I need to remind myself of this every few days.
I’ve mentioned it before.
I’ve encouraged others not to resist.
But I want to be absolutely clear: Losing my son made me doubt EVERYTHING.
Read the rest here: He Will Hold Me Fast
Tag: child loss
How Can I Trust My Child Is With Jesus?
There are many burdens bereaved parents bear in addition to the heaviness of living with child loss.
Some had unfinished business,
some were estranged,
some had harsh words
or no words at all before their child left them.
And some are oh, so afraid that the child that made a sincere profession of faith in Christ might not be in heaven because he or she was living outside the will of God when they died.
I can’t offer words to undo or soothe some of the other burdens, but I can offer hope from the Word of God to assure any parent afraid for the eternal salvation of their child that he or she is safely Home.
If your child made a genuine profession of faith in Christ, then no single impulsive decision or even a series of bad choices, can undo what God has done for him or her through the blood of Jesus.
If Satan is not strong enough to snatch us from God’s hand, our feeble human choices are certainly not strong enough!
Jesus declared those whom the Father had given Him could in no way be snatched from His hand:
28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.
30 I and my Father are one.
John 10:28-30 KJV
The circumstances of a child’s death do not negate his or her profession of faith in the blood of Christ Jesus!
42 Then he [the repentent thief on the cross] said, “Jesus, remember me when you enter your kingdom.”
43 He said, “Don’t worry, I will. Today you will join me in paradise.”
Luke 22: 42-43 MSG
I realize that various denominational traditions teach different things, but I am utterly convinced that it is God Himself Who calls, Who saves, Who keeps and Who is keeping at this moment our precious children who put their trust in Jesus:
For it is by grace [God’s remarkable compassion and favor drawing you to Christ] that you have been saved [actually delivered from judgment and given eternal life] through faith. And this [salvation] is not of yourselves [not through your own effort], but it is the [undeserved, gracious] gift of God;
Ephesians 2:8 AMP
I also rest satisfied that He Who began a good work in our children is faithful to complete it. If salvation depended on our good works, or our own faithfulness-ALL of us would be lost.
We are hid in Christ. His righteousness (and HIS alone) is our righteousness.
For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
Colossians 3:3 KJV
Our sins are flung as far as the east is from the west. They are hid behind God’s back-unviewable (have you ever tried to see something on the small of your back-without a mirror?):
Dominic was not at the height of his Bible-toting, church-going, praise-song-singing days when he left us. He was an adult student in law school, living in his own apartment and making his own choices. He made some I didn’t like. But that doesn’t change the FACT that he belonged (and STILL belongs) to Jesus.
Your child who trusted Jesus is safe, dear parent.
He is in his really, truly Home.
One day there will be great joy when we are reunited. Until then, we rely on the promises of God in Christ to see us through.
I pray for every parent reading that God overwhelms your hurting heart with His love, grace and mercy and assures you of His faithfulness.
And may He give you strength for each new day.
❤ Melanie
Out of [My] Control
![Out of [My] Control](https://thelifeididntchoose.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/woman-on-mountain-hike.jpg?w=236)
I really think I’m in control. I choose, I do, I make it happen.
Hogwash!
I do make the coffee, sure, but I can’t make breath fill my lungs. I sit in my chair and watch the sun rise, but if it didn’t show up one day there wouldn’t be a single thing I could do about it.
Even this mama who had that awful, awful knock on the door that should have settled this question forever is lulled back into embracing the myth that I am in control.
For some odd reason that brings me comfort.
Odd because I fully realize how absolutely terrible it would be if I WAS in control of everything. I can’t find my glasses on top of my head-how in the world would I keep the earth spinning?
If it was up to me, things would be a mess.
Thankfully it is NOT up to me. I am NOT in control.
But I know the One Who is.
So many days I live like if I hold on tight enough, I won’t lose anything else. But that’s just not true-it’s still all up for grabs-I don’t have the strength or power to stop loss.
When I let go of my futile attempt to be in control, to maintain the illusion of control and to feed my need for control, I can receive the peace God is offering me through Jesus Christ.
Closed hands can’t receive anything.
If I am going to live at all,
I have got to live with open hands,
not clinched fists.
Repost: A Letter to My Living Children
I miss Dominic. I will always miss him. Our table will never be full no matter how many others come to sit round its edges.
BUT-I will not rob my living children of my heart because part of it lives in Heaven.
I wrote this for the three children that still walk the earth with me.
You made me a mother, along with Dominic, and I celebrate each one of you as a gift from God.
Read the rest here: A Letter To My Living Children*
Repost: Mother’s Day as a Bereaved Mother
I didn’t know last year that there was an International Bereaved Mother’s Day celebrated the Sunday BEFORE the U.S. Mother’s Day.
I hope that my bereaved mother friends took advantage of that day to think about and honor their missing child(ren).
But we still have to make it through tomorrow. And that can be very challenging.
I wrote this last year: Mother’s Day as a Bereaved Mother
Head Above Water (Most of the Time)
Some days I go gangbusters-rip through my “To Do” list from top to bottom before lunchtime.
And some days I can barely get up out of the chair in the morning for a second cup of coffee.
It depends.
Most times I have no idea what throws me into a tailspin.
Oh, I’m prepared for the “circle the date on the calendar days” like Mother’s Day (coming up!), Dominic’s birthday, his heaven day and the holidays. But there are random, not-special-occasion-days that plunge my head under a grief wave that I did not see coming.
