There is so. much. pressure. on grieving parents during the holidays!
A constant tension between the world celebrating the “season of joy” and a heart that carries great sorrow.
Perhaps more than any other time of the year we may ask the question:
Tag: grief
A Prayer For Mercy and Grace
Father, I have stopped asking for miracles.
My wounded heart has lost the faith it once had for hoping You might step in and make something out of nothing.
I still believe in YOU. I still hope in YOU.
BUT I am resigned to a life of waiting to see redemption and restoration in Heaven, not here.
In the waiting I ask only two things: Mercy and grace.
Please, please show me mercy, Lord.
Incline Your ear, O Lord, and answer me, For I am distressed and needy [I long for Your help].
Psalm 86:1 AMP
Please spare me even greater pain and sorrow. Please don’t pile more burdens on my broken back-I don’t think I can make another step if You do.
And I beg You to overwhelm my hurting heart with Your grace.
He said to me, “My grace is enough to cover and sustain you. My power is made perfect in weakness.” So ask me about my thorn, inquire about my weaknesses, and I will gladly go on and on—I would rather stake my claim in these and have the power of the Anointed One at home within me.
2 Corinthians 12:9 VOICE
Let me feel your Presence, let my spirit be strengthened by your Spirit, give me grace to accept what You’ve allowed and the strength to carry it.
Amen.
Slow Learner
I don’t like conflict.
My personality and life experience have molded me into a peacemaker.
And while Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers” He also wasn’t afraid to make some noise when necessary to shake things up.
But unlike Jesus, I tend to be a peace-at-all-costs kind of person. And it’s just not healthy.
I recently ran across this quote:
This was me before Dominic left us.
But not anymore.
One thing grief is teaching me is to speak up for myself.
Not in an arrogant you-don’t-matter-I-matter-more way but in a way that is more authentic and expresses how I really feel and what I really need from friends and family.
I’m learning to let others to keep themselves warm.
I help when I can-offer a blanket or hot chocolate-but I will no longer sacrifice my heart to others on the altar of peacemaking at all costs.
Dom was always encouraging me in this regard.
I think he’d be proud.
I Don’t Want to Know The Future
Many years ago my grandparents had a lovely Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration with family and friends.
My dad videotaped it and the tape was full of fun moments where my grandmother was smiling, laughing and having a wonderful day.
It was a short time afterward that she began to show signs of dementia and not very long after that she left us.
We watched the videotape a year or two after her leaving and I thought, “What a mercy she didn’t know what was coming!”
Those moments were full of unadulterated joy because a sorrowful future was hidden from her heart.
What a mercy that curves in the road obscure my vision and mountaintop to mountaintop hides valleys in between.
I am so very thankful that I did not live the 23+ years I had with Dominic knowing his accident was coming. I was free to love him without fear.
If I, like God, knew the end from the beginning my heart could never bear the burden of foresight.
But He, in kindness, withholds the knowledge from my feeble frame and leads me step by step each day.
Repost: Season of Joy-Blessing the Brokenhearted During the Holidays
This was a post I wrote last year around this time. It was my first attempt to express how hard the holidays can be for those missing someone they love.
“Most parents feel a little stressed during the holidays.
We used to be able to enjoy Thanksgiving before our 24/7 supercharged and super-connected world thrust us into hyper-drive. Now we zoom past the first day of school on a highway toward Christmas at breakneck speed.
For bereaved parents, the rush toward the “Season of Joy” is doubly frightening.
Constant reminders that this is the “most wonderful time of the year” make our broken hearts just that much more out of place. Who cares what you get for Christmas when the one thing your heart desires–your child, alive and whole–is unavailable…”
Read the rest here: Season of Joy: Blessing the Brokenhearted During the Holidays
Nothing “Normal” About It
Something you hear early on in this grief journey is that one day you will find a “new normal”.
I hate that phrase.
Because while I have certainly developed new routines, new ways of dealing with life, new methods for quelling the tears and the longing and the sorrow and the pain-it is NOT normal.
It will never be “normal” for my son to be missing.
