Making Space to Grieve

I will not forget the feeling: the feeling of the soft down comforter underneath me, the slices of sunlight through the curtain, the pillow I closely curled up to. I had recent found out that the baby that I thought would first make me a mama was not going to make it past the end of the week. It was early in my pregnancy but for the weeks that I thought I was going to be a mama, my world was brighter, more exciting and filled with wonder. I was crushed. I felt like I couldn’t move and wanted to go to sleep and wake up with a different reality. I did crawl into bed but sleep did not bring the comfort. My God wrapped his arms around me so tightly that day that it was almost tangible. As I lay in bed crying with open hands giving this pain to Him, I felt the comfort I was certain could not come. The God who created the Heavens, who created this baby, was comforting me. And, while there were a million questions of why, I was only focused on who. Who was holding me, who was reminding me of truth, who was comforting me.

That afternoon changed me. There was a peace that I cannot understand and a certainty of the sovernity of God that continues to pervade my faith. His control, his goodness, and his power do not waiver and He convinced me of that as I lay in my bed crying. I made space to grieve that day and my faith was forever changed. It was a bit easier to make that space then as I did not have children, I had not started my teaching job for the year, and my husband was off for the Labor Day weekend.  It is not the same today. My grief is deep and my sorrow is real. But, so is my life. With four children, a home, a husband, and other commitments, making space to grieve at first seemed like a luxury. However, it is not. It is a necessity and I am fighting for my space to grieve.

I will not get this time back. If I had continued to go on with life that Labor Day weekend, I would never have had that precious afternoon with our Lord as I wept over my baby I would never meet. I couldn’t let this time pass with busyness and continue to go on with life as before. I am changed. I am different. I need the comfort of Jesus and he promises to give it.  David called out to God in the Psalms (31:9-10): Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eye is wasted from grief; my soul and my body also. For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away. God comforted David and in a later Psalm we are assured that “the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18).

I want God to be close to my broken heart. I want God to save my crushed spirit. I want his comfort, his love, his grace during this time. But, it is not always easy to come by and I am learning that I must create that space for myself. No one is going to do that for me. In fact, people have continued to ask me to take on new tasks. They only want me to do something small but right now everything seems enormous. Each committee meeting, each doula consult, each time I coordinate a babysitter to come to the house, each evening away from my husband all seems so draining. They might not always be draining but I realized that I cannot commit to things in the future that I do not have the emotional capacity to handle today. I will get there. I will serve as room mom in my child’s class. I will take on doula clients. I will make it through an entire exercise class. I will help with the women’s ministry at my church. But, I can’t today. And, I don’t want to. I want God. I want his comfort. The only comfort that is real, lasting, and beyond comprehension in its effectiveness.

There has been a sweetness in the stillness of our home lately as we have scaled back on commitments and activities. We have sat on the couch looking through pictures of my dad. I have heard dreams that my children are having of Daddoc pushing them in the swing and hugging them. I have listened to worship music and cried as I wash dishes or change Lindley’s clothes. Simple moments where God continues to reveal himself to me and to my children.  I will continue to make space to grieve and to in those moments remind myself of who is near, who will fulfill his promises and who will one day wipe away every tear.

You Will Never Have This Day Again

Lindley and Mills have a new favorite activity. They want to look at all of our family photo books that have pictures of Daddoc in them. I’ve displayed them on my living room mantle and multiple times a day, they will point up to them and swipe their hand across their chest, signing “please, please, please.” I give in because I too want to look at those pictures, remember Dad, and wish that we would be making more photo books with many pictures of him in it. Each turn on the page is heart wrenching yet soothing at the same time.

After looking at those photos, reading these words in Healing After Loss by Martha Whitmore Hickman really struck me…

“We dwell so much on the past when we are grieving- the immediate past- the occasion of death itself, and then the happier days when our loved one was with us in all his strength. And then we dwell on the future- the deprivation it will be to face those years without our loved one. But the present moment is all any of us have – even this present moment when you are reading these words.”

