Category: Holly

Navigating Grief: Did God Take My Child?

Trying to ignore or stuff our questions because they are uncomfortable or too hard to think about isn’t helpful. They just rattle around in our minds and burrow deeper into our hearts causing confusion and raising doubt.

One of the questions many bereaved parents desperately want to answer: Did God take my child?

These are my thoughts-ones I believe are backed by Scripture and align with what I know personally about God’s character.

They are the result of many months of wrestling. I offer them in hopes they will help another heart.

❤ Melanie

This is a question that comes up all the time in bereaved parents’ groups:  Did God take my child?

Trust me, I’ve asked it myself.  

How you answer this question can mean the difference between giving up or going on, between turning away or trusting.

So this is MY answer.  The one I’ve worked out through study, prayer and many, many tears.  You may disagree.  That’s just fine.  I only offer it because it might be helpful to some struggling and sorrowful soul.

Read the rest here: Did God Take My Child?

Navigating Grief: Sometimes There ARE No Answers

Several recent conversations, comments and our family’s experience of losing little Holly, have reminded me again how much energy and effort it takes to work through the cosmic questions that rock every bereaved parent’s world.

When Dominic ran ahead to Heaven I no longer had the luxury of turning a blind eye to things like, “How do you reconcile God’s sovereignty with free will?” and, “What difference does prayer make?” or, “Why do bad things happen to ‘good’ people?”.

These are the questions that filled my mind and kept me awake at night after burying my son.  Questions I was free to ignore before they took up residence in my soul and echoed in my head with every thump, thump, thump of my beating heart.

So I’m digging out some old posts where I share how I came to understand those questions, live with many (most?) unanswered yet hold fast to the truth that God’s faithful love and grace are sufficient and unending.

I hope it helps another heart.

❤ Melanie

We are a people who love a good mystery as long as it leads to a good ending-bad guys vanquished, questions answered, motives revealed and a tidy resolution.

But real life is rarely so neat and squared away.

Just consider your average doctor’s visit.  Diagnosis is often a result of trial and error when a simple blood test or throat culture is unavailable to confirm or rule out a particular malady.  Yet we blunder forward, trying this and that until something either works or the illness runs its course.

Relationships are even trickier.  We stand toe-to-toe with others hoping we understand what they are saying or not saying, feeling or not feeling-all the while forced to act and react in the space between.  It’s a wonder we aren’t all at war with one another.

And then there are the big “What ifs?” and “Whys?”

The cosmic questions that rock our world and threaten to undo us.

These are the questions that filled my mind and kept me awake at night after burying my son.  Questions I was free to ignore before they took up residence in my soul and echoed in my head with every thump, thump, thump of my beating heart.

It took a very long time for me to learn to live with them unanswered. And there are still moments when I scream aloud and raise my fist to the sky, demanding an accounting.

But most days, I can rest in that space between the asking and the answer-if not exactly at peace-then at least in a state of suspended animation.

And that may really be all God expects of me this side of heaven.

Job never did get any answers.

He stood before God speechless and in awe.

That’s pretty much where I am right now.

I don’t have to like it.

I don’t have to understand it.

I only have to be willing to admit that He is God and I am not.  

Job answered God:

“I’m convinced: You can do anything and everything.
    Nothing and no one can upset your plans.
You asked, ‘Who is this muddying the water,
    ignorantly confusing the issue, second-guessing my purposes?’
I admit it. I was the one. I babbled on about things far beyond me,
    made small talk about wonders way over my head.
You told me, ‘Listen, and let me do the talking.
    Let me ask the questions. You give the answers.’
I admit I once lived by rumors of you;
    now I have it all firsthand—from my own eyes and ears!
I’m sorry—forgive me. I’ll never do that again, I promise!
    I’ll never again live on crusts of hearsay, crumbs of rumor.”

Job 42:4-6 MSG

Friends: Some Show Up, Some Fade Away.


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?

Praying You Never Know

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.

pain-behind-every-tear

Purpose in Each Day’s Light


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.

sunrise 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.

time-travel

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.

think-you-have-time

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

The Missing is Relentless

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.

please be aware i am trying

An Old Familiar Ache

Sunday morning my sweet granddaughter, Holly, was gathered into the arms of Jesus.

Her little heart just couldn’t bear the weight of this earthly life.

I know her Uncle Dominic will love her well until we join them.

In the meantime I’m left with that old familiar ache-the heaviness sitting on my chest, threatening to squeeze the air from my lungs.

I recognized it immediately even though it’s been a long time since it felt so heavy.

We grieve because we love.

Tears, wails, laments are all reasonable responses to loss.

Death is the enemy. Don’t ever let anyone try to spiritualize that truth away.

God hates death.

Jesus wept at Lazarus’ tomb. His tears weren’t mere sentiment. They were proof that He longed for death to die.

I hate that my son and daughter-in-law now walk the path of child loss. I hate my grandsons will grow up wondering what their baby sister might “look like now”.

It’s another invitation into the deeper grace and greater love of a God who gave His only Son because He is unwilling for sin to win.

I’m thankful that because Jesus came, lived and gave HIS life, death does not have the last word.

“Living He loved me, Dying He saved me, Buried He carried my sins far away, Rising He justified, freely, forever, One day He’s coming-O Glorious Day!“

Glorious Day by Casting Crowns

Love is Writing a New and Better Ending

I shared most of this on my personal Facebook page yesterday,

It was written before out sweet girl was gathered in the arms of Jesus.

But honestly, whether she lived or died, the words are still true.

Love has the last word ❤️

Saturday I got to see my little granddaughter,Holly, for the first time and hold her tiny hand.  It’s heartbreaking to walk through double doors and down a hallway where alcove after alcove is filled with hopeful parents keeping watch over their precious children.   

Many people point to such suffering and ask, “Where is God?”. Or they assert that if there is a God, He is neither good nor loving.  Often believers rush to His defense and make things worse by offering weak and illogical arguments that only add confusion and more doubt.  

A lot of my time is spent with broken hearts walking broken paths and I know that for many circumstances in this life there are simply no answers.  Definitely no answers that will satisfy the deep ache left by profound suffering or loss.

So I don’t offer answers.  I don’t toss platitudes like confetti from the sideline as weary ones plod on in the marathon of a fiery trial.  

I don’t know why babies are born so very sick or born straight into the arms of Jesus.   I don’t understand why on the hall opposite the NICU there is a pediatric cancer ward.  I don’t have any idea why one despicable person wreaks havoc on a school full of defenseless children and another kind soul suffers some terrible disease.

I do know that the world is not as God intended or first made it.  Sin has wrought calamity from the beginning.  Atrophy is the goal of this broken place.  

But God…

The Story isn’t over yet.   From Genesis to Revelation, Love is writing a new and better ending.  

Knowing and trusting in that Truth does not make suffering less painful, it only makes it bearable.  

I have no idea how Holly’s life will be woven into the eternal story God is writing but I know she matters. Her beating heart and fragile fingers were created for a purpose.   Jesus loves her.

Yesterday she joined her Uncle Dominic in Heaven.

It is unbelievably hard and sad to feel afresh that familiar ache of sorrow.

But our family is choosing to live in that mysterious and supremely uncomfortable space between what we can know in this life and what we will never understand until Eternity.  ❤️