It will never be normal that he died out of order-at 23-in perfect health, full of promise, vibrant and strong. It is not normal that I now visit his body in a cemetery instead of his living presence in his own home. It is not normal that one chair at my table is always empty, his drums lie stacked and silent in my upstairs bedroom and the only image of his smiling face is on my wall instead of waving at me going down the driveway.
No. This is not normal.
Does life continue? Absolutely!
Are there moments of joy? Definitely!
I have three surviving children and they are full of life. I am proud of them not only for doing the things that grown-ups do but for doing them well while carrying this burden of grief.
But that’s not normal either.
They have lost a lifetime companion, a piece of themselves as well as their brother. Their circle is broken, undone and can never be made whole again this side of eternity.
The parents they knew are gone.
We are learning to live this way.
But it is NOT normal.
How To Respond When Someone Shares Their Pain
We’ve all been there-we ask a routine question and someone refuses to play the social game.
We say, “How are you?” and they answer honestly instead of with the obligatory, “I’m fine. You?”
Suddenly the encounter has taken an unexpected turn.
“Oh, no! I don’t know what to say,” you think.
It can end badly-both of you walking away uncomfortable and wary.
But it doesn‘t have to. There are ways to express compassion and empathy, words that can comfort and encourage.
What should you say when I, or anyone, shares their heart-their pain?
- Acknowledge my pain. Don’t be silent or gloss over my declaration by changing the subject. Silence often feels like disapproval and changing the subject feels like dismissal. I have just entrusted you with something important, something it was hard for me to share, something that is a great burden on my heart-let me know you heard me. Good responses that are always appropriate: “I’m sorry”; “That must be hard”and “My heart hurts for you”. In person, a hand on the arm or a hug is good. Give me space to cry if that’s what I need to do.
- Ask questions. Not the who-what-when-where-why questions that fuel gossip and make good news stories. But questions that can help me share more: “Do you want to talk about it?” or “How can I help you?”. It may take a few moments for me to answer-I may have to think about if I really do want to share more. You may help me by asking, “What’s especially hard right now?”
- Accept that this hurts ME-even if you think it wouldn’t hurt YOU. Everyone’s story is unique. You may be more emotionally, physically, psychologically and spiritually resilient than me. Great! But this is MY story, and this hurts ME. Please, please, please do not try to talk me out of my pain. Please don’t toss Bible verses or platitudes at me seeing if they will stick. Please don’t tell me about how YOU would handle my situation (unless I ask). And, more than anything, please do not turn my heartfelt sharing into a discussion of how my pain causes you pain. It may be true, but now I feel guilty instead of supported.
- Affirm me for sharing, for enduring and leave the door open for next time. It takes courage and energy for me to share my pain. Many days I gloss over inquiries because I’m just too worn out to spend the limited emotional energy I have left on the drama of sharing honestly. If I risk it, it’s because I’m either desperate or I trust you. Either way, let me know you appreciate my bravery. Tell me that you see how hard it is and that just carrying on is an accomplishment. Leave my heart better than you found it so I’ll be encouraged to share again.
Brene Brown has done some amazing work in the area of shame, hurt, compassion and empathy. I’ve found it valuable in my own valley and also instructive in serving others in theirs.
This short video based on her work is incredibly helpful. Please take a moment to watch it: Brene Brown on Empathy
Don’t Rush To Get Rid of Things
It’s a common question in grief circles: How long should I keep my child’s things?
Should I clean out the room? Give away the stuff?
The answer is different for each family, each circumstance, each heart.
But I would say this: If you have a place to store them, don’t be in a rush to get rid of your child’s things.
A scrap of paper that might seem unimportant in your initial grief may be meaningful months later.
There are so many things you HAVE to decide right away. This is one you can decide later.
I wrote this post over a year ago, but my choice to purge our old school papers still haunts me: A Life in Scraps
What if My Testimony is Endurance?
Clearly marked boundaries, categories and rules make things easier.
But life rarely fits in the tidy boxes I like to create.
And when it doesn’t I’m tempted to ignore the parts that don’t fit-tempted to pretend they don’t exist-so I can maintain the world I’ve created for myself. I would rather march on in ignorance than drag out my underlying assumptions to figure out if they are true or false.
