Category: truth

Grief DOES Change: Laughter, Peace, Learning to Bear the Burden

Grief DOES change over time.

Especially if you give your heart space and grace to walk through the many and varied emotions, memories, challenges and pain that are part of the experience.

But there are no shortcuts or magic to make the process easier or faster.

And so, so much of the work has to be done alone or with a small cadre of safe people.

I pray every day that those who join me here feel safe, seen and loved.

You are not alone.

❤ Melanie

2017: Is It OK To Laugh?

Thankfully our family has always turned to laughter as a way of making it through things that would otherwise bring us to tears.  So it wasn’t but a couple days past when we got the news of Dom’s leaving we managed a giggle here and there as his friends shared some funny stories with us.

But it felt strange to have laughter bubbling up in my throat even as I couldn’t stop its escaping my mouth.

It wasn’t the unforced expression of joy and merriment it used to be.  Instead it was a strangled, mishapen gurgling mixture of the joy I once knew and unspeakable pain I now knew.

It didn’t float airily into the atmosphere, it thudded heavy to the floor.

And then I felt like I was betraying my son.

Read the rest here: Is it OK if I Laugh?

2019: When Peace is Only a Whisper

My heart is so broken over the recent mass shootings in Gilroy, Dayton, El Paso and Chicago.

Senseless violence spurred by hate.

I’m equally broken over Syria, the opioid epidemic and human trafficking.

It seems the world is spiraling downward into chaotic violence and unbridled hatred.

Peace feels like a distant hope, a faint whisper, a ridiculous aspiration of those who aren’t willing to see things as they are.

Our generation is not the first to feel this way.

Read the rest here: Scripture Journal Challenge: When Peace Is Only A Whisper

2020: Shifting the Weight, Bearing the Burden

I told the two children with me that morning that we were going to survive this awful blow.

And we have.

It has been hard and ugly and more painful than anything else we’ve ever had to do. 

But we’re still standing.

And I want to encourage the hearts that are just starting down this broken road:  You really CAN make it.

Some of you reading this are saying, “But I don’t want to make it.  I want to lie down and give up and be out of this pain.”  

I don’t blame you. 

Read the rest here: Shifting The Weight, Bearing the Burden

A Challenging Time of Year…

This time of year is especially challenging for those of us who miss a child who has run ahead to Heaven.

Across social media parents are lamenting the changes (they feel like they are “losing” their child) a new school year brings.

It takes a LOT of self-control to refrain from commenting on their so sad posts and pointing out that while it may be more difficult to see/talk to/visit with their child, it’s not impossible.

Yeah, NOT impossible.

2016: It Ain’t Over Until It’s Over

Here they come. 

It’s time for the First Day of School photo contests on social media. Shot after shot  of little ones and not-so-little ones posing with new book bags and new clothes holding a chalkboard sign that indicates their grade.

And then the pictures of college freshmen toting boxes into dorm rooms, waving good-bye to mom and dad, beginning their adult lives unfettered by curfews and parental oversight.

Then the laments, “I can’t believe they are growing up!”

I hear you, mama.  It IS a challenge to watch them grow up.  But you aren’t really saying,  “good-bye”.

I see it from an entirely different perspective.

Trust me,  It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over.

2017: Mercy

A precious sister-in-loss created this image.

It’s my theme song.

And the message of my heart.

Read the rest here:  Monday Musings: Mercy

2018: Discombobulated

Yep.  It’s a real word.  

And it sounds just like what it is-mixed up, disoriented and confused.  Like a kid spun around with a blindfold playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey at his five-year-old birthday party. 

That’s me.

I depend on routine, habit, regular workflow patterns to help me remember what I need to do and when.  So if something (or a bunch of somethings!) interrupt my tired old footpath through the day, it confuses me.

Read the rest here: Discombobulated

2019: My Groom is Coming to Get Me!

There was a lovely tradition practiced in Jewish communities when Jesus walked the earth.

After a betrothal and before the final vows, a groom returned to his family home and built an addition to his father’s house in preparation for his bride.

The bride made herself ready and then waited because she didn’t know when her groom would return. What began as hopeful anticipation might sometimes have turned to fear if the groom tarried too long in coming.

Read the rest here: Scripture Journal Challenge: My Groom Is Coming To Get Me!