I don’t want the present moment to be all that have. The present is hard. The house is a mess, the kids are loud, there are dishes to be done, exercise that should happen, plans that should be executed, dreams that should be dreamed. But, I’m stuck. I’m without energy, motivation, or desires to do much of any of that.

A friend stopped by yesterday who is following through on some of her dreams and plans. They are going to be amazing! She is going to be a blessing to so many through what she will accomplish. But, as I left our conversation, I felt completely defeated. All afternoon, I couldn’t open and heat up the two cans of black beans I needed to cook for dinner.  I starred at my son’s toy that needed new batteries and we just sat on the floor hoping it would fix itself. I felt paralyzed, immobilized to complete a task and here she was living her dreams. Isn’t that what Dad would want me to do? Great, now I feel like I’m failing not only myself but my dad as well. I’m stuck remembering the past and not wanting to make a future. I know I need to move forward but I can’t.

And, then like a hug from my dad, the grace of God swept over me. He nudged my heart and said, “Child, just sit still. You need not go anywhere, do anything, be anything other than what you are right now.” Like Hickman said, the present moment is all we have. And, I have to be ok with that. So, I’m going to sit on the floor with my son, kiss my sweet baby 100 times before he goes to bed and forget about the laundry for one more day, and be ok that it took me three hours to make the easiest dinner imaginable. This is where I am. One day I won’t be at this place. I will move with efficiently, accomplish task, and restore order. But, not today.

For now, I’m learning to be present with my feelings, my children and my husband. It is hard. But, in a way it is freeing. God is meeting me right where I am without any pressures to grieve a certain way or the proper way or any other false expectations I am putting on myself. Each day is a new day to thank God and attempt to be “present.”

I saw this quote yesterday and want to remember what a gift today is, even if nothing is accomplished but my children and husband know that they were loved, because, that is exactly what I remember about my Dad. I remember that I was always loved.

“You will never have this day

with your child again.

Tomorrow they’ll be a little

older than they we’re today.

This day is a gift.

Breathe and notice.

Smell and touch them;

study their faces

and little feet and pay attention.

RELISH THE CHARMS

of THE PRESENT. 

Enjoy today, mama.
 It will be over before you know it.”

~Jen Hatmaker

Groaning with Creation

 When my dad died I thought I may experience anger; anger towards him for leaving us so early or anger at God for taking him when he did. I knew that was a real feeling for many during loss. I wasn't angry at my dad nor God. But what I was angry about was the effects of sin. Not that personal sin caused my dad to die but the sin of the world that entered when Adam and Eve gave into temptation and ruined paradise. It was an anger I had been saddened by before when I met friends who had broken families, children who grew up without hope in a suffering city, or with the loss of children I never met. But with his passing, the reality of our fallen world felt even more tangible. 

Romans 8:22-23 reminds me of that same feeling I had with my dad's death. It is a pain that turns and twist in your stomach….

22For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. 

Today is the first birth I've attended since my dad passed away. Watching this precious mama work through each contraction illustrated Paul's words to the Romans. Her body would tighten as her uterus contracted causing pain and discomfort that she couldn't control. She had to endure each contraction to meet her daughter. 

That's where our world is. Humanity forfeited our rights to perfect communion with God and now waits for that perfection again. There are moments where glimpses of Gods future kingdom are present on earth. The moment that mama saw her baby girl for the first time: perfection. Randy Alcorn says in his book, Heaven, “The pains of childbirth are analogous to the present suffering of mankind, animals, and the entire universe. But those sufferings are temporary because of the imminent miracle of birth. A far better world will be born out of this one, and a far better humanity will be born out of what we are now.”

We will suffer on this earth. We will die. But there is hope. Romans 8 explains:

18Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. 19For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. 20Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, 21the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. 

