m learning to pay attention to my own heartbeat, to my body, to my triggers, to my joy-bringers, my joy-stealers and my limitations. I’m beginning to accept the bellycrawl progress through this tunnel of darkness by focusing on the bright light at the end.
I still fake it sometimes-it’s not worth it to me to get into a long conversation with that person I only see every year or so. Too much time, too much energy and too little reward.
But I’m learning to be more genuine with the people that matter most. I’m learning to be honest about how I feel, what I need and how much I can do.
And I refuse to allow busyness to creep up on me so that I don’t have the time and energy to continue doing the work grief requires.
Every time the headlines scream death and destruction, my heart stops.
When it’s YOUR child, husband, mother, cousin you can’t change the channel or route the conversation to lighter topics.
You just have to bear it.
Read the rest here: Not What I Had Planned
Grief is not sin.
It wasn’t until another grieving mom asked the question that I realized there are some (many?) in the community of believers that think grief is sin.
Not at first, mind you-everyone is “allowed” a certain amount of time to get over the loss of a dream, the loss of a job, the loss of health or the loss of a loved one.
But carry that sadness and wounded heart too publicly for too long and you better be ready for someone to question your faith.
And (heaven forbid!) you drag your limping soul to church on Sunday and sit silent during worship, tears streaming, as the rest of the congregation heartily affirms all the things you now wrestle with every day.
Is God good? ALL the time? Does God protect the ones He loves? ALL the time?
“We bring the sacrifice of praise….” What sacrifice have you made lately? Have you buried a child?
I think anything has the potential to be sin. If I allow my heart, mind and soul to focus exclusively on what I’ve lost instead of what I’m promised through Jesus Christ, that is sin.
But grief itself is not sin.
Paul said, “We do not grieve as those who have no hope” NOT “we do not grieve”. (I Thessalonians 4:13)
Sadness is not sin. Sorrow and missing my son is not sin.
For a time, especially at the beginning, grief occupied most of my field of vision. It’s that huge.
We are made of dust and it cannot be otherwise.
Death is awful and the redemption of what was lost in the Fall cost God His only son. “The whole creation groans” (mourns, grieves) “to be set free from bondage to decay”. (Romans 8:21-22)
Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, Why have You forsaken Me?” as He bore the full weight of sin and sorrow of the world.
I believe that grief becomes sin when I choose to turn my face away from God and only toward my sorrow.
If I am holding it and dragging it with me toward the foot of the cross, that’s not sin.
If I turn my heart and face toward the One Who made me and trust that even in this painful place He is carrying me and will care for me, that’s not sin.
The writer of Hebrews speaks of bringing the “sacrifice of praise” (Hebrews 13:15). It is no sacrifice to praise God for the beautiful blessings.
It is quite the sacrifice to praise God for what Joni Eareckson Tada calls a “bruising of a blessing”.
If I continue to wrestle, like Jacob-clinging and begging for the blessing-I am not sinning when I walk away with the limp the wound leaves behind.
Jesus has opened the way to the throne of grace by His own blood.
I don’t have to hide and I don’t have to be afraid.
He knows my pain. He knows my name.
I keep bringing my broken heart to the altar and lift it up in broken praise.
That’s not sin.
It’s the widow’s mite-it’s everything I’ve got.
Living and dead.
Loud and silent.
Together yet parted, present but absent.
Beauty of the moment contrasted with darkness that refuses to obey the light.
How to be present in the “now” with a heart that longs for the “then”?
I never expected to have to reach across time and space and heaven to touch my child.
I hate this divided life!
Imagining the worst thing possible can’t hold a candle to knowing it by experience.
I want my living children to know how fiercely they are loved!
A lioness could not keep me from protecting them if it were possible.
But it’s not possible.
My heart holds knowledge I would gladly give up.
I wake before the morning light. Every. single. morning.
I get my coffee, sit in my chair and wait for sunrise.
I never worry that today it might not happen.
I’m never concerned that after all these years of faithfulness, this day may be the one where daylight fails to make an appearance.
There is no fear in this darkness because I know it will not last forever.
Morning is coming.
Morning. Is. Coming.
And that’s the hope I cling to in this longer darkness of the Valley of the Shadow of Death-no matter how many years it may be, the Valley has an end.
The same God Who keeps the earth in orbit around the sun has ordained that death will not have the last word.
Light will triumph.
Darkness will have to flee.
I look forward to heaven, where everything that the enemy has stolen will be redeemed and restored.
I’ve been reading The Jesus Storybook Bible-it is a remarkable way to re-imagine and re-engage with God’s Story.
My very favorite part is a paraphrase of Revelation 21:4:
“And the King says, ‘Look! God and his children are together again. No more running away. Or hiding. No more crying or being lonely or afraid. No more being sick or dying. Because all those things are gone. Yes, they are gone forever. Everything sad has come untrue. And see-I have wiped every tear from every eye!’”
An eternal morning is coming.
Morning. Is. Coming.
My children grew up surrounded by life and by death.
On our small farm they got to see puppies, kittens, goats, sheep and horses take their first breath. We watched turkeys and chickens hatch-struggling in that last great effort to throw off the shell.
And we also witnessed life’s end.
Every. time. it feels wrong. Every. time. it feels like defeat.
And it is–we were not made to die.
God didn’t create this world to be full of endings. He made it to be full of life and fellowship and love and for His glory.
