It is tempting to forget that there were three long days and nights between the crucifixion and the resurrection beause the way we observe this season rushes us past the pain to embrace the promise.
But it’s not hard for me to imagine how the disciples felt when they saw Jesus was dead. It was neither what they expected nor what they prayed for.
Read the rest here: Living Between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection
We chose the songs for Dominic’s Homegoing Service with great care, knowing that we wanted to honor him and his life, lift high the Lord Jesus and give a clear preentation of the hope we have in Christ.
Today, I’m sharing them again.
“In Christ Alone” (Getty Music)
In Christ alone my hope is found,
He is my light, my strength, my song;
this Cornerstone, this solid Ground,
firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
when fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My Comforter, my All in All,
here in the love of Christ I stand.
There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain:
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave he rose again!
It’s really hard to wrap my mind around what exactly Dominic is doing now that he’s not here with me. Sometimes I try to create a narrative or a scene or a story line that gives me something to hold on to.
It’s not easy though.
So I absolutely understand why some parents think of their missing child as their “guardian angel”. But that just doesn’t correspond to what Scripture tells me about what happens after death.
I firmly believe that there is a heaven and that my son is there, in the presence of Jesus and the saints that have gone before.
We are confident, then, and would much prefer to leave our home in the body and come to our home with the Lord.
I Corinthians 5:8 CJB
He’s not an angel nor has he been assigned to look out for me down here with some kind of supernatural power to intervene and make things happen-either good or bad.
He is worshiping with other believers at the feet of Jesus, the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.
And honestly, that brings me more comfort than the thought that he is watching me suffer his absence down here.
Dominic loved me-still loves me, I believe-and if he were aware of the deep pain his absence causes it would be torture for him.
But in the presence of Christ there is only joy.
You teach me the way of life. In your presence is total celebration. Beautiful things are always in your right hand.
Psalm 16:11 CEB
So he cannot know my pain.
It would break his heart.
It is great consolation in this journey to realize that he is beyond ALL pain and sorrow.
I am deeply thankful for that.
Bifurcate: 1. to cause to divide into two branches or parts; 2. my life.
Before Dominic ran ahead to heaven I led a fairly unified life.
Our family was unusually close, our goals closely aligned, we shared the same faith, had developed routines and even all liked creamy peanut butter.
That changed when Dom left us-suddenly I was forced to live with one foot HERE and one foot THERE.
I didn’t get to choose, it was decided for me.
Paul’s words took on new meaning and great relevance:
We know that if our earthly house—a mere tent that can easily be taken down—is destroyed, we will then live in an eternal home in the heavens, a building crafted by divine—not human—hands. 2 Currently, in this tent of a house, we continue to groan and ache with a deep desire to be sheltered in our permanent home 3 because then we will be truly clothed and comfortable, protected by a covering for our current nakedness. 4 The fact is that in this tent we anxiously moan, fearing the naked truth of our reality. What we crave above all is to be clothed so that what is temporary and mortal can be wrapped completely in life. 5 The One who has worked and tailored us for this is God Himself, who has gifted His Spirit to us as a pledge toward our permanent home.
2 Corinthians 5:1-5 VOICE
Groan–YES!
Deep longing can only be expressed with low, gutteral sounds-there are no words!
I am in this earthly tent but want desperately to be free of it and clothed with the eternal-where joy unspeakable will reign and sorrow and death will be no more.
So this Lenten journey is helpful to me-it acknowledges the struggle between flesh and spirit. It encourages my heart to walk by faith and not sight, to grab hold of that which counts forever and let go of that which is doomed for destruction.
The truth is, all of us who follow Jesus lead a bifurcated life.
It’s simply that some of us can ignore that truth. Until death touches our bodies or our families, we can pretend that the earthly tent’s not so bad, that it might be somewhere we’d enjoy staying quite awhile.
I am not at all thankful for Dom’s death. I will never be thankful my son left us in the prime of life, full of promise and without saying good-bye.