As believers we do not mourn like those that do not have hope because we believe that Jesus will once again establish his perfect world on this earth. The earth and all creation will be free from sin and death and we will be reconciled with all those we have lost. In the moments where the pains are so real, the twisting in my stomach is so tight, I have to cling to this truth. God’s work on this earth is not finished. There were be a time when Jesus returns to establish the new heavens and the new earth. When Jesus does return, he will judge the earth and all of its inhabitants. 

"Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad." (2 Corinthians 5:6-10)

I want you to hear this truth as well. God created each of you with a soul to worship and please him. My dad certainly did that while on this earth. He taught me that the word of God is true and he would want you to know that too. He would tell me to hope in Jesus’s return, tell others about his love, and enjoy each moment that I get to spend with those that God has placed in my life. Will you cling to that hope too? Jesus loves you, cares for you, and died for you in order that you may know him on this Earth and live with him forever.

God describes his New Heaven and New Earth through John, an apostle of Jesus, in the book of Revelation chapter 21. Doesn’t this sound wonderful….

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

While we wait for this “new earth,” we will continue to have suffering. That overwhelms me at times and has recently caused me to be anxious about what other losses may occur in my life. What is something happens to my children, to my husband, to me? Can I endure more pain? Can I live out my life to honor God? Can I really love my children and husband well, amidst so much sin and suffering? Waiting is hard but God’s presence is real. He will comfort me. He will comfort you. Ask him to enter your heart, reveal his truth to you, and be comforted, my friend, by the ruler of Heaven and Earth.

The Grocery Store and Grief

I thought to myself, “I can do this. I can do this one normal thing.” For getting “back to normal” is not actually ever going to happen. The normal that I dreamed for my life was shattered when I found out that my dad had suddenly died. But, a “new normal” is what people on the other side of intense grief assure me will occur. So here I was, list in hand and ready to approach my very normal Sunday routine of grocery shopping for my family. My littles were still resting, my big boys entertained by daddy, and off I went to the grocery. I buckled in, turned on some music and thought to myself how proud I was that I actually got out of bed that afternoon.

I pull up to the store, got a shopping cart and entered the store. And, then like a MAC truck, it hit me. The noise, the people, the lights, the balloons, the everything; It is all so overwhelming. What is it about a grocery store that overloads your senses when you are grieving? I should have remembered this feeling. After my first miscarriage, I found myself wondering the isles of the neighborhood market unable to decide on any purchase and crying when I returned to the car. Why didn’t I call someone else to shop for me? Did I really even want to conquer this task? For that would mean, I’m ready for live in the “new normal” and not mourn forever. It was just too much. But, I plowed ahead because the crying that would await me if I arrived home without milk or bananas would be enough to tip the scales into crazytown.

So, I proceeded with this list. Fruit. This should be easy enough. No, no, not easy enough. The grocery had recently reorganized their produce. The bananas were not were they used to be, there were three different stands for tomatoes and I sat starring at the pre chopped vegetables waiting for the frittata mix I regularly buy to magically appear just because I was starring at the empty shelf. I moved on to diary. Wow. When you are having a hard time making a decision, the dairy isle is not the place to be. And forget yogurt. Who in the world needs so many choices when it comes to yogurt? I’m pretty sure whatever I bought had a banana on it so I went with it.

I bumped into a cart, dropped my list, and then dropped my bag. It may have helped if I would have actually picked up my head and looked up for a few minutes while shopping. But, then I would have had to look at other people, lots of other people. People whose lives, I’m only assuming, could not be as miserable as mine is at the moment. Rationale tells me otherwise but the cloud of grief blinds you to feel isolated and broken and yet totally exposed and vulnerable at the same time. I found myself getting mad at everyone in the store as they stood making their cereal decisions. What a futile decision to be making at a time like this? My dad died. My world is crushing. My dreams are shattering. Don’t you care? Don’t you realize what is going on here? No, no you don’t. You are deciding between the 12 options of granola.

