Day Seventeen of Kathleen Duncan’s June 1-30 challenge.
The prompt: Write a Haiku (Seventeen Syllables)
It was an interesting challenge to distill a message to just 17 syllables.
I have long believed that each life is also a song.
This is mine:
I am a song bird.
I sing love, grace, mercy, peace-
I learned the hard way.
Grief and loss broke my heart and life wide open-no more hidden corners, no more walled-off spaces.
And the vast expanse left by Dominic’s absence will be filled.
Nature hates a vacuum.
What I pour into my heart or allow God to pour into it determines whether I am changed in a way that blesses me and others or not.
I don’t have a choice in being broken.
But I have a choice in being filled. I can position my heart to hear from God and to dwell on His promises and Person or invite bitterness to move in.
I pray that you will have greater understanding in your heart. Then you will know the hope that God has chosen to give us. I pray that you will know that the blessings God has promised his holy people are rich and glorious.
Ephesians 1:18 ICB
Just last week another mother in my community joined the ranks of those who bury a child. Suddenly, unexpectedly, and without warning, her son was gone.
It happens every day.
We toss a casual “see you later” to the person heading out the door without thinking it might be the last thing we say to them.
I am determined not to live in fear of loss-even though I have experienced it first hand.
But I am also determined to live so that should I lose someone else, they will be assured of this:
I love them and I value them.
I don’t take things for granted anymore-What if Tomorrow Never Came?
I hear you, mama. That baby toddling away from the security of your arms-you miss those close snuggles and slobbery kisses. But he’s not really LEAVING, he’s just growing.
I know, I know.
First day of school blues.
Where did the time go? How can you drop that little girl off at the front door and trust that her teacher will take care of her as well as mom? She’s getting older, but she isn’t outside your influence.
Oh my goodness!! Already graduating high school? Moving out and going to college! No more daily chats face-to-face across the kitchen table. No more late night confession sessions.
He’s a young man, pulling away, making big decisions without you, but he’ll be home for Christmas and summer vacation.
For all you mamas lamenting the passage of time and the upheavals it brings I have a word: It’s NOT over.
Your child is still within reach. You can call or text or visit. You can touch his face, hug her neck, hear his voice.
Life is changing but it is still LIFE.
Feeling a little nostalgic for what WAS is perfectly normal. Most of us humans aren’t that fond of change.
But children are ours for a season, not forever.
They are given to us as gifts, not possessions.
For some mamas, like me, it really IS over.
The son I brought home from the hospital, the boy I watched grow and mature into a young man, the confident college graduate I saw drive away to start law school-he is gone.
I can’t call or text or visit him.
I can’t forge a different kind of relationship across the miles or make special arrangements for him to travel home for the holidays.
I can’t make new memories or take new photographs. I can’t hug his neck or hear his voice.
So it’s OK to feel a little sad that things are changing. It’s like moving furniture around in the room-you stub your toe in the dark because things aren’t where they used to be.
But for me, it’s like the house has burned down.
I felt a pinch in my heart every now and then as my children grew and more and more of their lives were spent away from me. But I also celebrated each milestone, made much (and still do) of each achievement.
I didn’t want them to be frozen in time, stuck on a shelf, kept “small”.
Enjoy the time you have with your babies, with your children, with your teens-embrace the growing independent persons they are becoming.
As long as they are walking the earth with you, nothing is OVER, it’s just the beginning of something new.
Most of us know the story of Job.
A righteous man, singled out by Satan to be tempted, ends up bereft of his children, his fortune and his health.
Sitting in the dust, scraping the pus from his wounds, three friends join him in his misery.
And they make it worse.
It’s hard to imagine that after burying a child, anything that people say or do can make you feel worse-but it is possible.
I had many friends and family that brought genuine comfort to my spirit.
They were the ones who spoke courage to my battered heart and helped me face another day when all I wanted to do was crawl under the covers and pray that the sun refused to shine. And I will never be able to repay them for that kindness.
But there were others….people who wanted to make sense of a senseless tragedy.
People who wanted to equate the loss of their aged aunt, their job, their (fill in the blank) with the unexpected, sudden loss of my perfectly healthy son.
And some folks kept poking around for details, for tidbits of information surrounding his accident like chickens scratching in the dirt.
Then there were the ones who tried to use human wisdom to fit things into their version of God’s “greater plan”.
