Tag: compassion

Love in Action: Meaningful Ministry to Grieving Parents

This series was originally published two years ago.

I’m running it again to give me a short break from daily writing as I work on material for a bereaved moms’ retreat coming up this weekend.

I have tweaked and edited the original posts a bit to update some of the information and clarify muddy language.

I continue to be indebted to the parents who graciously shared their own experiences.

My prayer is that these next posts are helpful both to those who grieve and those who love them. ❤

Our journeys begin in different ways.

Just as every birth story is unique, so, too, is every parent’s story of loss. It may be a phone call or an officer at the front door.  It may be a lingering illness or a sudden one. Our children may have lived days or decades.

Their death may be anticipated, but it is never expected.

And it is always devastating.

No one is prepared to bury their child.

Read the rest here:  Loving Well: Meaningful Ministry to Grieving Parents

Repost: Not-So-Random Acts of Kindness

I wrote this last year when meditating on what love really is.  It’s an action word.

We can’t just do our thing and leave. Our hearts and resources are going to get tangled up with theirs.

It might get uncomfortable.

It might get expensive.

But there is no greater kindness than coming alongside someone at just the moment they feel their strength is gone.

I love the idea of Random Acts of Kindness-it’s a beautiful way to spread love and joy in our broken world.

With a few dollars or a few minutes, I have the opportunity to make someone’s day brighter, their burden lighter and remind them that not everyone is “out to get them”.

BUT-as I’ve written before here:  Relational Acts of Kindness, it’s relatively easy to do my good deed and walk away.

Read the rest here:  Not-So-Random Acts of Kindness

 

Repost: True Love

I wrote this post last year and want to share it again.

Because the thing God speaks to me over and over and over in this journey is:

LOVE LASTS.

There is nothing I can spend my time, energy and resources on that will follow me into eternity and remain in the hearts of those I leave behind besides love.

It’s nice to get flowers or chocolate or balloons or cards that say, “I love you”.

But true love can’t be bought.

True love is marked by sacrifice, ongoing support, genuine compassion and willingness to do whatever it takes to “be there” for another person.

It means standing with someone even when walking beside them includes bearing the unbearable. 

Read the rest here:  True Love

Chronic: Continuing, Ceaseless, Unabating

Chronic:  (of a problem) long-lasting and difficult to eradicate.
Synonyms:  constant, continuing, ceaseless, unabating, unending, persistent, long-lasting, severe, serious, grave, dire

If you’ve followed the blog for long, you know I have Rheumatoid Arthritis.  What you may not know is that it is not at all like the arthritis most people experience as they age.  Instead of a gradual wearing out of joints due to use and, sometimes, injury, RA is the result of my body attacking itself.

I was 44 when diagnosed after both ankles suddenly swelled so that I could barely walk. 

I’ve been living with it for over ten years. 

It’s a chronic disease.  It can be treated with greater or lesser success to modify and mediate symptoms, but it is always, always, always there.  And it affects every aspect of my life-from getting dressed to driving a car.

I find that most folks just don’t understand that.  

We are used to getting sick, going to the doctor and being prescribed a drug or treatment or even surgery and getting well (after some period of time).

But some things can’t be “fixed” and must simply be “managed” and endured.

endurance is patience concentrated

Child loss is like that.  

It cannot be fixed. 

It cannot be healed. 

It cannot be undone or ignored or sequestered so that it doesn’t impact daily life.

And that is hard for people to understand if they’ve never dealt with a chronic illness or other circumstance that defies remedy.

Every morning I walk down my stairs one step at a time like a toddler because my joints are too stiff to bend until I’ve been up for a few hours-that’s how I have to accommodate my arthritis.

Every morning I sit in my rocking chair and journal and talk to other bereaved parents before daybreak-that’s how I have to accommodate my grief.

Neither of these conditions is a choice.  

Each of them happened TO me-not because of anything I did or did not do.

And they are life-long.  

Continuing.

Ceaseless.

Unabating.

Exhausting.
grief and pain and forever

When It’s Been YEARS-How to Bless a Grieving Parent

Please hear me. 

