See, here’s the thing: to the outside world, my son’s death happened at a single point in time.
But to me, his death is a continuous event.
I must lift the cup of sorrow every day to parched lips. I must choose to take it to the One Who can help me lift it.
Jesus knows this cup.
He knows my pain: My Cup Overflows
It may not be this way around the country or around the world, but here in Alabama school has been in session for several weeks and the hot weather along with added commitments makes life a little harder.
After the excitement of posting “first day” photos wears off, routine sets in.
Carpools, music lessons, homework, getting everyone ready to rush out the door...it’s enough to wear anyone down.
That’s when it’s easy to lose sight of what’s important. That’s when the enemy whispers, “You don’t make a difference.”
He’s wrong.
You are shepherding eternal souls.
Don’t give up!
The tyranny of the urgent can push what’s important past the fringes of our attention.
Our vision can be so consumed with the day-to-day until there’s no space for long-term goals or ambitions.
But God has ordained that our children, eternal beings, be set in families.
Read the rest:
Sowing in Tears, Reaping in Joy
One breath
One glance
A single tiny detail transports me from here to there.
Takes me from doing alright to devastation
Changes daylight to dark and grips my soul with terrifying pain.
If I didn’t have hope to cling to
If I didn’t know that every promise of God in Christ is yes and amen
If I didn’t trust that my tears are recorded in His book,
my name written on His hands
and my life secure within His own I’d let the darkness take me under.
Breathe in
Breathe out
It will pass
THIS is not forever.
Forever is waiting for me
Dominic is already there-
Tomorrows without end.
No tears
No fears
No goodbyes
Open arms.
I wake and you are still gone.
The cats tap-tap-tapping on my arms and face declare the day has begun despite the dark and I need to climb out of bed.
Why?
What difference does it make?
I trudge downstairs, put the coffee on, feed the cats and settle into my chair to read and write.
Habits.
Routine carries me through the day. There are things that need to be done.
The sun still rises-must be soon now because I hear the rooster’s escalating declaration that he, at least, can see the light.
One cat settles into my lap adding weight and warmth to the morning. I remember when I held you and your brothers and sister. I never tired of that sweet bundle bearing down on my heart.
I would do anything to feel it again.
But that can’t be. And I won’t hold your children either.
All of you was taken away.
Every last molecule, every last gene.
Nothing left but flat photos and memories that are increasingly difficult to piece together in rich detail.
The vital essence that sent shock waves through a room, the loud laugh, the snarky comments, the deep, deep voice that made you sound so serious-all gone.
Heaven is a real place and I know you are there.
But I want you here.
I can’t help it.
All the theological arguments don’t fill the hole in my heart where you are supposed to be.
Shake it off.
Here’s the sun.
Get to it.
Another day.
Isn’t God supposed to be good? Isn’t He supposed to love us? Does God want us to suffer? What if the answer to that question is, ‘Yes'”? I suggest to you that it is because God loves us that He makes us the gift of suffering.
I’m not sure that God wants us to be happy. I think He wants us to be able to love and be loved. He wants us to grow-up. We think our childish toys bring us all the happiness there is and our nursery is the whole wide world. But something must drive us out of the nursery to the world of others and that something is suffering.
You see, we are like blocks of stone out of which the sculptor carves forms of men. The blows of His chisel, which hurt so much, are what makes us perfect.
C.S. Lewis
Lewis referred to this life as “The Shadowlands”. The place where we see the shape of the promise but not its substance.
I am caught between the world I live in and the world to come. There is beauty in both, but only in Eternity will my heart be at home.
Right now, I am Living Between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection
It was the question I asked the bereaved mother that came to my son’s funeral.
It was the question a mother asked me as we stood by her granddaughter’s casket, surrounded by family and flowers.
And it is the right question.
Because when the breath leaves the body of your child, and you look down at the shell that used to be the home of a vibrant, living soul, you simply can. not. breathe.
What should be an autonomic, automatic, don’t-even-think-about-it bodily function escapes you.
When your lungs finally scream for oxygen, your body takes over, against your will.
And even more than two years later, it’s where I still live-between the conscious world of aching loss that drains me of the will to go on and the unconcious biology of a body still functioning without my permission.
I live in a no-man’s-land with one foot in the HERE AND NOW and one foot in FOREVER.
But there are no bright flags to mark its borders, no crossing guards to give warning to the people I mingle with every day that they are over there- outside my world of hurt-and I am stuck in here.
And so they wave from across the way, cheerful and unburdened by the weight of sorrow I drag around. They give me odd looks now and then, vaguely unsettled by my inability to plunge unrestrained into their fun.
Memory escapes them-what happened? how long has it been? shouldn’t she be over that by now?
