Friday's Faith - God's Tender Garden - Tend Us In Our Child-Loss Grief

Friday's Faith

God's Tender Garden:

Tend Us In Our Child-Loss Grief

Spring is coming! It's here Lord:

Pink and white dogwoods all abloom...

Help us fellowship in accord,

Hearts e'er weeded ~ Make the Savior room!

Come and blossom in our hearts;

May Your love blossom through and through.

When sin's conflict in our heart e'er starts,

Rip it out Lord ~ Keep our roots in You!

And should pests penetrate the bud,

Give discernment to rid them there.

In tender hearts, may Your love e'er flood;

Fill our world with Your fragrant care.

Purple clematis, pink azalea

Suckle from their shaded roots;

We too Lord must e'er avail You ~

Sustenance for all Your tender shoots.

We too walk the Shaded Valley,

The sun blocked out by death's cruel blow.

Then come quickly Lord, please don't tarry;

Your Son soon will set our hearts aglow!

Picture thanks to FotoSearch.com

Poem - God's Tender Garden - Angie Bennett Prince - 4/14/11

Tuesday's Trust - Can We Trust...Things Will Get Better?

A silent hug means a thousands words to the unhappy heart.

Tuesday's Trust

Can We Trust...Things Will Get Better?

The death of a child shakes our trust in the world at the most primal level.

We know the world is full of disorder and catastrophe but, for the most part, we count on things happening reliably in our daily lives. Then, that which is so integral to our lives that it seems almost our reason for being, is taken away, gone.

Our whole sense of ourselves is so disoriented and confused, the organizing patterns of our lives will not work anymore. Is it any wonder we “can’t believe it”?

~Matha Whitmore Hickman

***

Over the months and years we will learn to say it more calmly. Yet each time we say it—and we must, it is a part of our learning our own terrible truth—the heart will jump, the stomach contract, the tempo of the body will shift in acknowledgment: I had a child who died.

But there is little to help us. It is not expected in our culture that children will die. Children grow up and become adults and perhaps marry and have children of their own, and they come home for Christmas, and they call us on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. We get together and watch their children and reminisce how it was when they were small and we were younger. We pass on to them not only our genes—our blue eyes and the shape of our fee—but our ancestral pictures, our family recipes, our holiday customs, and when we are old and frail they will come to see us and love us. And we will leave them. They won’t leave us.

And then it is over. It is not going to happen. We are in a shambles, wounded by the event of their death.

With an ache that is physical and encompassing, we miss their presence now. And that space which in our fantasy they were to have filled until the end of our life is empty, and will be, until the end of our life. There will be others we love—other children, other smiles and tilts of head, other voices, but not theirs.

And we wonder, how could so small a complex of blood and tissue, nerve and bone and love contain so much of our heart’s lode?

~Matha Whitmore Hickman

***

It is an affront. It is a reversal of nature. It is terror. It is panic. It will break our heart. And for a while we think maybe that will happen. We, too, will die and be spared. We will flee away. And it will be over.

But life does not treat us like that. Nor, except in our worst moments, is that what we want.

We do want life… But how?

~Matha Whitmore Hickman

***

With what a deep devotedness of woe

I wept thy absence - o'er and o'er again

Thinking of thee, still thee, till thought grew pain,

And memory, like a drop that, night and day,

Falls cold and ceaseless, wore my heart away!

~Thomas Moore

And yet...

Good-night! good-night! as we so oft have said

Beneath this roof at midnight, in the days

That are no more, and shall no more return.

Thou hast but taken up thy lamp and gone to bed;

I stay a little longer, as one stays

To cover up the embers that still burn.

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

***

He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man.

~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

***

Life is eternal, and love is immortal,

and death is only a horizon;

and

a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.

~Rossiter Worthington Raymond

***

Love is missing someone whenever you're apart, but somehow feeling warm inside because you're close in heart.

~Kay Knudsen

Picture: http://twitpic.com/15xdu1

~Matha Whitmore Hickmanm, I Will Not Leave You Desolate

Tuesday's Trust - Trust Him in the Darkness

The people in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.

Tuesday's Trust

Trust Him in the Darkness

These past few days, we both have hit tilt...at the same time...wrenching pain and tears...missing our baby girl... Things began to look very stark, wondering when-if-ever we will begin to "move forward" with our lives. God is showing me that is not mine to know...I must focus on Him in the here-and-now, and He will take care of the rest. He is showing me I must not serve Him with a reserve...(What about this? What about that?)

Oswald Chambers describes it well...essentially, I am not "to proclaim the Gospel merely," but to "become broken bread and poured out wine in the hands of Jesus Christ for other lives."

And I am sure that is not always a pretty sight...in the world's eyes (or mine) anyway...

So, today I wrote myself a poem, to remind me, No Matter What, I can trust God ~ He will meet me in whatever circumstances, and I can rest in Him...and trust...

And tonight, I wanted to share my poem with you.

Trust Him in the Darkness

Trust Him in the darkness,

He is made of light;

Even in grief's starkness,

He can light death's night.

Trust Him in the shadows,

Things that make you fear;

He can e'en combat those

By His drawing near.

Trust Him in life's leanness,

For there you, He'll meet;

Even midst your weakness,

He makes life complete.

Trust Him in the dark days

When your world seems bleak;

He promises always,

He will help the weak.

Trust Him midst keening cries

When your heart is torn;

He refutes Satan's lies:

"Blessed are those who mourn!"

For God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made His light shine in our hearts...

~ 2 Corinthians 4:6

"...The people in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned."

~ Matthew 4:14-16, (Isaiah 9:1-2) Jesus (came)...to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah

Shout for joy, O heavens; rejoice, O earth; burst into song, O mountains!

For the Lord comforts His people and will have compassion on His afflicted ones.

~ Isaiah 49:13

In all their distress He too was distressed,

and the angel of His presence saved them.

In His love and mercy He redeemed them;

He lifted them up and carried them...

~ Isaiah 63:9

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

Matthew 5:4 (Jesus speaking)

Poem - Trust Him in the Darkness - Angie Bennett Prince - 3/9/2010

My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers, page 56

Scripture passages in New International Version

Wednesday's Woe - Terrorized

Wednesday's Woe

Terrorized

I dreamed I fell into a trap door--into subterranean terrors.

~Hoyt Hickman

Last night, I was talking to Tommy about a detail of Merry Katherine's death. This detail had been described to me by phone about six months after the crash by the Assistant Chief of Police of Fort Payne, Alabama. The Assistant Chief had helped to handle the horrific crash site the night Merry Katherine was killed. I could have sworn I had told Tommy all the details I had learned, but the mind can only absorb so much...

As soon as I said the words last night, I saw Tommy's face crash in upon itself. Stunned, I realized he did not know this particular fact that had so many painful implications.

I said, "You didn't know this, did you?"

He nodded his head in acknowledgement even as the tears pooled in his eyes.

I said, "I'm sorry."

Almost 3 1/2 years later, and a new discovery of one of the horrific details of our baby's death is made. We have said many times over the months and years since her death, and we said it again last night,

"We are still being terrorized..."

Death is a horrible thing. To have it happen to your cherished baby girl whom you've spent her whole life hovering over, nurturing, and protecting is absolutely one of the most devastating terrors a person can feel.

Now, 3 1/2 years later, we continue to say,

We are still being

Terrorized...

photo: http://www.fotosearch.com/photos-images/terror.html

Quote from Healing After Loss: Daily Meditations for Working Through Grief by Martha Whitmore Hickman.