Tag: truth

Navigating Grief: Why Am I Still Writing?

I ask myself this question often:  Do I want to keep writing in this space?  

Sometimes the answer is a resounding, “no!”. 

Because while I love to write, some days it’s hard to put together words in a way others can understand.  Sometimes I’m tired, or rushed or just tired of thinking about how grief and loss impact my life.

And then I ask the follow up:  Do I still have anything to say?

That’s the one that keeps me here. 

Because as soon as I think the answer is “no” to that question,  a conversation or a comment thread or a personal experience brings up something that I feel I need or want to write about.

So I sit down and begin again.  

your-story-could-be-the-key

I made a commitment in the beginning to be as honest as possible and I’ve done that the best I know how while protecting identities of those who are part of my story but who have their own stories to tell (should they choose).

I also promised to be transparent about my thoughts on God, on faith, on life everlasting.  I feel like I’ve done that.  In fact, I’m pretty sure some of my rambling has shocked friends and family from time to time.  But I’m not afraid of shocking God.  He knows my frame, knows my heart and cannot be made small by my questions or doubts.

I try to do research when appropriate to bring together resources and ideas for bereaved parents in one place. 

One of the most frustrating things to me in the early months of missing Dominic was how hard it was to find good resources.  The Internet is not your friend if you are looking for local and accessible help for practical problems.  It was over a year and a half before I found a closed group of like-minded bereaved parents.  But once I did, oh, what a difference that made in my journey!

So if you are interested in finding a safe, closed group, ask me.  I know of several.  

And then there’s the sweet comments that (usually) mamas send my way-either through Facebook or here.  When someone writes that looking for the blog post each morning helps them get out of bed-well, that’s both encouragement and a serious responsibility.  I don’t want to not show up and disappoint a heart.  Even when all I have to offer is only my words.

So for now, at least, I plan to stay.  

When my life circumstances make it impossible to carry on or I run out of things to say (which my mother will swear won’t happen!) then I’ll quit.

I send each post into cyberspace with a prayer-even for my readers who don’t believe in prayer: 

“Father God, help each heart hold onto hope.  Send a ray of sunshine into every cloudy day.  Bring someone along who will listen, who will care and who will offer a hand to the one who is too weary and broken to take another step.  Help them believe that they are seen, they are loved and that they matter.  Overwhelm them with Your love, grace and mercy.”

You DO matter.

I DO care.

If you need to talk, message me. 

If you need a safe space, I’ll direct you to it.  

I’m not going anywhere.  

compassion and stay with you

Navigating Grief: Bringing My Emotions to Jesus

“Emotions are real, but they can lie.”  

I repeat that to myself often.   

In everyday life I can interpret another person’s silence as a snub when, in fact, they simply were so distracted they didn’t see or hear me. 

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Now, I know God is never asleep or distracted (see Elijah vs. Jezebel’s “priests”).  

But I know sometimes He feels distant or silent.  

He’s not.  

Jesus promised to never leave nor forsake me.  

And He hasn’t.

When I can’t feel or hear Him, it’s usually because my emotions are running so high the noise drowns out His still, small voice.

So I bring them to Him as a sacrifice and trust Him to help me bear them and to align them with the TRUTH that what I am currently suffering is not the last word.  

My story will be redeemed.  

My unfathomable loss will be restored.

His promises never fail.

Navigating Grief: How Pastors Can Minister to Bereaved Parents

Being a pastor doesn’t mean you come out of seminary with answers to everything.

It doesn’t even mean you emerge equipped for very many of the situations and conversations thrust upon you once you enter ministry.

But I know a lot of folks expect you to be a pillar of strength, a fountain of wisdom, a well-spring of comfort. I’m sure you try to be all those things but it takes years to develop the experience needed to know what to say and do and what NOT to say and do in the most sensitive and painful moments humans face.

So when a thoughtful and inquisitive fellow bereaved parent asked the question below, I found myself REALLY considering the essential advice I’d pass along to a pastor about the unique and uniquely challenging ministry to those whose children have run ahead to Heaven.

It is most certainly NOT exhaustive, but hits the high points. It’s short, succinct and can go a long way toward promoting healing in shattered hearts.

I hope my pastor friends will read it and tuck it away in an easily accessible place. I promise you will need it one day.

I hope my fellow bereaved parents and others will pass it along to pastors they know.

❤ Melanie

This is the question: What advice would you give a pastor to serve, encourage, and walk with a grieving parent? What would you tell them not to do?

I would tell a pastor to:

*Listen, listen and listen some more– without correcting or judging. This is not a teachable moment. Take off the theologian’s coat and put on human flesh.

*Acknowledge the depth of their loss- not compare it or try to identify with it (unless you have also lost a child) and absolutely not minimize it.

*Don’t toss Bible verses– especially those intended to “bright side” their experience.