The Best is Yet to Come!

Funerals.

Sigh…

I just came home from my uncle’s funeral. He met Jesus face-to-face the end of June but we didn’t have his service until July 29th for lots of reasons.

Then I opened my computer after a long day of travel and unloading a car full of memories to the news a precious friend-in-loss and indefatigable encourager of grievers had laid down for a nap and woke in the arms of her Shepherd King.

Joy Hart Young was famous for saying, “The BEST is yet to come!” and I believe she is experiencing it at this very moment. She’s in the Presence of the One who saved her, sustained her and loves her. She is reunited with her son, Matt, and tears will never again be her food.

No more night. No more death. No more sadness or sickness or disappointment or sin.

Hallelujah! Amen.

My uncle was old and full of years. Joy wasn’t exactly a spring chicken (she’d approve of my saying that) but she wasn’t the age one might expect to leave this world. Her son and my son were so, so young when their earthly lives ended and their heavenly ones began.

Death comes to us all. No one gets out alive.

Death is a line in the sand that cannot be crossed. What hasn’t been said or done can never be said or done. That’s one of the reasons it’s so very hard.

My uncle made some choices that were burdensome for his family to live with after he left. They will continue to mold his legacy in the hearts and minds of those who loved him.

Joy chose to take the pain of child loss and allow it to shape her into a vessel of hope, grace and encouragement for other parents suffering the same devastating sorrow.

So I’m reminded again that our time here is short. How short (or long) only the Lord knows.

What I do in that time matters.

I won’t get a second chance to live my life. I can’t recoup lost moments or lost years.

There are some practical things I can do like create an end-of-life file or notebook to make it easier on those left behind.

But there are more important things I NEED to do if I’m going to leave a legacy of love.

I have to keep short accounts, make amends, ask for and grant forgiveness.

I need to hug necks, speak aloud the beauty I see in others, shake off shame and emotional baggage.

One day (please Lord let it be!) I’ll lie down and not wake up.

I hope the only sorrow I leave behind is the sorrow of missing my presence, not the sorrow of unsaid words or unhealed wounds.

I’m human.

I’ll miss someone or someplace I need to address.

But (Hallelujah! Amen.) in Heaven it will all be made whole.

The best is yet to come!

Joy Hart Young

Mustard Seed Faith is Enough on My Worst Days

I didn’t grow up doing in-depth Bible studies so when I “discovered” the Bible in my early twenties, it was an exciting adventure to dig for treasure in the Word of God.

Along with Scripture itself, I devoured book after book on theology.

I could not get enough.

By my mid-thirties I had developed a fairly well-defined and defensible doctrine. I really thought I understood how God works in the world.

Then my son died.

Read the rest here: On My Worst Days, Mustard Seed Faith is Enough

Bereaved Parents Month 2023: Am I Trying to Put God in a Box?

I first shared this some years ago as I was beginning to work through the theological implications of a God who did not intervene to save my son.

I thought I understood who God was and how He worked in the world because nothing that had happened to me challenged those assumptions. Things were neat and tidy with clear edges that demarcated “those who love God” and “those who refuse Him”.

But God is not confined to a box I or any other human can construct. He is GOD.

That’s a hard, hard truth to digest but it is truth. 

❤ Melanie

It’s possible that you haven’t thought of it this way, but if you are a believer in Christ and have yet to walk through faith-shattering trials, you may have placed God in a box.

I know I had.

I thought that after decades of walking with Jesus, reading and studying Scripture and wading through some fairly significant trials I had God pretty well figured out.

I could quote verses for every occasion, open my Bible to any book without looking in the Table of Contents, and had something sprirtual to say about everything.

But now, like Job, I cover my mouth.

Read the rest here: God in a Box

Why Am I Still Writing Nine Years Out?

I first shared this four years ago when I was reflecting on half a decade of living without one of my children beside me. I’ve now had nearly another half decade to think about why or IF I’ll continue to write.

Every so often I take a day or two to consider whether I want to keep posting. I have to admit sometimes that I wonder if I bang the same drum for too long it will sound loud and obnoxious to some people’s ears.

But then I get a message or a comment from someone fresh on this journey and they feel seen, heard, validated and safe.

So I write on.

