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
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
We think people live to the fullness of years. They begin in spring and pass through all the seasons before the cold winter claims them.
But some survive only one season, or two–never enjoying the fruitful harvest of the latter years the younger years of hard work are meant to produce.
Read the rest here: Falling Leaves
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
When the deputy rang my doorbell and my heart was shattered, I didn’t receive mysterious whispered comfort nor was I cloaked in a miraculous sense of peace.
I was, instead, immediately filled to overflowing with words of life, hope, and love bubbling from the spring I’d been tending to in my soul for decades.
Nothing new but everything eternally true.
The faithful, unchangeable and never-failing character of my Shepherd King is how I carry on.
❤ Melanie
I am not a fan of church signs.
Most of the time they try to be cute and reduce eternal truth to a few words that often leave room for [mis]interpretaion.
But I saw one today that I DID like: “Dig the well before you are thirsty”.
It takes time to dig a well.
And it’s hard work.
You can’t wake up one morning, decide to dig and expect results in a couple of hours. If you want a reliable source of water to quench your thirst you have to plan ahead.
Read the rest here: Dig the Well BEFORE You are Thirsty
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
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?
I’ve shared often in this space that when Dominic ran ahead to Heaven, one of the things I had to do was drag out everything I thought I knew about God, about how He works in the world and all the pat interpretations of familiar verses and hold them up to the cold, clear light of loss.
Today’s verses are some I had to think about carefully because they are so often tossed at grieving hearts like a magic cure for the pain of burying someone you love.
The church at Thessalonica was confused about some fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith. They were frightened they had missed Christ’s second coming and they were concerned about loved ones that had preceded them in death.
So Paul wrote this letter to remind them of truth and offer comfort in their emotional distress:
13-17 Now we don’t want you, my brothers, to be in any doubt about those who “fall asleep” in death, or to grieve over them like men who have no hope. After all, if we believe that Jesus died and rose again from death, then we can believe that God will just as surely bring with Jesus all who are “asleep” in him. Here we have a definite message from the Lord. It is that those who are still living when he comes will not in any way precede those who have previously fallen asleep. One word of command, one shout from the archangel, one blast from the trumpet of God and the Lord himself will come down from Heaven! Those who have died in Christ will be the first to rise, and then we who are still living on the earth will be swept up with them into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And after that we shall be with him for ever.
18 God has given me this message on the matter, so by all means use it to encourage one another.I Thessalonians 4:13-18 PHILLIPS
This verse is quoted often to believers who have lost a loved one. At first, gently, sweetly–as an invitation to remember that God is in control, that He has a plan, that the grave is not victorious and that burying the body is not the end.
And, in the early days and weeks after the funeral, it IS comforting–I chanted it to myself like a mantra and it drew my heart from the brink of despair.
But at some point, this verse begins to feel like a rebuke–the well-meaning friend says, “Don’t you know, that Jesus followers don’t grieve like those who have no hope!”
And I turn, dumbfounded, to the person saying this, and wonder, “Have you buried a child?”
Have you grieved the too-soon, unexpected, violent end of your hopes and dreams without a chance to say, “good-bye”? Do you stand over the patch of dirt that now covers the buried body of your son and wonder how this happened? How can this be your life?
Do you wake up every morning and have that fraction of a moment where all is right with the world before your mind joins your eyes and reminds you that he is still gone?
But I am made of dust.
I am human. I am full of the emotions that God placed in my heart.
He gave me the capacity to embrace and love the tiny life growing inside me before I could see it or feel it. He made my child leap in my womb when I listened to praise music. He positioned Dominic as the third-born child in our family and gave him unique gifts and abilities.
And now He knows that as long as I live, I will grieve the son that I lost. I will sorrow anew when others his age reach milestones–get married, have children–because not only did I lose the Dominic that WAS, I have lost the Dominic THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN.
I do “grieve with hope”–I breathe in the life-affirming and spirit-filling promise that the reality I am living is not the only reality there is. I lean into the Word of God and trust in, rely on and affirm the victory of Jesus Christ.
But I still GRIEVE. I cannot force my heart to ignore the pain and sorrow that has been laid upon it.
So I continue to live each day, doing the work that God has left for me to do, but walking a little slower, a little more bowed down.
For those of us carrying this burden of grief, the greatest gift is grace and mercy and kindness–we are doing the best we can.
Encouragement (lending courage to) must include acknowledging our daily struggle and the lifelong commitment we have made to battle on.
Ask us, listen to the answers and then hold our hand or dry our tears.
But don’t expect us not to cry.
QUESTIONS:
PRAYER:
Father God,
Thank You that we can grieve with hope. Thank You that we have assurance Your promises are true. Thank You that death for believers in Jesus is NOT the end.
My child’s grave is not his or her final resting place. It’s his or her future resurrection site. On that glorious Day when Christ returns, death will be defeated forever. What a reunion that will be!
When I am deep in despair, sorrowing at this temporary separation, help me hold onto that truth. Give me strength to endure and grace to finish well. Eternity awaits! Come Lord Jesus!
