Tag: morning

Challenge Accepted: Why Am I Still Here?

Recently I was challenged by someone close to me to examine the impact on my heart of spending so much time in community with those whose loss was fresher and more raw than my own.

They were being neither judgmental nor argumentative.

They were coming from a genuine place of concern, grace and love.

So I took the opportunity to take a step back and reevaluate whether or not I need to continue writing in this space, spend time reading and responding to posts in bereaved parents’ groups and ruminating on how grief has changed over time (now seven plus years!).

It was an excellent exercise.

I looked back over social media posts and blog posts from the half-decade and more since Dominic ran ahead to Heaven. I could trace progress from breath-robbing, body-wracking, all-consuming sorrow to a gentler, muted and tender missing that made room for joy and beauty alongside the ever-present tangible absence of one of my children.

I also noted a transition from “spilling my guts” to “trail guide”.

I’m no longer primarily using this space to release feelings and thoughts I’m not comfortable tossing out in day-to-day conversation. Instead, I’m mostly thinking about and sharing what I’ve learned along the way-pointing out the pitfalls and (hopefully!) encouraging hearts to keep on keeping on.

I’ve given myself permission to repost earlier entries (please note dates when you click through) that represent more raw emotions without making apology for either the lack of time or energy to write something new or the angst I once felt.

I’m also choosing to limit my online interaction to an hour in the morning and maybe an hour in the evening.

I absolutely desire to speak encouragement, grace and hope to hearts that are struggling but still need to guard my own from overload.

And as for friends, family or strangers who think, “Goodness, gracious! She needs to MOVE ON!”.

I say, “How can I hide or hoard this hard-won wisdom and experience?”

This is my ministry.

I didn’t ask for it, but it’s mine.

I won’t run away.

So until the Lord tells me definitively He has another path for my life I’ll be here.

Every morning.

❤

Christmas Morning Prayer for Broken Hearts


Oh, dear one who opened your eyes to the morning light carrying wounds so deep no one can see!

I am so, so sorry.

When things have gone terribly wrong it’s hard to get up and make merry.

I know.

Read the rest here: Christmas Morning Prayer for Hurting Hearts

Sudden and Unwelcome Change

I woke up just past midnight to notice my bedside clock flashing off and on, indicating the power had gone out for at least a few minutes at some point after I fell asleep. 

“No worries, ” I thought as I rolled over and drifted off.  

An hour or so later and the cold woke me again.  No power.  This time for several hours.

I snuggled deeper under the warm covers and decided to go back to sleep.  Surely it’d be on by morning.

And it was.  

But it set my mind thinking as I got up, turned on the light in the kitchen and plugged up the coffee pot:  My morning routine would be utterly disrupted if electricity hadn’t begun flowing again.  

hands and coffee

No warm house, no warm shower, no hot coffee, no way to get online and post the blog (cell service is unavailable at my home), no handy portable phones to make necessary calls should the power also be out at our church just a mile down the road.

I could go on and on.

Of course each of these difficulties could be surmounted.

It would take extra effort and be frustrating, but I could manage to get by without coffee and plug up the old phone to make phone calls.  The blog could wait.  And it’s unlikely that the outage would last more than a few hours or a day and then things would be back to normal.

Imagine, though, being used to the modern convenience of electricity at the flip of a switch and then being suddenly plunged into darkness and disconnection.

Unprepared-no matches, no alternative fuel sources, no extra warm clothes for winter days and nights-just plucked from the world you knew and dropped into a world you didn’t.

That’s what it felt like when Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.  No warning, no chance to think through what life might be like, what changes I would have to accommodate, how I would need to face the days, weeks, months and years of his absence.  

family never gets over the death of a loved one

I went to bed and expected to wake to the world I knew.  

Instead I woke to a world I could never have imagined.  

And just like I rarely consider the dozens and dozens of ways electricity impacts my life-makes it easier, brighter, better-until it’s unavailable;  I had NO IDEA how Dominic’s leaving would touch every corner of every moment of every day.

Last night I slept through the power outage.  Other than resetting my blinking clocks it will require no adjustments this morning.

I can’t sleep through child loss.  

When I wake, I face it anew each day.  

And it continues to require adjustments, even now.  

homesick huff post

New Mercies

I love to read familiar verses in different translations or paraphrases.

It helps my heart hear what I might otherwise miss because familiarity DOES breed a form a contempt even when considering the Word of God.

Recently, on my way through verses on HOPE I copied out Lamentations 3: 19-26.

A couple of the verses are ones most of us have seen or heard often:

mercies new every morning

But back up a little bit, and read it in a different version ( the VOICE) and it takes on even greater meaning for those of us walking in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.  

Jeremiah (the author of Lamentations and known as the “Weeping Prophet”) is overcome with grief.  He uses words I understand to describe how relentless sorrow and despair drag a heart down, down, down. 

He’s bitter, he’s crippled, he can’t move forward or even move at all.

Grievous thoughts of affliction and wandering plagued my mind—
    great bitterness and gall.
Grieving, my soul thinks back;
    these thoughts cripple, and I sink down. 

And, stopped in his tracks, he waits.

He knows he needs hope if he is to get up again.

So he turns his heart to the only One Who can help.

Gaining hope,
    I remember and wait for this thought:

He remembers that God’s love never runs out.  God will never suffer from compassion fatigue because the Lord is loyal, steadfast, inexhaustible.

God’s faithful love is new every morning! 

As reliable and obvious as the light that spreads across the eastern sky and chases the darkness from every corner.

