Tag: love

Choosing Love: Some Things Just Hurt

Before I lost Dominic, I know that I, like others who had never experienced the death of a child, undoubtedly said and did things that were hurtful instead of helpful.

Loss will enter everyone’s life at some point–there is no escape.

We educate ourselves (as we should) on so many issues–work hard not to offend, to understand, to reach out. Bereaved parents don’t want pity, they would like to be better understood.  

We did not choose this journey, it was thrust upon us.

Read the rest here: Loving Well: Some Things Hurt

Choosing Love: Tales of Friendship and Encouragement

I am well aware that not everyone is blessed by an outpouring of love and support in the wake of child loss. In fact, depending on the circumstances, some families are practically shunned.

It breaks my heart every time I hear of such an experience.

Because if there is one thing I’ve learned in this Valley, it’s this: when a heart is shattered my ONLY job is to show up and do whatever is helpful-even if that means sitting silently and holding a hand.❤ Melanie

When I asked other bereaved parents to share the things people did that blessed them in the wake of losing a child, I didn’t expect so many stories of extravagant love–of acts surpassing anything I could have thought of or imagined.

“After my daughter passed, which was minutes before Mother’s Day 2012, outside the hospital room-

Read the rest here: Extravagant Love: Tales of Friendship and Encouragement After Losing a Child

Choosing Love: 31 Practical Ways to Help Grieving Parents

When Dominic died, I didn’t get a manual on what to do.  I didn’t get an orientation into how to be a grieving parent.  So when some people asked how they could help me and my family, I really didn’t know.

A comment repeated often by bereaved parents is, “Please don’t use the phrase, ‘let me know if there is anything I can do’, people mean well, but this is unhelpful.”

Another mom put it this way, ” There are too many meanings to this phrase.  It can mean anywhere from, ‘I really want to help’ to ‘I don’t know what to say so I’ll say this but I don’t really want you to ask’.  Also it’s so hard to make any decisions–trying to figure out what you might want or be able to do is overwhelming.  Instead, offer specific things you can do and make plans to do them.”

For those that want to help, here is a list of 31 ways you can provide practical and timely help to grieving parents.

Read the rest here 31 Practical Ways to Love Grieving Parents in the First Few Days

Choosing Love: Meaningful Ministry to Grieving Parents

Our journeys begin in different ways.

Just as every birth story is unique, so, too, is every parent’s story of loss.

It may be a phone call or an officer at the front door.  It may be a lingering illness or a sudden one. Our children may have lived days or decades.

Their death may be anticipated, but it is never expected.

And it is always devastating.

No one is prepared to bury their child.

But some of us have to.

Read the rest here: Loving Well: Meaningful Ministry to Grieving Parents

Choosing Love: How to Bless a Grieving Parent When It’s Been YEARS

I do NOT blame you that my son and my sorrow have drifted down your list of “things that need attention”.  Your life is as busy as mine once was and your calendar full of commitments and celebrations that require your attendance.

But each year it feels lonelier and lonelier.  

Because each year fewer and fewer people remember or if they do, they don’t know how to offer that up as a blessing because it feels awkward or stiff.

So may I suggest a few things that most bereaved parents would absolutely LOVE for friends and family to say or do-especially as the months roll into years or even decades?

Read the rest here: When It’s Been YEARS-How to Bless a Grieving Parent

Some Step Up. Some Step Away.

I was absolutely overwhelmed in those first days.

Cars, cars, cars filled my long driveway and front yard.

People spilling out like ants scrambling after the hill is disturbed.

Oh, our hill was disturbed-knocked wide open by that deputy’s visit.

Read the rest here:Who Steps In? Who Walks Out?

We All Make a Difference-One Way or the Other

Toss that rock in the water and see what happens.

It’s impossible to keep the ripples from moving farther and farther from the point of impact.

And even though I can’t see it, my casual toss has changed the environment of the pond in ways it would not have been changed without my action.

Our lives are like that- we touch other people every day and rarely know how our brief brush may ripple through their lives for years or even eternity.

I have been lifted up by a smile offered by a stranger-that buoyant mood lasting long enough to save an otherwise dreary day.

I have also had a beautiful morning made overcast by the sour attitude of someone that should be helpful.

