heart – Page 25 – thelifeididntchoose

Permission To Grieve

You wouldn’t think we need permission from total strangers, friends and extended family to grieve but many times it feels like we do.

Odd looks, questioning stares and wagging tongues can make a heart doubt whether it’s really OK to do this or that while trying not to fall apart.

Well I’m here to tell you-ignore all that!

You have permission to do whatever it takes to endure this journey as long as you are not harming yourself or others.

I have all kinds of little things I do to help my heart hold on.

Some of them are quite public and others only I know about.

Either way, it’s no one’s business but mine.

I do try not to make other people uncomfortable but I draw the line at the place my sanity outweighs their discomfort. I won’t apologize for utilizing whatever supports keep me keeping on and not giving up.

So if you are worrying more about what other people think than what helps your heart, PLEASE STOP!

You are free to be who you have to be.

You are free to do what you have to do.

You don’t need anyone’s permission to grieve.

Silence is a Gift

It’s hard to sit silent in an age when most of us live with noise nearly 24/7.

Out where I live, surrounded by grass and trees and plenty of room between me and my nearest neighbor, I am used to the quiet.

But it makes many folks uncomfortable.

They hasten to fill any empty airspace with chatter or nervous laughter or music or television or just about anything that means they don’t have to listen to their own thoughts.

It can be tempting, when trying to do the work grief requires to chase away the sorrow and pain with noise.

But that’s unhelpful.

Because you can’t really chase grief anywhere. It’s inside you, part of you, with you wherever you go.

Every morning I get up, make coffee, sit down and drink in the quiet with my caffeine. I listen for a bit and then write down what I hear my heart saying. It has been the most effective habit for helping me walk through this Valley in the [ten] years since Dominic left us.

Silence is necessary for a heart to do the work grief requires.

Don’t fight it.

Lean in, pen and pad at the ready, and let silence speak to your broken heart.

Why We Have to Tell Our Stories & Why We Need Someone to Listen

We’ve all been at the family dinner table when an elder launches into THAT story-the one that gets dragged out every holiday and several times in between.

Often our eyes roll and we exchange knowing glances with the younger set as if to say, “Here we go again!”

But we point our faces toward the speaker, lean in and lap it up.

Because we know this story is important to her or else she wouldn’t be sharing it again.

You learn a lot about your parents and grandparents, older aunts and uncles by listening carefully to the stories that have stuck around in a head that finds it hard to remember what the body had for breakfast.

Some of the stories are wonderful. Sweet, sweet memories of special times and special friends; of younger years and youthful dreams.

Some of the stories are tragic. The baby brother or sister who only lived a few days or months. The mother that died too soon because there were no drugs to treat a common condition. The friend that never came home from the war.

The stories are windows into souls.

Some of us have stories that need telling NOW. We can’t wait until our age guarantees us a captive audience.

Because telling the stories helps our hearts.

A fellow bereaved mom who has a gift for finding exquisite quotes found this one:

Sometimes I think that if it were possible to tell a story often enough to make the hurt ease up, to make the words slide down my arms and away from me like water, I would tell that story a thousand times.

~Anita Shreve, The Weight of Water

Every time I tell the story of Dominic, it helps to keep him real.

It reminds my heart that he lived, that he mattered, that he matters still.

Living on a farm I’ve buried a lot of things in this Alabama dirt, I never thought my brother would be one of them. I miss you so much Hector Dominic DeSimone! ~Julian DeSimone

And in the telling, I am giving away a little bit of him for another heart to carry. His light is passed to another soul that can pass it to another and another.

It doesn’t really take away the hurt and sorrow, but it does help me bear it.

So if I launch into the same old rendition of my favorite memories of my missing son, bear with me.

Be a witness.

Help me carry the burden.

Bereaved Parents Month Post: A Broken Heart

I wrote this post in response to the deaths of Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher in December, 2016. Debbie died of a broken heart within a day of hearing of her daughter’s death.

It was an opportunity to educate others about the reality of child loss and a parent’s broken heart while the world’s attention was focused on the subject.

Like so many other things competing for headlines and social media hits, it was only a hot topic for a brief while.

But for those of us living with the daily reality of a missing child and a broken heart this still rings true.

