Wednesday's Woe - How Could We Have Been So Wrong?

Wednesday's Woe

How Could We Have Been So Wrong?


~Tommy and Angie Prince

Grieving mother, "Mama Pundit" (whose picture I used in Tuesday's post) wrote a book about raising a child with attachment bonding. She loved and she lost...

Tommy and I believed in conscientious parenting also. We alternated days at the office so that one of us could always be home with our children. We eventually moved our office to our house so that both of us could be more available to our children.  

We raised our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We raised them in church, at times even in our own "home church" when churches got away from what was important about God. Our children's teen years were invested in a youth group that believed in truly discipling one another to grow closer to God, and closer to God did each of them grow! Each of our children had a tender heart toward God, and toward loving others regardless of color, class, or creed. 

Each of our children had a healthy sense of humor and were surrounded by friends who loved to laugh at them and their antics. They were all outgoing, and tended to reach out to those who weren't always included. 

They each were dedicated athletes, embracing the disciplines of hard work and much sweat.  

Our bonds with each child were strong and wholesome. Despite natural growing pains, we were all very real with one another. We truly loved one another, and freely shared that, with words, with affection, and with actions.  

The unbearable truth of it all is that you can do everything right, and things still can go so wrong...

Picture from Shinnston tornado

Wednesday's Woe - The Curse of the "If Only"s, ~by Tommy and Angie Prince

Wednesday's Woe

The Curse of the "If Only"s

~by Tommy and Angie Prince

Soon after Merry Katherine's death, we were overwhelmed by the "If Only"s and the "What If"s. We would ruminate, over and over assaulting ourselves with "If Only" behaviors we could have done that might have led to a completely different outcome, an outcome that included her being alive…  

I remember one of Tommy's was, "If only we had duck-taped her to a chair when she was so determined to on on that beach trip…"

Now he says, "If only I had been in control, the way I had thought I was…"

~The "If Only"s~ How prevalent these were early on, but thankfully they do recede. Not completely. But they do recede. (Yet just this morning I was hit with an onslaught of them… It seems I barely survived them, but lost a lot of sleep in the fight. And such a lack of sleep often seems to just feed the problem, creating even more "If Only"s in the days to come. What a vicious cycle they can create!)

"If Only"s do a wonderful job of 

• Suppressing your appetite,
• Getting a terrible night's sleep, and
• Raising your blood pressure to a dangerous level.

I wonder if that's our emotional psyche's attempt at finding comfort, yet the effect often seems to be that of working ourselves up into such a frenzy that we are barely able to function!

How about you? How do you do when you get hit with the "If Only"s?

Picture, thanks to Google Image