Every day I have a choice: do I allow grief to overwhelm me and harden my heart or do I cling to mercy and grace and embrace my vulnerability?
Losing a child is a uniquely painful experience, but we all face some kind of trial. Every one of us carries a burden. Each of us must decide.
And it’s not that easy.
Read more here: A Daily Struggle
Growing up digesting Disney fairy tales can warp your sense of reality.
There are no unblemished princes or perfect princesses out there. The bad guys don’t always get what they deserve and the good guys don’t always win.
At least not here on earth.
I want the scales to balance, I want the last chapter to wrap up all the loose ends and expose all the secrets. I want to know what happened and why-oh, to know WHY!
But that’s not how it is. I live a messy life with untidy edges.
So do most people.
The Bible doesn’t gloss over the hard places of life. God’s Word doesn’t hide the faults of God’s heroes. His Spirit directed the men who penned the holy pages to tell it all-the good, the bad AND the ugly.
I think sometimes in our desire to demonstrate the power of Christ in our lives we want to tie things up into a perfect package.
I know I do-I want desperately to be able to say that I can see the good in Dominic’s death. I long to be able to point to a finished monument of redeemed pain and restored joy.
But I’m compelled to tell it like it is.
And it is just plain HARD.
But God uses the broken things of this life to display His glory.
Because then there is NO DOUBT as to the Source of strength. He leaves no room for boasting.
He declares His power and faithful love by taking those of us who are weak and stumbling and leading us home, redeemed and victorious.
For look at your own calling as Christians, my brothers. You don’t see among you many of the wise (according to this world’s judgment) nor many of the ruling class, nor many from the noblest families. But God has chosen what the world calls foolish to shame the wise; he has chosen what the world calls weak to shame the strong. He has chosen things of little strength and small repute, yes and even things which have no real existence to explode the pretensions of the things that are—that no man may boast in the presence of God. Yet from this same God you have received your standing in Jesus Christ, and he has become for us the true wisdom, a matter, in practice, of being made righteous and holy, in fact, of being redeemed. And this makes us see the truth of scripture: ‘He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.
I Corinthians 1:26-31 PHILLIPS
The other day I needed to get something in the room where we have Dominic’s things stored-not the boxed-up-not-dealing-with-them-now things-but the personal things that bear his scent, his mark, his personality.
And the warm spring air had concentrated the odor that is him just behind the doorway. It caught me by surprise-that I could still smell him, still feel his presence, still be so certain that he had just passed by this very spot.
My mama heart cried, “More time!”
Just one more minute,
one more hug,
one more “I love you”,
one more breath.
But it would never be enough.
One more would only feed my longing for the next minute.
There is no earthly cure for this heart sickness. No words to make it better. No medicine strong enough to numb the pain of missing him.
So I wait.
I wait for my heart to heal enough so that I can focus on something other than healing.
I wait for passion to return to my soul.
I wait for a day-just one day-when joyful moments outweigh sorrowful ones.
I wait for the promised beauty from ashes.
I wait for faith to be made sight.
And while I wait, I turn my heart and mind and strength toward the One Who is Faithful and True.
Nothing that has cursed mankind shall exist any longer; the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be within the city. His servants shall worship him; they shall see his face, and his name will be upon their foreheads. Night shall be no more; they have no more need for either lamplight or sunlight, for the Lord God will shed his light upon them and they shall reign as kings for timeless ages.
Then the angel said to me, “These words are true and to be trusted, for the Lord God, who inspired the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must shortly happen.”
“See, I come quickly! Happy is the man who pays heed to the words of the prophecy in this book.”
Revelation 22:3-7 PHILLLIPS
If you’re looking on from the outside you might well think that I’ve laid most of my questions to rest; that I’m no longer wrestling with trying to comprehend both the sovereignty of God and the goodness of God; and that I’ve figured out how to reconcile verses that seem to promise protection for those that love the Lord and the reality of death and destruction of some of the very same people.
But you would be wrong.
I do experience the peace that passes all understanding. I do rely on Jesus to be the Arbiter of Truth and the Umpire of my questions:
Let the peace of Christ [the inner calm of one who walks daily with Him] be the controlling factor in your hearts [deciding and settling questions that arise]. To this peace indeed you were called as members in one body [of believers]. And be thankful [to God always].
Colossians 3:15 AMP
.I am trusting fully in the ultimate redemption of my pain.
Yet there are moments when I am overwhelmed by the “whys”. Thankfully they don’t come as often as they used to.
Still, I refuse to pretend that I have it all figured out. Five months later I continue to identify with what I wrote here: Wrestling With God
I happened to be traveling recently and saw that Anderson Cooper, son of Gloria Vanderbilt, has filmed a documentary about his mother titled Nothing Left Unsaid. I don’t know much about him or the film, but the title immediately struck a chord in my heart.
