Look for the helpers

You know those days when you just count the hours until bedtime, until the day is “officially” over? They’re endless, those days. At least they sure seem that way. Yet, the thing to remember, to keep at the forefront of your mind is the truth: every day has just 24hrs. That’s it. Just 24hrs. That was my mantra Wednesday as my husband and I marked four years without our son, Matt’s siblings without their brother. It was a hard day.

We did our best, but honestly, I think we were just gritting our teeth and boring through. We had booked a night at a hotel and the kids enjoyed the pool and water slide. We missed having our usual close family friends along this year, and it pitched a different tone for the day. Though we had a plan, it just felt flat. I wish we had done more. We didn’t do any of Matt’s favorite activities and even neglected to buy his favorite drink, a Mocha Frappe. We didn’t throw eggs.

I wanted desperately to just lie in bed and cry the day away, but I felt obligated to redeem what I could from the day. Yet I failed miserably at appreciating the children in front of me because I ached for the one who wasn’t. While I didn’t lie in bed and weep, I also wasn’t present for the rest of my kids. I was crabby and short-tempered. I wasn’t kind in my speech, and I was far from redeeming anything of value from the day. I sucked at parenting Wednesday. I tried to short-circuit grief and force a façade of joy.

As a result, I learned a valuable lesson. You cannot short-circuit grief. At least, not without some pretty negative consequences. I had refused to go through my grief and, instead, believed I could ignore it. I declined to acknowledge it and, instead, threw up the “if we don’t talk about it, it’ll just go away” sign. Mmmm, hmmm. Worked like a charm. *NOT*  You cannot fake joy because genuine joy results in peace. And let me tell you, I didn’t have peace Wednesday.

But the awesome thing about mistakes is that God’s grace covers them all. God’s grace is abundant and excessive. It is altogether lavish. I stand in today covered in grace. I re-read my blog post from Wednesday and have pondered over Jennifer’s words. The admonishment to “look for the helpers” has fixed itself in my mind. As I scrolled through my Facebook notifications, I was humbled in gratitude, for I know who my helpers are. They are many. They are every individual who took the time to pray for us, to post, or to message a word of comfort. They are those who acknowledged that Wednesday was tough. They are the ones who recognize that our hearts still hurt after four years.

I am incredibly thankful for you people. You are my helpers. You are God’s grace in action. You are the aroma of His love. You are a source of comfort and joy. I thank God for you. I looked for you, and you were there. Thank you. Because of the helpers, I can see redemption. I know that today, too, holds 24hrs. 24hrs. in which we can throw eggs, buy a Mocha Frappe, or talk about Matt. We have today to remember the gift of Matt that we were given. We have today to remember the joy he brought while he was here. And we will endure, as Jesus did, because we, too, have the joy set before us.

4 years, and I am held.

Four years ago today my 16yo. son died. There was no warning. There was no answered prayer, no miracle. There was no goodbye. Instead, there was a knock on the door and two State Patrol cars in the driveway. There was a long ride to the hospital. There was the sound of my husband screaming, screaming what they call the "death cry." We were hit unexpectedly by a storm, an F5 tornado, a tsunami, a hurricane. Whatever you want to call it, it was a storm of massive proportion.

Four years later, we have sifted through the rubble and risen from the ashes. We have rebuilt from the ground up. And we still grieve. We still ache for our son. We still cry. But never have we ever walked alone. Never once has God left us. He was in the midst of the storm, and He is in this new life we were forced to build. He has been patient with me in this grief journey as I've struggled to sort through trust, anger, despair, fear, doubt, jealousy, joy, and faith. Grief seems like such an encapsulated experience, but peel away the lid and it's a hornets nest of emotions.

How I wish, still, that I could just erase July 29th from the calendar. How I wish this life didn't include it's "Job" moments. I wish God had a different plan. Oh, God, forgive me. I don't mean to sound like I know better than you because I don't. I just hurt. I miss my son. I don't understand this plan of yours. These "anniversary" dates are tough. They are painful. But pain serves a purpose. That I know. Pain compels us to cry out, to seek relief. And it's to whom we cry out that makes all the difference in our healing. It's where we turn for relief that determines how well we recover from the devastating storms in our lives. I cry out to You, Lord.

I thank you for the pain because without it I would not seek You. I would go about my life and believe I had no need of You. I thank You that You are in the midst of this. I thank you for who You are, Jehovah Jireh, the Lord who provides. You have given me much: strength when I had no strength, friends and family to walk beside us, and words of encouragement and wisdom when I need it most. I silently begged You for help today, and I wept when I read this morning's devotional from James MacDonald titled, "Even Though."