Maybe it’s the smell of cut grass through an open window or the sound of a motorcycle thrumming at the end of our lane or the sight of trees full of leaves (again-another season he isn’t here). I really don’t know.
The drowning feeling may last five minutes or five hours. All I can do is go with it and hope the wave spits me out sooner rather than later.
And they DO pass.
My heart is always tender, always aware of missing Dominic. But it is better able to join in laughter and celebration than it was even six months ago.
I no longer feel as if I am drowning every moment of every day with only a gasp of air now and then.
Instead I feel like I’m swimming-tired and often out of-sight of shore-but managing most of the time to keep my head above water.
Grief waves come. They will always come. I have to endure the choking, sputtering, frightening, drowning feeling when they do.
But they are not the only thing I feel now.
And for that, I am very grateful.
Plagiarism
I write because it’s important to me and because I want to share freely what I feel God is teaching me in this Valley of the Shadow of Death.
I don’t have affiliate links on my blog, don’t sell books, posters or merchandise and have no plans to do so.
But I am jealous of the content I produce. Not jealous because I think it is of high value but jealous because the words are wrung from ny heart each evening to be posted the next morning. Jealous because they reflect MY experience, expose MY heart and contain details of MY journey.
In all the time I’ve been sharing, I have never had a post stolen, to my knowledge. Until the other day when I found another blogger had re-blogged my post, “International Bereaved Mother’s Day” and given credit (appropriately) to where she had found it-on a Facebook page.
I followed the link and yep, there it was-MY post, copied and pasted changed-only to exclude Dominic’s name and replace it with “child”. Even the graphic I chose was used.
I contacted the page and they have agreed to correct the post and add the link to the blog. I appreciate that.
But in responding to my concerns, the page administrator indicated that it had been found and reposted from another page ( I don’t know which one). And that upsets me.
I know social media is risky business and that I can’t stop anyone from doing whatever they want to once I hit “publish”. But I would ask that in this community of bereaved parents we show one another the respect anyone deserves and honor our individual contributions, whatever they may be.
Taking the words of another and passing them off as your own is plagiarism. It is wrong and it is hurtful.
I will keep writing and risking but now I’m on guard and I hate that.
If you are a regular reader/poster/sharer I ask that you help me watch for this in the future.
I want people to share.
That’s the purpose of writing-that one more heart my be encouraged or strengthened for another day in this Valley. So share away!
But please do it honestly 🙂 ❤
Fake Flowers and Strong Winds
Don’t judge me but in an effort to add a bit of color to my entryway and make peace with the fact that goats eat EVERYTHING-I’ve created pots of colorful silk arrangements. And if I do say so myself, they look pretty authentic as long as you don’t examine them too closely.
This morning I woke to find my carefully arranged fake flowers strewn across my front yard. Strong winds during the night had lifted them out of the pots and carried them everywhere-betraying their true nature.
No pretending now.
As I stooped down to gather the remnants and reposition them I thought about how much of my own life is spent trying to look better than I really am. How often am I arranging “fake flowers” in an effort to fool the eye of the beholder?
And who am I trying to impress anyway?
When the winds of life come blowing hard, all that “fake me” gets stripped away. I’m not strong enough to withstand the wind and keep pretending.
It hardly seemed like a gift at the time, but when Dominic left us, I realized that I had been utterly exposed-every false thing was stripped away and I was standing, defenseless and naked-emotions everywhere, my ability to “keep up appearances” absolutely GONE.
For a time I no longer tried to curate my life so it met with others’ approval.
But old habits die hard and I find myself slipping back into the rut of trying to be something I’m not. Pride clings to every pore and insists that if I don’t do the right thing, say the right thing and look the part, people will turn away.
Wouldn’t it just be better if I was real ALL the time?
Wouldn’t my relationships be stronger if they were built on honest sharing and authentic connections?
I have learned through the years that God does not want just our happy; He also really wants our sad. Everything is not fine, and God wants to hear about it. He is drawn to us when we’re mourning and blesses us in a special way. God is not up there minimizing our pain and comparing it to others who have it worse than we do. God wants all pain to be surrendered to Him, and He has the capacity to respond to it all with infinite compassion.
~Esther Fleece, No More Faking Fine, p. 35
So I’m taking back the gift of authenticity that was purchased at such high cost.
I’m re-embracing the honesty that being stripped of all pretense exposed.
I’m keeping my fake flowers but I’m ditching the fake me.
Laughter
“A joy-filled heart is curative balm, but a broken spirit hurts all the way to the bone.” ~Proverbs 17:22 VOICE
Laughter is good for my heart. Not just my physical blood-pumping organ, but the emotional center of my being.
And in this Valley of the Shadow of Death, laughter can be a real life-saver.
So I try to work some in each day. I purpose to see the lighter side of challenging moments, make a point of actually watching those goofy videos passed around on Facebook, read jokes and practice responding with a smile.
It’s not betraying Dominic-although it kind of felt that way in the first few weeks-it’s honoring his sense of humor and celebrating his life.
Our family spent hours laughing around the table, in the living room and passing wry texts back and forth.
I firmly believe there will be laughter in Heaven. I think that part of joy is great big belly laughs that will shake me from head to toe.
In the meantime, I’m going to keep practicing down here.
Repost: Love Doesn’t End
I know that others want desperately me to be “better”. They want me to be happy and carefree and back to the Melanie they knew before child loss.
And not just for their sake, for mine too.
It’s hard to watch someone you care about in pain.
But my reality has been forever changed.
Read the rest here: Love Doesn’t End
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