I want to bring sunshine not rain wherever I go.

I want to speak courage to trembling hearts.

No telling how far the ripples may go. ❤️

Memory Into Silent Joy

There is something about winter mornings that invite me to linger long in my rocking chair with my cup of coffee.  It’s cold and outside chores can wait a bit.

When I sit here, my mind wanders to many things-mostly days gone by when my busy household would have made these long, slow mornings impossible.

And I miss it.  All of it.

Especially the beauty of an unbroken family circle.

I try to hold onto the precious moments as long as I can.

We live in a noisy world.

Music, television, voices and the hum of electricity tunnel into our brains and distract us from hard questions and painful circumstances.

We live in a busy world.

If I’m not in motion, I am getting ready to be.

It is tempting in my grief to try to stuff life full of noise and busyness so I can ignore the pain and emptiness of missing my son.

But there is quiet beauty in the unfilled space of my heart–the spot once brimming with the living essence of the son I love.

In the silence I can hear his voice and see his smile.

So I will guard the noiseless place that still belongs to Dominic and keep it as a treasure,  a comfort, and a tribute to him until we are together again.

There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us, and one should not even attempt to do so. One must simply hold out and endure it. At first that sounds very hard, but at the same time it is also a great comfort. For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled one remains connected to the other person through it. It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness. God in no way fills it but much more leaves it precisely unfilled and thus helps us preserve — even in pain — the authentic relationship. Further more, the more beautiful and full the remembrances, the more difficult the separation. But gratitude transforms the torment of memory into silent joy. One bears what was lovely in the past not as a thorn but as a precious gift deep within, a hidden treasure of which one can always be certain.

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Life is Short. Make Haste to Be Kind.

Grief has worn away some of the sharp edges of my personality.

I’m still prone to impatience-especially when faced with incompetence or hateful behavior in others.

But I’m learning that walking gently through life is not only good for others, it’s good for ME.

Life IS short.  ‘

Not just the life of a child or teen or young adult cut down by accident or disease.

But even if I live my “threescore and ten” the Bible talks about, it will STILL be short.  Seventy, eighty, one hundred years set on the timeline of history or eternity is less than a pinpoint.

What do I want my legacy to be?  What do I want to leave behind for others to remember, to ponder, to carry in their hearts attached to my memory?

small things with great love

That’s easy.  I want my legacy to be love.

I want people to remember that I treated them with kindness, that I respected them as persons, that I reached out, reached down and never separated myself from them by false barriers, foolish divisions or fake measures of who is “better” and who is “worse”.

forget what you say 3

More than anything I want people to feel that I made their burden lighter, not heavier.

So much of life is hard. 

So many things happen for which there is no remedy. 

I can’t choose everything, but I can choose love.

Life is short and we have not much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark way with us. Oh, be swift to love! Make haste to be kind.

– Henri Fredric Amiel

Called to Love and Serve

We just moved through the feel-good season of Christmas where we look with awe on baby Jesus, cute and cuddly in swaddling clothes, surrounded by His loving parents.

But what most moderns miss is that even in His birth, His death was foretold.  

The manger was most likely hewn from stone, as was His tomb.  And while the wise men’s gifts were costly and appropriate, they not only spoke of His kingship, they also included myrrh which was used for embalming the dead.

Jesus came to live so that He could die.  

Both His life and his death are models for my own. 

Every day of ministry was a day of self-denial-a pouring out of life onto and into the ones He came to serve.  

And if anyone-if ANY. ONE.-could have lifted Himself above those who presented their brokenness like offerings at His feet, He certainly could.  Not only was He without sin, He was God Himself in the flesh.

But look how gently Jesus welcomed the lost and lonely.  See the compassion of the Good Shepherd for His confused sheep.  Notice the love and kindness as He gathered the children around Him.

THIS is my example.

I am most certainly not above my Master.  

I am called to love and serve as He did-not in a condescending way that says, “I am helping you because I am better than you.”  But in a way that says, “I am helping you because I AM you.”

I have nothing I did not receive.  I have nothing to give except from the bounty of my Lord.  

My heart is just as broken as the next heart.  

We all need His touch.  

calvary love