Sunday's Sorrow - The Weeping of a Child-Loss Soul

Sunday's Sorrow

The Weeping of a Child-Loss Soul

Does lead transmute to gold? 

With God's help, can this grieving heart be made whole?

When my child died,

I was left with a broken heart

How could I abide

Such heinous news

That from this earthly life, she forever would depart?

It defies all this mother stands for, and all my heart imbues.

The hail of death fell

Upon my body, heart, soul, and spirit

No comfort could quell

This mother's broken spirit.

My heart split into a million pieces

As from this mother's hell

I'd never be granted any releases;

Over the months and years, deeper into despair's pit I fell...

Even the Bible had laid out 

what I had in store:

This is what the LORD says,

"A voice is heard in Ramah, 

mourning and great weeping, 

Rachel weeping for her children 

and refusing to be comforted, 

because they are no more."

Into a megaphone, to me, Death's demons would roar, 

"Where was your God in Heaven

when hell's wrath upon your child did pour?"

My God whose heart toward me ever had been full of love

Seemed to have abandoned His throne from His own Heaven above

For the God of love I knew,

From death, my child, surely would rescue!

It seemed every promise in His word I had ever read

Would surely not have left my helpless child dead!

Now my soul was hurling into an ever sure demise

As I would feel no release coming from Heaven's skies.

I remembered God's whole earth had been struck dark

When His own Son from it's torturous shores would depart.

How ever would I find any relief this side of Heaven

As for this mother's grief there seemed to be no relieving leaven? 

How did my Heavenly Father from Death's destruction recover

As He watched through earth's darkness as His own Child's breath was smothered?

Why did He not destroy all of His created earth

At such infamous culmination of His own Holy Child's birth?

Despite His untold agony as He looked down from Glory

Surely our God survived by knowing the Rest of the Story...

That His Own Son would leave earth's shores to rejoin with Him in Glory…!

Perhaps therein I'll find the Grace I daily ever will need

To begin to quell this broken heart from its constant grievous bleed… 

Surely when the Golden Grace of God imparts into a shattered human heart

There is a glorious transmutation that occurs to quicken His own Life into my broken heart

To help a mother on this earth her own child's death to survive…

Even as man transmutes gold from lead,

Our God quickens my child's life so that her Spirit now survives 

Even though she too, like God's own Son, once was deemed dead,

Through God's Glorious Grace, she now  has been made Alive!

By God's Grace, while still on this earth, this mother's broken heart survives…

And I too someday will live again and see that my child thrives!

God heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

~Psalm 147:3

Poem - The Weeping of a Child-Loss Soul - Angie Bennett Prince - January 4, 2015

Scripture quoted in poem:

New International Version
"A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more."
~Matthew 2:18 NIV

New International Version
This is what the LORD says: "A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more."
~Jeremiah 31:15 NIV





1st Graphic:

~Artwork by Mark Lawrence based on Psalm 147:3:
http://www.framedcanvasart.com/product/brokenhearted-psalm-14732.html 

Also found at bing.com:

 http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=psalm+147%3A3+graphics&go=Submit&qs=bs&form=QBIR#view=detail&id=33967045EC5D1C99F71A1D64D8F602D4A906912D&selectedIndex=64



2nd Graphic:

Artwork by Karen Holland based on Psalm 147:3

Found on khollandsblog.wordpress.com

Karen Hempel 

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds curing their pains and their sorrows. Psalm 147:3

Found on

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/523262050427436921/

Tuesday's Trust ~ Tender Blues

Tuesday's Trust

Tender Blues

   

Out of the depths of the blue, blue grief

Rises my lovely baby girl,

Seeing her smile brings sweet relief

Lifting my burden-filled world.

How to compute the happiness There

And commute it down to this earth?

How to not fixate on her death

Rather, to celebrate her birth?

Out of the depths of the blue, blue grief

Where her loss has become my cross,

How do I stand against the devilish thief

With his crushing albatross?

How do I live amidst death's curse

Though my Lord conquered hers with His,

Yet the view from this earth still glowers worse

When my grief and my sorrow hits.

I cry out my grief in my Savior's arms

He receives me with His tenderness

My passionate feelings rouse no alarms

That His abounding Love would need to redress.

My Savior Himself knows all grief feels grim

So He holds me close to His heart

After all, the Love for my child was giv'n by Him

So tenderly right from the start.

His love toward me, so kind, so sweet

Amidst such deep pain in this mommy's heart

Serves as a catalyst as I weep

To soothe the wounds as I fall apart.

Out of the depths of my blue, blue grief,

My Savior faithfully comes to bring me relief.

Our tears borne from love are no threat to our LORD

He blesses them with comfort, His Love's reward.

He healeth the broken in heart,

and bindeth up their wounds.

Psalm 147:3

Poem ~ Tender Blues ~ Angie Bennett Prince ~ April 22, 2014

Top picture, lotus: Thanks to

~inspiring art  Kiki Breet  on Pinterest

Bottom picture with Scripture: Thanks to 

~Isabelle Efstathiou, Facebook

Tuesday's Trust - by His grace...