But we live in a broken world.
When the first man and first woman looked away from their Loving Creator and embraced temptation, death came in through sin.
That longing we have, that sense that death is WRONG-that death is not the way things SHOULD be-that’s the spark of God’s Spirit speaking to us.
It’s the Father’s call to our hearts to turn to Him.
God the Father has made provision for eternal life with Him through Jesus the Son.
Yes, this world is full of death-it has touched my life in a very personal and awful way.
But my heart and God’s Word tells me that death is not what we are meant for-that there is MORE.
We who have known only futility, decay, homesickness, and exile, have found strong encouragement to hold fast to our hope because we are no longer helpless and alone. He’s already gone before us, trail blazing straight through exile and death into life as our Captain. Yes, I know this is true. I can hope even in the midst of doubt.
Through his death and resurrection, he has flung open the gate, torn the curtain that divided us from God’s presence, and done it all as the incarnate Son of Man. God has not forever abandoned his creation. Mankind is still his good work. In the body of Jesus, Man has gone into the presence of God, to his throne room, to the company of myriads of angels dressed for a party (see Hebrews 12:22). I’m in a form of exile now, but exile doesn’t mean abandonment. Jesus has made sure of that.
~Elyse Fitzpatrick, Home
As we move toward celebration of the birth of Christ, I pray we look also to His life, death and resurrection and the promise of hope He has placed in our hearts.
In this journey of loss I have been blessed and wounded by words.
I have been encouraged and disheartened by stray comments. I’ve been thrown a lifeline and pushed under the raging waves of grief by friends, family and acquaintances who often had no clue they were doing either.
Our words matter.
Our tongues have the power of life and death.
Whoever first wrote “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me” was either in denial or lived a very sheltered life.
Please, for the love of love, think before you speak.
Choose to listen before you lob a response bomb across whatever divides your heart from another. Count to ten if you have to, take a deep breath, read and re-read your words before you press “post”.
And, if all else fails remember: if you don’t have something nice to say, maybe it’s better not to say anything at all.
The one you think is invincible may be on the edge of crumbling. The one you think is strong may be hanging by a thread.
We all make mistakes in all kinds of ways, but the man who can claim that he never says the wrong thing can consider himself perfect, for if he can control his tongue he can control every other part of his personality! Men control the movements of a large animal like the horse with a tiny bit placed in its mouth. Ships too, for all their size and the momentum they have with a strong wind behind them, are controlled by a very small rudder according to the course chosen by the helmsman. The human tongue is physically small, but what tremendous effects it can boast of! A whole forest can be set ablaze by a tiny spark of fire, and the tongue is as dangerous as any fire, with vast potentialities for evil. It can poison the whole body, it can make the whole of life a blazing hell.
James 2-6 PHILLIPS
Every person on this planet bears the image of the God who made him or her. You can’t disrespect the person without also disrespecting the Lord.
Our culture consumes death like candy bars-video games, violent television series and gory movies. Halloween is one of the biggest “holidays” celebrated in America.
We are desensitized to news stories of destruction and devastation because we’ve “seen” it all.
Yet we are a society that shuns mourning.
We can’t stand to hear the keening wail of mothers following the linen clad bodies of their fallen children.
We segregate funerals to special buildings that look like low-slung country clubs complete with ornate light fixtures, clean bathrooms and temperature controlled environments. In many places we no longer bury our dead next to a church where the living and the gone before mingle, waiting the glorious appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.
All this so we can ignore the lesson of Solomon.
“It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, since that is the end of all mankind, and the living should take it to heart.”
Ecclesiastes 7:2 HCSB
I was only three but I remember my great-grandaddy laid out in the living room.
My parents didn’t hide me away in some corner and allow me to grow up pretending death didn’t exist. They didn’t shield me from visiting my ailing relatives or from standing by the gravesides of my ancestors.
I brought my children to funerals from an early age.
There’s no use pretending that people’s bodies don’t die. Sooner or later it catches up to you.
But while our bodies don’t last forever, our spirits do. We are eternal beings, you and me.
It’s not a question of IF we will live forever, but WHERE.
And that was Solomon’s point: decide while you still can who and what has your heart.
Because that choice determines where you spend eternity.
There is only one way to the Father’s House-through Jesus.
In the long run the answer to all those who object to the doctrine of hell, is itself a question: What are you asking God to do? To wipe out their past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? But He has done so, on Calvary. To forgive them? They will not be forgiven. To leave them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is what He does.
C.S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain
Do you know Jesus?
He KNOWS you. He LOVES you. And He died for YOU.
He rose to conquer death for you.
He has made a Way where there was no way.
No one gets out of here alive…choose this day whom you will serve.
It makes an eternal difference.
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of alland richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Romans 10:9-13 NIV
For the next few days I’m probably going to be cycling through some posts that received the most response from readers. A family member is facing serious and complex surgery Monday, October 24th and I’m going to be focused on that.
If I get a chance, I’ll add new content-but as all of us know, there’s no telling what a day will bring.
Until then, I hope that if you missed these, they will be helpful or if you’ve forgotten about them, they will be refreshing and encouraging again.
“People say, “I can’t imagine.“
But then they do.
They think that missing a dead child is like missing your kid at college or on the mission field but harder and longer.
That’s not it at all.”
Read the rest: What Grieving Parents Want Others to Know
thelifeididntchoose 