Tuesday's Trust Each Day...Pain, Midst Child-Loss Grief

Tuesday's Trust

Each Day...Pain, Midst Child-Loss Grief

Last night as I was getting into bed (much later than Tommy unfortunately), I looked on my pillow and saw where there on top of my pillow, Tommy had propped up my large Valentine Bear Nathan (my younger son) had given me, and my little Christmas bear Tommy had given me he had propped up to be "sitting" in Valentine bear's lap, in front of which Tommy had opened up and propped my small version of Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest, as if Big Bear was reading bedtime devotions to Little Bear! I cracked up! (Isn't it nice when we grievers can get a good laugh?! ) Good feelings are greatly prized when we have so many sad feelings! Thank the Dear Lord for my funny husband, always coming up with new ways to bring me a smile! :0)

Unbeknownst to him, the devotional book had been opened up to August 2nd (Merry Katherine's death date), so I picked it up and read it. This invaluable message was what I found which prompted me to write the poem which follows:

In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

~John 16:33

An average view of the Christian life is that it means deliverance from trouble...

It is deliverance IN trouble, which is very different. The strain is the strength. If there is no strain, there is no strength. Are you asking God to give you life and liberty and joy? He cannot, unless you accept the strain. Immediately you face the strain, you will get the strength. Overcome your timidity and take the step, and God will give you to eat of the tree of life and you will get nourishment.

God never gives strength for tomorrow, or for the next hour, but only for the strain of the minute.

The temptation is to face difficulties from a common-sense standpoint. The saint is hilarious when he is crushed with difficulties because the thing is so ludicrously impossible to anyone but God.

~August 2, My Utmost for His Highest, ~by Oswald Chambers

Each Day...Pain, Midst Child-Loss Grief

Each day my heart lifts a load of weight it cannot bear.

It has no strength to do it for it was never there.

My heart was light and happy; I had no single care...

Now I carry a cross when my heart has been stripped bare?!

Each day when I awake, Pain goes with me through my day.

I gravitate to find things that soothe my Pain away.

Indeed I do find comfort; the Pain is held at bay.

But peek inside my heart, you'll see ~ Pain is here to stay.

I look to my Savior and ask Him for some relief...

He says,

"My child, I've called you to bear Love's cross of grief.

My Kingdom's not of this world; in Heav'n you'll find reprieve,

But as you draw close to Me, your burdens I'll relieve.

"Do not expect your way to be free of death's stark thorns,

But know that I walk closely to any child who mourns.

"Your baby is in Heaven; in that you can rejoice!

But cry your sadness to Me; I'll ever hear your voice."

But Lord, I cannot function for grieving my child's death!

"Child, I too carried deepest grief to My dying breath...

"Yes, My child, the road to the cross is jagged and steep,

But when you see the Lord your God, you'll jump for joy, leap!"

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

~Matthew 5:4

Images:

http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-5924742-teddy-bear-hug-isolated-on-white.php

http://media.photobucket.com/image/teddy%20bears/jmomoa/Teddy%20Bears/6.jpg?o=95/

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-friendship-2-teddy-bears-holding-in-one-s-arm-image12925132

http://www.webweaver.nu/clipart/teddy-bears.shtml

Devotional from: My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers

Poem - Each Day...Pain, Midst Child-Loss Grief - Angie Bennett Prince - 8/16/10

Friday's Faith - Is there a “Cure” for Grief?

Friday's Faith

Is there a “Cure” for Grief?

A man whose wife of 35 years died 12 months ago does not suddenly walk out his front door today and say, “Okay, I’ve resolved that issue.” Parents whose 4-year-old daughter drowned in a swimming pool do not announce five years later, “We’ve accepted our daughter’s death. It’s okay.” Three weeks after the best friend of a 14-year-old is shot and killed at her high school, the teenager is not likely to say, “I’m healing.” Yet, while a growing number of researchers on loss and bereavement question the use of such words as “acceptance,” “healing,” “recovery,” and “closure,” the media continue to use them. This gives the public the false impression that, despite the tragic proportions of the story being told, the grief will soon be over.

~Robert Baugher

As I told my client this week, going through grief is not exactly "recovery," "closure, "healing," or "cure." But grief does need to be processed; it is very tedious; it is very painful, and along the way, there IS "comfort." That's it! Not cure, not closure, but comfort. And the very slow processing of feelings, memories, sorting through questions of faith, does result in a weaving together of our life that includes new realities we never asked for, but they are ours with which to cope.

It is like I mentioned to Tommy tonight, when God was giving Jesus the cup that He was to drink that included His own death, and Jesus accepted it after much agony and distress (sweating drops of blood), nobody for a minute thought He should be "happy" about walking into such a forboding loss. Yet, do people around us expect us to pop out of our grief, pop out of our loss and celebrate holidays, and celebrate life with them? Yes, they do. But that is unrealistic if not downright mean.

We are "in touch with our emotions" which is healthy. We are not playing pretend. Our lives have been torn from the inside out. We look a lot like victims of many other of life's storms- in shock, sad, dismayed, questioning who we are now, where we are to live, what do we want to do with our lives, what is really important, and do I really want to take the valuable time out of life to celebrate magical holidays that are man-made and do nothing for me spiritually?

We now have a new appreciation for numbering our days on this earth and doing what's most important versus the urgent, the expected, the ritualistic, the commercialized, the programmed. No, we want real. We want God. We want spiritual growth, not playing pretend. But we still may not be very happy.

Jesus modeled many times how to grieve by how He lived His life in many grievous situations. He struggled against evil, wept over the death of loved ones, and wrestled with God over the prospect of His own death. Though our struggles differ, like Jesus we struggle with our own cup that has been handed to us.

Jesus struggled intensely at the Garden of Gethsemane with the cup God was asking Him to bear while we struggle intensely in a more prolonged, rest-of-our-life-kind-of-way of facing the cup we are asked to bear. Even as Jesus questioned and pleaded with His Father, so too we beg and are still begging, "Is there not any other way than this? If possible, let this cup pass from me! May each of us, like Jesus, even as we die inside, ultimately say to our God, "Nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done." After such distressing struggle against evil and death, the Bible does not indicate that Jesus left the Garden-of-Great-Struggle with a peachy-keen grin on His face. So too, neither will we.

Robert Baugher's full article about the length of grief and how our society (via the media) measures grief:

http://opentohope.com/grief-and-the-holidays/how-long-according-to-the-media-should-grief-last/