Tuesday's Trust 

by His grace...

  

"But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me." 

~2 Corinthians 12:9

~~~

by His grace...

We cannot climb into another's pain

Nor imagine their distraught

That consumed their heart to make them wane

And leave them so overwrought,

But we can climb into God's arms

To ask Him ever to hold

Our dearly beloved safe in His arms

And into His heart, to closely enfold.

We cannot know the ways of God,

Of how He holds the fragile sparrow,

Or how He holds our little ones

Who may fall upon His road so narrow...

But we can know that His great love

Overcomes all our weaknesses and fears

And takes us safely to Him above,

Who lovingly awaits to wipe away our tears. 

Such tender hearts belong to Him;

He guards them all the way,

Even, and especially, when days grow dim,

When they can't see the light to find their way,

For He alone created the miracle that brought them here

To grace this earth and be with us awhile;

So too, He alone could return them Home

To restore their souls, and return the gleams unto their smile.

So He alone can come alongside

Us grieving dads and mothers

Who long for our children through this long while

For despite the pain and the angst that still smothers,

He sends His comfort and soothes our hearts,

While our little ones from our sides are briefly torn away…

Restoring the Hope for when we nevermore will part,

On that blissful, Eternal, Life-giving Day.

Thank You dear Lord for Your Life-giving Grace;

May it ever spur us on, as it did our child, 

As You work in each of our hearts with Your mercy mild,

As we, too, falteringly flail on, until we too finish our race,

And then, by Love's great mercy, we'll see You face to face!

~~~

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.…

~Hebrews 12:1-2 (New American Standard)

~~~

Dedicated to Merry Katherine and all our deceased children, and to Andrew, a friend of Merry Katherine's, a beautiful, bright, and caring young man, captain of his State-Championship high-school soccer team, one-year younger than Merry Katherine, who died just 2 weeks after Merry Katherine had been killed… 

Andrew, along with his brother, had just sent us a sweet note of condolence just a few days after Merry Katherine's death. May God be with precious Andrew's mother and daddy and two brothers who are left behind in their great grief… 

Thank You God that Merry Katherine and Andrew, and so many others of our children just like them, because of Your great love for them, have all been safely escorted Home where we all may meet again.

Poem - by His grace… ~Angie Bennett Prince - August 19, 2013

Friday's Faith - Grief's Well, Death's Hell, Overcome…

Friday's Faith

Grief's Well, Death's Hell, Overcome…

We have been thrown into a new land…

A land of tears, a land of pain; we weep.

Its boundaries, across the wide world span

While, it seems, the rest of the world may sleep.

Picture, thanks to ~From Grief to Greatness

When our child has died, it seems we die too

While others live on a shallower plane,

Our hearts spiral into the depths of blue,

While they despair: "Why won't your deep grief wane?!"

Picture, thanks to ~Journey of the Survivor (From Grief to Survival)

Yes, our hearts seem to plummet hell's depths:

The horror, the anguish, the depths of sorrow, and yet…

These fires are cleansing somehow, making clear

What is important in life, and drawing our child near…

Picture, thanks to ~ http://www.thetablet.co.uk/article/162761

As our God delivered His Son from the pit of hell,

So too, He can deliver us from the heart of Grief's well,

Drawing us to His heart, as only He knows this deepest sorrow,

He is the One who brings Light, giving us Hope for the morrow.

Picture, thanks to ~Grieving Mother Pat Dattoli Wentworth

~ Poem - Grief's Well, Death's Hell, Overcome… - Angie Bennett Prince - February 26, 2013

Title Picture, thanks to ~Grief the Unspoken

Wednesday's Woe - You Can Sometimes Forget How Much Pain You Carry...

Wednesday's Woe

You Can Sometimes Forget How Much Pain You Carry...

A business call made,

I talked to a Child-Loss father today.

It seems we speak the same language…

Just a few words transpired:

"There's not a day goes by I don't think of Adam."

The words infiltrate the grief bubble I live daily.

His pain immediately resonates with my pain:

This pain, hidden from the world,

But so readily discerned by another

Who lives the same pain---he with his son, me my baby girl.

He instantly knows my heart

Even as I know his

Despite few words said

…this transparent language of a parent whose child is dead.

Just a few words conjure up 

A whole decimating reality.

I get off the phone, 

Business call shut down,

Grief spout turns on;

The tears fall down

As my heart plummets to the ground.

Now bottomed out,

I get the kleenex out…

Defenses crumble;

Engines rumble…

The power of words

That expose the grieving heart

Are like a heat-seeking missile

That instantly rips me apart.

~~~~

Pictures - thanks to ~Out of the Ashes, and ~Jill Compton
Poem - You Can Sometimes Forget How Much Pain You Carry - Angie Bennett Prince - 12/30/2012

Wednesday's Woe - Caught in the Paradox of Worlds Between Life and Death

Wednesday's Woe

Caught in the Paradox of Worlds 

Between 

Life and Death

One glance in the mirror:

In my eyes I see

A woman who is bearing on her shoulder

The weight of the world, its tragedy...