*Don’t stop checking in even if they stop going to church. If your ministry ends at the door of the building, you’ll lose lots of sheep.

*It will take longer- probably by years-than you think it should for them to return to some semblance of “normal”. Be patient.

*Ask, but don’t pressure, parents who once served (or are serving at the time of loss) if they want to continue serving. Some do, some find it impossible.

*Do not engage in gossip and speculation about “how they’re handling” their grief.

*Educate your congregation on the devastation of grief in general and child loss in particular. (See the story of Jacob-how deeply he grieved when he thought Joseph was dead, what a mess his family was…)

*When appropriate, make space in yearly celebrations or traditions for recognition of those who are mourning and who want to have their child (or other loved one) remembered.

*As time goes on, ask specific questions (How is your grief today? What do you find to be a struggle right now? Could you share something about _____, I love to hear about him/her?) and then listen some more.

Navigating Grief: The Problem of [Un]Answered Prayer

Our family is going through another hard, hard season. Three weeks ago today, my granddaughter, Holly, was gathered into the arms of Jesus.

This little babe was prayed for before she was born early and every moment of every day until she went to Heaven a mere fourteen days later.

So once again I find myself in the position of asking, “Does prayer even matter?”.

When it’s not your kid you can think of all kinds of lofty, theologically correct arguments or reasons for why God answers one prayer and not another–for why one person is healed and not another–for why one person survives a devastating-should-have-killed-him accident but not another.

But when it is your child that doesn’t survive or isn’t healed or is stolen through the violent actions of someone else…well, that’s a different matter entirely.

Read the rest here: The Problem of [Un]Answered Prayer

Navigating Grief: Appropriate God’s Strength

My friend and fellow bereaved mom, Margaret Franklin, Ryan’s mom, shared a beautiful Dutch word with me “Sterkte” (pronounced STAIRK-tah).

It literally translates “strength” or “power” but culturally means much more.  It means bravery, strength, fortitude and endurance in the face of fear and insumountable odds through the empowering strength of God in me.

Not MY strength, but HIS.

Read the rest here: Trust After Loss: Appropriate God’s Strength

Navigating Grief: Access the Truth

I have loved Scripture as long as I can remember.  When I was in second grade I got the notion to read the whole Bible straight through-in the King James Version.  I made it to Leviticus before I threw in the towel.

By the time my kids were grown I had read and studied Scripture for decades. 

But three years before Dominic ran ahead to Heaven I realized my reading had become rote-I felt like I “knew” all the stories.  So I slowed my study to a crawl-only one chapter a day-and I usually copied the whole chapter plus my notes into a journal.  I had just finished this time through the Bible in January before Dom was killed in April.

And all that truth stored in my mind and heart was what I “read” for months when my eyes were too full of tears to see print on a page.

Many verses stung-some still do-but I was committed to bathe my broken heart in what I knew was true.  I would take it like medicine, even when it tasted awful.  I knew-in the end-it was my only hope for help.

It’s easy when doubt creeps in to let my heart hold onto it-even in the face of Truth that puts the doubt to rest.

But if all I do is question, question, question and never still my soul to receive God’s answers or His comfort, then I will simply run out of oxygen and faith.

Read the rest here: Trust After Loss: Access the Truth

Does God “Number Our Days”?

Last year around this time, I shared with a couple of bereaved parent support groups on the topic of “Bringing our child with us into a New Year”.

We talked about how time is tricky once a child goes to Heaven.

In the course of our conversation, I talked about Psalm 139:16.

I know for some parents it brings tremendous comfort.

For others, it feels like the plainest interpretation (in English, at least) is that God ordained our child’s death and that feels cruel.

For what it’s worth, after consulting as many different translations as I could find and looking up key words in a concordance, this is how I think about that verse.

God is outside time. That’s why the Bible says Jesus “was slain from the foundation of the world”.

Yet we know, historically, that Jesus’ death occurred on a specific day in human history. When the Son of God came as the Son of Man and took on flesh, He was as much a prisoner of time as we are. That is why He wept with Mary and Martha at the death of Lazarus.

It’s not that God ordained my son’s death, it’s that He knew precisely when it would occur. If my son had not left his apartment that night and driven his motorcycle too fast in a curve, I do not for one minute think God would have sent a lightning bolt to end his life because it was “his day to die”.

Our lives are laid out before Him from birth through eternity and nothing is a surprise to Him.

He knows the end from the beginning.

And yet…He has also given us free will.

He has created a world in which biology, physics, and other natural laws prevail.

Sin has marred that creation and so bad things happen. Sometimes the bad things are a result of cells that grow out of control or body parts that don’t function properly. Sometimes the bad things are due to the sin of others or ourselves. Sometimes the bad things are “acts of nature”.