That takes a lot of work.
In the church we like to line up the “Overcomers” to give testimony of how faith in Christ has turned their life around.
And He absolutely does that.
Some are delivered from addiction, sin and abuse. Some receive healing-none the less miraculous if it comes through the hands of skilled physicians. Some enjoy restored relationships.
But not everyone gets what they long for. Not every loss can be undone.
And those left to live their lives hoping but not healed can be labeled “losers”. We can be marginalized because our story is messy and can’t be tied up in a neat spiritual package.
It MATTERS how we frame the very personal tragedies that people around us experience.
My friend and fellow loss mom, Janet Boxx, has written a beautiful post that exposes one of the ways life doesn’t fit the neat categories we like to use.
Please take a moment to read her post It’s Personal .
Sometimes people outside our experience toss Scripture at us who are suffering like confetti in a parade-as if we are heroes who only have yet to take the podium and declare the victory.
But what if there IS no victory in this life for some of us?
What if there is only endurance–which is a sort of victory but one not highly valued?
Paul never declared a final victory over his thorn in the flesh. He characterized his life as one “poured out like a drink offering”. He said he “groaned” in his earthly tent and “longed” to be clothed with the heavenly.
I am living. I don’t spend my days curled up in a ball (even when I want to).
But I groan–I groan for the time when what the enemy has stolen will be restored.
Until then, even if I have to crawl, battered and bruised:
“I push myself forward toward the goal to win the prize. God has appointed me to win it. The heavenly prize is Christ Jesus himself.” (Philippians 3:14 NIRV)
The final destruction of death is still in the future. It hasn’t happened yet, but it will. Not only will I see Lenya again, but I will hold the same body I held here, only better, because what the thief has stolen will be restored sevenfold (Proverbs 6:31)!
This is why it’s crucial for you to see that we don’t need to put a nice face on our pain or hurry people through a process that can’t be rushed; the fact that our sadness doesn’t go away makes our triumph even more powerful. Our faith works in the fire, and not just when life is fun. We can be hard-pressed and yet not crushed, struck down and yet not destroyed — not because we know general facts about the resurrection or that there is a heaven, but because we trust in the one who said that he is the resurrection and the life, who took the keys from death and hell, was dead, and lives forever. His name is Jesus, and he always leads us in triumph!
~Levi Lusko, Through the Eyes of a Lion
Yielded and Still
I can’t claim to be satisfied with this life I’m living.
I do not like this path I am forced to walk, this darkness that hides the light, this pain that burrows deep in my bones.
But I can say I’m learning not to fight it.
Sometimes I still pitch a fit.
Sometimes I still yell at the sky, “Where were You?” Sometimes I lie down in the floor and beg for relief. Sometimes I quietly rebel with only a single tear.
Most days though, I get up and give in.
I turn my face to the rising sun and choose to carry on. I submit my heart, again, to the One Who created it.
I don’t struggle.
I don’t fight the facts that greet me.
“I don’t think the way you think.
The way you work isn’t the way I work.”
God’s Decree.
“For as the sky soars high above earth,
so the way I work surpasses the way you work,
and the way I think is beyond the way you think.
Just as rain and snow descend from the skies
and don’t go back until they’ve watered the earth,
Doing their work of making things grow and blossom,
producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry,
So will the words that come out of my mouth
not come back empty-handed.
They’ll do the work I sent them to do,
they’ll complete the assignment I gave them.”Isaiah 55:8-11 MSG
I am not God.
His thoughts are not my thoughts.
His ways are not my ways.
His plans are bigger than me, bigger than my hopes and dreams, bigger than anything I can imagine.
He has created me for His glory-not the other way around.
So I join with thousands who sing:
Have Thine own way, Lord,
Have Thine own way;
Thou art the Potter,
I am the clay.
Mould me and make me
After Thy will,
While I am waiting,
Yielded and still.
Have Thine own way, Lord,
Have Thine own way;
Wounded and weary,
Help me, I pray.
Power, all power,
Surely is Thine,
Touch me and heal me,
Savior divine.
thelifeididntchoose 