(How can this be?

From one who has just sipped her tea

By the side of her true love,

Watching the beauty of God's world

Stretched out before me~

From white-breasted sparrow to black-capped chicadee

To house finches all around the feeder unfurled

While cardinals perch, looking out on their world:

All God's handiwork captured

In these frailest of creatures,

Frailer even than this daughter-less mother

Who from her troubles wants to run for cover...

Can I not see God's light shone in these

Frailest of creatures...yet noblest in ways

To exemplify the Creator's noblesse oblige:

"The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil."*

Why do these visions of "grandeur" pale out

So quickly with one walk inside

Upon seeing my unknowing, but revealing pout

That unmasks this grieving mother's apparent need to hide?

Perhaps like Eliot, I could remember,

"The wounded surgeon plies the steel

That questions the distempered part;

Beneath the bleeding hands we feel

The sharp compassion of the healer's art."**)

May God touch my wounds

As He once touched Christ's tomb,

Bringing life to the dead,

Yielding His light despite Death's darkest tread,

Resurrecting my heart

With "the sharp compassion of the Healer's art,"

To restore my childlike wonder

Despite the ravages of Death's lightning and thunder

That threaten daily to take me under...

Like the prodigal's father, may He run to meet me,

Overriding my pleading words

Full of the frailty of the helpless birds,

Showering me with a Father's grace

Shown by the love that lights up His face,

Melting the hardness that's crept within,

Restoring the softness of the pardoned sin,

(Despite the Serpent's ever sly coil)

Once again charging my world "with the grandeur of God,"

Flaming out Death "like the shining of shook foil."

Amidst the ravages of Death's daily devastation,

O Lord, restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation!

~~~

"Restore to me the joy of Your salvation

and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me."

~Psalm 51:12 NIV

*Gerard Manley Hopkins

**T. S. Eliot

Poem - Caught in the Paradox of Worlds Between Life and Death - Angie Bennett Prince - June 5, 2012

Tuesday's Trust - We are Weak but He is Strong…

Tuesday's Trust

We are Weak but He is Strong…

10/10/2011

31 years ago today, my mother and father lost their oldest child: my brother Buddy lost his life to cancer on 10-10-1980 at the age of 38. My parents, (like I as of 8/2/2006), had to learn to live with the death of their child for the rest of their earthly existence…

Trauma throws us to the ground, some to ground zero. With Child-loss, most of us feel we are thrown below ground zero. It takes years to rebuild, restore, regroup, just to get up to ground zero!

Meanwhile in such a weakened state, can we believe the words of the little song most of us were taught in church as wee children?

Jesus loves me, this I know,

For the Bible tells me so.

Little ones to Him belong,

They are weak, but He is strong!

Yes, Jesus loves me!

Yes, Jesus loves me!

Yes, Jesus loves me,

For the Bible tells me so!

I write this poem as I process my cries before the Lord tonight:

In my weakness, Thou art strong;

Hold me Jesus in Your arms!

Protect me from the mean and wrong;

Soothe me now midst Satan's harms.

Child-Loss is the worst of crimes ~

Seeing evil befall our child

Renders us to our weakest times,

Seeing our little one defiled…

Amidst such evil, help us know,

You were there, quick to rescue!

Though evil befell, You loved so,

You drew our little one up to You.

We're left behind, raw and weak,

But You come along beside;

To our tender souls You speak

As we are Your wounded bride.

Thank You our child is in Your arms

Rescued from vile enemy;

Carry us now in those same arms,

Safe in You for all eternity.

Soothed by You, we rest in Thee.

Picture: http://picturesofjesus4you.com/gallery1drawings.html

Poem - In My Weakness, Thou Art Strong! - Angie Bennett Prince - 10/10/2011

Tuesday's Trust - Empty - A Grieving Father's Poem

Tuesday's Trust

Empty

A Grieving Father's Poem

Empty

Empty faces in empty cars

I stop at the light and stare at their scars

Empty heart and empty soul

Used to know my way but I lost my role

Empty buildings on crowded streets

An empty bed as I pull up my sheets

Empty house that's not a home

Should I sell it now and learn how to roam

Empty children with blood shot eyes

My nights are empty as I sit and cry

Empty visions in my empty mind

Since I found him dead life's been so unkind

Empty hopes followed by dead dreams

Try to go to sleep but I'm wakened by my screams

Empty promises given in vain

A chump to the hustle so now I live in pain

Empty future with little hope I see

I pray to you Jesus please touch your Hand to me.

written 10/02/2011 by: Thomas Patrick Calvert

Picture - http://www.webstockpro.com/Stock-Photos-water+pump/

Poem by Tom Calvert, in memory of his son David (lovingly "lifted" from TCF, Atlanta)