Father, I have stopped asking for miracles.
My wounded heart has lost the faith it once had for hoping You might step in and make something out of nothing.
I still believe in YOU. I still hope in YOU.
Read the rest here: A Prayer For Mercy and Grace
Category: grace
Repost: Being There-No Substitute for Showing Up
I totally get it–we are ALL so busy.
Calendars crammed weeks and months in advance and no white space left over to pencil in lunch with a friend even though we desperately NEED it.
It seems impossible to make that call, write that note or stop by and visit a few minutes.
How can I meet my obligations if I use precious time doing the optional?
But when the unexpected, unimaginable and awful happens, suddenly that calendar and all those appointments don’t matter.
Balls drop everywhere and I don’t care.
Read the rest here: Being There: No Substitute For Showing Up
Grace Like Rain: Why It’s So Darn Hard to Ask For Help
I would much rather be the one bringing the casserole than the one receiving it.
Not because I’m ungrateful but because I’m uncomfortable.
It is humbling to have to depend on other people. It’s hard to admit I can’t manage on my own. It’s downright humiliating to need help with daily tasks that used to come easy.
But truth is, I cannot make it alone.
Not now and really, not before-although I had kept up a pretty good front for decades.
While it is hard and humbling and sometimes humiliating, it’s healthy to admit when I’ve reached the end of my own reserves.
Because we were made for relationship.
Helping one another is how human hearts connect and grow together. It’s how we experience grace.
And there’s more than enough grace to go around.
Remember studying the water cycle in elementary school? A great big circle-from the ocean to the sky raining down on the dry land and running back to the ocean. Plenty of water to go around.
Never actually being used up, just rearranged and reapportioned.
Grace is like that. It passes from one heart to the next to the next. Rearranged and reapportioned but never used up.
When I give, that’s wonderful. That’s easy (for me) because it makes me feel like I’m in control, on top, doing my part.
When I receive, that’s a little harder. Because I feel like maybe I’m not trying hard enough, not working diligently enough, not contributing my share.
But that’s a lie.
Because ultimately ALL grace flows from God through Christ.
When I give, I’m giving out of the abundance He has showered on me. When I receive, I am receiving out of the abundance He has showered on someone else.
In the end, it’s all God.
If I refuse the grace He offers through others, I’m refusing HIM.
Not them.
I need to remember that.
Grief: Why I Still Need Grace From Friends and Family
Some of the writers and actors are doing a good job showing what it looks like to live through a nightmare.
Some, not so much.
But none of them will take it out to years and decades-the audience would lose interest, decide that story line needed refreshing or simply needed to GO.
For those living with child loss, it’s no story line. We don’t get to walk away, change the channel, find some new and more interesting or more comfortable screen to watch.
It’s our life.
And we need folks who will hang in and hang on while we live it out. ❤
You cannot possibly know that scented soap takes me back to my son’s apartment in an instant.
You weren’t there when I cleaned it for the last time, boxed up the contents under the sink and wiped the beautiful, greasy hand prints off the shower wall. He had worked on a friend’s car that night, jumped in to clean up and was off.
He never made it home.
So when I come out of the room red-eyed, teary and quiet, please don’t look at me like I’m a freak.
Please don’t corner me and ask, “What’s wrong?” Or worse-please, please, please don’t suggest I should be “over it by now”.
Read the rest here: Grief and Grace:What I Need from Friends and Family
Life Happens
I confess.
When I used to drive by an unkempt yard, a run down house or bumped into an untidy person, I would think, “Goodness! Don’t they care about their yard, home or appearance? They need to do better! I would NEVER let my (fill in the blank) look like that.”
I don’t do that anymore.
Because I’ve learned that there are all kinds of reasons a body may not be busy mowing a lawn, painting a porch or even putting on matching socks.
Life happens.
And when it does, it demands all my energy, effort and attention. I don’t have the time or luxury of worrying about things that aren’t absolutely necessary for survival.
When Dominic left for Heaven, my priorities were immediately shaken out, sifted and re-ordered. Not only the big ones-like spending more time with the people I loved-but also the smaller ones-like whether or not I swept the front porch before someone visited.
More than nine years later and I look around sometimes wishing I was better at keeping up with things, better able to tidy up, decorate for the seasons, mend the fences, stay on top of clutter, or put together decent outfits.
But then I pause, breathe and realize that while the outside looks messy and unorganized and not at all like I’d prefer, my inside is focused on the things that really matter.
I am spending most of my time caring (one way or another) for other hearts.
Now when I see someone’s home that needs attention or someone who isn’t put together, I think, “What battle are they facing? What life circumstance has swallowed up their time, energy, and emotional reserves?”
Because life happens.
Whether we are ready for it or not.
Repost: Baby Steps and Falling Forward
Sometimes I schedule a post the night before and wake up to a day that contradicts everything I just wrote.
Grief is like that.
Good day. Bad day. Better day. Worse day.
Read the rest here: Baby Steps and Falling Forward
Why You Might Have to “Forgive” God
I love this quote.
It’s honest and exactly how I felt after Dominic was killed.