Amen
If yesterday’s verses were Paul’s closing arguments, these verses are his hallelujah!
When I am weak and weary and overwhelmed by the daily trudging uphill along the path of grief, my heart comes here.
Because truth is, over and over and over God has said in His Word, demonstrated by His actions and proved by His promises that love endures.
It was love that sought Adam and Eve in the garden.
Love that spoke to Noah and gave him strength to build the ark.
Love that drew Abram from the land of idolators, set him apart and made him father of nations.
Love that rescued the Israelites from Egypt.
Love that overwhelmed a young virgin and made her mother of Jesus the Christ.
And Love Incarnate that chose obedience unto death-even death on the cross-so that our sin debt was satisfied and the gates of Heaven opened wide to all who believe.
Love will not be denied.
Love wins.
Can anything separate us from the love of Christ? Can trouble, pain or persecution? Can lack of clothes and food, danger to life and limb, the threat of force of arms? Indeed some of us know the truth of the ancient text: ‘For your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter’.
37 No, in all these things we win an overwhelming victory through him who has proved his love for us.
38-39 I have become absolutely convinced that neither death nor life, neither messenger of Heaven nor monarch of earth, neither what happens today nor what may happen tomorrow, neither a power from on high nor a power from below, nor anything else in God’s whole world has any power to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord!Romans 8: 35-39 PHILLIPS
There is nothing that can separate me from the love of God.
Nothing!
I am not powerful enough to do it.
Death is not powerful enough to do it.
Love reached down and resurrected Jesus.
Love will reach down and resurrect my son.
On my hardest days, my darkest days I remember this: as fierce as my mother love may be, it can’t hold a candle to the ferocious, eternal, unquenchable, undefeatable, reckless, perfect love of God.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc6SSHuZvQE
QUESTIONS:
PRAYER:
Father God,
Your love endures forever. Help me remember that. Open my eyes, Lord, that I may comprehend the depth, the width and the height of Your love. If I could grasp even a fraction of that, I’d never be afraid for a second that anything could get between You and me. Your love is relentless, reckless, pursuing and almighty. Nothing in creation can stop Your eternal, redeeming love.
My child may have made a foolish or even a sinful choice in his or her last moments on earth, but even that is not enough to separate him or her from You if they made a genuine profession of faith in Christ. How arrogant are we humans to think we can somehow undo the great redemptive work of the cross!
Thank You for this beautiful reminder in Paul’s words. Let them sink deeply into my spirit and bring life to my bones.
Hallelujah!
Amen.
I was a debater and raised my kids as debaters.
There’s unique beauty in crafting an argument so it crescendos to an irrefutable conclusion.
For the the master orator, nothing is more satisfying than watching her audience lean in and anticipate the glorious finale.
Paul has been leading us to these verses since he began laying the foundation in chapter one of Romans.
So what should we say about all of this? If God is on our side, then tell me: whom should we fear? 32 If He did not spare His own Son, but handed Him over on our account, then don’t you think that He will graciously give us all things with Him? 33 Can anyone be so bold as to level a charge against God’s chosen? Especially since God’s “not guilty” verdict is already declared. 34 Who has the authority to condemn? Jesus the Anointed who died, but more importantly, conquered death when He was raised to sit at the right hand of God where He pleads on our behalf. 35 So who can separate us? What can come between us and the love of God’s Anointed? Can troubles, hardships, persecution, hunger, poverty, danger, or even death? The answer is, absolutely nothing.
Romans 8: 31-35 VOICE
In today’s vernacular (Melanie’s paraphrase):
“So here’s the deal, guys. What else is there to say? If God has provided for our salvation through His own Son-bought and paid for us-who else can make a claim? And if He was willing to pay that high a price for us, what is He going to withhold from us? No one can overrule God. No one can deny the evidence that the sin debt has been paid. The only thing that could separate us from God’s love is sin and that’s been handled. So, yeah, life can be really hard. We might even have to face death before we come into our full inheritance. But we don’t have to worry. It’s handled. It’s settled. It’s done.”
Paul’s closing argument is simple.
Remember, this is no contest of equals. There is no yin/yang dual universe where darkness has power enough to overcome the light. God has the devil on a chain. Sin mars creation and wreaks havoc but even all that awful is being woven together into a tapestry of beauty and usefulness that one day will display the glory of God and His love for us.
God is for us. REALLY for us.
So who can be against us? (That’s a rhetorical question, by the way.)
No one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJpt1hSYf2o
QUESTIONS:
PRAYER:
Father God,
Too often I think the world is like a giant tug-of-war and I can only hope and pray You win. It’s hard to remember that You are still in control when so many things seem out of control.
Help my heart rest on the rock of Your sovereignty and goodness. Open my spiritual eyes to see how You are working all these things-the good, the bad and the heartbreaking-into Your plan of redemption and restoration. Give me strength to believe when my own is fading. Make Your Word my guide. Thwart the schemes of the enemy to tear down my faith and breach my wall of hope.
Thank You for grace, mercy, love and courage.
Amen
thelifeididntchoose 