Here’s a thought.
Why not make Christmas about spreading genuine love, grace and mercy instead of about finding the “perfect” gift for already over-flowing lives and living rooms?
I plan to implement this little calendar and hope to find even more ways to spread kindness this season.
I’ve printed one to carry in my purse and one to hang on the fridge. I gave some away to fellow church members who, in turn, are giving some away at work.
A cascade of kindness!
❤
I just love this.
It’s simple, humorous, shareable and oh, so true.
“You don’t need to be perfect, you just need to be present.”
For fifty years I was on the “other side”-the one where I looked on, sad and sometimes horror-stricken, at the pain and sorrow friends or family had to bear.
I wanted to help.
I wanted to say the “right thing”. I wanted to express how very much my heart hurt for them and that I badly wished I could carry some of their load.
Sometimes I think I did a pretty good job of reaching out and touching the wound and offering a little bit of comfort. But other times, I would say nothing because I didn’t know what to say.
Read the rest here: Loving Well: Being a Friend
One of the hardest things for me to hear is how sometimes the church fails to minister to grieving parents.
I don’t think it’s because leadership decides to ignore them and others who have intractable situations.
But I do think that our modern emphasis on programs and platforms often leaves hurting hearts behind.
I am a shepherd. My goats and sheep depend on me for food, for guidance and for their security.
And every day I am reminded that a shepherd’s heart is revealed by the way he or she cares for the weakest and most vulnerable of the flock.
Read the rest here: Loving Well: How the Church Can Serve Grieving Parents and Other Hurting People
I have two very special friends.
After Dominic died and the meals and visits and cards had dwindled and the silence and heartbreak had become oh-so-overwhelming, they came out to spend the day with me.
The whole day.
With me.
With this crying, couldn’t hold it together, didn’t know what to say mama who had buried her son just weeks ago.
Read the rest here: Loving Well: Relational Acts of Kindness
I’m convinced that many of our friends and family DO want to talk about our missing child but they need permission to do so.
They just aren’t sure if it will make things better or worse.
And if we cry, they feel responsible. They don’t realize that many times they are tears of joy that our precious child is still remembered. ❤
I know you are afraid.
You think that speaking his name or sharing a memory or sending me a photo will add to my sorrow.
I understand.
But even when it costs me a split second of sharp pain, it is truly a gift to know that Dominic lives on in the hearts and minds of others. It gives me courage to speak too. It creates space where I can honor my son.
It helps keep him alive.
Read the rest here: Loving Well: Just Say His Name
How can all the love and all the hopes and all the dreams of a mama’s heart be squeezed into days or weeks or months of tears and sorrow?
If the people we love are stolen from us, the way to have them live on is to never stop loving them.
—James O’Barr
I grieve because I love.
My tears are a gift to the son I miss. My sorrow honors his memory. My broken heart gives evidence to the ones walking with me that my love is fierce and timeless.
Read the rest here: Love: The Reason I Grieve
A bereaved parent’s grief doesn’t fit an easy-to-understand narrative. And it flies in the face of the American “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality.
You can’t beat it–it’s not a football game-there is no winning team.
You can’t lose it–it’s not the extra 10 pounds you’ve been carrying since last Christmas.
You can’t get over it–it’s not a teenage love affair that will pale in comparison when the real thing comes along.
You can only survive it.
Read the rest here: Loving Well: Understanding the Grieving Heart
I have gotten so many comments about this post-how it helped put into words what so many of us bereaved parents feel and experience-that the funeral is just the BEGINNING. And because no one really talks about what happens after that, we were blindsided by the aching loneliness that stretched before us like a life sentence.
A funeral or memorial service seems like a final chapter. We close the coffin, close the doors and everyone goes home.
But for bereaved parents and their surviving children, it’s not an end, it is a beginning.
Much like a wedding or birth serves as the threshold to a new way of life, a new commitment, a new understanding of who you are, burying a child does the same.
Read the rest here: Loving Well: Transitioning From “Good-bye” to Grief
Bereavement has not made me a perfectly compassionate person. I still say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing and sometimes don’t do the right thing.
But it HAS made me more aware that what I do/don’t do/say/don’t say can either speak life or death to a struggling heart.
And I so want to speak life and courage to everyone I meet.
Before I lost Dominic, I know that I, like others who had never experienced the death of a child, undoubtedly said and did things that were hurtful instead of helpful.
I painfully remember sharing at a Thanksgiving women’s gathering and, meaning to encourage the ladies, said something like, “I think we are able to better face the big disappointments or trials in life, but find the daily drip, drip, drip of unfulfilled expectations to be a greater challenge.” A bereaved mom in attendance set me straight (in a very kind and gracious manner!).
That exchange has come often to my mind in these months after burying my son. I wish I could go back and have a do-over.
Read the rest here: Loving Well: Some Things Hurt
thelifeididntchoose 