I’m a kinder, gentler person than I was before Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.
It’s a high price to pay to learn to walk more grace-filled through this life.
I’ve come to find out that every heart has a story. Every heart is carrying a burden.-perhaps not the same as mine, but a burden nonetheless.
And what causes the most pain in this life (next to the burden itself) is when another person runs over my heart without thinking about the burden it may hold inside.
So I have purposed not to do that to other people.
If yesterday’s verses were Paul’s closing arguments, these verses are his hallelujah!
When I am weak and weary and overwhelmed by the daily trudging uphill along the path of grief, my heart comes here.
Because truth is, over and over and over God has said in His Word, demonstrated by His actions and proved by His promises that love endures.
It was love that sought Adam and Eve in the garden.
Love that spoke to Noah and gave him strength to build the ark.
Love that drew Abram from the land of idolators, set him apart and made him father of nations.
Love that rescued the Israelites from Egypt.
Love that overwhelmed a young virgin and made her mother of Jesus the Christ.
And Love Incarnate that chose obedience unto death-even death on the cross-so that our sin debt was satisfied and the gates of Heaven opened wide to all who believe.
Love will not be denied.
Love wins.
Can anything separate us from the love of Christ? Can trouble, pain or persecution? Can lack of clothes and food, danger to life and limb, the threat of force of arms? Indeed some of us know the truth of the ancient text: ‘For your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter’. 37 No, in all these things we win an overwhelming victory through him who has proved his love for us. 38-39 I have become absolutely convinced that neither death nor life, neither messenger of Heaven nor monarch of earth, neither what happens today nor what may happen tomorrow, neither a power from on high nor a power from below, nor anything else in God’s whole world has any power to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord!
Romans 8: 35-39 PHILLIPS
There is nothing that can separate me from the love of God.
Nothing!
I am not powerful enough to do it.
Death is not powerful enough to do it.
Love reached down and resurrected Jesus.
Love will reach down and resurrect my son.
On my hardest days, my darkest days I remember this: as fierce as my mother love may be, it can’t hold a candle to the ferocious, eternal, unquenchable, undefeatable, reckless, perfect love of God.
QUESTIONS:
When I am deep in despair, I remind my heart that all this love I have for my child(ren) is just a tiny drop compared to God’s love for me AND them. Does it help your heart to think about how fiercely God loves you and your child(ren)?
I have shared the story before of my son running barefoot through the woods, briers and all, to rescue one of our goats from between the teeth of two pit bulls. It’s my favorite picture of God’s redeeming, relentless, reckless love. Can you think of a personal example that reminds you of God’s enduring, unquenchable, unrelenting and rescuing love?
Theology matters. What I believe about who God is and what creation is in relationship to Him matters. If He made everything (and I believe He did) then it is all ultimately subject to His will. That is amazing reassurance. Nothing. No. Thing. can separate us from His love. No created thing is greater than its creator. Put that thought in your own words. What do you fear might separate you (or your child) from God’s love? In light of these verses, do you think that’s a reasonable conclusion? Why or why not?
PRAYER:
Father God,
Your love endures forever. Help me remember that. Open my eyes, Lord, that I may comprehend the depth, the width and the height of Your love. If I could grasp even a fraction of that, I’d never be afraid for a second that anything could get between You and me. Your love is relentless, reckless, pursuing and almighty. Nothing in creation can stop Your eternal, redeeming love.
My child may have made a foolish or even a sinful choice in his or her last moments on earth, but even that is not enough to separate him or her from You if they made a genuine profession of faith in Christ. How arrogant are we humans to think we can somehow undo the great redemptive work of the cross!
Thank You for this beautiful reminder in Paul’s words. Let them sink deeply into my spirit and bring life to my bones.
I have to admit that when I read the book of Job NOW, it’s no longer an intellectual exercise or detached theological foray into suffering and the sovereignty of God.
