I may risk offending some of my fellow believers in Jesus but I will take that risk.
While scripture is plain that God uses the events in our lives to help fashion our hearts, it is also equally plain that God does not act cruelly or spitefully or wantonly.
What Joseph’s brothers did to him was evil. God redeemed it.
What the crowd did to Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was evil. God redeemed it.
What Nero did to the early Christians was evil. God redeemed it.
Death is the ultimate evil, the last enemy.But Jesus overcame it and God will redeem it.
Yes, “all things work together for good for those that love the Lord” but not all things are good.
My son’s death is not a test, a lesson, a trial nor a hammer in the hand of God sent to pound me into the shape He desires for me.
It is an evil that He can and is using for good.
It will one day be absolutely, totally and irrevocably redeemed.
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.
Several recent conversations and comments have reminded me again how much energy and effort it takes to work through the cosmic questions that rock every bereaved parent’s world.
When Dominic ran ahead to Heaven I no longer had the luxury of turning a blind eye to things like, “How do you reconcile God’s sovereignty with free will?” and, “What difference does prayer make?” or, “Why do bad things happen to ‘good’ people?”.
These are the questions that filled my mind and kept me awake at night after burying my son. Questions I was free to ignore before they took up residence in my soul and echoed in my head with every thump, thump, thump of my beating heart.
So I’m digging out some old posts where I share how I came to understand those questions, live with many (most?) unanswered yet hold fast to the truth that God’s faithful love and grace are sufficient and unending.
I hope it helps another heart.
❤ Melanie
We are a people who love a good mystery as long as it leads to a good ending-bad guys vanquished, questions answered, motives revealed and a tidy resolution.
But real life is rarely so neat and squared away.
Just consider your average doctor’s visit. Diagnosis is often a result of trial and error when a simple blood test or throat culture is unavailable to confirm or rule out a particular malady. Yet we blunder forward, trying this and that until something either works or the illness runs its course.
Relationships are even trickier. We stand toe-to-toe with others hoping we understand what they are saying or not saying, feeling or not feeling-all the while forced to act and react in the space between. It’s a wonder we aren’t all at war with one another.
And then there are the big “What ifs?” and “Whys?”
The cosmic questions that rock our world and threaten to undo us.
These are the questions that filled my mind and kept me awake at night after burying my son. Questions I was free to ignore before they took up residence in my soul and echoed in my head with every thump, thump, thump of my beating heart.
It took a very long time for me to learn to live with them unanswered. And there are still moments when I scream aloud and raise my fist to the sky, demanding an accounting.
But most days, I can rest in that space between the asking and the answer-if not exactly at peace-then at least in a state of suspended animation.
And that may really be all God expects of me this side of heaven.
Job never did get any answers.
He stood before God speechless and in awe.
That’s pretty much where I am right now.
I don’t have to like it.
I don’t have to understand it.
I only have to be willing to admit that He is God and I am not.
Job answered God:
“I’m convinced: You can do anything and everything. Nothing and no one can upset your plans. You asked, ‘Who is this muddying the water, ignorantly confusing the issue, second-guessing my purposes?’ I admit it. I was the one. I babbled on about things far beyond me, made small talk about wonders way over my head. You told me, ‘Listen, and let me do the talking. Let me ask the questions. You give the answers.’ I admit I once lived by rumors of you; now I have it all firsthand—from my own eyes and ears! I’m sorry—forgive me. I’ll never do that again, I promise! I’ll never again live on crusts of hearsay, crumbs of rumor.”
I participate in a number of online support groups for bereaved parents.
And one topic that makes the rounds at least once a week-often once a day-is how those outside our experience cannot truly understand our experience.
Because it’s true-you THINK you can imagine the pain of child loss if you have children, but even the most vivid imagination can’t conjure the utter blackness that waits on the other side of hearing, “Your son is dead.”
There’s a great divide between me and those who have not experienced child loss.
But it’s one I hope they never have to cross.
Because it’s a mercy to not know.
If all of us could fathom the pain of losing a child, no one would bear children–the risk would be too great.
