It’s impossible to keep the ripples from moving farther and farther from the point of impact.
And even though I can’t see it, my casual toss has changed the environment of the pond in ways it would not have been changed without my action.
Our lives are like that- we touch other people every day and rarely know how our brief brush may ripple through their lives for years or even eternity.
I have been lifted up by a smile offered by a stranger-that buoyant mood lasting long enough to save an otherwise dreary day.
I have also had a beautiful morning made overcast by the sour attitude of someone that should be helpful.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
I must remind my heart every day that Jesus Himself declared the blessing in mourning.
I must remember that there is comfort available at His feet.
Not in running from my pain, but in embracing it and trusting Him to redeem it.
What blessing is there in mourning? What comfort in distress? What good can come from pain and brokenness?
Good questions.
Honest questions.
Questions I have asked God.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”~Jesus
The folks that followed Him up the hill were part of a nation that had waited centuries for deliverance from sin and persecution. Jesus was surrounded by people powerless to change their circumstances. They were grieving, mourning, in distress.
So when He said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” He was offering real hope to the brokenhearted. He was issuing an invitation…
When we reach the end of our own strength in grief, God invites us into a fellowship of suffering that includes Jesus Christ.
Burying a child is a humbling experience. It is teaching me that I am powerless and oh, so dependent on the grace and mercy of God.
My heart was broken open wide to receive the truth that fierce love makes me vulnerable to deep pain.
And the pain cleared the clutter and noise of the everyday to focus my mind’s attention and my heart’s affection on the eternal.
My life is swept clean of distraction and foolish things and filled with new understanding of what is important and lasting.
My pain has not disappeared.
But it is making room for the God of all comfort to fill it with hope:
That what I am feeling right now is not forever and forever is going to be glorious…
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
There is something about winter mornings that invite me to linger long in my rocking chair with my cup of coffee. It’s cold and outside chores can wait a bit.
When I sit here, my mind wanders to many things-mostly days gone by when my busy household would have made these long, slow mornings impossible.
And I miss it. All of it.
Especially the beauty of an unbroken family circle.
I try to hold onto the precious moments as long as I can.
We live in a noisy world.
Music, television, voices and the hum of electricity tunnel into our brains and distract us from hard questions and painful circumstances.
We live in a busy world.
If I’m not in motion, I am getting ready to be.
It is tempting in my grief to try to stuff life full of noise and busyness so I can ignore the pain and emptiness of missing my son.
But there is quiet beauty in the unfilled space of my heart–the spot once brimming with the living essence of the son I love.
In the silence I can hear his voice and see his smile.
So I will guard the noiseless place that still belongs to Dominic and keep it as a treasure, a comfort, and a tribute to him until we are together again.
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. Further more, 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.
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.
The sun rises behind bare branches and they look beautiful.
In just the right light and at the perfect angle, anything can be lovely.
It’s true that every living thing needs rest. Every working part must be oiled.
And while winter can be hard and heartless and cold and cruel, it is also space and time for re-creation.
If I only look harder I can already see tiny buds of springtime promise on the tips of branches overhead.
Death is winter.
Cold, hard, gray. Every lovely thing fallen and dry underfoot.
A season of rest-not chosen, unwelcome, resisted.
But rest just the same.
Yet the sun still shines and spreads warmth and light on even these bare branches.
After such a long time can the sap still rise?
Is there life left here?
Will spring come again and flowers bloom?
I’m counting on it.
It will all happen so fast, in a blink, a mere flutter of the eye. The last trumpet will call, and the dead will be raised from their graves with a body that does not, cannot decay. All of us will be changed! We’ll step out of our mortal clothes and slide into immortal bodies, replacing everything that is subject to death with eternal life.And, when we are all redressed with bodies that do not, cannot decay, when we put immortality over our mortal frames, then it will be as Scripture says:
Life everlasting has victoriously swallowed death. Hey, Death! What happened to your big win? Hey, Death! What happened to your sting?
Sin came into this world, and death’s sting followed. Then sin took aim at the law and gained power over those who follow the law. Thank God, then, for our Lord Jesus, the Anointed, the Liberating King, who brought us victory over the grave.
My dear brothers and sisters, stay firmly planted—be unshakable—do many good works in the name of God, and know that all your labor is not for nothing when it is for God.
My first instinct as a mother and a shepherd is always, “How can I help?”
I routinely set aside my own needs for the needs of others. Not because I’m so selfless but because that’s how I’m made-I’ve always had the heart of a caretaker.
That’s not a bad thing, most of the time.
But if taking care of others means NOT taking care of myself, then in the end, I’m of no use to anyone. When I allow every bit of energy-emotional, physical, psychological and spiritual-to drain away until there’s nothing left, I am unable to meet my most basic needs, much less the needs of others.
Time, by itself, does not heal the pain of child loss.
But time, plus the work grief requires, plus God’s grace poured out on my heart and in my life,does bring a measure of healing.
I did not believe that in the first months or even years. But I can testify to that truth today. It has been a slow and very painful process full of stops and starts, one step forward, two steps back.
Am I still very broken?
Absolutely!
Am I still limping?
YES!
Until the day I die I will never be the same.
But I have grown stronger and better able to carry this load of sorrow and God is helping me turn the ashes into something beautiful.
That something bears witness to my son, to my pain and to the truth that, with God’s help, I can endure faithfully to the end.
And God is no respecter of persons-He has not given me anything He will not pour out on every single heart that asks.
My prayer for each wounded reader is that you will feel the Father’s loving arms around you and that He will flood your broken heart with His grace, mercy and comfort.
I went to see The Greatest Showman a few years ago with my daughter. It was an amazing film-I was drawn into the story and my heart longed to see where it was going and how it would end.
I highly recommend it for two hours of uplifting entertainment.
Butit got me thinking.
So I did a little digging into P.T. Barnum’s REAL life story.
As you might imagine, several liberties were taken with actual history in order to create what I saw on the screen. That’s really just fine.I knew what I was getting into when I plunked my money down for the ticket. I had no illusion that I was walking into a history lecture- I understood I was there to be entertained.
When I compared the actual Barnum life story to the tidy, beautiful, uplifting and wonderfully scored musical I had seen in the theater, I found gaping holes.
And most of the holes involved the hard and ugly parts of his story-the parts people don’t like to talk about, much less live through.
While leaving them out or glossing them over with a moment or two of wistful glances for the movie is exactly what I expect from Hollywood, it can condition hearts to expect the same kind of thing in real life.
But real life stories don’t skip over the hard parts.
Real people have to live through the ugly and the painful and the devastating and the doubt and the sorrow. We don’t get to hop right to the happy ending (if there even IS a happy ending) nor do we get to whitewash the dark truths that inform our experience.
And because we prefer tidy (and happy) endings, bright and sunny days, encouraging and uplifting stories, when we are face to face with a challenging and difficult reality, we often turn away.
If we don’t hear it, it doesn’t matter.
If we don’t look, it didn’t happen.
If we wait long enough in our safe cocoon, someone else will deal with it.
Sometimes those of us in the middle of hard stories try to ignore it. But busyness and distraction do not make bad times better. Maybe for a moment, but not in the long run.
We’ve got to learn to experience it all, tell it all, be honest about how dark the path, how difficult the journey.
And those who are on the sunny side of the street need to learn to lean into friendship, cross over and offer compassionate companionship to those who are struggling.
thelifeididntchoose 