Category: Love

The Healing Power of Fellowship

I spent last weekend with eleven other bereaved moms.

And lest you think, “How sad!”, let me just tell you we had a beautiful time together.

Sure there were tears-how can there not be when talking about the precious children we miss-but there was fun too.

Of course we had somber moments. 

Especially as we lit candles in honor of each child whose light lives on even as their physical presence is denied us.

anchor retreat lit candle

In between Bible study sessions we ate, talked, walked outside and got to know one another.

A game of “Two Truths and a Lie” revealed all kinds of surprises that had us practically falling off our chairs with uproarious laughter.

Even though most of us had never met before, knowing we shared the heartache of child loss drew us together and opened the door to meaningful conversation.

anchor retreat hope

For 72 hours we didn’t have to put our masks on or walk with one foot in the world of the spared and one foot in the world of the deeply wounded. 

We were free-gloriously free-to be real and unguarded.

One of the fun things we did was have a Mary Kay consultant come and do facials and makeup.  I think we kind of shocked her when she went around the circle asking, “So what are you primary make up concerns?” and over half of us said, “I don’t wear make up.”

Poor woman.

anchor retreat mary kay lady (2)

She had no idea that we had long passed the point of faking feelings or saying what someone expects just because they expect it.

I know it was a stretch for some of the moms to make their way to this place they’d never been to and walk into a room full of women they’d never met.

It was a stretch for me to facilitate discussions when I felt I had reached my limit for anything besides staying home for the rest of this year.

But it was worth it.

There is nothing as beautiful as broken hearts gathering together to love, uplift, encourage and listen to one another.

If you have the opportunity and are afraid, please step out. 

Take a chance and link arms with fellow grievers.

I promise you will be glad you did.

circle-of-women

 

Love Doesn’t Die

I’ve written many times about the fact that my heart still holds all the love it ever did for ALL my children-even the one who no longer walks beside me here on earth.

That’s one of the reasons I will never stop speaking of him-just as I never stop speaking of my living children. 

It’s also why I cling tenaciously to the lesson I am learning this side of child loss:  Love lives. 

It lives in me, through me and is waiting for me in Heaven.  

I ran across this lovely poem just recently.  

I hope you like it as much as I do.  
<3

Epitaph
By Merrit Malloy

When I die
Give what’s left of me away
To children
And old me that wait to die.

And if you need to cry,
Cry for your brother
Walking the street beside you.
And when you need me,
Put your arms
Around anyone
And give them
What you need to give to me.

I want to leave you something,
Something better
Than words
Or sounds.

Look for me
In the people I’ve known
Or loved,
And if you cannot give me away,
At least let me live on in your eyes
And not your mind.

You can love me most
By letting
Hands touch hands,
By letting bodies touch bodies,
And by letting go
Of children
That need to be free.

Love doesn’t die,
People do.
So, when all that’s left of me
Is love,
Give me away.

Can’t Change Time

Every spring and every fall we dutifully make the rounds to our clocks and digital devices, putting them first forward an hour and then back in an attempt to make the days “longer”.

As if time was in our hands.

The sun rises and sets according to the Creator’s schedule, we can neither speed the world’s turning, nor slow it down.

We can only choose whether to be present in the moments He grants us.

Read the rest here:  Time Change

 

Thankful Heart, Broken Heart

I think I will repost this every year as long as I maintain this space.  

It may get old for some, but it will never get old for me.  

While my heart is turned toward thankfulness this time of year, I’m also profoundly aware of my own brokenness…

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday.

My birthday sometimes falls on the day itself, and I have often been able to celebrate with extended family and friends-a full table of food and a full house of fellowship.

Read the rest here:  Thankful But Broken

A Sacred Privilege

When someone invites you in and serves up her deepest pain along with the coffee it might feel like a trap or a burden or a bother.

But it’s actually an act of great respect and trust.

Not everyone gets the privilege of hearing a heart laid bare and broken, vulnerable and uncovered.

If you are entrusted with such a treasure, consider it a sacred privilege.

Treat it with care.

Carry it carefully.

Wrap it in love.

❤

be with me please

Hollow Words

We don’t mean to speak words that echo like a whistle in an empty auditorium.

But we do.

We open our mouths and pour out platitudes because that’s what’s been poured into us.

But we need to stop.  We need to listen.   

And then we need to respond to the heart that stands before us and not to our need to shut down and shut up and shut out another person’s pain.

compassion and stay with youIt’s hard to choose compassion.  It’s hard to lean in and listen well.  It’s hard to let our hearts get all tangled up with someone else’s when we could just walk away.

I am well aware that you have a life of your own full of drama, daily duties and demands.  I don’t want to drain you dry. 

Truly.

But I might need just a moment of your time and a bit of your courage to make it through my own darkness and despair.

One word.

One REAL word.

“I’m sorry.  That is awful.”

“I hate that you have this heavy burden.”

“How can I pray for you?”

“I don’t know what to say, but I want you to know I’m here and not going anywhere.”

 

fluent in silence

 

Prayer and Child Loss: Liquid Prayers

“Is it not sweet to believe that our tears are understood even when words fail? Let us learn to think of tears as liquid prayers, and of weeping as a constant dropping of importunate intercession which will wear its way right surly into the very heart of mercy, despite the stony difficulties which obstruct the way. My God, I will “weep” when I cannot plead, for Thou hearest the voice of my weeping.”

~Spurgeon

Read the rest here:  Liquid Prayers

I’d Still Choose You

Some of us only felt tiny hands and feet pressing against the inside of our body.  

Some of us saw first steps or first grade.  

Some of us watched our child drive away to college certain it was the beginning of an adventure, not the beginning of the end.

Some of us have grandchildren reflecting back a smile or gesture or tone of voice that it so much like the one we miss.

All of us know what it is to lose more than any heart can bear-and yet we DO bear it-every. single. day.

None of us would give up whatever time we had even knowing how hard it is to go on without them.  ❤

even knowing id still choose you

Picking Up The Threads

Life after child loss can be described in various ways.

But any that ring true convey a sense that in an instant, everything is different, shattered, scattered, obliterated, changed.

I like this quote by Tolkien:

how do you pick up threads of an old life frodo at desk

It’s the threads, the shards, the broken bits that I will spend a lifetime trying to gather, save and weave or glue back together.

It will never be what it was, but it can still be something.  

I will always carry the scars.

The scars are proof of my love.  

❤

it has been said that time heals all wounds rose kennedy clock

Silent Joy and Hidden Treasure

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor, theologian and author who actively opposed the Nazi regime. 

He was imprisoned for a year and a half and executed just two weeks before American soldiers liberated the prison where he had been held. 

Bonhoeffer was no stranger to loss. 

Here is an excerpt from a letter he wrote while in prison (emphasis added):

“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.

Furthermore, 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. “

[Bonhoeffer wrote this from his prison cell to Renate and Eberhard Bethge on Christmas Eve, 1943, fifteen months before his own death by execution. ]

memories are a way of holding onto the ones we love