But I am thankful that I am unavoidably confronted with the truth that this life is fleeting, this world is only a moment and this body temporary housing for my eternal soul.
Paul goes on to write:
In light of this [our understanding that our life here is temporary], we live with a daring passion and know that our time spent in this body is also time we are not present with the Lord. 7 The path we walk is charted by faith, not by what we see with our eyes. 8 There is no doubt that we live with a daring passion, but in the end we prefer to be gone from this body so that we can be at home with the Lord. 9 Ultimately it does not matter whether we are here or gone; our purpose stays fixed, and that is to please Him.
2 Corinthians 5: 6-9 VOICE
My eyes see one thing, but my heart knows another.
“To win the contest you must deny yourselves many things that would keep you from doing your best. An athlete goes to all this trouble just to win a blue ribbon or a silver cup, but we do it for a heavenly reward that never disappears.” [emphasis added]
~ I Corinthians 9:25 TLB
I remember one particularly grueling semester in college. I had foolishly stacked five upper level political science classes on top of one another thinking that taking them together would be easier.
That was a dumb idea.
The end of semester assignments included 200 pages of written term papers along with essay tests and other random bits. For two weeks I fell asleep on my bedroom floor, pen in hand, legal pad underneath my head and surrounded by dozens of open books I used for reference.
After composing the papers, I had to type them, add footnotes and bibliography and deliver them. All back before computers and word processing programs made it easy and electronic!
Oh, how I wanted to give up and give in! I was certain that I was not going to make it. I just knew that my body or mind or both would give out before I completed the task.
But they didn’t and I did manage to make it through.
I was willing to put forth the effort and pay the price for a letter grade!
No one cares what I made on those essays. No one asks me about my college classes or grades. At 53 I can’t even remember what I wrote about.
Now I face a much more challenging task: Living without the companionship of one of my precious children. The “grade” I make on this effort has eternal impact.
This is the Valley of Weeping, yet Christ promises it will become a place of refreshing.
“When they walk through the Valley of Weeping, it will become a place of springs where pools of blessing and refreshment collect after rains!”
Psalm 84:6 TLB
I can’t see an end for this grueling work. There’s no “semester break” circled on my calendar.
But there will be an end to this toil and pain-just as surely as there was an end those many years ago.
“As for us, we have this large crowd of witnesses around us. So then, let us rid ourselves of everything that gets in the way, and of the sin which holds on to us so tightly, and let us run with determination the race that lies before us. 2 Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from beginning to end. He did not give up because of the cross! On the contrary, because of the joy that was waiting for him, he thought nothing of the disgrace of dying on the cross, and he is now seated at the right side of God’s throne.” [emphasis added]
~Hebrews 12: 1-2 GNT
And the reward for faithfully completing this assignment is so much more valuable than a good grade.
“Yet, my brothers, I do not consider myself to have “arrived”, spiritually, nor do I consider myself already perfect. But I keep going on, grasping ever more firmly that purpose for which Christ grasped me. My brothers, I do not consider myself to have fully grasped it even now. But I do concentrate on this: I leave the past behind and with hands outstretched to whatever lies ahead I go straight for the goal—my reward the honour of being called by God in Christ.” [emphasis added]
~Philippians 3:12-16 PHILLIPS
This reward is eternal-a never-ending supply of God’s grace and love and joy that will overwhelm the toil and pain I’ve endured.
Reunion.
Redemption.
Restoration.
So while I wait, I encourage my heart with these truths:
“Even more, I consider everything to be nothing compared to knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. To know him is worth much more than anything else. Because of him I have lost everything. But I consider all of it to be garbage so I can know Christ better.” [emphasis added]
~Philippians 3:8 NIRV
“We are cracked and chipped from our afflictions on all sides, but we are not crushed by them. We are bewildered at times, but we do not give in to despair. 9 We are persecuted, but we have not been abandoned. We have been knocked down, but we are not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our bodies the reality of the brutal death and suffering of Jesus. As a result, His resurrection life rises and reveals its wondrous power in our bodies as well. 11 For while we live, we are constantly handed over to death on account of Jesus so that His life may be revealed even in our mortal bodies of flesh.” [emphasis added]
~ 2 Corinthians 4:8-11 VOICE
“And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” ~Jesus
~Matthew 28:20b NKJV
This past week has been brutal in many ways.
