heart – Page 27 – thelifeididntchoose

Nagging Guilt in Child Loss

I should have known. I should have been there. I should have called, texted, spoken one more warning or given one more hug.

Should. Should? Should!

I have yet to speak to a bereaved parent who does not harbor guilt of some kind over the death of his or her child.

Not one.

Why didn’t I know? What did I miss? Why didn’t I say “I love you” one more time?

Hindsight being 20/20 means that there are always threads a heart can pull to guide it back to some moment when it should have been obvious what was about to happen.

We comb through days, months or years of evidence like a crime novel detective, determined to find the clue that unravels all the mystery surrounding our child’s death.

Guilt is a relentless hound nipping at tired heels.

I know there are circumstances where a parent may well be responsible in some measure for the death of his or her child. If that’s you, then I hope you have a good counselor to help you work through all those feelings. It will take a lot of time and a lot of effort, but it can be done.

But for many of us, the guilt is phantom pain. It has no basis in reality. There was nothing we did or didn’t do that contributed to our child leaving this world. Nothing we could have done to prevent it. No way we could have known it was going to happen.

Running from guilt can keep a heart from doing the work grief requires. It can build barriers between us and the people that can help us most. It can lead our minds down a dark path into a bottomless pit.

Guilt is a thief and a liar.

Guilt will steal what I have left if I’m not very careful.

When my heart is overwhelmed by the “what ifs” and “shoulds” and “should-have-knowns”, I scream, “Shut Up!”.

I force my thoughts to turn instead to the things I know for sure:

Dominic was (is!) loved.
He was (still is!) a beautiful, thoughtful and capable soul.
His death was an accident and nothing I could have done would have prevented it.
He is safe, right now, in the arms of Jesus.
This separation is temporary.

I still have work to do and people to love and I can’t do either if I’m obsessed with the past.

It’s a costly act of will to stop the guilt soundtrack playing in my head.

But it’s worth it.

Repost: My Heart Hurts

Oh, how my heart hurts!

Deep down where no one can touch it-it aches for my missing child, the family I used to have, the lost opportunities, the missed moments.

And there is no cure.

Yes, there is a Balm in Gilead-there is hope in the Person of Jesus Christ.

And it soothes the pain, takes the edge off, makes it bearable.

But it does not take it away.

Read the rest here: My Heart Hurts

Why Friends Abandon Grievers

It happens in all kinds of ways. One friend just slowly backs off from liking posts on Facebook, waves at a distance from across the sanctuary, stops texting to check up on me.

Another observes complete radio silence as soon as she walks away from the graveside.

Still another hangs in for a few weeks-calls, texts, even invites me to lunch until I can see in her eyes that my lack of “progress” is making her uneasy. Then she, too, falls off the grid.

Why do people do that?

Why is it, when we need them most, many friends-and I mean really, truly FRIENDS–just can’t hang in and hold on?

I admit in the early days I didn’t care WHY they did it.

It broke my heart and enraged me all at the same time. I felt abandoned, judged, forgotten, pressured to conform to some unwritten standard of how I was “supposed” to do grief and utterly, completely forsaken.

It took me months to begin to even consider their perspective and years to come to a place where I could forgive them.

Here’s what I’ve figured out this side of devastating, overwhelming, heart-shattering pain about why some friends run away:

I represent their greatest fear. I am a billboard for loss. My life screams, “We are NOT in control!” And that is scary. Most folks run away from scary if they can.
I remind them that faith is a living thing, tender and vulnerable to trials and testing. We love to tout Sunday School answers that follow like the tag lines on Aesop’s fables when asked about anything to do with Jesus or how God works in the world. But it’s just not that simple. The Bible is full (FULL!) of untidy stories where even the giants of faith got it wrong for a season. I think people are afraid that if they follow me down the rabbit hole of questions they might never come back out. Better to stand outside and hope I emerge safe and sound without risking themselves.
My situation is messy and they don’t want to get involved. I will need ongoing, intense investments of emotional energy and time. Who knows where it might lead? Who knows how many hours might have to be given to come alongside and support someone whose journey looks more like slogging through a swamp than a walk in the park? These folks are just not going to risk entanglement.
Some friends and family are genuinely afraid of doing harm. They feel my pain so deeply that they are frozen, unable to do or say anything because they fear they will make things worse. These are the hearts most easy to forgive and the ones most likely to jump back in when I assure them they cannot make it worse but their support can make it better.
Some people were going to disappear anyway. We don’t like to admit it but many friendships are only for a season-we go to the same church, live in the same neighborhood, our kids go to the same school-and as soon as circumstances change these people fade away. Well, circumstances certainly changed! They leave because our differences outweigh our similarities and it requires too much effort to maintain the friendship.

Understanding why people run away has helped my heart.

It doesn’t undo the pain inflicted by abandonment of those I felt sure would stay close by my side, but it puts it in perspective.

Truth is, I’m not sure how many people I would have stalwartly supported for the long haul either before Dominic ran ahead to heaven.

None of us possess infinite emotional, mental, physical and relational resources. It’s only natural that we portion them out according to our own priorities-even when that means abandoning friends who really need us.

Rehearsing offense only ties me in knots.

It changes nothing.

I have limits as well.

Forgiving those that chose to walk away frees me to use my resources in more fruitful ways that help me heal.

Love in Action: Just Say His Name

I’m convinced that many of our friends and family DO want to talk about our missing child but they need permission to do so.

They just aren’t sure if it will make things better or worse.

And if we cry, they feel responsible. They don’t realize that many times they are tears of joy that our precious child is still remembered. ❤

I know you are afraid.

You think that speaking his name or sharing a memory or sending me a photo will add to my sorrow.

I understand.

But even when it costs me a split second of sharp pain, it is truly a gift to know that Dominic lives on in the hearts and minds of others. It gives me courage to speak too. It creates space where I can honor my son.

It helps keep him alive.

Read the rest here: Loving Well: Just Say His Name

Love in Action: Understanding the Grieving Heart

A bereaved parent’s grief doesn’t fit an easy-to-understand narrative. And it flies in the face of the American “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality.

You can’t beat it–it’s not a football game-there is no winning team.

You can’t lose it–it’s not the extra 10 pounds you’ve been carrying since last Christmas.

You can’t get over it–it’s not a teenage love affair that will pale in comparison when the real thing comes along.

You can only survive it.

Read the rest here: Loving Well: Understanding the Grieving Heart

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

Where Are All the Pieces?

If you’ve ever dropped a treasured china cup, you will know exactly what I’m talking about.

Finding the bigger chunks is easy. But as you begin to put them in place thinking, “Oh, I can glue this back good as new”, you realize that tiny slivers necessary to make it whole are missing.

And you can look as hard as you want to, but you’ll never, ever find them.

Hearts are like that.

When a heart breaks, the pieces are scattered everywhere.

It’s pretty simple to locate the larger bits-although putting them back in place is much harder than gluing together a fractured cup.

But those tiny bits elude me.

At almost four years I’ve had lots and lots of time to sort through what happened-at least in an intellectual way.

But what surprises me every time, no matter how often I pick through the debris like an archaeologist, is that I cannot find all the pieces.

I have hunted hardest for the pieces to the faith I knew before my world was torn asunder.

I can’t find even a vague semblance of that old feeling that used to be my bosom buddy-that the blessing and favor of the Lord was resting on my family’s shoulders. I can’t reclaim the confidence that I had at least a rough idea of how God works in the world.

I don’t feel as if God has abandoned me-but I do feel as if He’s pushed me in a corner.

And what I have to do now (have had to do all along) is decide:

Do I trust even when I cannot see how it all fits together or do I abandon my faith?

I have decided to hold on.

