Tag: love

An Invitation: Blue Christmas Service

One of the reasons I founded Heartache and Hope, the ministry, was to be able to provide safe spaces-online and in person-for bereaved parents to gather because so often grief is excluded from our tables.

Most holiday celebrations don’t lend themselves to broken hearts expressing how very hard it is to bear up under the pressure to be hap-hap-happy while grieving the loss of a child.

To be honest, I doubt any degree of education or advocacy will change that on a larger scale.

But I want Heartache and Hope to make a difference in our own local community by hosting a “Blue Christmas” service at my home church in Bibb County, Alabama.

So, if you are able, join me Thursday, December 5th at 6:00 PM for an evening of gentle worship, remembrance and prayer-looking to Jesus, the Light of the World and the true meaning of Christmas.

The people who had been living in darkness have seen a great light. The light of life has shined on those who dwelt in the shadowy darkness of death.

~ Isaiah 9:1

My desire is that together we lean into the hope of the Promised One who came as a babe so long ago.

Don’t drag your heart through Advent feeling unseen, unheard and unloved.

Join me.

You can RSVP and get more information here:

https://www.heartacheandhope.org/event-details/blue-christmas

There’s This Beautiful Moment When The Light Gets Through

A few years ago, I had a grace-filled, heartwarming visit with another bereaved mama who came all the way from Maine just to hang out with me. And that was so, so good.

As she and I shared over coffee and tea, shopping and meals, lounging and walking we found so many ways in which our journeys have been similar even though the details are really very different.

One is this: There was a distinct moment along the way when each of us began to see light and color again in the midst of our darkness and pain and it was a turning point.

Read the rest here: There’s A Moment When The Light Makes It Through Again

No Matter How Much It Cost Me, I’d Still Choose You

Some of us only felt tiny hands and feet pressing against the inside of our body.  

Some of us saw first steps or first grade.  

Some of us watched our child drive away to college certain it was the beginning of an adventure, not the beginning of the end.

Read the rest here: I’d Still Choose You

I Depend on Flickers of Light to Guide My Heart Home

A fellow bereaved mom commented on my recent holiday post with this question: How do you make joy, when your heart has no joy?

It was a good and honest query. One that stopped me in my tracks.

Read the rest here: Flickers Of Light, Guiding My Heart Home

Grievers REALLY Need Faithful Friends!

We all know how it is-you move, you lose an address or phone number, you lose touch. 

But sometimes friendships end more abruptly-not because lives drifted apart but because one person became so uncomfortable she chose to walk the other way.

That’s what happens so often the other side of child loss.  Friends disappear because loss makes them profoundly uncomfortable.  

Read the rest here: HELP WANTED: Why Grievers Need Faithful Friends

What a Sacred Privilege to Share a Burden!

When someone invites you in and serves up her deepest pain along with the coffee it might feel like a trap or a burden or a bother.

But it’s actually an act of great respect and trust.

Read the rest here: A Sacred Privilege

Gap’s Still Growing: Trying to Remember in a World That Forgets

I’ve written before about how I choose to leave some things just as Dominic left them-even over eight years later.

It’s my way of maintaining physical space in our home that represents the space in my heart where only he can fit.

It’s also more than that.

As time progresses, nearly every other tangible evidence that Dominic existed is being worn away.

Read the rest here: And The Gap Grows: Trying To Remember In a World That Forgets

You Are God’s Treasure, Dear One, Even When You are Broken

I have no idea why God’s plan includes me outliving my child but He has a purpose that is yet unfulfilled for my life.

What happens TO us doesn’t determine our worth-not even the awful and heart shattering experience of child loss.

You are loved by a Heavenly Father Who has a plan for your life.

He can bring beauty from ashes, even the ashes of child loss.

You are not alone-you have a community of bereaved parents who will listen, love and lift you.

Read the rest here: You are a Treasure

We ALL Need a Little Affirmation Now and Then. Yes, Your Grief is Normal.

Today, five other bereaved moms will join me for a weekend retreat where we will share our stories, our children, laughter and tears.

Each of us brings something unique to the experience and each of us will walk away with something different to ponder in our hearts.

But one of the things I’ve discovered over and over when bereaved parents get together is this: we ALL still (even after years, decades) need affirmation that what we are feeling, thinking and struggling with is absolutely, positively normal.

❤ Melanie

Do you want to know one of the most repeated questions in grief support groups?  

It is, “Am I normal?”

In the midst of great loss,

in the middle of reconstructing a life that includes a giant hole,

while struggling to place one foot in front of the other,

parents who have buried a child are often worried about whether what they feel and how they act is “normal”.

Grieving a child is a complex and life-long process as I wrote about here: Am I Normal?

Unbelievably, Broken Hearts Still Beat

When your child leaves this world, your mind and heart work hard to extract hints of the coming tragedy from all kinds of random events.

For me, there were eerie parallels between how I experienced his birth and how I experienced the news of his death.Melanie

When Dominic was born by C-section, they placed the epidural too high and I was unable to feel my chest rise and fall as I continued to breathe.  

It was a frightening experience.  

Read the rest here: Broken Hearts Still Beat