They can’t understand, and I’m thankful for that.
“How do you breathe?”
Only the ones who share the secret knowledge know the answer to that question.
You learn to will your heart to keep beating and your lungs to keep filling because there are others who depend on you and who need you to stay.
You can’t hold your breath forever, even if you want to.
You lean harder on the hope you have in Christ.
You recite verses and hymns and fill your mind with the promises of Jesus.
And you beg the Spirit of God to fill you to fullness with His breath, His life and His hope.
I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 15:13 NLT
I’m uncomfortable here in this world.
This world where children die and people hurt one another and justice is denied and babies go hungry.
I long for the day prophesied in Isaiah when the lion will lie down with the lamb, swords will be ploughshares and death will be banished forever.
Paul wrote:
All I want is to know Christ and to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings and become like him in his death, in the hope that I myself will be raised from death to life.
Philippians 3:10-11 GNT
He wasn’t only talking about the final resurrection, when all in Christ shall rise and reign forever with their Savior.
He was also talking about the earthly resurrection-of life breathed into who we are and what we do by the Spirit of God living in us.
It’s exciting to think about the life of Christ residing in me. It’s not so exciting to consider the death of self that must precede that life.
But
Without death, there is no resurrection.
Without destruction, there is no restoration.
Without surrender, there is no victory.
My heart rebels against this.
I want life without death. I want resurrection power without the grave. I want to know Jesus more intimately without being stripped bare and standing naked before Him.
But that is impossible.
To be a follower of the Crucified means , sooner or later, a personal encounter with the cross. And the cross always entails loss. The great symbol of Christianity means sacrifice and no one who calls himself a Christian can evade this stark fact.
Elisabeth Elliot
I realized very soon after the news of Dominic’s death reached my ears that the last vestige of pride had been ripped from my heart by force.
I was, and am, in the dust.
I cannot raise myself from this prostrate position. I cannot breathe life into this dead body. I cannot, by force of will, pick up and keep going.
I am fully reliant on the God Who made me to give me life.
But Thou, O Lord, art a shield for me, my glory and the lifter up of mine head.
Psalm 3:3 KJV21
This isn’t news to God, it’s always been true.
But He has opened my eyes.
Forced to face the darkness of the grave, I can more fully appreciate the light of His promise.
Grief can be isolating.
It separates me as one who knows loss by experience from those who have only looked on from the outside.
It opens a chasm between me and people who aren’t aware that life can be changed in a single instant.
And I can feel like no one sees me, no one cares about me and no one notices my pain.
Sometimes it even feels like God has forgotten me-that He isn’t listening, that He doesn’t care.
But Jehovah hasn’t abandoned me.
Have you ever wondered why there are lists of names in the Bible? Do you, like me, sometimes rush through them or pass over them to get to the “main part” of a story?
But look again, the names ARE the story.
The God of the Bible isn’t the God of the masses. He is the God of the individual.
He walked in the garden with Adam and Eve. He called out to Cain, ‘Where is your brother?”
He took Enoch, guided Noah, chose Abraham and Moses.
He anointed David, spoke to and through the prophets and He CAME, flesh to flesh to bear the sins of His people, redeem them from death and cover them with His blood.
My name is graven on His hands.
“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
I will not forget you!
See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands”Isaiah 49: 15-16a NIV
My life is hidden with Christ.
For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life,appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Colossians 3:3-4 NIV
He has a new name for me, a secret name I’ll receive in Heaven.
“To the one who conquers through faithfulness even unto death, I will feed you with hidden manna and give you a white stone. Upon this stone, a new name is engraved. No one knows this name except for its recipient.”
Revelation 2:17b VOICE
The enemy wants to convince me that God has forgotten me.
That He has abandoned me in my sorrow and pain.
That when my son breathed his last, He was looking the other way.
That’s a lie.
And I refuse to listen.
Years ago I heard this song for the first time and it touched my heart:
He Knows My Name by Israel (listen here)
Lyrics:
I have a Maker
He Formed My Heart
Before even time began
My life was in his hands
(Chorus)
He knows my name
He knows my every thought
He sees each tear that falls
And hears me when I call
Not everyone reading this has lost a child.
But everyone has lost something or someone.
And everyone, if they are honest, has experienced moments of anguish wondering if God in heaven cares.
He does.
He hears.
He knows your name.
When my kids went anywhere, I would always ask them to send a text just to let me know they had safely arrived at their destination. They honored that request (most of the time!) and it eased my mind.
My mama heart wanted to know they were OK.
My living children still send me texts when traveling. It’s an easy way to relieve anxious thoughts and I appreciate it.
But my son, who has made the last great journey, is silent.