I am learning so much through grieving my son.
I am learning by hard experience that we may not have tomorrow.
And I am learning that what weighs most heavily on my heart is not the things I said or did but the things I didn’t say or didn’t do.
The brick wall of regret is built of things unsaid and undone.
So I try to be more faithful and timely in telling people, “thank you”. I strive to demonstrate my love and gratitude in ways that others find meaningful and helpful. I refuse to be embarrassed or shushed into silence when strong emotion wells in my throat begging to be released.
Not everyone is woken from the stupor of assuming there will be a tomorrow as violently or suddenly as I was-but everyone will have a moment when they realize the opportunity to express love to a particular person has been snatched away.
So ask yourself:
When I leave this earth, I want to leave knowing that I have said it all– nothing left unsaid.
I’m not the same me I was two years ago.
I no longer look with confidence down the driveway as friends and family pull away, certain that we will see one another soon.
I whisper, “Be safe” when we part, but know that they are not the keeper of their days and that “being safe” doesn’t mean everyone escapes deadly peril.
I don’t have the luxury of emotional distance when I read the newspaper anymore.
I can’t watch the text scroll by on CNN or FoxNews and allow my eyes and heart to glaze over as numbers representing lives flash by.
Burying my son has tenderized me.
My mind drifts effortlessly and immediately to the ones left behind any time there is mention of a murder or a suicide or an accident.
And my spirit rejoices when a heroic rescue uncovers someone buried in the rubble or a passerby stops to help a person who otherwise faced certain doom. Second chances make me cry happy tears.
I have higher tolerance for the failures of others and lower tolerance for hatefulness and unkindness.
Maybe I’m just tired, but I find it easier to extend grace than to fuel anger.
I don’t care what latest or greatest movie, TV show, fashion fad or IPhone App has just been released-ads for a better, bigger, newer anything don’t entice me.
Don’t try to draw me into drama or worry or hand-wringing over politics or social media or foolish disputes. There is no part of my heart with room for that.
I will exhaust myself loving others but not on loving things.
I’m a pilgrim and a stranger on this earth. I’m walking a path in a foreign land, looking forward to my heavenly home.
By an act of faith, Abraham said yes to God’s call to travel to an unknown place that would become his home. When he left he had no idea where he was going. By an act of faith he lived in the country promised him, lived as a stranger camping in tents. Isaac and Jacob did the same, living under the same promise. Abraham did it by keeping his eye on an unseen city with real, eternal foundations—the City designed and built by God.
Hebrews 11:8-10 MSG
One of the things I am learning in this journey of child loss is that while I can work hard to frame my experience through the Truth of Scripture, I cannot deny my feelings.
I cling to and copy down and recite Bible verses on a daily basis. I feed my heart and soul and spirit with heavenly manna and trust that it will sustain me.
But if I ignore or distract myself from acknowledging the feelings raging within me, I am only delaying an inevitable confrontation-they will not be put aside forever.
Paul didn’t say, “don’t grieve”. He said, “grieve with hope”.
Hope gives me something to hold onto. Hope gives me courage to keep going. Hope grants me vision so I can look forward to a time when pain will end.
But it does not end the pain. It does not remove the ache of longing. It does not erase the sorrow.
Read more: Grieving With Hope
A sweet friend made sure I had Nicholas Wolterstorff’s book, Lament for a Son, in my hands just days after Dominic’s accident. And it was one of the most helpful, kindest gifts I ever received. It still lives by my chair and I look at it often.
It might have been the similarities in circumstances that took our sons-his died in a mountain climbing accident, mine in a motorcycle accident-or it might have been our shared theology, but when I read his words, they spoke my heart.
A professor of philosophy and a believer in Christ, he refuses to gloss over the hard edges of grief and pain. He faces the questions head-on and brings me with him into the dark chamber of sorrow, letting me sit in silence and feel the heaviness of loss.
He does not wrap his experience up into a tidy package.
It may be counter-intuitive to those who have not experienced child loss to know that I find his lack of tidy ending MORE encouraging than the books I read that try to tell me it will all be just fine.
Because my heart screams that it will NOT be “fine” this side of heaven. I will NOT understand this side of heaven. I WILL NOT be satisfied with any answer this side of heaven.
There are many quotes from this book that speak to my heart, but this one sums up so much of what I am learning through loss:
If sympathy for the world’s wounds is not enlarged by our anguish, if love for those around us is not expanded, if gratitude for what is good does not flame up, if insight is not deepened, if commitment to what is important is not strengthened, if aching for a new day is not intensified, if hope is weakened and faith diminished, if from the experience of death comes nothing good, then death has won. Then death, be proud.