I have decided that it was foolish for me to think I could comprehend God in the first place. My experience hasn’t changed HIM, it’s changed ME.

It revealed a flaw in my logic. It gave me a glimpse into the vast chasm between what I thought I knew and what I actually knew.

There are so many things that cannot be known. I have no idea why I once thought that number small.

Is this frightening? Yes.

But it is also helpful.

As long as I’m looking for answers to every question, I will remain unsatisfied and unsettled until I find them. Understanding that I CANNOT “know it all” frees me to lean into my faith.

When Jesus was about to leave His disciples, He gave them this assurance:

“I’ve told you all this so that trusting me, you will be unshakable and assured, deeply at peace. In this godless world you will continue to experience difficulties. But take heart! I’ve conquered the world.”

John 16:33 MSG

Unshakable and assured.

Wounded yet walking.

Fearful but faith-filled.

Practice Makes Permanent

The first time I heard him say it I thought I had misunderstood.

“Practice makes permanent.”

Yep, that’s exactly what he said.

As I watched the Tae Kwon Do instructor work with the young boys striving to copy his perfect form I began to understand. Some students worked hard to make their movements precise and as close to perfect as possible. Some were just going through the motions.

Either way, they were creating muscle memory and training their bodies to recall the moves just as they practiced them.

Practice makes permanent.

Perfect practice makes perfect.

It’s much the same with our thoughts.

In Romans Paul says:

Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.

Romans 12:2 PHILLIPS

What I think about, dwell on and mull over becomes permanent.

I have to guard the gates of my mind so that I don’t fill it with untruth.

I have to practice recalling the goodness, faithfulness and lovingkindness of God so that I don’t feel abandoned.

I must saturate my thoughts with Scripture if I don’t want to drown in doubt.

I’m thankful for the years and years of Bible study I had under my belt when Dominic ran ahead to heaven. Otherwise, I’m not sure I would have been strong enough or willing to do the deep digging necessary to feed my soul if it was not already my practice to turn to Scripture in times of great trial.

Even when my heart was shattered and my faith strained, my mind fell readily into the ruts that practice had put there.

Practice makes permanent.

Yes, yes it does.

God’s comfort does not usually smooth the road we travel, nor does it make us jubilantly happy. But it does make us strong for our trials. God’s comfort is not good feelings but worthy deeds. The heart that exults in God’s comfort is like that of a champion who confidently runs his course, though with pain. It is not like the ease of one who indulges his appetite. ‘The joy of the Lord is your strength,’ not your ease (Nehemiah 8:10).

~James Means, A Tearful Celebration, p. 73

How Can I Deal With Anxious Thoughts?

I no longer have to imagine the worst thing that could happen in the life of a mother-I know exactly how it feels.

And if I allow my heart to ponder that too often or too long, it consumes me.

So I am learning to take those anxious thoughts captive, learning to make them live in only a small corner of my mind instead of taking it over completely.

It takes effort and discipline, but it’s possible.

I don’t have to live the rest of my days a quivering mess…

Read the rest here: Dealing With Anxious Thoughts

Can I Get A Witness?

What, exactly, is the value of believers in Jesus plastering an “Everything is fine” mask across our faces?

Are we afraid that if we allow someone to see our pain we are letting God down?

And how could that be?

Did not Christ Himself beg the Father in the Garden to take the cup from Him?

Yet we smile and wave and chat our way through encounters with people around us, pretending, pretending, pretending that life is easy when it most certainly is not.

Denying the dark and refusing to acknowledge the depth of our pain diminishes the value of the comfort of Christ.

When David wrote that, “yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Thou art with me” he understood both the desperate need for and the great assurance of Christ’s Presence.

When we allow others to see our broken hearts, we also bear testimony to the sustaining grace of Jesus.

And we extend an invitation for them to meet this Savior that gives strength and comfort even in the darkest hours and hardest journeys.

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