I think Bereaved Parents Month is an appropriate time to revisit it. ❤

“The world is stunned by the deaths of Carrie Fisher at 60 and her mother Debbie Reynolds just one day later.

And it should be.”

Read the rest here: A Broken Heart

Helping Hearts Hold Onto Hope

I’ve always been a bit of a cheerleader.

Not THAT kind of cheerleader!

But the kind that stands alongside the road handing cups of water to the struggling stragglers in the far back of a marathon.

Because I believe in doing your best and finishing the race, even if it’s hard and even if it’s not pretty.

I also think that often the difference between giving up and giving in or going on and getting done is courage.

Not the “in your face I’m gonna fight you” courage of action movies but the quiet, everyday courage of simply carrying on when you’re tired, worn down and empty of hope.

And the thing about courage is this: I can lend you some of mine.

That’s really what cheer leading is all about-calling courage to another heart, lending courage from the sidelines.

So many wounded hearts are walking around, barely holding onto hope, and all it takes is a few minutes, a few words, an outstretched hand, a smile, an open door or a pat on the back to strengthen their grip.

So when you see that downcast face, that defeated stooping shoulder, that exasperated mama toting three kids into the grocery store-don’t turn away.

Reach out.

Hand a cup of kind words in the name of Jesus.

Help a heart hold onto hope.

Vulnerable

It’s tempting when wounded to build walls to try to protect your heart.

It seems logical.

Who wants to invite more pain when already carrying a load?

But the wall I build for protection keeps EVERYTHING out-love, grace, mercy and hope as well as heartache.

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

So I choose to let the walls fall.

I choose to let it all in and take the risk.

I will stay soft,

reachable,

vulnerable.

What If I’m Angry* With God?

God’s grace meets us where we are, not where we pretend to be.
~Esther Fleece, No More Faking Fine

Yes, I know, the commonly touted wisdom in church circles is not to ask, “Why?”

It’s also bad form to admit that you might actually be angry* with God.

But I can pretty much guarantee that over half of any congregation sitting in the pews on a given Sunday has had at least one moment when, with raised eyes they screamed, “Why?????” to the sky aimed at a God they didn’t understand but believed in anyway.

I know I have.

David did.

Paul did.

Job did.

So what does a heart do if it’s upset with God? Stuff it? Reason it away? Shame it to silence? Hope it fades on its own?

I think the only thing a heart can do with that anger and doubt and disappointment is take it straight to the Throne of Grace where we are promised to find help in an hour of need.

That’s what I did.

I wrote hundreds of pages of journals with my Bible beside me. When the Holy Spirit brought a scripture to mind as I was writing, I looked it up, read it and usually copied it into my journal right alongside my questions and rambling.

Sometimes I would write the letters large and decorate them or look up the meaning of words in a concordance or dictionary and write the definitions or synonyms out to help me deepen my understanding.

In the end, my heart was finally able to accept the truth of Who God is-my loving, omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent Heavenly Father-even when I do not like what He is doing.

Reaching a place of accepting His will while still acknowledging the pain it brings me (like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane) has given me a measure of peace.

It has freed me to walk on in this life and to take the good, the bad, the painful and the wonderful in stride.

Do I still have moments (days!) when I want to scream?

Absolutely. But I am submitted to God and bow my heart to His.

It took a long time.

The more I read and studied Scripture, the more I found evidence of anguish, tears, and the messiness of human emotion. When we are in pain, the pain we are facing is temporary, even though it never feels temporary. Pain can linger, and it will always be with us, but for the believer in Jesus Christ, pain is never the final destination.

~Esther Fleece, No More Faking Fine, p. 134

*I am lumping a lot of strong (often considered “negative”) emotions in with the one word “angry”-for me, it was actually disappointment-God did not live up to my expectations (which is not to say He should or that my expectations were accurate). For others it might be distrust and for some it might be doubt (does God love me?). I’m most certainly NOT suggesting that Jesus was angry with God in the garden but it is plainly stated in Scripture that He begged God for another, less painful way that would still accomplish the Father’s plan.

Bereaved Parents Month: Courage is a Heart Word

You know what breaks my heart all over again?