So while the gap can be a source of misunderstanding and isolation for ME, it is a safeguard for YOU.
Earlier this week I participated in a “retreat” with Our Hearts Are Home-a ministry to bereaved parents and their families.
On the Zoom call were individuals active in their own communities and own ministries who also lend their time and talents to this one. Together we represent a cadre of bereaved parents who have chosen to come back with a torch to light the way of those still walking in the early days, weeks, months, YEARS of child loss.
It’s a privilege to work and walk beside them.
What I wanted to share today was this:Every one of these individuals is carrying their own burden of grief and loss, every one of them has a life outside ministry that includes family commitments, aging parents, growing children and grandchildren, work, church attendance and committee positions and just the everyday chores of living.
We are contacted via DM and text by newly bereaved parents all the time.
We have nonbereaved friends and family experiencing challenging life events. We have to negotiate holidays and family gatherings while respecting various people’s schedules and preferences.
We are administrators of closed Facebook groups and host book studies and write blogs.
We field phone calls and try to squeeze in workouts or walks, cooking and cleaning.
So when you are thinking about people to pray for, our “cause” may not be dramatic or life-threatening but our work is life giving and light sharing.
There have been a number of posts from different parents in our closed groups recently remarking on how difficult this journey continues to be even decades down the road.
From the outside looking in, folks think, “Well, they’ve had plenty of time to adapt”.
But what they don’t understand is that for a parent, it’s not only what we HAD that is missing, it’s what we thought we WOULD HAVE that we miss too.
So every Christmas, every New Year, every birthday, holiday and family celebration our child isn’t present is another “not there” we have to process and accept.
My first instinct as a mother and a shepherd is always, “How can I help?”
I routinely set aside my own needs for the needs of others. Not because I’m so selfless but because that’s how I’m made-I’ve always had the heart of a caretaker.
That’s not a bad thing, most of the time.
But if taking care of others means NOT taking care of myself, then in the end, I’m of no use to anyone. When I allow every bit of energy-emotional, physical, psychological and spiritual-to drain away until there’s nothing left, I am unable to meet my most basic needs, much less the needs of others.
I went to see The Greatest Showman a few years ago with my daughter. It was an amazing film-I was drawn into the story and my heart longed to see where it was going and how it would end.
I highly recommend it for two hours of uplifting entertainment.
Butit got me thinking.
So I did a little digging into P.T. Barnum’s REAL life story.
As you might imagine, several liberties were taken with actual history in order to create what I saw on the screen. That’s really just fine.I knew what I was getting into when I plunked my money down for the ticket. I had no illusion that I was walking into a history lecture- I understood I was there to be entertained.
When I compared the actual Barnum life story to the tidy, beautiful, uplifting and wonderfully scored musical I had seen in the theater, I found gaping holes.
And most of the holes involved the hard and ugly parts of his story-the parts people don’t like to talk about, much less live through.
While leaving them out or glossing them over with a moment or two of wistful glances for the movie is exactly what I expect from Hollywood, it can condition hearts to expect the same kind of thing in real life.
But real life stories don’t skip over the hard parts.
Real people have to live through the ugly and the painful and the devastating and the doubt and the sorrow. We don’t get to hop right to the happy ending (if there even IS a happy ending) nor do we get to whitewash the dark truths that inform our experience.
And because we prefer tidy (and happy) endings, bright and sunny days, encouraging and uplifting stories, when we are face to face with a challenging and difficult reality, we often turn away.
If we don’t hear it, it doesn’t matter.
If we don’t look, it didn’t happen.
If we wait long enough in our safe cocoon, someone else will deal with it.
Sometimes those of us in the middle of hard stories try to ignore it. But busyness and distraction do not make bad times better. Maybe for a moment, but not in the long run.
We’ve got to learn to experience it all, tell it all, be honest about how dark the path, how difficult the journey.
And those who are on the sunny side of the street need to learn to lean into friendship, cross over and offer compassionate companionship to those who are struggling.
thelifeididntchoose 