I was always appalled at what Job and his wife (remember her?) suffered. I was always a bit confused by God’s question to Satan, “Have you considered My servant, Job?” I was both comforted and confounded that God set boundaries but set them at the bare minimum to spare Job’s life.
Just being honest here.
Pastors and teachers love to talk about the sweeping arc of the story. They love to pull out lessons about how to comfort others in suffering, how to endure suffering ourselves and how, in the end, God restored to Job the things that had been robbed from him.
But my heart walks slowly through those pages. My soul weeps with every new blow struck against a man who, by God’s own account, was a righteous servant of the Most High.
I wonder if David knew the story of Job. It’s believed to have been one of the oldest books in the Old Testament.
If he did, I wonder if he took comfort in the knowledge that God eventually restored Job to a place of blessing, honor and safety.
David certainly knew what it was like to ride high on the wave of God’s favor and then to be dashed to bits on the rocks of adversity. He slew Goliath and then he was anointed king. He was Saul’s musician, ultimately his son-in-law and then his enemy. He knew that God declared his glorious future but he lived for years hiding in caves, eating what he could find and serving random wealthy patrons in hopes of a little peace between Saul’s attempts on his life.
So when he survived yet again, he wrote this Psalm as praise and prophecy.
He rode upon a heavenly creature,[a] flying; He was carried quickly on the wings of the wind. 11 He took darkness as His hiding place— both the dark waters of the seas and the dark clouds of the sky. 12 Out from His brilliance hailstones and burning coals broke through the clouds. 13 The Eternal thundered in the heavens; the Highest spoke; His voice rumbled [in the midst of hail and lightning].[b] 14 He shot forth His arrows and scattered the wicked; He flung forth His lightning and struck them. 15 Then the deepest channels of the seas were visible, and the very foundations of the world were uncovered At Your rebuke, O Eternal One, at the blast of wind from Your nostrils. 16 He reached down His hand from above me; He held me. He lifted me from the raging waters. 17 He rescued me from my strongest enemy, from all those who sought my death, for they were too strong. 18 They came for me in the day of my destruction, but the Eternal was the support of my life. 19 He set me down in a safe place; He saved me to His delight; He took joy in me.
Psalm 18: 10-19 VOICE
Again, David paints a vivid picture of God as Mighty Warrior.
But not just any warrior, raging through battle, unaware of who may be on His left or right. God is the One who protects His anointed. He is the One who reaches down and rescues.
God set David in a safe place. When He declared, “Enough!” no enemy could come further.
David had the sure promises of God to lean on. He knew that God is in control even when things feel out of control.
In the same way, the Lord established a hedge of protection around Job. He set the limits for Satan. He had him on a chain.
Of course there’s no indication from Scripture that Job knew his suffering had any limits. And while he didn’t sin by accusing God of wrongdoing, he certainly voiced his pain, indignation and desire to end his suffering through death.
I feel like I’m living in a space between the personal, rock-solid promises God gave David through Samuel and others and the blind faith of Job where God’s hand and purpose were concealed.
I know that every promise of God in Christ is “yes” and “amen”.
I know that the end has been written and everything that has been stolen, broken or touched by death will be redeemed, restored and resurrected.
But some days I wonder how long I’ll have to wait until I see those promises fulfilled. I wonder how much more I might have to endure, give up or lay down before I reach my heavenly Home.
That’s when I call my heart back to this picture of God as a Warrior who will always rescue me-both here and in the hereafter.
God has put my foot on a solid Rock.
When sorrow threatens to drag me deeper than my heart can bear, He reaches down and pulls me up.
When fear finds me in the dark and whispers lies in my ear, He makes His Presence real and speaks comfort to my soul.
Like Job and David and millions before me, I can trust the One who promises.
I can rest in His unfailing love and absolute sovereignty.
He never lets go.
QUESTIONS:
If you are like me, sometimes we read Scripture like a story book-we already know the ending and often ignore the very real human drama people were living through. Does it help your heart hold onto hope to know that even after God rescued David from the hand of Saul, he (David) was still not in full possession of the promise that he’d be king? Why or why not?
