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
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.
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
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
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
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
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?
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
I first shared this a few years ago when I really thought I should have reached a place in my grief journey where holidays weren’t as difficult as they were at first.
But what I realized then and what has been confirmed since is that every year has new and unique situations that make Christmas a fresh challenge each time.
As the twelfth Christmas without Dominic rapidly approaches, I am pondering the question: “Why, oh why, is Christmas so hard?”
I think I’ve figured out at least a few reasons why.
For me, probably THE biggest reason Christmas is hard is because it throws off the routine I depend on to shepherd my heart through a day. It’s easiest for me to manage when I have at least a couple of hours of quiet time each morning. I need those silent moments to let my heart feel what it needs to feel, to cry if I must and to orient my thoughts after, once again, “remembering” that Dominic isn’t here.
Changing schedules and extra commitments mean that some nights I stay up later than usual and can’t manage to get out of bed in time to have those hours. Extra people in the house mean that they may get up and join me in the living room. While I love the company, I have to be honest and say I would love it more a little later in the day.
Another reason I struggle at Christmas is because all (almost all!) the family is together in one place. This may sound odd to anyone who hasn’t buried a child, but when every single person I care most deeply for is together, it highlights the space where Dominic SHOULD be but ISN’T.
Other times of the year we are more or less a full circle-as long as one or two others are missing, it kind of feels like maybe, just maybe, Dominic is away for awhile instead of away for the rest of my life. But when we are all gathered round the table or the tree or the fireplace, it is oh, so obvious that he isn’t here.
Buying presents and filling stockings I go down the list. I have to skip Dom because he won’t be here to open gifts or pull out his favorite candy from a Christmas sock. I can’t even mail him a package where he is. So I try to focus on the fact that his Christmas is the best one, because he is with the One Who IS Christmas.
But my heart still hurts, still yearns for one more hilarious morning when the camcorder won’t work or one of our sleepy young adults refuses to roll out of bed while the rest of us are waiting.
We are waiting now for a different kind of morning-one where the light dawns and never dims.
While I am in no way ashamed of the grief I carry-great love means great grief- I do try not to burden others with my tears at events or in places where smiles should rule. The Christmas season multiplies those occasions and calls for so. much. energy. just to maintain my “happy face” for the masses. It’s exhausting in a way only other grievers can truly understand.
And, of course, we celebrate Christmas in the US during what my grandmother used to call “the dark of the year”. Shorter days, longer nights means less time outside, less sunshine to generate the feel-good hormones I depend on to get me through each moment. When the nights come early and linger long, my mind has more time to ruminate on what was and what will never be again.
Finally, because Christmas is stressful for everyone for different reasons, people can just be a little harder to deal with-less flexible, more impatient, quicker to take offense or give it. All that emotional drama can overwhelm my heart in a flash-leaving me speechless, crying and anxious. It’s no one’s fault. It just is what it is.
For all these reasons-and dozens more-Christmas is an especially difficult time of year for this hurting heart.
So I try to be gentle to myself and to extend the same grace to ME that I extend to others.
I remind my heart that it is perfectly OK to turn down invitations when I just. can’t. go.
I lean into the Promise born in the manger-Emmanuel, God with us-and hold on with both hands.
thelifeididntchoose 