Some of us are fearful. Some of us are hopeful. Some of us just want it all to go away.
For me, it’s yet another reminder that We are Not Home Yet.
Another mama who carries the burden of child loss posted a music video on her Facebook wall and it melted me.
Because when you wake every day to the reality that your beloved child is out of reach you begin to wonder sometimes if there is a sorrow so deep it can never be healed.
So I listened-over and over-as David Crowder sang truth to my soul: “Earth has no sorrow that heaven can’t heal.”
You don’t have to lose a child to feel overwhelmed with the burdens of this life.
You don’t have to look death in the face to feel death in your bones.
I wish I knew how to embed videos in my posts, but I don’t so here’s the link: Crowder “Come As You Are”
Listen and let hope fill your soul.
This life is hard. No denying the truth. But hold on.
What we see is not all there is.
Come as You Are
Come out of sadness from wherever you’ve been
Come broken-hearted, let rescue begin
Come find your mercy, oh sinner come kneel
Earth has no sorrow that heaven can’t heal
Earth has no sorrow that heaven can’t healSo Lay down your burdens, lay down your shame
All who are broken, lift up your face
Oh wanderer come home, you’re not too far
So lay down your hurt, lay down your heart
Come as you areThere’s hope for the hopeless and all those who’ve strayed
Come sit at the table, come taste the grace
There’s rest for the weary, rest that endures
Earth has no sorrow that heaven can’t cure.
When I had a child, suddenly I cared about everything. When I lost a child, suddenly I cared about nothing.
~ a bereaved mother
When I read this comment, I thought about it for a moment to see if it was true for me.
And I realized that, yes, it WAS true at the very beginning.
Mind-numbing pain and soul-crushing agony pressed down so heavily that I couldn’t care about anything other than reminding myself to
In.
Out.
Repeat.
A bit over twenty-eight months have passed and my body, mind and spirit are stronger.
The pain is still great, but I am better able to bear it now.
My heart is bigger because I suffer and it is softer toward those who also suffer.
Trials make great room for consolation. There is nothing that makes man have a big heart like a great trial. I have found that those people who have no sympathy for their fellows, who never weep for the sorrows of others very seldom have any of their own. Great hearts could be made only by great troubles.
Charles Spurgeon
Now I care much more deeply about a few, select “things”.
The ones I can take with me into eternity:
People
And love
And grace
Forever in heaven with Jesus.
One breath
One glance
A single tiny detail transports me from here to there.
Takes me from doing alright to devastation
Changes daylight to dark and grips my soul with terrifying pain.
If I didn’t have hope to cling to
If I didn’t know that every promise of God in Christ is yes and amen
If I didn’t trust that my tears are recorded in His book,
my name written on His hands
and my life secure within His own I’d let the darkness take me under.
Breathe in
Breathe out
It will pass
THIS is not forever.
Forever is waiting for me
Dominic is already there-
Tomorrows without end.
No tears
No fears
No goodbyes
Open arms.
How long has it been? A year, two, eighteen or twenty-five?
When. are. you. going. to. move on?
Aren’t you over talking about their birth story, their childhood, their school years, their spouse, children, moves and career? How many funny stories or sad recollections do I have to listen to?????
I mean, really-it’s been soooooooooo00 long since they were BORN!
Sound’s ridiculous, doesn’t it? It IS ridiculous.
We don’t expect parents to “move on” or “get over” their living children.
Why, why, why do we expect parents to move on or get over the ones they’ve had to bury?
My love for each of my children, on earth or in heaven, is life-long.
I wrote about it here: Love: The Reason I Grieve
