Category: grief waves

Love is Writing a New and Better Ending

I shared most of this on my personal Facebook page yesterday,

It was written before out sweet girl was gathered in the arms of Jesus.

But honestly, whether she lived or died, the words are still true.

Love has the last word ❤️

Saturday I got to see my little granddaughter,Holly, for the first time and hold her tiny hand.  It’s heartbreaking to walk through double doors and down a hallway where alcove after alcove is filled with hopeful parents keeping watch over their precious children.   

Many people point to such suffering and ask, “Where is God?”. Or they assert that if there is a God, He is neither good nor loving.  Often believers rush to His defense and make things worse by offering weak and illogical arguments that only add confusion and more doubt.  

A lot of my time is spent with broken hearts walking broken paths and I know that for many circumstances in this life there are simply no answers.  Definitely no answers that will satisfy the deep ache left by profound suffering or loss.

So I don’t offer answers.  I don’t toss platitudes like confetti from the sideline as weary ones plod on in the marathon of a fiery trial.  

I don’t know why babies are born so very sick or born straight into the arms of Jesus.   I don’t understand why on the hall opposite the NICU there is a pediatric cancer ward.  I don’t have any idea why one despicable person wreaks havoc on a school full of defenseless children and another kind soul suffers some terrible disease.

I do know that the world is not as God intended or first made it.  Sin has wrought calamity from the beginning.  Atrophy is the goal of this broken place.  

But God…

The Story isn’t over yet.   From Genesis to Revelation, Love is writing a new and better ending.  

Knowing and trusting in that Truth does not make suffering less painful, it only makes it bearable.  

I have no idea how Holly’s life will be woven into the eternal story God is writing but I know she matters. Her beating heart and fragile fingers were created for a purpose.   Jesus loves her.

Yesterday she joined her Uncle Dominic in Heaven.

It is unbelievably hard and sad to feel afresh that familiar ache of sorrow.

But our family is choosing to live in that mysterious and supremely uncomfortable space between what we can know in this life and what we will never understand until Eternity.  ❤️

New Year’s Eve 2025: Auld Lang Syne

We don’t know what tomorrow will bring.  We plot and plan and hope and dream but in the end we have very little control over how our story ultimately plays out.

So we are left each New Year’s Eve with some good memories, some not so good ones and some we cling to like gold from a treasure chest because they are all we have.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot and days of auld lang syne?

Never. 

Read the rest here: New Year’s Eve and Auld Lang Syne

Holidays 2025: Emotional Overload

There are so many ways child loss impacts relationships!

Some of the people you think will stand beside you for the long haul either never show up or disappear right after the funeral.

Some people you never expected to hang around not only come running but choose to stay.

And every. single. relationship. gets more complicated.  

When your heart is shattered, there are lots of sharp edges that end up cutting you and everyone around you.  It is pretty much inevitable that one or more relationships will need mending at some point.

Read the rest here: Emotional Overload and T.M.I.

Christmas 2025: Christmas Morning Prayer for Hurting Hearts

Oh, dear one who opened your eyes to the morning light carrying wounds so deep no one can see!

I am so, so sorry.

When things have gone terribly wrong it’s hard to get up and make merry.

I know.

Read the rest here: Christmas Morning Prayer for Hurting Hearts

Christmas 2025: Remembering the Missing-Four Candles

I have always loved candles.  Something in the flickering light speaks to my heart.

It’s one of my favorite parts of early evenings-watching the candles I light on every flat surface cast a soft glow and chase the darkness.

Even a small light offers hope.  

Read the rest here: Remembering the Missing: Four Candles

Advent 2025: The First Christmas Was Messy and So Is Mine

It’s tempting to line up our friends and acquaintances in columns under headings of “perfect family”, “good christian”, “struggling addict” or “hopeless case”.  

When I label someone I justify my response-good or bad-and let myself off the hook for sharing the extravagant, unrestrained love God has shown to me.

The longer I live, the more people I meet, the more certain I am that the neat little categories we like to use are not very helpful.

If I decide they are “doing well” then they don’t need my help.

And if I decide they are “beyond hope” then why waste my time or effort?

Either way, I’m wrong.

Christmas is the story of God come down-Emmanuel-of Love reaching down into a dark and lonely world. It was hardly tidy, it was a Messy Christmas

I’ll never forget one Christmas when I and some other moms organized a craft day for our preschool kids at a local church.

In our youthful enthusiasm, we thought doing homemade cards accented by glitter was a good idea. Boy, were we wrong!

Those bits of metallic bliss went everywhere-in hair, on clothes, in the carpet…we spent twice as much time trying to clean up as we spent making memories with the children. Never again!

So this quote about grief and glitter really struck home in my heart. 

❤ Melanie

Every now and then I run across a quote or a meme that is perfect. 

This is one of them. 

Read the rest here: Grief Glitter, Tucked In Every Corner

Christmas 2025: “Get Out of Christmas Free” Card

If your heart cannot bear the thought of one more holly, jolly song, one more hap-hap-happy get together, one more frenzied rush to the store for a forgotten present or pantry item-just choose to sit this one out.

It is possible to go through the month of December without caving in to consumerism or being guilted into celebrating when your heart’s not in it.

Close the blinds.  Let the telephone go to voicemail.  Fast from social media and turn off the TV.  

Read the rest here: “Get Out of Christmas Free” Card

Christmas 2025: Christmas Cards-Yes? No? Maybe?

Getting Christmas cards out on time was always a challenge in my busy household.  

So for the last years of kids at home, we transitioned to sending New Year’s greetings.  It was easier to get a family photo with everyone home for Christmas, there was no artificial deadline to send them and we could include a “thank you” or respond to news in their Christmas letters.

I hadn’t sent anything for three years.  

What could I say?  

And a family photo was out of the question.

Read the rest here: Christmas Cards-Yes? No? Maybe?

Advent 2025: Ponder and Praise

My heart beats with Mary’s. She knew and understood part of what was going on but had no way to anticipate or comprehend precisely what it meant to be the mother of Messiah.

She pondered the shepherds’ visit and their story.

I’ve pondered too.

Read the rest here: Advent: Ponder and Praise