Death is not God’s will for any of us but it is something we must bear because of sin. Thankfully, for those who are in Christ Jesus, physical death is not the final word!

I do not understand this even as I type it.

It’s a mystery that I’ve learned to live with every day (some days it’s easier than others!).

Still, I am more comforted by a God I cannot fathom and Who is all-knowing, all-powerful and all-loving than I would be with a god I could fit into a box of my own making.

On the hard days, I have to remind my heart of that truth.

You can find my list of ways to keep our children close throughout the year here: https://www.heartacheandhope.org/_files/ugd/fc3456_9e8a535f36bd454a94e25872be82dec2.pdf

Navigating Grief: Letting Lament Do Its Work


I have lots and lots of questions.

And I don’t think ignoring them or shoving them in a chest and sitting on the lid is helpful.

But I’m far enough along in this journey to admit that if I let my heart and mind focus on the questions I’ll drown in sorrow and despair.

Read the rest here: A Reason Can’t Wipe Away Tears: A Modern Lament

Navigating Grief: Did God Take My Child?

Trying to ignore or stuff our questions because they are uncomfortable or too hard to think about isn’t helpful. They just rattle around in our minds and burrow deeper into our hearts causing confusion and raising doubt.

One of the questions many bereaved parents desperately want to answer: Did God take my child?

These are my thoughts-ones I believe are backed by Scripture and align with what I know personally about God’s character.

They are the result of many months of wrestling. I offer them in hopes they will help another heart.

❤ Melanie

This is a question that comes up all the time in bereaved parents’ groups:  Did God take my child?

Trust me, I’ve asked it myself.  

How you answer this question can mean the difference between giving up or going on, between turning away or trusting.

So this is MY answer.  The one I’ve worked out through study, prayer and many, many tears.  You may disagree.  That’s just fine.  I only offer it because it might be helpful to some struggling and sorrowful soul.

Read the rest here: Did God Take My Child?

Navigating Grief: Sometimes There ARE No Answers

Several recent conversations, comments and our family’s experience of losing little Holly, have reminded me again how much energy and effort it takes to work through the cosmic questions that rock every bereaved parent’s world.

When Dominic ran ahead to Heaven I no longer had the luxury of turning a blind eye to things like, “How do you reconcile God’s sovereignty with free will?” and, “What difference does prayer make?” or, “Why do bad things happen to ‘good’ people?”.

These are the questions that filled my mind and kept me awake at night after burying my son.  Questions I was free to ignore before they took up residence in my soul and echoed in my head with every thump, thump, thump of my beating heart.

So I’m digging out some old posts where I share how I came to understand those questions, live with many (most?) unanswered yet hold fast to the truth that God’s faithful love and grace are sufficient and unending.

I hope it helps another heart.

❤ Melanie

We are a people who love a good mystery as long as it leads to a good ending-bad guys vanquished, questions answered, motives revealed and a tidy resolution.

But real life is rarely so neat and squared away.

Just consider your average doctor’s visit.  Diagnosis is often a result of trial and error when a simple blood test or throat culture is unavailable to confirm or rule out a particular malady.  Yet we blunder forward, trying this and that until something either works or the illness runs its course.

Relationships are even trickier.  We stand toe-to-toe with others hoping we understand what they are saying or not saying, feeling or not feeling-all the while forced to act and react in the space between.  It’s a wonder we aren’t all at war with one another.

And then there are the big “What ifs?” and “Whys?”

The cosmic questions that rock our world and threaten to undo us.

These are the questions that filled my mind and kept me awake at night after burying my son.  Questions I was free to ignore before they took up residence in my soul and echoed in my head with every thump, thump, thump of my beating heart.

It took a very long time for me to learn to live with them unanswered. And there are still moments when I scream aloud and raise my fist to the sky, demanding an accounting.

But most days, I can rest in that space between the asking and the answer-if not exactly at peace-then at least in a state of suspended animation.

And that may really be all God expects of me this side of heaven.

Job never did get any answers.

He stood before God speechless and in awe.

That’s pretty much where I am right now.

I don’t have to like it.

I don’t have to understand it.

I only have to be willing to admit that He is God and I am not.  

Job answered God:

“I’m convinced: You can do anything and everything.
    Nothing and no one can upset your plans.
You asked, ‘Who is this muddying the water,
    ignorantly confusing the issue, second-guessing my purposes?’
I admit it. I was the one. I babbled on about things far beyond me,
    made small talk about wonders way over my head.
You told me, ‘Listen, and let me do the talking.
    Let me ask the questions. You give the answers.’
I admit I once lived by rumors of you;
    now I have it all firsthand—from my own eyes and ears!
I’m sorry—forgive me. I’ll never do that again, I promise!
    I’ll never again live on crusts of hearsay, crumbs of rumor.”

Job 42:4-6 MSG