Child loss is absolutely the most devastating blow I’ve suffered in my life and it was a long, long time before I was able to look up in my brokenness and look for blessings. When I did, I found that while there was no cosmic scale that could balance my loss with whatever I might still have or gain, my heart was strengthened when I noticed blessings again. Are you able to look for blessings yet? If so, does it encourage you? If not, would you be willing to try to find one little smile-inducing good thing a day for a week?
I love, love, love David’s words: “He reached down His hand from above me; He held me. He lifted me from the raging waters.” Our God is a personal God who does not despise us because we are weak and unable to save ourselves. He delights in reaching down and lifting us up. How do those words make you feel? When have you felt God reach down and lift you up?
We end our study of this Psalm with verse 19: “He set me down in a safe place; He saved me to His delight; He took joy in me. ” We are ultimately set safely in the redemption of Christ (if we have received that gift by faith). But I also believe we can live our lives in a safe space even in the midst of suffering when we choose to focus on Who God is and refuse to let circumstances blind us to His love, His goodness, His promises and His strength. What concrete steps can you take to help your heart focus on truth when your feelings threaten to drag you into falsehood?
PRAYER:
Lord,
You are the lover of my soul, my Mighty Warrior, my Savior and my Good Shepherd. Help me hold onto those truths when life threatens to undo me.
Give me the courage to face pain and suffering in the sure knowledge that You see me, You are with me and You will rescue me. I may not get a miracle or even a medical cure, but I will have the final victory in Christ.
When death and the awful darkness of grief roll over me like a flood, push it back with Your light, love and life.
Let me hear You singing joy over my soul.
Amen
***I combined today and tomorrow’s writing assignments***
No matter how much we love someone, we will eventually fail them somehow.
I know I recite my failure as a mother quite often-usually when I’m tired, weak, stressed and especially burdened with this grief I haul around like a bag of bricks every day.
So it’s hard for me to comprehend the unfailing, faithful, never-ending, compassionate love of God.
But it’s true whether I can wrap my mind around it or not: God’s love never fails.
That’s the message Jeremiah was tasked to deliver to Israel in the midst of some very awful circumstances.
They had really messed up. And they were going to reap the consequences of their sin.
It was going to hurt.
But God had not abandoned them. He had not forgotten them. He had not stopped loving them.
31 For no one is cast off by the Lord forever. 32 Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. 33 For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone.
Lamentations 3:31-33 NIV
The God I serve and Israel served is a compassionate God.
He is so very compassionate (which means to suffer alongside) that He chose to send His Son to take our sins, to receive our punishment, to pay the penalty and redeem us for Himself.
Grief is part of this life.
Before Jesus lived on earth, suffered, died and was resurrected, grief was part of the ongoing penalty of sin.
So Israel was punished when she turned from her true Husband and ran after idols and foreign gods.
Now, the penalty has been paid. Yet grief remains.
Our enemy the devil works evil in the world. People’s sinful choices result in death and destruction. The whole earth groans under the general burden of sin which means genes mutate, disease runs rampant and our bodies fail.
God does not always intervene.
But He always comes alongside.
He always offers comfort and promises that grief doesn’t last forever.
He takes those evil things, the broken things, the painful things and the hard things and weaves them into a beautiful tapestry that will eventually reveal His faithfulness, goodness, love and glory.
QUESTIONS:
I’ve written before about whether or not grief and loss is a punishment from God. Yet these verses plainly state, “though He brings grief”. How do you explain them to your own heart? Have you thought through and developed a consistent theology that both acknowledges the truth that in the OT God DID bring grief (punishment) on His people for their sins and that in the NT God, through Christ, has taken all the punishment for every sin? (For more on this, read this post: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/01/15/is-god-punishing-me/)
Have you ever felt God was suffering alongside you? Do you think God suffers at all?
Jesus called Himself the Good Shepherd. Most of His followers would have firsthand knowledge of the sacrifices a good shepherd makes for his sheep. That’s not something many of us know much about these days. Can you paint your own word picture of unfailing love?