You keep reminding me, Lord, that the only way out is through. And yet not only that, You go with me. You carry me. You hold me. You also provide helpers for the journey, as my friend Jennifer writes about: When You're Going Through a Storm
You tell me, too, Father that joy is possible. Again, as I struggled today, desperately wanting to hear from You, I "stumbled" across this post: http://www.thebettermom.com/blog/2014/11/16/verse-need-taped-refrigerator  I had to smile, for You know that those two verses (..."for the joy set before Him" and 2 Cor. 4:17) have been my lifelines on these difficult days. I wanted a different "God-nod," but You gave me what I needed. You gave me truth. Thankful that I am held. By His hands. By His word.

Natalie Grant - Held

Two months is too little
They let him go
They had no sudden healing
To think that providence
Would take a child from his mother
While she prays, is appalling
Who told us we'd be rescued
What has changed and
Why should we be saved from nightmares
Were asking why this happens to us
Who have died to live, it's unfair
This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was that when everything fell
We'd be held
This hand is bitterness
We want to taste it and
Let the hatred numb our sorrows
The wise hand opens slowly
To lilies of the valley and tomorrow
This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was that when everything fell
We'd be held
If hope if born of suffering
If this is only the beginning
Can we not wait, for one hour
Watching for our savior
This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was that when everything fell
We'd be held

The hurting days

There are days that just hurt. Days in which I feel I just can't do this child loss thing one more day. Days that push me to the ground and make me fall to my knees. Days where I think if only there were a rhyme or reason to this messy, ugly grief. How I wish I could wash off my grief-bloodied hands on these days and wipe them clean, make them look like they did before. But before is gone. It will never be again. Before is the past. And I am left with now. Now is what I have been given.

I don't want to miss now. I want to embrace it, for I know how short this life is. I don't want to be so busy mourning what was that I miss what is. I know now, almost four years into this grief journey, that joy comes. It comes softly, quietly. It comes after each hard-fought choice to believe truth, the truth of God's word. It forms each step of the walk out of the valley of the shadow of death. I don't know where those steps lead, but I do know that with every breath of thanksgiving I have uttered the past almost four years, it has created a step out of the valley.

The hurting days are detours, my friend. Detours that, for whatever reason, bring us to a stop, slow us down, or simply reroute us. A detour is seldom welcomed, not always anticipated, and often misunderstood. But God knows. He sees, for He is the master planner. There is not a step we take that He doesn't see. He has a purpose even if we don't discern it. I'm convinced the detour of the hurting days is simply the opportunity God provides for us to come to Him, to step toward His open arms full of grace. The hurting days are an invitation to throw yourself at His feet when grief shoves you to the ground.

I'm never unamazed by the intimacy of God, how He knows me so well. He knows my struggle, my every cry, and every need. As the four year anniversary date of my son's death draws near, each successive day has felt just a bit more heavier. Yet, how reassuring He was through the words of my friend Jennifer this morning: What We Need to Know When Life Takes a Detour. I give thanks for God's presence, His very presence in the midst of the hurting days. For every step through the valley, He walks with me. I am thankful.

Who am I to say?

On Monday, our second oldest child attended her first day of post secondary classes at a local college. She is now a junior in high school. I can't even begin to describe the feelings I've had this week. Matt, our firstborn, never got to experience his junior year of high school. He "should" be starting his sophomore year of college.

It's only expected that the onset of fall would bring back-to-school (particularly, back-to-college) conversations to the forefront. Conversations I try to avoid because they seem to be as salt in a wound. However, I listen with, I hope, a sympathetic ear to a parent bemoan their legitimate pain of temporary separation from their young adult. Yet I wonder if they have forgotten that, while they take their son or daughter to the campus dorm, I am left to drive up the hill past the cemetery where we buried our son. 

I try to focus on what I have instead of what I don't have. I try to not think about the "what ifs" and the "if onlys." I try to just "suck it up" and deal with what is. But some days I just want to scream, "It's not fair! It's so not fair!" Some days I simply ache to go back, before Matt died, to the time when joy was pure, untainted and untouched by sorrow. A time when joy wasn't fused with grief.

Honestly, it's been a week of struggling against feeling sorry for myself, of biting my tongue from responding to those conversations with, "I'm happy for you. Truly I am. And I don't negate the pain you feel as your child leaves home. But I'm not the person you should be talking to." It's been a week of reminding myself of the blessings I've been given, to remain thankful for what I have, which is much. The struggle to remember that God's word says I am to "rejoice with those who rejoice." Indeed, they have also wept with me. (Rom.12:15)

The battle, ultimately, remains to be trusting God, believing what He has said in His word. When I entertain feelings of self-pity, jealousy, and bitterness, I have effectively decided that I know better than God. That my ways are higher than His. I am the clay saying to the potter, "What are you doing?" (Is.45:9) I have set myself up as God when I argue against what He has allowed and claim that He is not fair. I have taken my eyes off of the Light of the world. (John 8:12) I stopped looking to the Light this week and ended up seeing only the dark, the broken, and the lost.