And that’s exactly what I expected.
I think Dominic is so enthralled with the beauty of Heaven, with the communion of saints gone before and with the fullness of joy at the right hand of his Savior that he does not look with longing at the life he left.
He is in possession of the promise. He knows fully, even as he is fully known.
At present we are men looking at puzzling reflections in a mirror. The time will come when we shall see reality whole and face to face! At present all I know is a little fraction of the truth, but the time will come when I shall know it as fully as God now knows me!
I Corinthians 13:12 PHILLIPS
He has the ultimate assurance that God is faithful and that His lovingkindness endures forever. Dominic (if he even thinks of it at all) has no concern that the same Savior who rescued him won’t also rescue me.
“You must not let yourselves be distressed—you must hold on to your faith in God and to your faith in me. There are many rooms in my Father’s House. If there were not, should I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? It is true that I am going away to prepare a place for you, but it is just as true that I am coming again to welcome you into my own home, so that you may be where I am. You know where I am going and you know the road I am going to take.”
~Jesus ( John 14:1-4 PHILLIPS)
My faith has been tested in ways I never thought it would be. And it has been, and continues to be, HARD.
Now faith is the assurance (title deed, confirmation) of things hoped for (divinely guaranteed), and the evidence of things not seen [the conviction of their reality—faith comprehends as fact what cannot be experienced by the physical senses]
Hebrews 11:1 AM
The same God who made a donkey speak and sent ravens to feed Elijah can use the birds of the air and the beasts of the field to encourage me.
And He does- I have found a dozen perfect bird’s nests since Dominic left us. I believe they are signs from my Savior, not my son-tokens of hope sent to bless my broken heart from the Father who loves me.
God still speaks-He makes Himself known through His Word, through people, through nature and in still, small whispers to my heart through His Spirit.
He doesn’t answer all my questions. But I don’t feel abandoned.
Dominic is with Jesus and Jesus is with me.
Jesus Christ is always the same, yesterday, today and for ever.
Hebrews 13:8 PHILLIPS
I don’t feel close to Dominic at his grave. I go to honor him, to give voice to his memory but the essence of who he was and who he still is, lies in my heart and in the hearts of those who loved him and love him still.
And the witness of that enduring love is the sign to which I cling.
Faith is to believe when you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.
~Augustine
Day Twelve of Kathleen Duncan’s June 1-30 challenge.
The prompt: 12 things you are grateful for
Like Kathleen, the 12th of each month marks the anniversary of the accident that took my son’s life. And like many bereaved parents, the date is etched in memory and re-etched every time it rolls around.
I love the idea of reclaiming the ground which the enemy has stolen by resolving to remind my heart of the promises of God that uphold me in the midst of my sorrow.
I am grateful for promises contained in His Word. They are manna, bread from heaven as I walk the wilderness of grief.
Here are 12 I savor:
1. One day there will be no more tears because God will restore and redeem every hurtful thing:
2. A single day in the presence of my Savior is better than a thousand years here on earth:
Better is one day in your courts
than a thousand elsewhere;
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of the wicked.
For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
the Lord bestows favor and honor;
no good thing does he withhold
from those whose walk is blameless.Lord Almighty,
blessed is the one who trusts in you.Psalm 84:10-12 NIV
3. I can trust God to finish what He started-in me AND in Dominic:
4. The Lord is good and He is my stronghold, even in this trouble:
The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He knoweth them that trust Him.
Nahum 1:7
5. The Lord will restore the years the locust has eaten-He will give back what the enemy has stolen:
I will restore to you the years which the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you.
Joel 2:25
6. God will carry me, even to my old age-as long as it takes-until I am in His presence and with my son:
7. My Shepherd is with me in the Valley of the Shadow of Death:
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Psalm 23:4 KJV
8. This trial will refine my faith and it will shine as pure gold on the day Jesus is revealed:
Their purpose is to prove that your faith is genuine. Even gold, which can be destroyed, is tested by fire; and so your faith, which is much more precious than gold, must also be tested, so that it may endure. Then you will receive praise and glory and honor on the Day when Jesus Christ is revealed.
1 Peter 1:7 GNT
9. Death is defeated because Christ is risen:
10. I am struck down, but not destroyed or abandoned:
We are pressured in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair; we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed. We always carry the death of Jesus in our body, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
2 Corinthians 4:8-10
11. Even as I walk through the Valley of Weeping, God turns my tears to springs of life:
12. God will turn my mourning into dancing. He will fill my mouth with songs of gladness:
You have turned for me my mourning into dancing. You have loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness. That my soul may sing praise and not be silent. O Lord my God I will give thanks to You forever.
Psalm 30:11-12
thelifeididntchoose 