I was absolutely overwhelmed in those first days.
Cars, cars, cars filled my long driveway and front yard.
People spilling out like ants scrambling after the hill is disturbed.
Oh, our hill was disturbed-knocked wide open by that deputy’s visit.
Read the rest here:Who Steps In? Who Walks Out?
Toss that rock in the water and see what happens.
It’s impossible to keep the ripples from moving farther and farther from the point of impact.
And even though I can’t see it, my casual toss has changed the environment of the pond in ways it would not have been changed without my action.
Our lives are like that- we touch other people every day and rarely know how our brief brush may ripple through their lives for years or even eternity.
I have been lifted up by a smile offered by a stranger-that buoyant mood lasting long enough to save an otherwise dreary day.
I have also had a beautiful morning made overcast by the sour attitude of someone that should be helpful.
I want to bring sunshine not rain wherever I go.
I want to speak courage to trembling hearts.
No telling how far the ripples may go. ❤️
I participate in a number of online support groups for bereaved parents.
And one topic that makes the rounds at least once a week-often once a day-is how those outside our experience cannot truly understand our experience.
Because it’s true-you THINK you can imagine the pain of child loss if you have children, but even the most vivid imagination can’t conjure the utter blackness that waits on the other side of hearing, “Your son is dead.”
There’s a great divide between me and those who have not experienced child loss.
But it’s one I hope they never have to cross.
Because it’s a mercy to not know.
If all of us could fathom the pain of losing a child, no one would bear children–the risk would be too great.
So while the gap can be a source of misunderstanding and isolation for ME, it is a safeguard for YOU.
And I am grateful for it. ❤
It’s my habit to watch the sunrise and the sunset every day.
I usually greet the morning in my rocking chair, looking out my east-facing picture window. It never gets old to watch darkness chased away by relentless light rising over the tops of trees.
Beautiful.
Every. Time.
Sunset is a little trickier.
I don’t have a clear view of the west from inside my house and the western edge of my property is peppered with tall trees so I usually only see the beginning of the end of every day. But one of my favorite things to do is watch the golden glow of lingering light touch the tops of the highest pines and then slip away as the sun sinks below the horizon.
Another day has come and gone.
And the days become weeks that become months that become years.
Sometimes the days are long.
But the years are short.
Some days bring news I don’t want to hear. Some bring shouts of rejoicing. Either way I’m not the keeper of my days. The sun neither rises nor sets at my bidding.
But I have choices in the daylight hours. I can work while the sun is shining or I can worry that it might set soon.
I can take advantage of the light or I can wring my hands anticipating the darkness.
I am not naive.
I wish I were.
I wish I didn’t know by experience how much a heart can long for days gone by, days wasted, days that could have held more love and laughter but were overshadowed by worry or hurry or just indifference.
So I watch the sunrise to remind me that TODAY is a gift. And I watch the sunset to remind me that the gift of today is gone forever.
What have I done with it? Who have I loved? Where have I placed my energy and purpose and hope?
Every day is a once in a lifetime opportunity.
I never want to forget that.
Sunrise, sunset, Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly flow the days
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers
Blossoming even as we gaze
Sunrise, sunset, Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears~Sheldon Harnick
I must remind my heart every day that Jesus Himself declared the blessing in mourning.
I must remember that there is comfort available at His feet.
Not in running from my pain, but in embracing it and trusting Him to redeem it.
What blessing is there in mourning? What comfort in distress? What good can come from pain and brokenness?
Good questions.
Honest questions.
Questions I have asked God.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”~Jesus
The folks that followed Him up the hill were part of a nation that had waited centuries for deliverance from sin and persecution. Jesus was surrounded by people powerless to change their circumstances. They were grieving, mourning, in distress.
So when He said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” He was offering real hope to the brokenhearted. He was issuing an invitation…
When we reach the end of our own strength in grief, God invites us into a fellowship of suffering that includes Jesus Christ.
Burying a child is a humbling experience. It is teaching me that I am powerless and oh, so dependent on the grace and mercy of God.
My heart was broken open wide to receive the truth that fierce love makes me vulnerable to deep pain.
And the pain cleared the clutter and noise of the everyday to focus my mind’s attention and my heart’s affection on the eternal.
My life is swept clean of distraction and foolish things and filled with new understanding of what is important and lasting.
My pain has not disappeared.
But it is making room for the God of all comfort to fill it with hope:
That what I am feeling right now is not forever and forever is going to be glorious…
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
Revelation 21:4 KJV
Earlier this week I participated in a “retreat” with Our Hearts Are Home-a ministry to bereaved parents and their families.
On the Zoom call were individuals active in their own communities and own ministries who also lend their time and talents to this one. Together we represent a cadre of bereaved parents who have chosen to come back with a torch to light the way of those still walking in the early days, weeks, months, YEARS of child loss.
It’s a privilege to work and walk beside them.
What I wanted to share today was this: Every one of these individuals is carrying their own burden of grief and loss, every one of them has a life outside ministry that includes family commitments, aging parents, growing children and grandchildren, work, church attendance and committee positions and just the everyday chores of living.