But God? God sees into the dark. He sees into the broken places. He finds the lost, the doubting, the scared, the angry. And He speaks to them, to me. I prayed this morning to somehow get out of this "funk" I was in. And He heard me. I never fail to be amazed by God. That He should love a sinner, a whiner, and an ungrateful woman like me is amazing. It makes me love Him all the more. I am humbled and overwhelmed. Again, through the voice of His people, the LORD answered my prayer and spoke to my hurting heart. First, through Ann Voskamp's post and then through Jennifer Dukes Lee's post today.

I have worried this week about ever finding joy again, real joy, joy without grief attached. I have worried about how I'm ever going to make it another "x" number of years without my son. I've worried about whether I will lose any of my other children. But, honestly, I don't need to worry about it. Because Jennifer is right. When I worship God, worry is destroyed.

Hope in God

So, this battle's been going on in my head for several weeks (months?) now. My faith in God is sure and certain, but my confidence is not. I know, and firmly believe without a doubt, that God can and does heal. But. But sometimes He chooses not to. Like the man who sought out Jesus for healing of his demon-possessed son, I have said, "...But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”(Mark 9:22b) And therein lies my problem. But.

Because of that but, my prayers have been weak, a jumbled mess of supplication. I know God can heal, but I doubt He will. The result is prayers that are ineffective and confused, overshadowed by a fatalistic attitude. I didn't use to be this way, but after reading a book I picked up last week titled, A Grace Disguised, I was convicted. For several weeks, I knew God was speaking to me. He knew the battle raging in my head, the torrent of thoughts swirling constantly the past few months.

You see, He heals some people. He does. But not everyone. Some of us, instead, plan a funeral, pick out a casket, and design a headstone. People do die. Cemeteries are full of deceased bodies. All the faith in the world can't save a loved one if God decides otherwise. It's a battle of "God can" vs. "But will He?" This struggle lately made my hope scatter like dandelion fluff. But reading A Grace Disguised challenged me. Mr. Sittser reminded me that, though tragedy is not always one's choice, one's response to it is. We each have a choice about what we're going to do with our grief when faced with it. I have a choice about how I will live out my life as a bereaved mother. Will I allow my son's death to change me for the better or will I allow bitterness, despair, and cynicism to dominate the rest of my life?

What I realized through reading A Grace Disguised was that my problem wasn't a lack of faith. It was refusing to submit to God's sovereignty. I wasn't happy with God's decision, that Matt's life ended far, far too early than I (We) would have liked. I was caught up in the "now" of earth (and it's temporary losses) and had lost my hope of eternity.

Yet, the God of hope (Rom.15:13) is tenacious. He is faithful, never leaving us nor forsaking us. God has surely witnessed my struggle, heard my doubts, and patiently waited for me to come to Him with it all. His response was overwhelming to me. Every email devotion I opened, every web page I stumbled across, and every blog I read had the same message: Trust Me. Wait. Hope.

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Hold tight

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The simplest way to remember hope

How to remember God

Heaven is for real. So why don't we talk about it more?

I have grief and most likely always will. But. But I also have hope.

Faith in action

Matt's sister got her permit on Monday. Honestly, I'm having a hard time with it. I knew it was going to be difficult when it came time to doing some of the same things with Matt's sister that I did with him, but reality hit me harder than I had anticipated. First of all, being at the DMV again was painful. I couldn't help but remember being there with Matt, getting his permit and license.

Second, they have signs posted all over the walls containing driving and crash statistics. Obviously, I know these are good and necessary things, but knowing my16yo. child died in a car accident, I really don't want to think about the fact that getting in a crash at 60mph is the same as falling from a 25 story building. (Just one of the signs posted.) My son, who was wearing a seat belt, was thrown from the vehicle at 55mph. Really, I don't need to go there again by reading signs at the DMV. Needless to say, I had a difficult time while waiting for his sister to finish her test.

Lastly, the joy, excitement, and proud mama moment that I should have for her getting her permit doesn't exist. And that makes me angry. Grief steals so much more than your loved one. I know, too, that his sister doesn't have the same level of excitement, either, in getting her permit that her peers had in getting theirs. It sucks. It really, really sucks.

It is in these circumstances that my faith is urged into action. I vacillate frequently between faith and fear. I cannot, however, allow fear to rule my decisions. Fear cannot be the motivating force behind them; faith must be. Faith is not stagnant. It cannot be. At some point, action is required.  The saying, "Put your money where your mouth is" holds true for faith, as well. The incredible thing is this: God's got us. He knows our fears. He knows our weaknesses. He knows that our faith is tried. How I needed this reminder from Jennifer Dukes Lee that God's got it, not just this week, but every day, for every thing.