Tag: love

Resisting Fear, Embracing Love

In my grief and sorrow it is tempting to dig a moat, draw up the bridge to my heart and wait out life like I am under siege.

But that would be wasting this pain and I won’t do that.

I won’t dishonor Dominic and dishonor Jesus by refusing to love.

fear is the opposite of love brene brown

Just a few days after Dominic ran ahead to heaven,  my youngest son wrote this:

“If you are surrounded by life you will be surrounded by death, if you feel love you will also feel pain. But never let the fear of death or pain rob you of the joy of LIFE and LOVE.”

Fear is a thief.

It sneaks in and can rule my heart before I even know it.

I will not bar the door to love, but I will barricade it against fear.

I refuse to let fear win.

fear does not prevent death it prevents life

Five Practical Ways to Support a Grieving Parent

It’s oh, so hard to know what to do when you are watching a heart break.

You want to reach out and make it better, make the pain go away, make a difference.  But it seems like nothing you can do will matter much in the face of such a huge loss.

While it’s true that you cannot “fix”  the brokenness in a bereaved parent’s life, there are some very important and practical ways you can support them in their grief-especially as the weeks turn into months and then to years.

a little consideration eeyore

Here are five practical ways to support grieving parents:

  • Remember anniversaries and birthdays.  Take note of the date our child left this life, his or her birthday, the day of the funeral-trust me, you aren’t reminding us of anything-we cannot forget!  When someone else shares that they remember too it is so, so encouraging.  It means my child is not forgotten, that he still matters to another heart and that someone else recognizes that the world lost a treasure.

every day

  • Keep showing up.  Keep inviting me to lunch.  I may have turned you down a dozen times in the first few months, but that was because I just. couldn’t. do. it.  As my heart begins to comprehend my loss, compassionate companionship sounds more inviting.  I need to talk, but it may take me awhile before I am able to do it.  Please don’t give up-keep trying.

good friends

  • Text. message and send notes.  I won’t always answer them, but a word at just the right moment may be what I cling to for days in the stormy sea of grief.  If you don’t know what to write, use google to find quotes on grief and copy them out.  A word of caution: don’t send articles on “how to grieve” or offer advice on “how to get over the loss of a loved one”.  (Blogs, books, pages written by bereaved parents for bereaved parents are generally a safe choice.)

compassion greatest form of love

  • Share a memory or photo.  One of the most painful parts of missing a child is that there are no new memories.  But there are “new” memories out there-held in the hearts of others who knew my son.  Times they shared that I know nothing about and that give me a precious piece of him to hold close.  Share a photo if you can. Post it to my Facebook timeline, send it in a text or message so that I can save it. Even better, print it out and send me a hard copy.  These are treasures for a grieving parent.

carry your heart with me in my heart cummings

  • Listen and affirm.  I know my child’s death is “old news”.  Years have passed now and it may seem like something I shouldn’t talk about anymore.  But it is an ongoing event for me.  Every day I am dealing with another aspect of how his absence impacts my life and the lives of my family.  I need to share that.  If I keep it bottled up, I’ll explode.  I’m not sharing on social media because I want to be pitied.  I’m sharing because my son is still part of my life just like your living children are part of yours. So please don’t ignore me and hope I’ll “get over it” if you do.  Acknowledge posts, comment on stories shared and affirm that my child matters.

band-aid-and-heart

You may be surprised how often I get discouraged and feel alone.  

An outstretched hand at just the moment when my strength is fading makes all the difference.

helping-hands

 

There’s No Place Like Home

Dominic’s Heaven Day fell right in the middle of Holy Week this year-Wednesday, April 12th marked three years since he entered Heaven and left us here.

And every day since then I’ve been homesick.  Homesick for what I used to know and homesick for what I know awaits me when I join him there.

IMG_1795I can’t say that I handled this awful anniversary any better than the previous two but I did handle it differently.  This year I was determined to create space for both mourning and dancing.

I cried a lot from Palm Sunday through his Heaven Day and into Resurrection Sunday morning.  I found new wounds that needed attention and realized some old ones weren’t as patched up as I thought.

