This is very true.
I found that when I received the news of my son’s accident-it was Scripture I had hidden in my heart that helped me stand.
My Bible was available, but I could not open it. My heart was too broken to read.
But the Spirit brought to mind exactly what I needed from the storehouse of Scripture hidden in my heart.
I am still fighting for joy.
I still have days when my Bible lies unopened beside me.
And it is still those verses engraved on my heart that help me battle on.
I ran across this infographic awhile ago and LOVE how it puts things in an easy to see and easy to follow format.
It’s a great tool-not only for those grieving the loss of a loved one–but for anyone going through a rough patch.
There are two ways to deal with the scars pain leaves behind: try to cover them up or display them boldly.
Hiding seems the easier way so many times-because the scars are tender and the last thing I want is to invite more pain. But it takes great effort and is rarely successful.
The edges peek out here and there and then I’m left awkwardly trying to explain how I got them and what they mean.
If I refuse to hide my scars and instead lay them open to the world, I am vulnerable, true. But I am also in a position to help others who are suffering the same pain that etched those scars in my heart.
So I choose not to hide.
I choose to be a lighthouse.
Not because I think I can steer others clear of the rocks of loss and sorrow, but because I want them to know they are not alone.
Labels and categories can be helpful. When cruising the grocery aisles I’m thankful for the signs that point the way to “vegetables” or “baking needs”.
But labels can be harmful when applied to people.
Read the rest here: Strong or Weak? How Labels Harm the Hurting
I hate mirrors. Not because I’m ashamed of my wrinkles or my fat hips. But because the face staring back at me now is not one I recognize.
I see someone who’s supposed to be me and can’t quite place her.
There’s a vague resemblance to the person that used to look me in the eye while I was brushing my teeth or fixing my hair.
But now, she is “other”, unfamiliar, strange in a “slightly off” kind of way.
I often laugh and smile but I’m rarely in front of a reflective surface when giggles animate my face and redraw it in the old, familiar outline.
My resting face looks old and sad and tired.
The eyes that used to be clear are clouded. The mouth that more often than not was turned up in at least a hint of a smile is, at best, a straight line and, at worst, a frown. Deep lines show that I spend most of my days squinting, as if I’m searching the distant horizon for a glimpse of something that SHOULD be there but is just out of sight.
I can’t erase what grief has etched in flesh.
So I try not to look.
I hate that there is a need to even address this topic.
Call me naive, but when I started writing for (primarily) an audience who had also suffered child loss, I assumed we would be of one accord in protecting each others’ hearts. But that has proven false.
So here we are-one more time.
How should I share the words of another? What is the RIGHT way to use a blog post or FB post or quote from an online or offline article on my own timeline that resonates deeply with my heart?
And, most importantly, when should I NOT share?
Let me just begin by saying that this is not about “credit”-my blog and most blogs I read are not monetized in any way. The authors are sharing because they are passionate about exposing their hearts in the hope it will help another heart just a little bit.
That said, it’s important to understand that in sharing, I (and others) are choosing vulnerability when we could choose to hide.
So when someone steals our words (maybe changes them just a little) and posts them as their own, they are stealing our identity-and in my case, since the blog is about my grief journey after losing my son-they are stealing his identity as well.
And that is a terrible thing to do.
The RIGHT WAY to share a blog post is this:
The RIGHT WAY to share another person’s Facebook post is this:
That’s it. It boils down to the same rules we learned in high school: if you didn’t write it, cite it appropriately so your audience knows that.
Otherwise it is theft.
I love for people to share the blog. I love that my words speak truths that echo how their heart feels.
But please, please, please do not pretend they are YOUR words.
I’m driving down the highway listening to the morning news brief. A quick mention that Paris is likely to get the bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics draws my attention.
I begin to do the math-when are the next Olympics? Oh, yes-2020. Three years away.
Double the time I’ve been without Dominic.
How old will I be in 2024? Sixty-one! How many years will it be THEN since I last held my son’s hand, hugged his neck, heard his voice?
This happens in a flash. My heart goes from “just fine” to “I can’t believe this is my life” in sixty seconds.
But I can’t stay here. If I do the day will be shot. I won’t accomplish a thing because despair will drag me under and only a good night’s sleep will have hope of restoring me.
So I don’t. I grab those thoughts and wrestle them to the ground. I pin them with the truth that no matter how many years it is between when I last saw Dominic and when I join him in Heaven they will be short and swift in light of eternity.