How enduring is God’s loyal love;
    the Eternal has inexhaustible compassion.
 Here they are, every morning, new!
    Your faithfulness, God, is as broad as the day.

Repeating that truth brings a heart courage to face even the most frightening or dismal circumstances. 

No one can stop the sun!

No one can stop the unfailing, loyal love of God from breaking forth!

Have courage, for the Eternal is all that I will need.
    My soul boasts, “Hope in God; just wait.”

I can boast (make much of, speak boldly about) about my hope in the Lord because He never, ever fails.  I will not be put to shame. 

i am the lord not ashamed who wait for me

I am not left alone to my bitter thoughts and my affliction will not be forever.  When I seek Him with my whole heart, He lifts me up and carries me through the darkest night.

It is good. The Eternal One is good to those who expect Him,
    to those who seek Him wholeheartedly.
It is good to wait quietly
    for the Eternal to make things right again.

God will not allow injustice to reign forever. 

Sorrow will not have the last word! 

It is good to wait in full confidence, trusting that the Lord I love, loves me and will redeem and restore everything the enemy has stolen.  

“The sun comes up
It’s a new day dawning
It’s time to sing Your song again
Whatever may pass
And whatever lies before me
Let me be singing
When the evening comes”

Matt Redman 10,000 Reasons

sunrise trees

Waking Up Is Hard To Do

Just after I got my driver’s license I was using the family station wagon to run some errands.  

I remember thinking, “Should I pull into that space between two parked cars or should I just go a bit further and make it easy on myself?”  I channeled my dad’s voice which was always pushing me past my comfort zone, threw off my fear and started into the smaller space.

Bad choice.

I kept trying to convince myself it was a dream.  I was not going to have to go home and tell my father what I had done.  It would disappear if only I wished hard enough.

But that was silly and untrue.

Denting the family wagon is small potatoes next to many other, bigger things I’ve faced in life.

And it is absolutely a zero on a scale of one to ten when considering the death of my son.  

You can fix a dent.  Even if it costs money and time.  

You can’t fix child loss.

Because of that FACT-I wake every morning to the same awful reality:  My child is dead.  He’s not coming back.  My life is forever changed.  My family forever altered.  My heart will carry this burden to the grave.

That makes waking up hard to do.  

Each morning I must force myself to push through an invisible wall and set my feet on ground I’m not sure I want to walk upon.

I must open my eyes and abandon the sweet release of dreamless sleep.

I have to face the light and embrace reality.

Four years and it is still a shock.  

Every

Single. 

Morning.

sometimes cant believe you are gone

Morning Is Coming

Comfort-For-Those-Grieving-Alone

I wake before the morning light.  Every. single. morning.

I get my coffee, sit in my chair and wait for sunrise.

I never worry that today it might not happen.

I’m never concerned that after all these years of faithfulness, this day may be the one where daylight fails to make an appearance.

There is no fear in this darkness because I know it will not last forever.

Morning is coming.

Morning. Is. Coming.

And that’s the hope I cling to in this longer darkness of the Valley of the Shadow of Death-no matter how many years it may be, the Valley has an end.

The same God Who keeps the earth in orbit around the sun has ordained that death will not have the last word.

Light will triumph.

Darkness will have to flee.

I look forward to heaven, where everything that the enemy has stolen will be redeemed and restored. 

I’ve been reading The Jesus Storybook Bible-it is a remarkable way to re-imagine and re-engage with God’s Story.

jesus-storybook-bible

My very favorite part is a paraphrase of Revelation 21:4:

“And the King says, ‘Look! God and his children are together again.  No more running away.  Or hiding. No more crying or being lonely or afraid.  No more being sick or dying.  Because all those things are gone.  Yes, they are gone forever.  Everything sad has come untrue.  And see-I have wiped every tear from every eye!’”

An eternal morning is coming.

Morning. Is. Coming.

sunrise trees

 

 

The End of the Story?

I have to keep telling myself that no matter how it looks right now, this is not the end of the story.  

Every morning I’m reminded by the “Cock-a-doodle-doo!” of my early rising roosters, that the light is coming….

Read the rest here:  Crowing in the Dark

Morning Meditation

My living room window is a huge, energy inefficient affair that lets in too much heat in the summer and too much cold in the winter.

But I will never replace it–because it also gives me a breathtaking view of the sunrise.  

Every morning my body responds to an internal alarm set to the time I was startled out of bed by the deputy delivering the news of Dominic’s death.

I cannot sleep longer.  

So I rise, make coffee and settle into my rocking chair with computer, Bible and journal close by.

I spend the dark hours writing, reading and sharing in community with other bereaved parents who wake to their own alarms, unable to fend off another day of living the reality of missing our children.  

It is so quiet that the purring cat in my lap sounds loud in my ears.

Slowly other sounds join the chorus of daybreak–roosters challenging the sun to a duel, birds flitting from branch to branch, calling out the news that now is the time to get the worm.

I look up and the warm glow of sunrise silhouettes bare winter branches of giant oak trees and reminds me that the world still turns.

Seasons still change.

And I am still breathing.

Darkness hides things from us, it fosters fear and isolates. The black of night turns familiar territory into fearsome wilderness.  The enemy thrives in the inky corners of unlit places.

But light disarms the darkness.

I venture forth boldly in the daylight where I would not set foot in the night.

So I treasure the daily reminder that darkness does not last forever, even the night has limits.

Open up before God, keep nothing back; he’ll do whatever needs to be done: He’ll validate your life in the clear light of day and stamp you with approval at high noon.

Psalm 37:6 MSG

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