So I shall struggle to live the reality of Christ’s rising and death’s dying. In my living, my son’s dying will not be the last word. But as I rise up, I bear the wounds of his death. My rising does not remove them. They mark me. If you want to know who I am, put your hand in.
~Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son
As I wrote on Dominic’s first Remembrance Day, April 12, 2015:
Two truths have been burned on my Soul. One, broken hearts still beat. We are surrounded by wounded people. Walking gently through this life is the greatest blessing we can give to one another.
And two, LOVE WINS. There is no force as strong or attractive or eternal as love. God’s love for us and our love for Him and one another will be the song we sing forever. It would behoove us all to learn it here on earth.
I am not who I was [ten] years ago.
My heart has been both broken and made larger.
My eyes see the pain in the eyes of those around me. My ears hear the strain in a muttered, “I’m fine.”
I have no patience for petty disputes and silly games. I am more empty of envy and more full of love.
And my arms reach further and wider to embrace and encourage the wounded.
As I have been comforted, I want to comfort others.
Blessed [gratefully praised and adored] be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts and encourages us in every trouble so that we will be able to comfort and encourage those who are in any kind of trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as Christ’s sufferings are ours in abundance [as they overflow to His followers], so also our comfort [our reassurance, our encouragement, our consolation] is abundant through Christ [it is truly more than enough to endure what we must].
2 Corinthians 1:3-5 AMP
Tomorrow will be two years since my life was changed forever, 731 days since my heart was shattered, 17,544 hours since Dominic’s accident.
I never dreaded time the way I do now. Gray hair and wrinkles didn’t faze me. My children growing from babies to toddlers to high school graduates was exciting, not sad.
But now, I am oh, so aware, of the days and months that have passed since Dominic left us. I look back to the years we had with him and hate to see them falling further and further into the past.
I look ahead with ambivalence to the years that may lie between now and my reunion with the son I love and miss.
The Bible describes Heaven as a place where “time will be no more” and I’ve always considered that concept in terms of an unending opportunity to enjoy Jesus and those we love for ever and ever.
But something occurred to me the other day: timelessness itself will be a gift unimaginable.
In this body, I am bound in time. My life is divided into “before” and “after”. But there will be a day when it won’t be.
There will be a day when I will also inhabit the timeless eternity where Jesus reigns and Dominic resides.
I don’t know if I will remember the details of this life, the pain and the heartache-maybe, because Scripture tells me that God will wipe away every tear-but I firmly believe that I will be able to enter fully into the “now” of heaven’s timelessness without a sense of loss.
I will be free from this body of sin and death, free from the burden of grief and pain, free of the weight of sorrow.
For ever and ever. Amen.
Nothing that has cursed mankind shall exist any longer; the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be within the city. His servants shall worship him; they shall see his face, and his name will be upon their foreheads. Night shall be no more; they have no more need for either lamplight or sunlight, for the Lord God will shed his light upon them and they shall reign as kings for timeless ages.
Revelation 22:3-5 Phillips
I’m not the most tech savvy individual and I freely admit it.
Dominic was our resident tech advisor and among other things I lost when he was taken from us was my own personal “help” desk. Now I muddle through the best I can.
I’m also not too excited about exploring popular Facebook posts that purport to give you insider information. But I did check out a recent post making the rounds and discovered that FB DOES hide some of my messages.
I have no idea what kind of filter they use to decide what messages I should see and what messages should be sequestered into the “filtered messages” folder, but I wish they would just stop!
I found messages from MONTHS ago from mamas trying to contact me about my blog and many asking permission to share a post or to print a post and pass it along to another grieving family.
I was heartbroken that I didn’t receive these requests in a timely way and I pray that in each case, they decided to share anyway.
So, since I have no idea how to stop FB from filtering messages, I would like to make this plain: PERMISSION GRANTED to anyone who finds these posts helpful to share them.
As long as you make no changes, share them in entirety and cite thelifeididntchoose.com as the source, share away.
You can share one of several ways-there are buttons at the bottom of each post for FB, Twitter, and Reddit. You can copy and paste into an email or email the link. Or you can print them for physical distribution.
If you want to sign up to receive the posts in your own email, there is a link on the right side of each post inviting you to “follow blog via email”-this makes it easier to share a post via email.
If you have a WordPress site, you can follow through your own site as well.
Finally, at the top right corner there is a “contact” button-you are welcome to contact me anytime through email. I try to answer within a day.
I cannot bring my son back-but I can honor his memory by sharing faithfully what God is teaching me as I make this journey.
I am thankful and humbled that others find my words helpful.
If you know someone that might also find them helpful, please pass them along.
thelifeididntchoose 