Like any healthy human relationship, forgiveness is a key component in allowing us to grow closer to those we care about. Intellectually, I believed that God is perfect, and could do no wrong. I could agree with all the scriptures I had read since I was a child that told me God cares for us with an everlasting love. But what my heart felt was that God had done Cathy and my whole family an injustice. As long as I held onto those feelings, I knew I could never move forward.
So one evening alone at home, I simply said these words out loud: ‘God, I forgive you.’
When I was finally able to let go of my ‘justifications’ for feeling angry at God, something inside of me shifted. There were no heavenly rays of light breaking through the clouds, but I could tell that much of the mental turmoil I had been struggling with was being replaced with a quiet peace.
The thing is, I knew deep down that God did not need to be forgiven. The forgiveness was meant for my sake. It opened my heart to begin to listen and allowed me to receive more of what God wanted to teach me about who He really is.
~Warren Ludwig, Jewels in the Junkyard
It may be an affront to our religious sensibilities to even suggest that we “forgive” God.
But it is a bold rendering of the betrayal my heart felt. Why MY son? Why ME?
It’s true-as long as I held onto the reasons God had “done me wrong”, I was unable to lean in and trust Him again.
Like Job, I thought I had Him figured out and could hold my own in a debate with the Almighty One.
But also like Job, when confronted with His holiness, perfection and majesty, found all I could do was cover my mouth.
And when I shut up long enough to hear Him, His voice brought comfort.
He [Christ] said not, ‘Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be trevailed, thou shalt not be dis-eased,’ but He said, ‘Thou shalt not be overcome.’
~Julian of Norwich
I no longer feel betrayed.
I still don’t like this life.
I would never have chosen this life.
But I will trust the One Who made me to carry me through it.
Repost: Grace Gifts in Grief
It was a long time before I wanted to believe that I received any gifts worth keeping from this life I didn’t choose.
I knew I had tears, pain, agonizing sorrow, loss, heartache, dashed hopes, empty arms.
If I could give those back and regain my son, I would do it in less than a heartbeat.
I can’t, so I’m left here to ponder what else I’ve received from burying a child.
Read the rest here: Grace Gifts of Grief
Prayer After Child Loss: What’s the Point?
One of the most devastating questions I had to face after Dominic ran ahead to heaven was, “What difference does prayer make?”
I had prayed-diligently prayed-for every one of my children since before they were born.
Even Dominic’s name, which means “belonging to God” was chosen carefully to reflect my heart’s desire that this child follow hard after Jesus.
Dominic had served Christ’s church with his time, talents and resources his whole life. Yet he was not quite 24 when he met Jesus face to face.
So why didn’t prayer “work”? Why did my son die in an accident when others live?
I thought I understood prayer.
I thought that if I followed the formula I’d been taught:
- praise God;
- confess my sins;
- thank Him for the blessings He gave;
- and then submit my petitions;
He would be obligated to grant them.
But I was wrong.
Prayer is not a vending machine-put something in and get something out.
I wrote this just a few months after he left us:
Did the mother whose son died pray less or with less faith than the mother whose son lives?
We must be careful to remember that God is sovereign and while we are commanded to pray, our words do not dictate His actions. He alone knows the end from the beginning. He alone is the Alpha and Omega.
I now understand that prayer is privileged communication with the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe.
It is an opportunity to align my heart with His.
It’s a way to tap into the Living Water that Jesus promised the Samaritan woman He met at the well.
It’s two-way conversation where I need to do as much listening as talking.
So I no longer come with a basket full of petitions, hoping they are granted.
Instead I kneel, hands outstretched. longing only for His touch, His Presence, His grace, mercy and sustaining strength.
I still pray but it is a simple prayer:
“Lord, I need You.”
❤
Through Tears
Honestly I have no idea why I don’t climb my stairs, lay down in bed and pull the covers over my head.
Well, really I DO know why: it’s the enabling grace of Christ Jesus in my life
But my flesh still wants to give up and give in.
Because there is NO LIMIT to the amount of pain a heart may have to bear on this earthly journey.
I feel awfully guilty sometimes for being overwhelmed by my circumstances when I hear of much more challenging situations that other hearts face.
I have to remind myself that comparison is unhealthy regardless of whether I’m stacking up pain or pleasure, blessings or trials.
Truth is, sometimes life just sucks.
I know that’s an unpopular assertion among church folks.
But it’s a fact.
God shows up and He showers grace. And His grace sustains me. Still, I feel ALL the pain.
Faith is not anesthesia.
I’ll be honest-I’ve had a summer full of hard things. I’ve greeted more than one sunrise with tears. I’ve ended more than one day worn out, worn down and utterly bereft of hope that tomorrow will be any better.
When I’m finally able to enter the bliss of dreamless sleep I manage a bit of escape until the day’s dawn drags my heart back to reality.
Of course the background noise of grief and loss never changes but goodness gracious how I’d love 24 uninterrupted hours of everything going right!
So far that hasn’t happened,
Seriously.
I’m getting kind of used to it.
I’ll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness,
the taste of ashes, the poison I’ve swallowed.
I remember it all—oh, how well I remember—
the feeling of hitting the bottom.
But there’s one other thing I remember,
and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:
God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out,
his merciful love couldn’t have dried up.
They’re created new every morning.
How great your faithfulness!
I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over).
He’s all I’ve got left.Lamentations 3:19-24 MSG
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