Friday's Faith - Contact, by Faith ~ Reaching Beyond the Veil

Those who are near me do not know that you are nearer to me than they are

Those who speak to me do not know that my heart is full with your unspoken words

Those who crowd in my path do not know that I am walking alone with you

They who love me do not know that their love brings you to my heart.

~Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941),

{1913 Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature}

*****

Friday's Faith

Contact, by Faith ~ Reaching Beyond the Veil

As a preface to today's post, I am re-posting a poem I had written a couple of weeks ago.

After I re-read this poem this week during my quiet time before God, I began to be stirred up, feeling the desperate angst in missing her...

Never Letting Go...

Holding a hand, you never want to let go,

But bodies die, and they must go.

But what I have learned with my child's death

Is that Life doesn't end with her last breath...

Though she had to leave, and my heart has a hole,

She comes back, for there's still Life in her soul!

And to my Baby Girl, I say...

Though I held your hand, there were no guarantees,

And though I held you near, I couldn't chain your soul,

Though I kissed you and said, "I don't want you to go!"

Kisses aren't contracts, so I had to let go...

And though your life was taken two days later,

God didn't lose~He didn't let your soul die!

So you still come by

every now and then to visit me

And then I hear you say so familiarly...

"Don't worry Mommy...Always and forever, I'll see ya later, Alligator!"

So I choke back my tears and say,

"After awhile Crocodile..."

And then my heart warms as I see you smile.

*****

As I read my poem again, I began crying anew at the emptiness of not having her here. I was missing her so badly...indeed, missing her desperately...

So after writing "Beauty Amidst Death?" this past weekend (I posted this on Monday's Mourning Ministry this past Monday), my poem about the thin veil that separates Heaven and earth, in which I wrote out this prayer to God:

God give me eyes that I might see

My baby girl awaits for me...

As the flowers show forth beauty...

So her face ev'r glows before Thee!

by faith, I then cried out to God,

"God, it really is a thin veil, so I want to just reach my arms out (by faith), reaching beyond that invisible veil to hug her!"

And so I did...

I am weeping still even as I write this.

I left enough space in my arms-encircled to contain her.

I held her; she caressed me.

I imagined as I hugged her, she is enjoying this hug too.

I know I did.

It touched a part of my heart that has been in deep pain, so lonely for her, for her presence in my world.

She patted me on the back to comfort me while she held me.

She was happy, at peace, with nothing marring her peace ~

and I was crying...

to the point of having grief spasms

– paroxysms I think they call it –

because it has been too long.

...Too long between hugs.

(I have hugged my teddy bear as if it were her, yes, but this, reaching beyond the veil, was a hug directly to her.)

And it has been too long.

But yes, this was sweet ~ my heart and soul are deeply touched and comforted.

My God is sweet to allow this grieving mommy some precious "contact, by faith" with my baby girl.

And it is sweet to hold her,

and sense her peace,

and sense how all the sin (she once had) has fallen off of her...

It's like I have my baby back in ways I never could have had here on earth with her!

Nor can I even have such closeness with my boys, my precious sons, in this intense, extremely intimate way as the sins on each of us act as a dividing wall of sorts to our intimacy, whereas her sins, having fallen off her in Heaven, have no such effect of division from me, no distancing from me!

*****

I remember – early on in his grief over his baby sister – my son Nathan shared with me his dream he had one night, of holding his sister tight for a long, long time.

He said that in his dream, it was like communing "soul to soul" with her ~ their souls were so deeply bonded to one another through this hug in a way completely impossible here on earth.

How precious.

How sweet.

And yet, so painful.

*****

This "soul-bonding" was similar to what I felt in my "hug" with her tonight. The love was sweet; the love was intense, so intense I could not hug for long. Indeed, I did not need to hug for long! The intimacy was immediate and it was strong.

Maybe this new kind of "connection" is what is to be a "normal" part of my "new normal"!

I hope so. For now, I will thank God for the connection, the sweetness, the comfort!

P.S. As I observed to Merry Katherine in the "Beauty Amidst Death?" poem on Tuesday,

While we live here, we see dimly.

Your life thrives on the other Shore,

Separated by a veil thinly,

Whisp'ring, "Mommy, I love you more!"

I wonder if this concept of "no sin clinging to her" is what allows her to feel so deeply... deeply enough to say,

"Mommy, I love you more!"

Like this week's Monday's Mourning Ministry post's song, "Whispering Hope" says in its final verse,

"Hope, as an anchor so steadfast,

Rends the dark veil for the soul,

Whither the Master has entered,

Robbing the grave of its goal!

"...Whispering hope, oh, how welcome thy voice,

Making my heart in its sorrow rejoice!"

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen...

~Hebrews 11:1 KJ21

“Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all you who hope in the Lord.”

~Psalm 31:24 NKJV

“Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

~Romans 5:5 NKJV

"By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with Him, make us fit for Him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus.

And that's not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that He has already thrown open His door to us.

We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.

3-5 There's more to come:

We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles,

because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us,

and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue,

keeping us alert for whatever God will do next.

In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left feeling shortchanged.

Quite the contrary—we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!"

~Romans 5:1-5 The Message

Or in the words of Today's Living Bible, Romans 5:5 reads,

"And patience develops strength of character in us and helps us trust God more each time we use it until finally our hope and faith are strong and steady."

~Romans 5:5 TLB

*****

The hand held before the eye

As the hand held before the eye conceals the greatest mountain, so the little earthly life hides from the glance the enormous lights and mysteries of which the earth is full, and he who can draw it away from before his eyes, as one draws away a hand, beholds the great shining of the inner worlds.

~Rabbi Nachman (1772-1810) of Breslov, Ukraine

*****

Hope is grief’s best music.

~Author Unknown

Poem - Never Letting Go... - Angie Bennett Prince - 8/23/10

Poem - Contact, by Faith ~ Reaching Beyond the Veil - Angie Bennett Prince - 9/6/10

Tagore - http://www.consolatio.com/2005/01/those_who_are_n.html

KJ21 - The 21st Century King James Version of the Holy Bible

NKJV - New King James Version of the Holy Bible

TLB - Today's Living Bible

Rabbi Nachmann - quoted [as Rabbi Nachman of Bratislava] by Erich Neumann, in Art and the Creative Unconscious(1959), (p. 106); his citation is from Martin Buber, Die chassidischen Bücher, p.

32 http://www.consolatio.com/2005/05/the_hand_held_b.html

Grief's best music Quote - http://lynnmosher.blogspot.com/2010/09/hope.html