It was very painful at first to fend off what felt like attacks. It was hard to ignore the additional burden of careless words or thoughtless actions.
But at this point in my grief journey I think I’ve figured out some of what motivates people who follow in the footsteps of Job’s comforters.
While I, the one who suffered loss, knew immediately and irrevocably that I WAS NOT IN CONTROL–bystanders and onlookers were still trying to preserve the illusion that they were.
They were looking for a clue, for a pattern, for a reason so that they could avoid the same fate.
If it’s possible to map a path to what led to my son’s death, then they will choose a different route.
If danger lurks in one direction, they will head the other way.
And that’s really what Job’s comforters were trying to do-they were attempting to fit Job’s experience into a grid they could understand.
They were struggling to align their concept of God, of righteousness and fairness with what they saw with their own eyes.
Surely Job must be hiding something.
Surely he wasn’t as righteous as he appeared.
Surely bad things don’t happen to good people.
Because, really, if they do, none of us are immune.
If doing the right thing, being careful, being “good” doesn’t protect you, then the world is a much more frightening place than we can imagine.
Believe me-I get it. Having lost one child, I would do ANYTHING to guarantee that it didn’t happen again.
But newsflash: We are not in control. We cannot guarantee outcomes. We do not determine our days.
God does.
And His ways are higher than our ways. His plan is bigger than mine.
Job asked God, “Why?”
God never answered Job’s questions.
Instead He invited Job to consider the great gap between himself and the God Who made him.
And faced with undeniable evidence, Job relented:
Then Job replied to the Lord:
I know that You can do anything
and no plan of Yours can be thwarted.
You asked, “Who is this who conceals My counsel with ignorance?”
Surely I spoke about things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to[b] know.
You said, “Listen now, and I will speak.
When I question you, you will inform Me.”
I had heard rumors about You,
but now my eyes have seen You.
Therefore I take back my words
and repent in dust and ashes.Job 42:1-6 HCSB
April 19, 2014
One week ago today my world was torn asunder, my eyes opened to the reality of what I said I believed-that any day, any moment, can be the last. I was forced to face the test-second only to my own death should I have time to think before I die-of whether or not Scripture tells the truth or a tale:
Whether the loving God I claim to serve is for me or against me.
Whether this earthly existence is a path leading to the eternal life Christ promised or just a fleeting moment leading to eternal nothingness.
Will I define the rest of my days by what I have lost, always staring down the hole of emptiness left by Dominic’s breathing, vital absence or will I lift my eyes to the Eternal God and define my life by the very real connection I now have in Heaven?
Will I let grace, mercy and love fill me to overflowing and spill out into the lives of those around me or will I embrace bitterness and defeat and shrivel up so that my story dishonors the generous life Dominic lived?
By God’s grace, I choose love.
If my hands are open to the blessing, then they must be open to the pain.
If my heart is open to the memories and love, then it must be open to the grief and sorrow.
Oh LORD! You have bruised me so that I will always be tender!
To walk with kindness and mercy and grace toward everyone-make that the legacy of my precious boy!
May 2, 2016
I continue to make the daily choice to hold out my empty hands to the God I serve.
Some days, it’s a greater challenge than others.
Sometimes I want to clinch my fists and cry, “No more!”
I would like to think that burying my son had filled up the quota of pain and hurt for a lifetime. I want to believe that since I’ve been wounded so grievously, God would spare me further struggle.
But that’s not true.
Life goes on.
I still face problems, I still face disappointment, I still face hardships and sorrow.
That is when I have to decide: Will I close my heart and hands to the One Who can fill them with life and hope as well as grief and pain?
Where would I go?
I, like Peter, proclaim:
“Master, to whom would [I] go? You have the words of real life, eternal life. [I’ve] already committed [myself], confident that you are the Holy One of God.”
John 6:68 MSG
It’s not a cozy, warm-yourself-up fire in my safe fireplace.
It’s a raging, too-hot-to-survive inferno, blazing away and uncontrollable.
Losing my son is refining me, burning off the excess, drawing out the inner woman.
April 14, 2014
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. IN ALL THIS YOU GREATLY REJOICE, THOUGH NOW FOR A LITTLE WHILE YOU MAY HAVE HAD TO SUFFER GRIEF IN ALL KINDS OF TRIALS, –These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
1 Peter 1:3-9 NIV
My heart is broken open wide, Father.
