When I was a little girl, I struggled mightily being afraid of the dark.
Sometimes I could barely close my eyes because I was scared something terrible would happen between going to sleep and waking up.
I outgrew that as I grew into my faith.
But after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven, I found myself again afraid to go to sleep.
Read the rest here: Between Sleep and Wake: Speaking Peace To My Heart
When children are young and growing every birthday is a celebration. And it absolutely should be!
But when you’ve walked a few (0r more than a few!) years on this old world, birthdays begin to morph into something else.
They remind a heart that life is short, that not all of the people we love will enjoy fullness of years and even those that do seem to leave us way too soon.
Birthdays-after precious people have run ahead to Heaven-mark one more year without them.
Instead of cake and balloons, flowers and presents, we sit with silence and absence, memories and wishes for more time…
❤
Today my heart hurts more than usual.
It’s my mama’s birthday-the third one we will celebrate without her here to blow out the candles.
It’s also the third anniversary (do you call it that?) of the day Papa had to call an ambulance to rush her to the hospital.
She never came home.
Read the rest here: Birthdays and Wakeful Nights
I first shared this years ago-a few months after my mother joined Dominic in Heaven.
There had been difficult dreams after Dom left but it had been a long while since one had interrupted my sleep…and then they began anew.
Night after night I woke in the dark with disturbing images lingering at the edge of consciousness.
They receded once again within about a year.
Now they are back.
I think that whenever anything particularly stressful or frightening or sad or just plain hard presses in, the grief I’ve learned to hide so well is squeezed out.
❤
Lately I’ve been having unsettling dreams.
Even when I can’t recall the exact sequence of events, they all have a similar theme: Someone I love is in peril and I can’t save them or something I hold dear is lost and I can’t find it.
And that awful feeling of helplessness follows me when I open my eyes.
It doesn’t take a PhD to interpret these dreams.
Grief is leaking out in my sleep.
Read the rest here: Unsettling Dreams: Grieving In My Sleep
It’s a question every hurting heart has to answer if you celebrate a traditional western Christmas: Will I put up a tree this year?
I had a few months of lonely travel through the Valley of the Shadow of Death before I had to answer that one.
Dominic left us at Easter, so by December I had learned that wishing didn’t make anything better nor did it make decisions disappear.
As Christmas drew near, I just could not bring down the usual decorations from the attic.
So I didn’t.
Read the rest here: Why I Still Put Up a Christmas Tree
I first shared this post about a year ago.
I was planning my daughter’s wedding and juggling a number of other pressing responsibilities. I managed to keep my composure most days when talking with caterers, family members and vendors but all that pent up stress kept me from falling asleep when I finally put my head down at night.
I had just begun to settle back into a decent sleep pattern when my mother suffered a stroke and died a few days later in September.
That threw me right back into the sleepless cycle that plagued me for years after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven in 2014. I couldn’t fall asleep or when I fell asleep I couldn’t stay asleep. What sleep I managed to get was filled with terrible and terribly vivid dreams.
I’m not sure I will ever enjoy the blissfully ignorant and pleasant slumber I knew as a young girl.
My heart won’t let me.
❤
For the first couple of weeks after Dominic left us, I couldn’t fall asleep.
It was impossible to close my eyes without a dozen awful scenes flashing behind the lids.
Silent darkness was not my friend.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/05/02/sleepless-nights/
Through the fog and dark and limits of my sight
I hear birds singing
as they welcome the day
I still can’t see.
Are they better than me at knowing the edges of inky night?
Or do they simply have more faith?
Either way their hearts are boldly trusting in the sun they can’t yet prove is real.
Oh, that my own heart would always rest!
Assured.
Unmoved.
Confident.
Certain.
Even in the dark,
even in the fog,
even under the smothering blanket of sorrow,
in the Son.
The One who burst forth from the grave to prove He IS the One.
The One who promises night has limits,
that death is not the end,
that resurrection is sure.
Then I could sing for those still in the fog
and in the dark,
those whose sight is dimmed by tears.
And remind them that
morning is coming!
As sure as the sunrise.
As sure as the Son rose.
The chair I sit in to write faces east and I can see the sky lighten every early morning through my big picture window.
I love greeting a new day, watching the world wake up, hearing the birds twitter around my home scooping up random bits of grain and cat food left behind by the outside animals.
And for a period of about two weeks, twice a year, I love something else-the rising sun is positioned in the perfect spot to cast it’s first golden glow above the trees squarely in my face as I sit here pecking away at the keyboard.
I could move out of the glaring light and continue my work.
But I don’t.
Instead I pause and turn my face toward the sun, soaking up every bit of warmth and light and feeling the energy flow from it to me for as long as it lasts.
And then it moves on.
Doing the work sun does for the whole earth-providing warmth and light for every living thing.
Grief can feel like one long dark night. It can wrap itself so tightly around a heart that no light penetrates the heavy cloak of sadness.
Then one day, one moment, one tiny heartbeat, the sun of gladness or laughter or sweet memory or act of kindness will be positioned just so and make it through.
Don’t move out of the glaring light of hope.
Turn your face and heart toward the gift and bask in its warmth. Let the energy of an extended hand, a thoughtful word, a precious bit of joy energize you.
It will move on and sadness will once again be your close companion.
But if you let it, the hope planted by the light will grow.
It will strengthen you for the journey.
It will sing courage over your heart and remind you in those darkest moments that night doesn’t last forever.
The sun will shine again.
I’ve always had vivid dreams.
That was a problem as a young child because often I couldn’t tell where the dream ended and real life began when I woke.