And I find that writing brings clarity and comfort to my soul. I still have things to say and I hope what I say still brings some small measure of light, love, life and hope to other hearts.

❤ Melanie

I was one of those people years ago who set her sights on starting and maintaining a blog.  

I thought I would post a few times a week and share anecdotes about my family and critters, insight into daily living and inspiration from Scripture and interesting quotes. 

No, not THIS blog-the other two I started and quickly abandoned to who-knows-where in cyberspace.

Trouble was that the subject matter, while near and dear to my heart, wasn’t personally compelling enough to keep me disciplined and actively writing. 

If someone had said, “Pick any topic to write about”, child loss wouldn’t have been in the first million choices.

No one CHOOSES child loss (Thus the name of the blog:  The Life I Didn’t Choose).

But untold numbers of parents EXPERIENCE it every year.  This very day,  parents somewhere got a knock on the door or a phone call or sat next to a hospital bed as life slipped slowly from their child’s tired body.

Since I was already journaling and had walked this Valley for nearly a year and a half, it dawned on me that the ramblings I’d put down might be helpful to another heart.  So I started THIS blog in September, 2015.

And I’ve been here ever since.  

I’m not in the raw, breathless place I once was.  But grief and loss are part of every breath I take, part of every moment I experience.

whole in my heart mama

I miss Dominic.  I still consider death an enemy.  Every day I hate what was stolen and long for what was.  I mourn the changes grief has wrought in my family.  I wish things were different.  I discover new ways loss impacts my life and new ways of coping with it.

So I keep writing.  

I don’t want anyone to feel alone in this journey.  I don’t want anyone to think there’s no way to survive.   I don’t want a single broken heart to doubt that God is here and that He will help you hold onto hope. 

me too sharing the path

I’ll spill my heart out in words until the words are exhausted. 

It helps me.

I pray it helps others too. 

hope holds a breaking heart together

An Honest Discussion of Prayer

I’m really thankful that more and more Christians are willing to shed false positivity and embrace lament.

Because the truth is lots of stories this side of eternity end in tragedy or at least unmet expectations and sorrow instead of glorious, victorious sunshine and roses.

Crops and marriages fail. Dreams come and go.

We hope for healing but don’t receive it.

Loved ones die.

Let’s just be honest about it-about ALL of it.❤ Melanie

In the wake of burying Dominic, the most difficult spiritual discipline for me to recover has been prayer.

In part because my heart just doesn’t know what to ask for or how to talk to a God Who has allowed this pain in my life.  

In part because I don’t really have a framework for placing the prayers I want to pray inside my ongoing struggle to commit my future and the future of my family to the hands of a Father Who didn’t step in to prevent Dominic’s death.

I still struggle with this.  

Read the rest of this post here: The Problem of [Un]Answered Prayer

Why I Choose to Say, “My Son Died”.

Died.  

It is a harsh word.

I understand completely that some parents don’t want to use it to describe their child and I respect that.

I have chosen to use it often (not always-sometimes I say “left” or “ran ahead to heaven”) because what happened IS harsh. I don’t want to soften it because there was nothing soft about it for me or my family.

Read the rest here: Why I Say, “My Son Died.”

Hope Helps, But It Doesn’t Erase the Pain

It is unhealthy to ignore pain.

heal and acknowledge

But when it comes to emotional pain, we sometimes shut people out or shut them down.

I submit that we diminish the power of the cross when we deny or minimize the presence of pain.

Believing that God is in control and Jesus lives does not undo grief’s storm-it is a lifeline that keeps my desperate and hurting heart from sinking under the waves.

Read the rest here: Heartache and Hope

I Have Learned So Very Much From Other Bereaved Parents!

There’s a kind of relational magic that happens when people who have experienced the same or similar struggle get together.  

In an instant, their hearts are bound in mutual understanding as they look one to another and say, “Me too. I thought I was the only one.”

It was well into the second year after Dominic ran ahead to heaven that I found an online bereaved parent support group.  After bearing this burden alone for so many months, it took awhile before I could open my heart to strangers and share more than the outline of my story.

But, oh, when I did! What relief!  What beautiful support and affirmation that every. single. thing. that was happening to me and that I was feeling was normal!

Read the rest here: What I’m Learning From Other Bereaved Parents