We are contacted via DM and text by newly bereaved parents all the time.
We have nonbereaved friends and family experiencing challenging life events. We have to negotiate holidays and family gatherings while respecting various people’s schedules and preferences.
We are administrators of closed Facebook groups and host book studies and write blogs.
We field phone calls and try to squeeze in workouts or walks, cooking and cleaning.
So when you are thinking about people to pray for, our “cause” may not be dramatic or life-threatening but our work is life giving and light sharing.
Consider adding us to your prayer list.
We’d be oh, so grateful!
**** If you’d like to learn more about the work I do at Heartache and Hope ministry, The Life I Didn’t Choose blog or partner with me through financial support, you can find out more through these links: http://heartacheandhope.org; http://thelifeididntchoose.com; http://square.link/u/cNen14Q1 ****
There is something about winter mornings that invite me to linger long in my rocking chair with my cup of coffee. It’s cold and outside chores can wait a bit.
When I sit here, my mind wanders to many things-mostly days gone by when my busy household would have made these long, slow mornings impossible.
And I miss it. All of it.
Especially the beauty of an unbroken family circle.
I try to hold onto the precious moments as long as I can.
We live in a noisy world.
Music, television, voices and the hum of electricity tunnel into our brains and distract us from hard questions and painful circumstances.
We live in a busy world.
If I’m not in motion, I am getting ready to be.
It is tempting in my grief to try to stuff life full of noise and busyness so I can ignore the pain and emptiness of missing my son.
But there is quiet beauty in the unfilled space of my heart–the spot once brimming with the living essence of the son I love.
In the silence I can hear his voice and see his smile.
So I will guard the noiseless place that still belongs to Dominic and keep it as a treasure, a comfort, and a tribute to him until we are together again.
There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us, and one should not even attempt to do so. One must simply hold out and endure it. At first that sounds very hard, but at the same time it is also a great comfort. For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled one remains connected to the other person through it. It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness. God in no way fills it but much more leaves it precisely unfilled and thus helps us preserve — even in pain — the authentic relationship. Further more, the more beautiful and full the remembrances, the more difficult the separation. But gratitude transforms the torment of memory into silent joy. One bears what was lovely in the past not as a thorn but as a precious gift deep within, a hidden treasure of which one can always be certain.
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Grief has worn away some of the sharp edges of my personality.
I’m still prone to impatience-especially when faced with incompetence or hateful behavior in others.
But I’m learning that walking gently through life is not only good for others, it’s good for ME.
Life IS short. ‘
Not just the life of a child or teen or young adult cut down by accident or disease.
But even if I live my “threescore and ten” the Bible talks about, it will STILL be short. Seventy, eighty, one hundred years set on the timeline of history or eternity is less than a pinpoint.
What do I want my legacy to be? What do I want to leave behind for others to remember, to ponder, to carry in their hearts attached to my memory?
That’s easy. I want my legacy to be love.
I want people to remember that I treated them with kindness, that I respected them as persons, that I reached out, reached down and never separated myself from them by false barriers, foolish divisions or fake measures of who is “better” and who is “worse”.
More than anything I want people to feel that I made their burden lighter, not heavier.
So much of life is hard.
So many things happen for which there is no remedy.
I can’t choose everything, but I can choose love.
Life is short and we have not much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark way with us. Oh, be swift to love! Make haste to be kind.
– Henri Fredric Amiel
What, exactly, is the value of believers in Jesus plastering an “Everything is fine” mask across our faces?
Are we afraid that if we allow someone to see our pain we are letting God down?
And how could that be?
Did not Christ Himself beg the Father in the Garden to take the cup from Him?
Yet we smile and wave and chat our way through encounters with people around us, pretending, pretending, pretending that life is easy when it most certainly is not.
Denying the dark and refusing to acknowledge the depth of our pain diminishes the value of the comfort of Christ.
When David wrote that, “yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Thou art with me” he understood both the desperate need for and the great assurance of Christ’s Presence.
When we allow others to see our broken hearts, we bear testimony to the sustaining grace of Jesus.
And we extend an invitation for them to meet this Savior that gives strength and comfort even in the darkest hours and hardest journeys.
There have been a number of posts from different parents in our closed groups recently remarking on how difficult this journey continues to be even decades down the road.
From the outside looking in, folks think, “Well, they’ve had plenty of time to adapt”.
But what they don’t understand is that for a parent, it’s not only what we HAD that is missing, it’s what we thought we WOULD HAVE that we miss too.
So every Christmas, every New Year, every birthday, holiday and family celebration our child isn’t present is another “not there” we have to process and accept.
This grief truly is relentless.❤ Melanie
re·lent·less
adjective
opressively constant; incessant.
Synonyms: persistent, continuing, nonstop, never-ending, unabating, interminable, incessant, unceasing, endless, unremitting, unrelenting, unrelieved.
thelifeididntchoose 