Many, many nights I’d cry out from my bed, begging my parents to come save me from whatever monster followed me from my dream.
I pretty much grew out of that as I got older and learned to be very careful what I fed my mind-especially right before I fall asleep. I don’t watch horror movies, dark so-called comedies, violent dramas or anything that my brain might twist into scary or disturbing shapes in the dark.
After Dominic left for Heaven, I once again experienced a season of uncomfortable dreaming. Only one or two of my dreams were actually awful, but I would often wake feeling out of sorts, a bit “off” or vaguely aware of something just outside my consciousness that was sure to frighten me if I could see it clearly.
That season passed and only very rarely was I troubled with those kinds of dreams these past few years.
But since my mama joined Dominic, I’ve had at least one disturbing dream every single night.
I can remember some of them-like the one that woke me at two this morning-but not all of them. Even when I can’t recall the exact sequence of events, they all have a similar theme: Someone I love is in peril and I can’t save them or something I hold dear is lost and I can’t find it.
And that awful feeling of helplessness follows me when I open my eyes.
It doesn’t take a PhD to interpret these dreams.
Grief is leaking out in my sleep.
All the feelings I’ve become so good at pushing down during waking hours since Dominic left us are growing stronger again in the wake of my mother’s death.
The lid my conscious mind keeps screwed on tight is no match for the power of the unconscious.
Off it pops and all the sad, scared, anxious, helpless, longing, fearful emotions stirred up by losing one more soul my heart loves come flying out and swirl around until they create a perfect storm of awful to parade across my mind’s eye while my body tries to rest.
I think I’ve only had one night of more than three hours uninterrupted sleep since the week Mama was hospitalized.
I’m trying all the old tricks of carefully tending what goes into my brain each day. I’m feeding myself healthy and wholesome images and words. I’m ending each day with prayer and asking God to give me sweet dreams or no dreams at all.
I may have to revisit some of those old feelings.
I would rather face my fears in the daylight.
I don’t want them to leak out at night.
When I was a little girl, I struggled mightily being afraid of the dark.
Sometimes I could barely close my eyes because I was scared something terrible would happen between going to sleep and waking up.
I outgrew that as I grew into my faith.
But after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven, I found myself again afraid to go to sleep.
Read the rest here: Between Sleep and Wake: Speaking Peace To My Heart
Before Dominic ran ahead to Heaven I didn’t cry much.
Since April 12, 2014 I’ve cried a river-tears for breakfast, lunch, dinner and into my pillow at night when I tried to fall asleep.
When sorrow overtakes a heart, it’s hard to think about anything else.
There was a very real danger that sadness would drag me down in a pit so deep I would never be able to crawl back out.
And then the enemy of my soul would win.
But God.
The most beautiful words I know.
God reached down and raised me up from the depths of despair. He dragged me out of the pit of sorrow. His light shone so bright that even the darkness of death could not hide it.
Like the Psalmist, I can praise the Lord for saving me from my enemy.
I praise you, Lord, because you have saved me
Psalm 30: 1-5 GNT
and kept my enemies from gloating over me.
2 I cried to you for help, O Lord my God,
and you healed me;
3 you kept me from the grave.
I was on my way to the depths below,[b]
but you restored my life.
4 Sing praise to the Lord,
all his faithful people!
Remember what the Holy One has done,
and give him thanks!
5 His anger lasts only a moment,
his goodness for a lifetime.
Tears may flow in the night,
but joy comes in the morning.
It’s thought that David wrote this psalm on the dedication of his house. He had been pursued, fought battles and only now taken the throne promised to him years before. He had literally been saved from death on many occasions. His enemies had plotted and planned and never been successful.
If God is for us, who can stand against us?
I think David was also thankful that God had rescued him from the pit of despair. I can’t read the psalms without a sense of David’s internal battle against what may have been depression but was most certainly deep, deep sorrow and disappointment that life didn’t go as planned.
When David thanked God for reaching down, lifting him up and setting his feet on solid ground he was as thankful for the emotional rescue as for the physical one. He had learned that things might be bad for awhile but they would not be bad forever.
Despite how long the darkness lasts or how awful the blow, it’s only a tiny blip compared to eternity.
It feels interminable. It seems insurmountable. But it isn’t. God’s goodness overcomes any scheme of the enemy and I need to remind my heart of that truth.
One of the reasons I watch the sun rise every morning is because it affirms this truth: night does not last forever. No matter how dark, no matter how cold, no matter how frightful, no matter how sad-night is constrained by the sunrise.
My earthly suffering is constrained by God’s goodness.
Tears are still my food more often than I could have ever imagined they would be.
Dominic is not going to be miraculously raised from his grave (although God could do it if He chose).
But my tears won’t last forever.
Morning is coming.
Sure as sunrise.
QUESTIONS:
PRAYER:
Lord,
So often I am dragged down into the pit of despair by my sadness, sorrow and hopelessness. When I wake to tears on my pillow and fall asleep to my own sobs, it seems like there will never be a moment or a day when my heart is not overwhelmed.
I feel like the enemy is winning some days.
Help my heart hold onto the truth that I am only privy to a tiny sliver of knowledge. Give me strength to hold onto hope when my own strength fails. Put praise in my mouth when You pull me out of the pit, foil the schemes of my enemy and set me on the solid ground of truth. Speak courage to my soul.
Let each sunrise remind me again that the night will not last forever. Darkness cannot swallow the light. Death does not win. Life and light and love endure forever.
Amen
thelifeididntchoose 