I was reminded once again this week how the events surrounding death and burial are inadequate indicators of the profound change that has taken place in the lives of those left behind.
Standing at the graveside of a precious friend’s father, I remembered watching Dominic’s earthly shell lowered beneath the ground.
I was wholly unprepared for the days and weeks and months that followed.
No one had told me it was only a beginning…Loving Well: Transitioning From “Good-bye” to Grief
I used to position myself at the end of the pew, just in case someone I’m not too comfortable with might come along and try to sit down.
It saved us both that awkward conversation where they ask if they can join me and I say “yes” with my mouth but “no” with my body language.
Frankly, I was at church to be lifted up so I could face the coming week with power and strength. I didn’t want to be dragged down by their reality of brokenness and sometimes bitter tears.
I don’t do that anymore.
I realize that most of what made me uncomfortable was other people’s pain.
Now I’m the one who’s broken. I’m the one who can’t get through “Amazing Grace” without blubbering.
And I’m the one that others hope won’t ask to join THEM.
But here’s the deal: God loves the broken. Christ came for the broken. It’s the broken and breathless who long for the Spirit to blow life across their wounded hearts.
It’s the hopeless and fearful that run faster to the safety of their Shepherd.
It’s the worried and weary who are thankful for a Burden-bearer.
When I refuse to move over and make room for the broken, I’m barring the way for the very ones who most desperately need the blessing. When I want my worship experience to exclude those who haven’t the strength to bring their own hearts before the throne of grace, I’m being selfish.
And that is sin.
Jesus went out of His way to heal the hurting,
to bless the broken and
to speak strength to the weary.
So now I sit in the middle of the pew and leave room for whoever God brings my way.
I want to be an open door, not a gatekeeper.
“Come to me, all of you who are weary and over-burdened, and I will give you rest! Put on my yoke and learn from me. For I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” ~Jesus
(Matthew 11:28-30 PHILLIPS)
I don’t get to choose.
I don’t get to plan the way life is going to be.
Oh, I bring out the calendar and mark down the days: birthdays, holidays, special events and obligations.
But then one dark morning a knock stops the clock and makes the world spin faster all at once.
I’m suspended and plunged under in the same breath.
Frozen. Broken. Horrified.
How did this happen?
How is this my life?
My head and heart explode in pain.
Months pass. The days march on.
I still don’t get to choose what sunrise brings.
But looking back I’m grateful that when my circle was whole we chose love.
That when the days were unfolding we chose faith.
That even as the night closed in and the days grew dark we continued to cling to the one Hope that proves true.
I’m thankful that my heart was full of praise songs and Scripture and that when I couldn’t lift my hand to turn the pages of my Bible the Spirit used them to whisper courage to my soul.
This Valley is deep and the sun is often hidden by the towering mountains on either side.
I have learned two things:
I can’t determine how life unfolds,
but I can decide where to place my hope.
“I admit how broken I am in body and spirit,
but God is my strength,
and He will be mine forever.”
Psalm 73:26 VOICE
One year ago today I began sharing my grief journey publicly on this blog.
You can read that first post here.
It was (and still is) scary to expose my thoughts and feelings to a wider audience than just the pages of my personal journal.
I’m never certain that what is helpful for me is necessarily helpful for anyone else. But in writing it down I find that I am able to sort through things better than when I leave it bouncing around in my own head space.
I decided upfront that I would be as honest as possible about what I felt and how I was coping. I wasn’t sure if I would post only a few times or a lot, if it would turn into a day-by-day diary or a more sweeping revelation of deeper things.
I think it’s kind of been both at times.
And here we are, 366 days (it was a leap year) and 355 posts later and I’m still here and you’re still listening.
I don’t claim to have any special gifting or knowledge or ability. I am simply one mama whose love for both her child in heaven and her children still here demands that I speak out.
My heart is full of love and pain.
And my heart has been blessed beyond measure by those who read and share what I have written. I’ve met-in person and virtually-many bereaved parents who are helping me as I continue down this road.
I am so very thankful for each one.
I pray that for those who read these words and know the pain of burying a child, I am speaking things you may think or feel but are not willing or able to express.
And I pray that in hearing them spoken aloud, you are affirmed and encouraged that you. are. not. alone.
Dominic matters.
Your child matters.
It’s not only OK but absolutely necessary to admit that life after child loss is a struggle. It is also just fine to take your time working through the pain and sorrow and overwhelming changes child loss brings.
For those who read my posts and do not share this pain, I pray you gain insight into what bereaved parents feel and how burying a child changes EVERYTHING.
I hope you are better equipped to offer the ongoing support we need and crave. I hope you learn that this is not something we have chosen, it is something that happened to us.
And I pray that all of us will be more willing to extend grace, mercy and love to one another.
Words are not neutral.
They bring life or death.
They wound or heal.
May each of us be an instrument of healing for someone’s hurting heart.
After [Jehoshaphat] had advised the people, he appointed people to sing to the LORD and praise him for the beauty of his holiness. As they went in front of the troops, they sang, “Thank the LORD because his mercy endures forever!”
2 Chronicles 20:21 GWT
I love worship music.
My heart is transported from here to there in a single note.
In a moment, I am before the Throne, inside the Holy of Holies, crying out for more, more, more of Jesus.
Worship makes me vulnerable to the Spirit’s deep work in my heart-I hear truth, I see beyond the pain and I feel God’s love.
But it also makes me a target for the enemy of my soul.
Yesterday I plugged in Pandora to my stereo and was lifted higher, higher until… in a breath I was brought low.