I take comfort in accepting that my vantage point is limited to my handful of experiences in this life and to what I can see with my own eyes. But God sees the whole sweep of eternity, from beginning to end. I have found Him to be a relentlessly good and loving God. Because of my confidence in His character, I can rest in knowing that someday, someday, Katie’s [Dominic’s] short life and premature death will make sense to me. Someday God will scoop me, too, into His arms, and I will step into a world that until that moment I could only sense and never see. I will finally get it. And I will see Him face to face.
And you know who else I will see face-to-face on that day?
I will see Katie [Dominic].
Yes, God is merciful.
~September Vaudrey, Colors of Goodbye
I resist the pressure to give up and push back with the strength that comes from knowing that my opponent is no match for the Champion that fights for me.
It’s interesting how God gives a similar message to many in His family around the same time. My friend and fellow bereaved mom, Kathleen Duncan posted just yesterday Dear Momma Who’s Feeling Not Enough. She had no idea that I had this post lined up over a week ago for today. So maybe we should all take a moment to realize that we ARE enough-just us. Because of Christ, we ARE enough. ❤
It has taken me decades to internalize the message that I don’t have anything to prove.
It has taken many, many heartbreaking moments to realize that no matter how hard I try to please everyone and met each expectation held over my head, I will fail.
It has taken diets and restrictive clothing and false faces painted on with make up to understand that my body is not the best representation of who I really am.
It has taken years of self-talk to rub out the negativity stamped on the inside of my brain and behind my eyelids.
I am just now (at 53 years old!) learning to lean into my identity in Christ and turn my back on the false identity the world and the enemy of my soul wants me to embrace.
But the truth is that IF Christ took it ALL to the cross (and I believe He did), then there’s nothing left to prove.
And if there is nothing left to prove then I am truly free.
I’m free to eat and drink to the glory of God instead of eating and drinking to craft my body into a shrine of perfection and youth.
I’m free of people pleasing and set free to please God (even when it doesn’t please people).
I’m free of trying to impress the neighbors and free to impart the good news of the Gospel-no strings attached.
I am free to be the me I was created to be.
I’ve written before about anxiety and child loss here. No matter the cause of death, the FACT of a child’s death seems to create the perfect conditions for a parent’s body and mind to experience anxiety, dis-ease, fear and often a sense of impending doom.
My world was rocked to its foundation the moment I heard the words, “He was killed in a motorcycle accident”.
The worst thing I could imagine had come true.
There was no protection from it happening again, no guarantee that THIS unbearable pain would be the ONLY unbearable pain I would have to carry.
I think my body chemistry was instantly transformed that morning to include rapid heartbeats, shallow breathing and a horrible creepy tension that climbs my spine and clenches its claws tightly at the base of my skull.
Before Dominic left us for Heaven I was not an anxious person.
No matter what happened, I generally took it in stride, looked for a solution and moved forward armed with an arsenal of choices to meet the problem head on.
Now, I can be pushed into a corner by an ordinary phone call that lasts too long. I can feel trapped if a price fails to ring up properly and I have to wait to have it corrected by a head cashier. I can become positively frantic when I reach in my purse and can’t find my keys even though I know for a fact I put them there and if I look a bit harder I’ll find them.
Traffic makes my heart go pitter-patter. The doorbell sends me flying to make sure it’s the UPS man and not another police officer to tell me heartbreaking news.
If I try to multi-task (which I rarely do) I am soon overwhelmed and have to sit down to catch my breath.
I only shop in stores where I’m familiar with the aisles and where products I need are shelved.
I check and re-check directions if I have to go to an unfamiliar address and leave with double the time needed to get there in case I get lost. Making on-the-fly course corrections doesn’t happen.
I pull off and have to figure out where I am.
And heaven forbid the phone rings past midnight -I wake with a start and even a wrong number means I won’t sleep for the rest of the night.
This is not “worry”. It’s not “borrowing trouble from tomorrow”. It is not an indication that my faith is weak or I’m “caving in” to my feelings.
It’s an uncontrollable physiological response to various stimuli.
So please, please don’t judge me or other bereaved parents for making choices about where we go, when we go and how much we go-most of the time we are anticipating an anxious response and trying to beat it.
We are doing the best we can.
Honest.
I wrote this post 18 months ago after a number of incidents when friends and family members tried to tell me how long to grieve, what my grieving should look like and (most hurtful) how my son would want me to grieve.
I rejected that notion then, and I reject it now.
Most of us have taken a class or two in literature–we read other people’s writing and sit around discussing “what it really means”. My husband has always scoffed at the notion that anyone but the author knows that.
Me–I love books, plays and poetry so I’ve spent a lifetime reading and trying to interpret the meaning of others’ words.
But now I find I’m leaning more toward my husband’s point of view.
One of the challenges I face as a grieving parent is finding that other people want to interpret my experience for me.
Read the rest here: curating grief
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