The fact that so many bereaved parents tell me they don’t feel they can share their experience on their own FaceBook or other social media pages.

That’s just WRONG!

They have been shushed to silent suffering because when they break open the vault of emotions and let others see what’s inside, most people turn away-or worse, they condemn that wounded heart for sharing.

SHAME on you if you are one of those people.

I’ve written about this before here:

In recent years we have dragged many topics into the light. We’ve made space in the public square for discussion of things we used to pretend didn’t exist.

But life after child loss is still a hushed topic.

The long road to healing after burying a child is rarely acknowledged outside the community of bereaved parents.

We have splashed all kinds of garbage across the Internet because in one way or another it makes us feel good (yep, admit it-it feeds some place in your soul) but we will not tolerate someone being utterly honest about how impossibly hard some things are to bear in this life.

Because THAT makes us uncomfortable.

Not every hurting heart is brave enough to risk negative public opinion. I understand that completely. This post is not for THEM, it’s for the hundreds and thousands who want to shut them down and shut them out.

This may be for you, if you have ever scrolled past a plaintive post or made some glib comment like, “God has a purpose in this for you” or worse, written a private message scolding someone and telling them they are begging for attention, refusing to “move on” or hanging on to hurt.

Think for one minute-literally 60 full seconds-how it would feel to hold the cold hand of your dead child, bury your child, go home to his empty room and then live the rest. of. your. life. without the earthly companionship of the child of your heart.

Then think again about censoring your friend who’s grieving.

Instead, speak courage to his or her heart.

Strengthen their hold on hope don’t destroy it.

Courage is a heart word. The root of the word courage is cor – the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage meant “To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.” Over time, this definition has changed, and today, we typically associate courage with heroic and brave deeds. But in my opinion, this definition fails to recognize the inner strength and level of commitment required for us to actually speak honestly and openly about who we are and about our experiences — good and bad.

~Brene Brown

It’s The Little Things

I am oh, so grateful for every single thing someone does to encourage my heart.

And I try hard to pass it on.

Because, really, when you think about it, it’s the little things that either wear us down or build us up.

The daily drip of encouragement or criticism is what shapes our hearts most.

The hardest stone can be worn away by water over time. And the softest earth can be packed firm and resist any new seed when trod upon and squeezed dry by drought.

Words are not neutral. They either build up or tear down.

And so many hearts are holding onto hope by the thinnest thread.

I want to be the person that helps build it into a lifeline, not the one who snaps it in two.

The Danger of Rushing to Serve After Loss

There are all kinds of doubts that creep in and take up residence in a mind after child loss.

Most of them have to do with the child that ran ahead to heaven.

But many are also about me: “What should I be doing? Where should I go from here?”

For those of us active in church ministries, we wonder, “When do I return to service?”

There can be a lot of pressure to “get back in the saddle” if you fill a large role in a particular ministry.

No one ever wants to find a replacement for an effective Sunday School teacher, youth worker or hospitality hostess. It’s hard when you have months of warning and nearly impossible when the vacancy opens up suddenly and unexpectedly.

But does the difficulty in finding my replacement mean that the burden is on me to keep serving, even when I am utterly broken, empty and unable to do so?

I don’t think so.

I’ve learned many things through child loss and one of them is this: the world still turns and things still get done in spite of the absence of any single person.

God invites us to join in the work He is doing in the world. It is HIS work, not mine. And He will absolutely assure that it gets done. If I am unavailable to fill a position, then He will raise up another to fill it.

Jesus said, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

His yoke is easy, His burden light.

We are never to serve out of a place of exhaustion, weariness, emptiness.

Grief certainly exhausts us, wears us down and depletes our resources.

Take a season-as long a season as necessary-to allow the Holy Spirit to minister grace, mercy and love to your broken heart. That is the calling of Christ on our lives. To listen and follow our Shepherd-our Gentle Shepherd-who promises to bind up our wounds and tend our shattered souls.

People who have not suffered the death of a child will not understand. But it won’t be the first time you’ve been misunderstood if you’ve ministered for more than a minute.

Don’t let others’ expectations or your own fear of failure keep you from hearing the call of your loving Father to come to Him, to lean on Him, to rest in His arms as He sings over you.

There will be a day for ministry again.

I promise.

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