But, the irony is that I’m standing there next to you trying to decide too. What does that say of me? Am I really moving on? What does this one act mean? The answer is no. I’m not moving on. I’m overthinking this shopping trip too much. My new normal is being shaped but not because I want it to but because the needs of my family are real. Meals have to happen. Diapers have to be changed. Clothes have to be washed and dried. But, they just seem so insignificant in light of pain. Everything hurts. Every movement, every decision, every prayer, every thought twist my gut with an ache that is strong and deep. I know it will get easier. Everyone keeps saying that. But, I almost don’t want it to get easier, I want it to not be real, to go “back to normal.” And, of course, I know that just isn’t going to happen. I will have to make a decision about the granola, find the new location for the bananas, switch the laundry and change that diaper. Normal has to happen but it doesn’t mean I have to forget. I have a loving and faithful God who will comfort me, give me strength and shower me with hope.  That is my prayer for today and all the days to come. I will need faith. I will need comfort. I will need strength. I will need hope.

I made it through my list. Slowly loaded up my van and drove home. I was stuck there, however. I sat in my car and cried. And cried some more. I waited 15 minutes before entering my house with all those groceries. I know many more days will be like that. Wading through the day attempting to do normal things until the grief is too much to bear and through tears, a little of the pain is released. And, then, with the help of God, I’ll do it again tomorrow until the fog is not so dense, the ache is not so deep and the memories of my dad bring joy with their remembrance.

Gone From My Sight

My father’s aunt, Hal, is 102. She is the oldest and only surviving sibling to my grandfather who we also called Daddoc. She just recently gave up her driver’s license. Each day she reads her Bible, prays aloud for the members of her family and continues to play hymns on her piano and sing praises to God. My dad would visit her often and looked up to her faith, generosity, and steadfastness. She lived alone for most of her life as her husband passed away many years ago and they never had any children. She would beg to differ though, and quickly explain to you that she was never alone. “God is here, sweet one. I’m not alone.” She told my dad that she prayed that God would one take “take her” just like he had taken Enoch in the Bible. Genesis 5:3 says that “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.” It was quick, painless, without fear or anxiety. And while this still may be a prayer God will answer for Hal, her time here on Earth is not through.

When my dad’s sisters went to tell Hal of my father’s death, she calmly tapped her Bible that was open from her morning devotional, shed some tears and said “he is in good hands.” I could not help but think that her prayer for her own death was answered in my father’s. My father did not want to die and he would have told her he wasn’t ready to die. But, I know like Enoch, that my father walked with God and was certainly prepared to spend eternity with God.  His exit from this Earth was immediate. His heart attack happened so fast that nothing was moved from the chair he sat in. No picture, no glass of water, no phone had even moved an inch. His head was only bent forward like he had fallen asleep. He didn’t know it was coming. He didn’t have any pain. He was taken away. For me, that brings peace and comfort.

One of my dad’s favorite verses that I found underlined in his Bible as I prepared his memorial service with my brother was from Ecclesiastes 3:11.  It said “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” I wasn’t always quite sure what it meant to have “eternity on my heart” or be thinking “heavenward, not earthly” but as I reflect on my dad’s life, I get a very clear picture of what that means. He lived life fully. Not in a reckless, thrill seeking, “what if this was your last day on earth” kind of way. No, it was a peaceful joy that exuded from his relationship with Christ. He understood the finality to our bodies, to our time here on Earth and went to sleep each night with the assurance that Heaven was real and being in the eternal presence of the Lord was better than anything we can imagine here. He believed 2 Corinthians 5:1 that said “For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” I continue to find peace from knowing the joy my father is experiencing in Heaven and grasp onto its realness for that peace.

Recently, an old friend sent me this poem. It helped me to understand the journey from this life to the next. …

Gone From My Sight


by Henry Van Dyke

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,

spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts

for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.

I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck

of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then, someone at my side says, "There, she is gone"

Gone where?

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast,

hull and spar as she was when she left my side.

And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me -- not in her.

And, just at the moment when someone says, "There, she is gone,"

there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices

ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"

And that is dying...