I do NOT blame you that my son and my sorrow have drifted down your list of “things that need attention”.  Your life is as busy as mine once was and your calendar full of commitments and celebrations that require your attendance.

There is no way you would know it’s 69 days until the fourth anniversary of Dominic’s sudden absence. 

There is no reason for you to be aware that as the southern landscape turns to spring, my heart and mind turn to death.  

But it’s the truth. 

As the rest of the world looks forward to Easter (and I do too-for the promise and hope it brings) I am dreading Holy Week.  Dominic was killed the Saturday before Palm Sunday and laid to rest the Monday after Easter.  So every year I relive it twice-once during Holy Week and once again (when the dates are different) according to the calendar.

And each year it feels lonelier and lonelier.  

Because each year fewer and fewer people remember or if they do, they don’t know how to offer that up as a blessing because it feels awkward or stiff.

So may I suggest a few things that most bereaved parents would absolutely LOVE for friends and family to say or do-especially as the months roll into years or even decades?

  • Send a card, message or text indicating that you DO remember.  And not just for the date of passing, but also for his or her birthday or other important milestone dates.
  • Send an electronic or physical copy of a photo.  It feels so empty to peruse the same photos over and over.  It is an invaluable gift to get one I haven’t ever seen before.  Every time it feels like I get a tiny new piece of Dominic to hold close to my heart.
  • If you have saved voice mails or videos-send those.  Not every parent can or wants to listen/watch these, but they are a gift nonetheless.  Just having them brings some comfort.
  • Post a memory on Facebook.  If the child’s timeline is still up, write something TO the child-did you share an experience, a class, a hobby-then speak to that.  Tell me how Dominic is still part of your life.  Because as long as his influence still lives, part of him lives also.
  • Speak his or her name in conversation.  I know it can be awkward.  But don’t shy away from mentioning my child in conversation just as you would if he were living.  If you are talking about an event in which he took part, please, please, please do NOT talk around him.  I remember.  You aren’t shielding me. It is so good for my heart to share these memories with other people.
  • If I post a photo or memory on Facebook, please don’t scroll past with the attitude “there she goes again!”.  I post because I will talk about Dominic just as I will talk about my living children as long as I live.  Yes, it’s the same photo-but I don’t have new ones because I CAN’T TAKE THEM, not because I don’t want them.  If you think it’s  “too much” I challenge you to cut off all (I mean ALL) communication with one of your living children for a week.  That’s just the tiniest taste of what it’s like.
  • If I plan some kind of memorial activity, participate if you can.  Personally I haven’t done this but many parents plan balloon releases or ask people to do a Random Act of Kindness in the name of their child.  If you are able, join in.

There is a common theme here:  if you think about my child, let me know.  

I will not forget Dominic.  

I couldn’t. 

But it is oh, so helpful to know that others aren’t forgetting either.  

missing child from arms

Repost: Grieving With Hope

The church at Thessalonica was confused about some fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith.  They were frightened that they had missed Christ’s second coming and they were concerned about loved ones that had preceded them in death.  So Paul wrote this letter to remind them of truth and offer comfort in their emotional distress:

And regarding the question, friends, that has come up about what happens to those already dead and buried, we don’t want you in the dark any longer. First off, you must not carry on over them like people who have nothing to look forward to, as if the grave were the last word. Since Jesus died and broke loose from the grave, God will most certainly bring back to life those who died in Jesus.  I Thessalonians 4:13-14 MSG

This verse is quoted often to believers who have lost a loved one.  At first, gently, sweetly–as an invitation to remember that God is in control, that He has a plan, that the grave is not victorious and that burying the body is not the end.

And, in the early days and weeks after the funeral, it IS comforting–I chanted it to myself like a mantra and it drew my heart from the brink of despair.

But at some point, this verse begins to feel like a rebuke–the well-meaning friend says, “Don’t you know, that Jesus followers don’t grieve like those who have no hope!”

And I turn, dumbfounded, to the person saying this, and wonder, “Have you buried a child?”

Read the rest here:  Grieving With Hope

Life is Short, Be Swift to Love

Grief has worn away some of the sharp edges of my personality.

