I have been asked how I can believe in what I cannot see or touch. How I can trust a God Who allowed such pain in my life.
It is true that I can’t see God, I can’t prove His existence.
But the fact that I’m still holding onto hope gives testimony to the life of Christ in me.
Read the rest here: Then and Now: How Can Death and Life Inhabit the Same Frame?
I find myself in another season of wordless prayers.
In part, it’s a function of all the reminders leading up to and surrounding the anniversary of Dominic’s death and funeral.
I think I’m also just tired.
That’s something that surprises me again and again-that life after loss keeps coming at me and keeps demanding energy I really don’t have.
This earthly tent is absolutely fading. I feel it every single day.
❤
So often we think of prayer as words.
But prayer can be a heart cry too deep for words.
It can be a groaning soul, longing for release.
Read the rest here: Persistent Longing, Persistent Prayer
There are all kinds of ways child loss plays with your head.
One of the most common and often repeated questions among bereaved parents (especially those who have lost their only child , all their children or a child before or at birth) is this: Am I still a mama (or daddy)?
Short answer: YES. Absolutely!
The fact that your child has taken up residence in Heaven and is no longer here to hold and love and parent on earth changes NOTHING about your status.
Being an almost mother isn’t a thing.
Brittany C. Cherry
Read the rest here: You Will ALWAYS Be A Mama (or Daddy)!
It will soon be seven years since Dominic stepped into Heaven.
It’s really hard to write that and harder still to live it.
In those years I’ve spent a great deal of time dragging out what I thought I knew about God, about how He works in the world, about how we take Scripture and wrap it around preconceived notions to make us feel safer and more in control.
I’ve had bad days and better days. Days of doubt and days of faith.
But every day I’ve felt assured of this truth: Even when my grip on Jesus is slipping, He holds me fast.
❤
I’ve mentioned it before.
I’ve encouraged others not to resist.
But I want to be absolutely clear: Losing my son made me doubt EVERYTHING.
Read the rest here: He Will Hold Me Fast
If I find in myself a desire for which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
C. S. Lewis
I remember the first time I felt homesick.
I had been away from home before but never without the company of someone I knew well and loved.
This time was different-I was at a sleepover camp populated with strangers. Kind strangers, yes, but not a familiar face among the crowd.
Read the rest here: Homesick
When Jesus claimed me as His child, I was liberated from darkness and made a prisoner of hope.
No matter how black the night, there is a pinhole of light. No matter how crushing the despair, there is a sliver of strength. When I want to stay under the covers, He beckons me to come out and I cannot resist.
I am a slave to the promise of Heaven.
I am bound by hope to the One who makes the rain, the One who spoke the mountains, the One who breathed the stars, the One who gives and takes.
And in that hope I find perfect freedom.
Glory.
My fears were drowned in perfect love
You rescued me
And I will stand and sing
I am a child of God
No Longer Slaves by Joel Case / Jonathan David Helser / Brian Mark Johnson
The music reminds me of the Glory to come, and I know Dominic would approve.
Music was his passion.
I like to think of him surrounded by songs and sounds of unimaginable beauty. So I count the days, and I count it joy that I will see him again.
I can hear him saying, “Do you really believe, Mom?”
Yes, sweet boy.
I do.
If there is anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe, I know nothing of it, for it was not shown to me. But this was shown: that in falling and rising again we are always kept in that same precious love.
~Julian of Norwich
Truth is this life is not easy.
There is joy.
Absolutely amazing awe-inspiring, breath-taking joy.
But there is also suffering.
Read the rest here: On Suffering and Redemption
It’s just not comforting for my heart to think my son is looking down on me from Heaven.
I can’t reconcile the idea that he might be watching my sorrow with what the Bible says about Heaven being a place of joy and peace.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/05/01/blink-of-an-eye/
Can we just admit that life is hard?
Can we stop hiding our sorrow and pain and struggles and difficulties and let people in on what’s going on?
I truly believe that if we did, we’d all be better for it.
Because no one-really, truly no one-is spared from some kind of problem. And for many of us, it has nothing to do with our own choices. It’s visited upon us from the outside.
It comes out of nowhere, happens fast and suddenly consumes every aspect of our lives.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/08/09/scripture-journal-challenge-earth-has-no-sorrow-that-heaven-cant-heal/
I know as a believer in Jesus I’m supposed to be able to look beyond “this mortal veil” and treat death as a mere “address change”.
Well, I can’t.
Death is the enemy and I do not experience it as simply a transition from one state to another.
The last enemy to be abolished and put to an end is death.
~I Corinthians 15:26 AMP
Death is a reminder of all that is wrong with this earth. It’s a reminder that sin is costly. It’s a reminder that this world is not my true home.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/02/09/how-terrible-it-is-to-love-something-that-death-can-touch/
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