It was costly in terms of personal and relational energy but for the first time since Dom ran ahead to heaven, I was able to reclaim a holiday gathering.

And it was beautiful.

photo (40)I missed him, of course, but things flowed and people loved one another and ministry happened and laughs floated through the air.

Everyone left with extra food and smiles on their faces.

This used to be my house every holiday, almost every Sunday.  It hasn’t been that way since Dom left.

But for a few hours it felt like home again.

i-have-come-home-at-last-c-s-lewis

 

I Will Not Be Ashamed of My Tears!

It happens when I least expect it.

I try hard to manage life so that I’m not blindsided by grief-that I don’t find myself in the middle of people when I can be sure some trigger will start the flow of tears

But you can’t prepare for what you have no way to predict.

So even three years down the path of child loss, there are times I am overwhelmed by a wave of grief and cannot stop the tears.

ann voskamp love will always cost you grief

I used to try to hide them.  I don’t anymore.

I will not be ashamed of my tears.

They are proof of my love.

They are evidence of a heart that refuses to grow cold, hard or bitter even though the frost of death has blown hard across it.

They are testimony to the promise that God is collecting them in His bottle and that one day all this will be redeemed and restored.

you keep track of all my tears

I will wear them as a badge of honor until I see Dominic again.

Repost: Remember: Why Good Friday Matters as Much as Resurrection Sunday

“On the one hand Death is the triumph of Satan, the punishment of the Fall, and the last enemy. Christ shed tears at the grave of Lazarus and sweated blood in Gethsemane: the Life of Lives that was in Him detested this penal obscenity not less than we do, but more.
On the other hand, only he who loses his life will save it. We are baptized into the death of Christ, and it is the remedy for the Fall. Death is, in fact, what some modern people call “ambivalent.” It is Satan’s great weapon and also God’s great weapon: it is holy and unholy; our supreme disgrace and our only hope; the thing Christ came to conquer and the means by which He conquered.”  C.S. Lewis,  Miracles

Bury a child and suddenly the death of Christ becomes oh, so personal. The image of Mary at the foot of the cross is too hard to bear.

Read the rest here:  Remember: Why Good Friday Matters as Much as Resurrection Sunday

Repost: Maundy Thursday

Today is the day on the church calendar when we pause and reflect on the Last Supper, and the last words of Jesus to His disciples.

A year’s worth of sermons is contained in John 13-17 but this week I have been drawn to just one verse:

[Jesus said] “Now I am giving you a new command—love one another. Just as I have loved you, so you must love one another. This is how all men will know that you are my disciples, because you have such love for one another.”  John 13:34 PHILLIPS
Read the rest here:  Maundy Thursday

Repost: Making Space for the Broken at the Table of the LORD

These days are especially difficult for me because Palm Sunday and Easter are markers on the road to remembering the worst days of my life.  Dominic left us the Saturday before Palm Sunday and was buried the Monday after Resurrection Sunday.

I hate death.

We shouldn’t rush past it’s awfulness.  If we do, we miss the glory of the finished work of Christ.

As we enter the week on the Christian calendar when most churches celebrate the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, I am reminded that often we race past the road that lead to Calvary and linger at the empty tomb.

But to understand the beauty of forgiveness and the blessing of redemption, we MUST acknowledge the sorrow of sin and the burden of brokenness.

Read the rest here:  Making Space for Brokenness at the Table of the LORD

Feet of Clay

God is not offended by my human frailty.  He isn’t looking down from Heaven, shaking His head at my halting steps forward on this long, hard road.

we are dustHe understands my fear, my sadness, my longing for wholeness.

But sometimes it’s hard for me to remember that.

I’m surrounded by messages that scream,

“You can do better!”

“Be all that you can be!”  

“Try harder, practice more, do this, do that and you can attain your dreams!”

Even in Christian circles we tend to rank one another based on hours spent in Bible study, Sunday School lessons taught, singing in the choir, serving on committees, showing up at services.

