No matter how busy or how noisy or how frantic, in the middle of my chest there is a quiet place that holds space for my missing child.
It was true last year in the craziness of my mother’s health crisis and it’s been so very, very true this past eight weeks full of anxiety, discomfort, challenge and unbelievable stress.
Read the rest here: The Loudest Silence
In a hurry, in a hurry.
That describes most of us these days, doesn’t it?
Always looking for the fastest way around the clogged intersection, the highway construction or the long line waiting to get a coffee at Starbucks.
But there are some things we can’t rush along.
Grief is one of them.
There are no shortcuts, no detours in this Valley of the Shadow of Death.
We long for a way to hasten past the deep, dark nights of sorrow and pain.
We beg God and anyone who will listen to show us the quickest route out of the miry pit of misery and missing.
It doesn’t exist.
Grief, like love, takes time.
I wrote this less than six months after Dominic ran ahead to heaven.
My heart had not yet fully grasped his absence and there was a lovely moment each morning when my sleepy eyes opened to a world where he was still in it.
Read the rest here: Today’s Gift
I definitely don’t have a solo quality voice.
I can carry a tune but it’s best carried mixed in with others in a choir so the occasional missed note is barely noticeable.
But if I was granted the ability to belt out a single song and have it broadcast far and wide, this would be it: “Love the Broken”.
Not, “Love the Lovely” or “Love the Sexy” or even “Love the One Who Loves You Back”.
Nope.
It would definitely be, “Love the Broken”.
This is the song I’ve learned the hard way. It’s the song that’s been burned into my heart and mind and soul and spirit. It’s the song that resonates in any language, across time and across miles.
It’s the song every single heart can understand.
Because we have all been broken at one time or another.
And we have all desperately needed love at one time or another.
I’m really not that great at many things. I’m a decent cook, a mediocre housekeeper, a devoted but probably not up-to-the-highest-standards shepherd, a lazy gardener, and a wish-I-could-follow-directions-better crafter.
But I am a full on, all out, no-holds-barred lover.
I am unashamed to speak blessing over strangers in public places.
I will not be silenced by a sheepish glance when my kids wish I’d just stop telling them how very much they fill my heart with so many good things.
I hug. I give cheek kisses. I hold the hand of a person whose heart is breaking just so they know they are not alone.
I believe with my whole heart that at least one verse of the New Song we will sing in Heaven is “Love the Broken”.
Because isn’t that really what Christ came to do?
His ultimate act of sacrifice was to bring the broken and outcast into the Kingdom.
He is Hope for the hopeless, love for the unloved, peace for the war weary soul.
Truth is, I’m going to spend my life on something.
I want to spend it like Jesus.
In the South, we tend to pussyfoot around hard truths because most of us grew up with the admonition, “Now just be nice!”
And while that makes for charming dinner table conversation, it makes for lousy long-term relationships.
Because we all know the longer you live with, work with and love another body, the more things that should be said but aren’t add up.
Pretty soon the pile is so big it obscures the love or fun or shared interests that should be holding hearts together and instead they drift apart.
I haven’t been all that good at following the southern tradition of code words and cute phrases that mask true intent. But I used to be guilty of it from time to time.
These past years of heartache and hardship have pretty much stripped all the veneer that was left off my tongue.
I doubt you will find a soul that would call me a silver-tongued devil. They’re more likely to call me a brash something else.
But I have important things to say and I don’t want to waste time sugar-coating them. I don’t want the meat of my message hidden inside a puff pastry of silly words. I believe truth should be easy to swallow but not necessarily tasty.
Often the most efficacious medicine leaves a nasty aftertaste.
So I’m here to tell you: don’t drown your important relationships in unsaid words, unshared feelings, unacknowledged wounds.
All that does is guarantee distance grows between your hearts.
If you let the distance become too vast, or the pile of unsaid truth get too high, you might just find you can’t reach that far or that high to reconnect.
It takes a bit of brave to say what’s important and uncomfortable.
But it’s worth it.
And it’s really the only way to authentic and lasting relationships.
One year ago today I came in from Wednesday night church to a message on my answering machine:
“Melanie, when you get this, call me on my cell phone. I’m on my way to Dothan. Your mama was lifeflighted and I’m headed to the hospital”
I have no idea what else my dad said because that was as far as I got before shutting down the message and dialing his number with shaky fingers.
Because when you’ve endured the worst possible news-the news that is utterly final-it only takes half a second for your brain and body to jump from alright to utterly terrified.