Fill it with love, compassion, grace, peace, hope and mercy-but never seal it shut-let what You fill it with spill out
“These three remain-faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these is love.”
April 29, 2016
I’m still in the fire.
I don’t know if I am used to the heat or if it has burned down to a cooler flame but it is more bearable to be here.
God has answered my whispered prayer:
He has filled and is filling my heart.
He has not allowed grief to make it hard.
“But we all suffer. For we all prize and love; and in this present existence of ours, prizing and loving yield suffering. Love in our world is suffering love. Some do not suffer much, though, for they do not love much. Suffering is for the loving. This, said Jesus, is the command of the Holy One: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” In commanding us to love, God invites us to suffer.”
― Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son
I am so very thankful I live in a country where the vast majority of parents do not know what it’s like to bury a child.
I am part of a relatively small group. Bereaved parents make up a tiny segment of the population.
It’s possible that you may never be close friends with someone who has lost a child.
And because death and dying are unpopular subjects, and because grieving parents can become very good at hiding the pain, even if you DO meet someone whose child has died, they may never tell you about it.
So, so many of the friends I have made on this journey live each day bearing the weight of grief AND the heavy burden of being misunderstood-at work, in church, even in their own extended families.
One of the first posts I wrote was born out of this angst-birthed in pain as I realized that even well-meaning friends and family members who have not experienced child loss really don’t have any idea how it feels :
People say, “I can’t imagine.“
But then they do.
They think that missing a dead child is like missing your kid at college or on the mission field but harder and longer.
That’s not it at all.
Read the rest: What Grieving Parents Want Others to Know
I realize that some people reading this can’t imagine a scenario where Google Maps won’t guide them to the nearest Starbucks.
But I’m old enough to remember when paper maps were all we had, cell phones were science fiction and Interstate exit signs didn’t include helpful footnotes to tell you what restaurants and gas stations were just beyond the tree line.
Even further back in time, people traveled with only the sun and stars to mark their progress.
The rising sun was a sure and faithful witness to which way was east.
Every morning a wise traveller took note of where they had been and made sure that they were headed in the right direction to get where they wanted to go.
Grief often feels like I’ve been picked up by a whirlwind and deposited in a country with no familiar landmarks and all the signposts are in another language.
If I try to depend on my own sense of direction, I’m condemned to walk in circles, wind up lost and never find my bearings. I will not be able to point myself toward home. .
For my hurting heart, God’s Word is my morning sun.
I orient my thoughts to His truth and walk on, even when I’m unsure of the road, because I can trust His promises.
Each day, I shake off slumber, open my eyes and look for the infallible Guide that can lead me in the right direction.
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and with hope I wait for his word.
My soul waits for the Lord
more than those who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the morning.Psalm 130:5-6 GW
Today is the day on the church calendar when we pause and reflect on the Last Supper, and the last words of Jesus to His disciples.
A year’s worth of sermons is contained in John 13-17 but this week I have been drawn to just one verse:
[Jesus said] “Now I am giving you a new command—love one another. Just as I have loved you, so you must love one another. This is how all men will know that you are my disciples, because you have such love for one another.” John 13:34 PHILLIPS
The Israelites were given circumcision as the sign of the covenant. The shedding of blood as the mark of belonging.
But Jesus knew His blood would be the final and complete sacrifice required for sin. He knew the debt would be fully paid. And blood would no longer be required.
So a new mark is given, a new seal is declared: LOVE will be the designation by which others know who belongs to the Father through Christ, His Son.
I look around, and see how far we have fallen from the example and standard Jesus set for those of us who follow Him.
How we are known, not for our love for one another, not for our service to one another, not for our care for one another– but for our divisiveness, our competitive nature, our exclusion, our anger.
Jesus died to make us free from the penalty of sin and death. But He LIVED to give us an example for LIFE.
Jesus washed the disciples’ feet-He took on a task that was considered the lowest, the most degrading household job and did it with love.
If this is how my Master served, what job can be too menial for me? What task can be too humbling for me?
The One in Whom all is held together, held the dirty feet of dirty men, who in just a few hours would desert Him.
I look forward to Heaven every day because part of my heart already lives there.
But as long as I am left on this earth, I want to live in love.
I want to reach out with the same heart that my Master has for the lost and hurting and lonely and outcast.
I want it to be obvious to Whom I belong.
thelifeididntchoose 