Have you confronted the question of why evil exists, why pain is persistent, why death and destruction still reign? Are you afraid to go there? Why or why not?
I used to embroider quite a bit and really love the Corrie Ten Boom poem cited above because I understand it well. The top side of my work was lovely (most of the time!) but the underside was awful! Do you have confidence that God is weaving ALL the things in your life into a tapestry that will eventually reveal how even the dark and ugly experiences, feelings and heartache work together to make a beautiful piece of art? (See Ephesians 2:10)
PRAYER:
Father God, Thank you that I live this side of Calvary!
Thank You that although this life is filled with sorrow and pain I can rest assured that if I’ve received Your gift of forgiveness through Christ You are not punishing me for some forgotten sin. Thank You for your unfailing, faithful, compassionate love.
Help me to remember in the darkest moments, the most desolate path, the deepest pit You are there. Over and over and over You remind my heart that I am not alone. When I can’t comprehend how You might weave the next dark thread into the tapestry of my life, help me trust You anyway.
You are the Master Weaver. You are the Potter. Give me a willing heart to yield to Your work in my life.
When I was a little girl my family made a yearly pilgrimage to the white sand and clear water beaches in Florida.
We were allowed to wade out on our own as high as our waist while the adults talked and sunbathed on shore. If we wanted to go deeper, even for those of us who were good swimmers, we had to wait for the grown ups to join us.
I have a vivid memory of one sunny day when the waves were rolling in and my six-foot-tall dad was standing neck deep in the Gulf. I was a little closer to shore and decided to join him.
My young mind didn’t do the math between my short self and his taller one and stepped off an underwater ledge into water way over my head. I panicked when I realized there was no way for me to save myself.
In a flash, Papa’s strong arms scooped me up and held me close.
As quickly as fear set in, it vanished because I knew he wouldn’t let me go until I could safely set my own feet down in shallower water.
My daddy wasn’t about to let anything happen to me.
I think about that summer moment nearly every time I read today’s verses.
8 But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend.
9 Thou whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called thee from the chief men thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my servant; I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away.
10 Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.
Isaiah 41: 8-10 KJV
God assures Israel (the nation) that He chose them. He cherishes them. He has called them and He will never forget nor forsake them.
It’s a beautiful thing to know that just like Israel, those of us who have been grafted in by the blood of Christ are also heirs together of these promises. (Ephesians 3:6; Romans 11:17)
If you have received the gift of eternal life through Jesus, you can be absolutely assured that God is your Father . He chose you in Christ before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). He will always take care of you.
Fear is a reasonable response to a situation outside our control.
It wasn’t silly for me to be afraid when my head went underwater and I despaired of saving myself.
When God tells me in His Word to “fear not!” it isn’t a rebuke. It’s encouragement.
God is my Father, He loves me so He says, “Don’t be afraid, don’t be dismayed”.
Why? Because He is with me.
As soon as my dad’s arms reached around me, fear fled. I was safe.
And if my earthly father’s strength and love was enough to allay my fears, how much more should my fears flee in the face of the strength, love and power of my Heavenly Father?
There are so many times I am afraid in this life.
So many times when things are out of control and beyond my comprehension. So many ways life goes wrong and I feel like they will never be made right.
But when I stop and point my heart in the direction of these promises, I can hold onto hope in spite of my fear.
Eight years after her son ran ahead to Heaven, she’s joined him.
And I have to think that the step from earth to Home wasn’t a huge one for her.
I have never known a kinder or gentler soul in my life. She was always encouraging other hearts, always pointing others to the hope we have in Jesus.
She never preached, she simply extended grace and love that made it absolutely impossible for anyone to ignore the difference between her and most other folks.
I only met this sweet mama once face-to-face when she and a couple other waiting mamas came all the way to my house for lunch and an afternoon of sharing and encouragement. But our friendship continued long distance through Facebook and private messages.
Our mutual love of Jesus, children and children’s books wove our hearts together in so many ways.
