Tag: bereaved grandparent

Navigating Grief: Admit the Pain

Child loss is Unnatural-no way around it.

Out of order death is devastating.

When my perfectly healthy, strong and gifted son was killed instantly in a motorcycle accident on April 12. 2014 my world fell apart.  My heart shattered into a million pieces.  And after so many years, I’ve yet to even FIND all of those pieces much less put them back together.

So what does a heart do when that happens?  Because, try as I might, I cannot stop time. 

Even THAT awful day only lasted 24 hours.

When the sun rose again, the pain was still there.  And behind that pain and mixed with it was something else-disappointment, disaffection, distrust.

Where were You, God???

God is sovereign-He rules.

God is good-He loves.

How do those two truths live together in a universe that includes child loss? How can I trust the rest of my life and my eternal future to a God who lets this happen?

Read the rest here: Trust After Loss: Admit the Pain

Does God “Number Our Days”?

Last year around this time, I shared with a couple of bereaved parent support groups on the topic of “Bringing our child with us into a New Year”.

We talked about how time is tricky once a child goes to Heaven.

In the course of our conversation, I talked about Psalm 139:16.

I know for some parents it brings tremendous comfort.

For others, it feels like the plainest interpretation (in English, at least) is that God ordained our child’s death and that feels cruel.

For what it’s worth, after consulting as many different translations as I could find and looking up key words in a concordance, this is how I think about that verse.

God is outside time. That’s why the Bible says Jesus “was slain from the foundation of the world”.

Yet we know, historically, that Jesus’ death occurred on a specific day in human history. When the Son of God came as the Son of Man and took on flesh, He was as much a prisoner of time as we are. That is why He wept with Mary and Martha at the death of Lazarus.

It’s not that God ordained my son’s death, it’s that He knew precisely when it would occur. If my son had not left his apartment that night and driven his motorcycle too fast in a curve, I do not for one minute think God would have sent a lightning bolt to end his life because it was “his day to die”.

Our lives are laid out before Him from birth through eternity and nothing is a surprise to Him.

He knows the end from the beginning.

And yet…He has also given us free will.

He has created a world in which biology, physics, and other natural laws prevail.

Sin has marred that creation and so bad things happen. Sometimes the bad things are a result of cells that grow out of control or body parts that don’t function properly. Sometimes the bad things are due to the sin of others or ourselves. Sometimes the bad things are “acts of nature”.

Death is not God’s will for any of us but it is something we must bear because of sin. Thankfully, for those who are in Christ Jesus, physical death is not the final word!

I do not understand this even as I type it.

It’s a mystery that I’ve learned to live with every day (some days it’s easier than others!).

Still, I am more comforted by a God I cannot fathom and Who is all-knowing, all-powerful and all-loving than I would be with a god I could fit into a box of my own making.

On the hard days, I have to remind my heart of that truth.

You can find my list of ways to keep our children close throughout the year here: https://www.heartacheandhope.org/_files/ugd/fc3456_9e8a535f36bd454a94e25872be82dec2.pdf

Navigating Grief: Letting Lament Do Its Work


I have lots and lots of questions.

And I don’t think ignoring them or shoving them in a chest and sitting on the lid is helpful.

But I’m far enough along in this journey to admit that if I let my heart and mind focus on the questions I’ll drown in sorrow and despair.

Read the rest here: A Reason Can’t Wipe Away Tears: A Modern Lament

Navigating Grief: Did God Take My Child?

Trying to ignore or stuff our questions because they are uncomfortable or too hard to think about isn’t helpful. They just rattle around in our minds and burrow deeper into our hearts causing confusion and raising doubt.

One of the questions many bereaved parents desperately want to answer: Did God take my child?

These are my thoughts-ones I believe are backed by Scripture and align with what I know personally about God’s character.

They are the result of many months of wrestling. I offer them in hopes they will help another heart.

❤ Melanie

This is a question that comes up all the time in bereaved parents’ groups:  Did God take my child?

Trust me, I’ve asked it myself.  

How you answer this question can mean the difference between giving up or going on, between turning away or trusting.

So this is MY answer.  The one I’ve worked out through study, prayer and many, many tears.  You may disagree.  That’s just fine.  I only offer it because it might be helpful to some struggling and sorrowful soul.

Read the rest here: Did God Take My Child?

Friends: Some Show Up, Some Fade Away.


I was absolutely overwhelmed in those first days.

Cars, cars, cars filled my long driveway and front yard.

People spilling out like ants scrambling after the hill is disturbed.

Oh, our hill was disturbed-knocked wide open by that deputy’s visit.

Read the rest here: Who Steps In? Who Walks Out?

Purpose in Each Day’s Light


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.

sunrise 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.

time-travel

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.

think-you-have-time

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

~Sheldon Harnick

Blessed Are The Brokenhearted

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.

Revelation 21:4 KJV