So began nearly three months of trying to help my mother recover from a fall, a heart attack and serious complications from congestive heart failure.
It’s been a year and she’s doing so much better.
But it has been a hard row to hoe as they say in the South.
Papa has carried the lion’s share of the burden.
He’s learned to keep up with Mama’s medications, her doctor’s appointments and plan menus. He’s had to decipher the complex world of home health care, durable medical equipment and getting a handicapped parking tag. He’s cooked, cleaned and kept Mama company since she is unable to go anywhere by herself anymore.
And that means he is as homebound as she.
Of course, poor Mama has had to endure all kinds of medical procedures, uncomfortable hospital beds, loss of autonomy and is now tethered to oxygen.
I am oh, so proud of both of them!
They are learning to live this new life together.
Which is exactly what I expected from a pair that has done just that for over 57 years!
❤
I’m a kinder, gentler person than I was before Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.
It’s a high price to pay to learn to walk more grace-filled through this life.
I’ve come to find out that every heart has a story. Every heart is carrying a burden.-perhaps not the same as mine, but a burden nonetheless.
And what causes the most pain in this life (next to the burden itself) is when another person runs over my heart without thinking about the burden it may hold inside.
So I have purposed not to do that to other people.
I certainly forget sometimes-in the heat of a moment, in the rush of daily life, when driving behind a car that just won’t go any faster-but it’s becoming a habit more and more.
I try to look-really look-at the person in front of me to see what might be hiding behind her eyes.
Is she a young mom working a retail job and trying to make ends meet? An older man still working because his Social Security check runs out before the month does? A teen driver frightened to make that left hand turn across traffic? Someone fighting addiction or just out of cancer treatment? A heart that is lonely because she doesn’t have any close friends or a kind voice welcoming her home each day?
The list is endless.
I am committed to offering the tiny bit of life and light I can to each heart I meet. And that’s how I think about them-as hearts inside fragile bodies-not as obstacles in the way of me accomplishing a task.
I will do my best not to cause pain.
It’s my daily offering.
It honors the price I’ve paid to learn this lesson.
I may risk offending some of my fellow believers in Jesus but I will take that risk.
While scripture is plain that God uses the events in our lives to help fashion our hearts, it is also equally plain that God does not act cruelly or spitefully or wantonly.
What Joseph’s brothers did to him was evil. God redeemed it.
What the crowd did to Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was evil. God redeemed it.
What Nero did to the early Christians was evil. God redeemed it.
Death is the ultimate evil, the last enemy. But Jesus overcame it and God will redeem it.
Yes, “all things work together for good for those that love the Lord” but not all things are good.
My son’s death is not a test, a lesson, a trial nor a hammer in the hand of God sent to pound me into the shape He desires for me.
It is an evil that He can and is using for good.
It will one day be absolutely, totally and irrevocably redeemed.
I can’t wait.
We use the word “hope” like a magic spell, an incantation, a lucky rabbit’s foot.
But hope is only as sure as the object of our hope.
My hope is based on the unchanging nature of the Lord Jesus Christ Who is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.
Because of that, I will not be ashamed.
He will prove faithful. For He cannot be otherwise.
So I speak truth to my heart. I sing life to my soul. I hide myself under the wings of the Almighty, assured that He is my hiding place, safe and secure.
I cannot let my mind linger long on the whispered lies of the enemy. I won’t dawdle around the water cooler, inhaling gossip, wondering if God is Who He says He is.
I lean into love-the eternal, unquenchable force that guarantees deliverance and victory.
Some days it’s harder than others. But no day is utterly devoid of hope.
The Lord is faithful. He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.
I can rely on that.
I DO rely on that.
Thank God.
I realized the morning I received the news that an important part of my work as a grieving parent was going to be protecting and advocating for my living children.
It’s just so easy to fall into a habit of reciting only the good attributes of the child that has run ahead to heaven and to forget the ornery moments.
But sibling rivalry doesn’t die just because a sibling does.
It’s so, so important to remember that these living children need an engaged mama. They need to know that they are loved, cherished and treasured.
I am always afraid that Dominic will be forgotten.
I’m afraid that as time passes, things change and lives move forward, his place in hearts will be squeezed smaller and smaller until only a speck remains.
Not in my heart, of course.
Or in the hearts of those closest to him, but in general-he will become less relevant.
But he is not the only one who can be forgotten. I am just as fearful that my living children will be forgotten.
Read the rest here: The Forgotten Ones: Grieving Siblings
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