That was the way of the Pharisees-impossible burdens piled high that crushed precious hearts so that they couldn’t imagine a Father in Heaven Who loved them.

That made Jesus angry.

They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden.

Matthew 23:4 NLT

He didn’t come to mock my limitations or make light of my struggles.

He came to Shepherd my heart past those very things to see His heart for who He created me to be.

He reaches out and reaches in.  He sings love and courage and hope when I’m desperate to hear it.  

For the Lord your God has arrived to live among you. He is a mighty Savior. He will give you victory. He will rejoice over you with great gladness; he will love you and not accuse you.” Is that a joyous choir I hear? No, it is the Lord himself exulting over you in happy song. “I have gathered your wounded and taken away your reproach.

Zephaniah 3:17 TLB

Reality is this:  I AM broken.  I AM frail.  I AM burdened by this life on earth.  It is absolutely too heavy for me to carry.  I will be crushed to dust beneath its weight.

But He offers to take that burden for which I was never made and replace it with the one perfectly fitted for my shoulders.

His yoke is easy.

His yoke is light.

And He is the One Who pulls alongside me to bear it.

you who are weary come to me

 

 

Subtle Disapproval

I mention that today is a hard day to someone who knows my story and the words fall with a loud “thud!”  between us.

I don’t know whether to pick them up or not and she isn’t having anything to do with them.

So I move on to another topic.  Clearly this one isn’t going anywhere.

There are lots of ways to send messages of disapproval.  You can “just say NO” like kids are told to do in anti-drug and anti-bullying campaigns.  You can rant and rave and argue and rail against someone or something in person and on social media.

Or you can just ignore someone when they spill what matters to them like an offering on the ground at your feet.

The opposite of love is not hate.

It’s indifference.

The opposite of support is not opposition.

It’s looking the other way.

Strangers line streets to cheer marathoners on-offering cups of water and words of affirmation.

“You can do it!”  “Keep going!”  “You are more than half-way there!”  “Don’t give up!”

hobbling-runner

And yet many of us are running the race of our lives without a cheering section.

I get it–you are so very tired of the fact that I am so very tired.  I have worn out the welcome mat to the door of your heart.  It DOES get old when I bring the same baggage with me each time we talk.

baggage

Trust me, I’m working hard at unpacking it.  I’m doing all I can to lighten my load and what I ask you to help me carry.

But it is a slow, slow process.

And every time I need help or encouragement and don’t get it, another brick is added to the suitcase.

You might think you are helping me learn to ignore the pain by ignoring my mention of it but I don’t have that luxury.

It’s my heart wound, not yours.  

It’s my child buried, my child not here, my child gone from sight-how exactly should I ignore that?  Which of your children could you put away for a lifetime and forget was ever here?

If you want to help me lighten the load,

let me unpack my pain by telling my story.

If you want me to finish the race strong,

cheer me on.

best way you can help me

 

 

I Don’t Get to Be Ugly

It’s easy to justify bad behavior when I am hurting.  

As the saying goes, “Hurt people, hurt people”.

But if I know Jesus, I don’t get a pass.  I don’t get to act ugly or pretend I don’t know better or have His Spirit to help me BE better.

Sometimes I AM ugly.  Sometimes I do act badly.  I am ashamed that even though I am fully aware of my own desperate need for grace and mercy I sometimes withhold it from others.

I’m also ashamed that I can be judgmental and hateful and short-tempered and short-sighted. I can exclude others and run out of patience and choose to turn away when I should be tuning in.

And I’m really, really sorry.

hands-passing-heart

I’m trying to lean more fully on the grace available to me through God’s Holy Spirit.  I am trying to pause so that the first thing that springs to mind doesn’t always fly out of my mouth.  I am learning to wait before returning phone calls, emails and text messages.

I try to take a walk when my heart is twisted ugly so that the ugly doesn’t spill out onto others and ruin THEIR day.

I don’t get to lay aside the calling to love because I’ve laid a child to rest.  

I’m working hard to remember that.  

love God love others rocks