Leaning over to raise the volume of a favorite song I came eye-to-eye with my missing son.
The photo we chose for his memorial folder is hanging with his siblings’ on my living room wall.
And I was transported from here to there in a heartbeat-
from almost two and a half years past that awful day to the moment I first breathed in the truth that he was gone.
I covered my eyes with both hands and refused the whispers of darkness.
The tears fell and my heart hurt, but I hissed back, “He’s not dead. He’s just not here!”
And I cranked the Truth up higher and dared the devil to come back.
I raised my hands and chose to worship the One Who is loving my son until I get there, Who loves me even in my brokenness and Who will redeem this pain and restore what the enemy has stolen.
I took out my sword and declared “He is a Good, Good Father.”
“Those who wait for Me with hope will not be put to shame.”
Isaiah 49:23c NLV
We love stories of overcomers. We invite testimonies that end in victory.
We applaud members of the Body who have a “before” and “after” tale of how Jesus plus willpower took them from the dust of defeat to the pinnacle of spiritual success.
But we hide the strugglers and stragglers in the back pews.
If suffering lingers long, whether or not it is in the hands of the one who suffers to do anything about it, we cringe and pull back and hope they go away.
We don’t offer them the pulpit or the Sunday School hour to speak of how Christ continues to be the hope to which they cling.
Because deep down, we think there must be something wrong with them, something wrong with their brand or quality or strength of faith. If they only got it “right”, they too, would have the victory.
We would rather shush the suffering than face the tension between God’s goodness and His sovereignty.
We shame them to silence by implying they have nothing to share until they are able to wrap their story with a perfect spiritual bow.
We add insult to injury when their need for help exceeds the allotted three weeks or six months or whatever arbitrary deadline we impose on the prayer list and our patience.
But maybe what God has for me and others who suffer long is not a victorious tag line that can be slapped on a photo or shared on social media.
Maybe it’s only in the continued press of suffering that God reveals Himself in ways the non-suffering never see.
Maybe a dash to declare victory is actually rushing past what God has for us in deep pain and ongoing struggle.
Maybe waiting in hopeful expectation for what God is doing and will do in me and through me IS the victory.
We wait for Yahweh;
He is our help and shield.
For our hearts rejoice in Him
because we trust in His holy name.
May Your faithful love rest on us, Yahweh,
for we put our hope in You.
Psalm 33:20-22 HCSB
The Vietnam Memorial is a beautiful and meaningful reminder of those who gave their lives in that war. The stark black stone highlights the 58,307 names engraved in its surface.
I shared this a few months back as part of a “Loving Well” series of posts about what grieving parents feel and what ministers to their broken hearts.
I long to know my son is remembered and still matters.
Please, Just Say His Name.
There are twelve tribes and twelve disciples.
Twelve stones in the High Priest’s breastplate.
Twelve months in the year.
For those who study these things, the number twelve in Scripture signifies “perfection” or “authority”.
It is also considered the number of completeness.
It was twelve days into April that Dominic completed his earthly sojourn and began his life in Heaven with Jesus.
While from my perspective his life was cut short, from God’s it was finished. The days ordained for my son before he was born had been completed. The work He had prepared beforehand for him to do was through.
I don’t like it.
But I receive it because it passed through the hands of my Father.
I can’t open my heart to love and close it to grief-so I’ll hold them both until I hold Dominic again.
It’s been [twenty-three] years since the Towers fell. Hard to believe-no matter how great the tragedy, life goes on.
Like many, I was watching things as they happened that day.
My husband, an architect and engineer, saw the wobble in the first tower and knew, he knew, it was going to collapse. Horrified I began to understand that whoever was still in that building was running out of time.
And I cried, oh, how I cried. It was awful.
Since then I’ve lived my own tragedy.
My son was unexpectedly and instantly taken from us in an accident.
So when I’m reminded of 9/11 my heart takes me right to those left behind.
And while politicians and pundits can debate the reasons for the attack, can argue about what could have been done, should have been done and why and when-they can never answer the real question in the heart of every family who buried a loved one because of the events of that day.
Why MY husband, wife, daughter, son? How do I make sense of this senseless tragedy?
The answer is, “You can’t.”
You cannot know why one person chose to go this way and lived and another went a different direction and died. It’t impossible to understand the series of events that made someone late for work that day but lead another to show up early.
Last minute travel plan changes saved some from being aboard the fateful planes and put others in a seat.
I can’t know exactly why my son lost control of his motorcycle that night. I will live the rest of my life without an answer to that question.
It’s an ongoing challenge to face the discomfort of things NOT making sense. It goes against human nature to acknowledge that the world is far less predictable than we like to believe.
It takes courage to greet each new day with knowledge that ANYTHING might happen-not only beautiful and wonderful things, but ugly and awful things as well.
If I let my heart dwell on the questions of “why?” and “control”, I am paralyzed, unable to take another step.
There’s no clear path through a world filled with the rubble of broken lives and broken people.
So I turn my heart toward Christ and His promise to never leave or forsake me.
And I am emboldened to take the next step because I know He is already there, even in the dark.
Last February I ran a series of posts about “loving well” during loss.
Other bereaved parents graciously shared both what helped and what hurt in the first few days, weeks and months after losing a child.
I wanted to share this one again because I’ve been reminded recently that it’s hard to know what to do and what to say when a friend or family member is facing the devastating pain of child loss.
If you long to help someone in meaningful ways when they are struggling in a storm of grief, read this: Loving Well: Some Things Hurt
thelifeididntchoose 