I’m still prone to impatience-especially when faced with incompetence or hateful behavior in others.

But I’m learning that walking gently through life is not only good for others, it’s good for ME.

Life IS short.  ‘

Not just the life of a child or teen or young adult cut down by accident or disease.

But even if I live my “threescore and ten” the Bible talks about, it will STILL be short.  Seventy, eighty, one hundred years set on the timeline of history or eternity is less than a pinpoint.

What do I want my legacy to be?  What do I want to leave behind for others to remember, to ponder, to carry in their hearts attached to my memory?

small things with great love

That’s easy.  I want my legacy to be love.

I want people to remember that I treated them with kindness, that I respected them as persons, that I reached out, reached down and never separated myself from them by false barriers, foolish divisions or fake measures of who is “better” and who is “worse”.

forget what you say 3

More than anything I want people to feel that I made their burden lighter, not heavier.

So much of life is hard. 

So many things happen for which there is no remedy. 

I can’t choose everything, but I can choose love.

Life is short and we have not much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark way with us. Oh, be swift to love! Make haste to be kind.

– Henri Fredric Amiel

Calvary Love

We just moved through the feel-good season of Christmas where we look with awe on baby Jesus, cute and cuddly in swaddling clothes, surrounded by His loving parents.

But what most moderns miss is that even in His birth, His death was foretold.  

The manger was most likely hewn from stone, as was His tomb.  And while the wise men’s gifts were costly and appropriate, they not only spoke of His kingship, they also included myrrh which was used for embalming the dead.

Jesus came to live so that He could die.  

Both His life and his death are models for my own. 

Every day of ministry was a day of self-denial-a pouring out of life onto and into the ones He came to serve.  

And if anyone-if ANY. ONE.-could have lifted Himself above those who presented their brokenness like offerings at His feet, He certainly could.  Not only was He without sin, He was God Himself in the flesh.

But look how gently Jesus welcomed the lost and lonely.  See the compassion of the Good Shepherd for His confused sheep.  Notice the love and kindness as He gathered the children around Him.

THIS is my example.

I am most certainly not above my Master.  

I am called to love and serve as He did-not in a condescending way that says, “I am helping you because I am better than you.”  But in a way that says, “I am helping you because I AM you.”

I have nothing I did not receive.  I have nothing to give except from the bounty of my Lord.  

My heart is just as broken as the next heart.  

We all need His touch.  

calvary love

Weekend Retreat for Bereaved Moms

Last October I attended my first group event for bereaved parents.

I really didn’t know what to expect.  Was I going to be overwhelmed with sadness upon seeing so many other brokenhearted parents?  Would I be cornered and forced to share my story with strangers?  Would I come away refreshed or worn out?

What I discovered was that I was surrounded by other people who “got it” and who were not interested in putting any kind of pressure on me to be or say or do anything I didn’t want to.  Sure there were tears, but there was laughter as well. And I was able to hug necks of online friends that have been so very supportive and loving.

It was good.

It was helpful. 

It is something I will do again.  

As a matter of fact, I’ll be doing it again THIS February 23-25th in Amory, Mississippi.

A fellow bereaved mom, Hope Lee, owns and operates a Christian Camp named in honor of her daughter, Abby (Abby’s Acres Christian Camp).  She felt the Lord leading her to organize an intimate weekend getaway for bereaved moms and, after offering it to locals first, has now opened it to the public.

We will have some teaching/sharing/discussion sessions as well as free time and organized crafts.

It’s a wonderful opportunity to meet other moms whose experience may help you in your journey.  It will definitely be a safe space to let your hair down and take your mask off.  

Depending where you are in this journey the thought of a weekend away with other bereaved moms may be either terrifying or exciting.

But may I encourage you-whether terrified or excited-to listen to the Spirit?  If He is pushing you to step out in faith, do it.

I promise you won’t regret it!  

Spaces are limited so call the number today and reserve your spot.

 

heartache healing and hope conference

Address (for navigation purposes):  Abby Acres 50771 Old Hwy 25S Amory, MS 38821

Phone number:  662-574-8445