I am convinced that the distance between her heart and Heaven is so short because she was already singing Heaven’s Song here on earth-calling grace, mercy, strength and hope to every heart she met.
I thank God for the privilege of knowing her and am looking forward even more to that Day when everything is redeemed, restored and renewed.
Rest well, faithful servant. Dance in the joy of your Savior. Hug your son. Revel in faith made sight.
We’ll be there soon. ❤
Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the Lord loves rests between his shoulders.
It’s possible to stand frozen at the corner of good intentions and helpful action.
I’ve done it dozens of times.
And every time I’ve allowed myself to swallow “but I don’t know what to do” and done nothing I’ve regretted it.
Every. Single. Time.
So I’m here to tell you that when you get that urge, feel that itch, hear that still, small voice that says, “DOsomething“, then do it.
You may already have a good idea of what it is you need to do, but in case you don’t know exactly how to make a difference in the life of a heart hanging on by a thread, here are some things to get you started:
I’ll confess right here on the world wide web that I tend to go along to get along.
It’s a terrible and odd twist that the son who always encouraged me to speak up for myself has accomplished his goal by his absence.
Since Dominic left for Heaven I’m learning to ask questions I’d never dare ask before.
When someone does something or doesn’t do something, instead of assuming motives or assigning blame, I ask them why. It doesn’t always end well, but it’s worth the risk.
Most of the time I find the person has anticipated (often mistakenly) that his or her behavior, choices or words are helpful. Truly, family and friends are not usually out to hurt my heart.
Now, I admit in the beginning I didn’t care whether it was accidental or purposeful. I was already so burdened that any additional stress or strain was more than I could bear. I wanted people to put themselves in my shoes.
Truth is, they can’t.
All the times I IMAGINED what it might feel like to have a child run ahead to Heaven didn’t even come close to how it actually felt. All the scripts that played in my head when someone was late checking in, coming home or assuring me of safe arrival when traveling can’t hold a candle to the REALITY of a son never ever coming home again.
It’s not fair (but what about child loss IS fair?) that I have to educate others as I’m learning myself.
It’s simply reality.
I liken it to being forced to lead in a dance I don’t know to music I can’t stand to hear.
So I ask.
And I’m often surprised by the answers.
In utter innocence and genuine sympathy some friends and family make decisions they honestly think are good ones.
None of us has a road map for this journey-neither we who travel the road nor those who walk alongside us. It’s uncharted territory.
I would rather err on the side of love and grace then build walls between my heart and the ones I have left here on earth.
Sure it hurts.
But most things this side of child loss do.
I refuse to sacrifice relationship on the altar of grief.
My son’s death is a moment in time, a date on the calendar, a thing of the past for other people.
I understand that.
But for me, it’s an ongoing event.
Every time Dominic SHOULD be here but isn’t I lose him again.
Every milestone he should be marking but doesn’t I lose him again. Every Christmas, every birthday, every ordinary day when something funny happens or I want to send him a text or message, I lose him again. Every time I need his advice and insight, I lose him again.
I didn’t lose him once, I keep losing him.
Over and over and over again.
I lost my child….Today
… I lost my child today.
People came to weep and cry,
As I just sat and stared, dry eyed.
They struggled to find words to say,
To try and make the pain go away,
I walked the floor in disbelief,
I lost my child today.
I lost my child last month.
Most of the people went away,
Some still call and some still stay.
I wait to wake up from this dream.
This can’t be real.
I want to scream.
Yet everything is locked inside,
God, help me, I want to die.
I lost my child last month.
I lost my child last year.
Now people who had come, have gone.
I sit and struggle all day long.
To bear the pain so deep inside.
And now my friends just question, Why?
Why does this mother not move on?
Just sits and sings the same old song.
Good heavens, it has been so long.
I lost my child last year.
Time has not moved on for me.
The numbness it has disappeared.
My eyes have now cried many tears.
I see the look upon your face, “She must move on and leave this place.”
thelifeididntchoose 