Tuesday's Trust - What's Behind the "Why?" ~Tommy and Angie Prince

I have been driven many times upon my knees

by the overwhelming conviction

that I had nowhere else to go.

~Abraham Lincoln

Tuesday's Trust

What's Behind the "Why?"

~Tommy and Angie Prince

What would knowing "Why" change in regard to our child's death?

If you knew "why" your child died, what difference would it make in how you're feeling now? Is asking, "Why?" an attempt to try to soothe our devastation and pain? It's not like any explanation would be good enough really. But we still push for "Why?" as if "knowing" would make some kind of positive difference.

Are we, in asking why, perhaps trying to protect our relationship with God?

There is a whole book of the Bible that was devoted to the question of "Why?" Severe tragedies happened in a certain man's life, one of which included the man's loss of all of his children; his heart was undone and he was questioning why. Even his friends were searching for the "Why?"  Is there something innate within us to ask "Why?" as a push to reconcile our understanding of God's heart and His actions? The book of Job in the Old Testament of the Bible addresses this question of "Why?" throughout, even to the point of God's responses to the victim and his friends many questions and accusations.

So when we question "Why?" amidst our child's death, perhaps we are trying to reconcile our understanding of who God really is, and how it is that His heart can allow something as unfathomable as our child's death. Jesus makes it clear in Scripture, that He Himself came to earth that we may have life, and have life more abundantly, but He also made it clear that it is Satan who comes to steal, kill, and destroy, not God. So our questioning "Why?" is perhaps a cry of "God help me understand how You love, but that Your love is expressed differently than the way my own love would have been expressed in regard to my child."

~~~

There are some who would adamantly proclaim that our cry of "Why?" IS actually a cry of faith. We will give an excerpt of a blog post we posted about a year ago addressing such a concept:

The cry of why is a cry of lament. This cry is good. It is necessary. It is a cry of protest to God, but also a cry of faith. Michael Card's book, A Sacred Sorrow, describes how lament is a biblical pattern for our lives. He states:

"When then, does God enshrine so many laments in His Word? Laments, we must realize are God's Word. Why are so many Biblical characters shown as disappointed and angry with God? Do we seek to learn from all the other facets of their lives but this? I would put it to you this way:

People like Job, David, Jeremiah, and even Jesus revealed to us that prayers of complaint can still be prayers of faith. 

They represent the last refusal to let go of the God who may seem to be absent or worse--uncaring. 

If this is true, then lament expresses one of the most intimate moments of faith--not a denial of it.

"It is supreme honesty before a God who my faith tells me I can trust. He encourages me to bring everything as an act of worship, my disappointment, frustration, and even my hate. Only lament uncovers this kind of new faith, a biblical faith that better understands God's heart as it is revealed through Jesus Christ."

See this entire post by clicking below. 

Friday's Faith - The Cry of "Why?" IS the Cry of Faith ~with H. Norman Wright and Michael Card

~~~~~

We close with a poem of an example of such a lament before God. This poem is provided by ~Wings of Hope~Living Forward.

AND GOD SAID

I said, "God, I hurt."

And God said, "I know."

I said, "God, I cry a lot."

And God said, "That is why I gave you tears."

I said "God, I am so depressed."

And God said, "That is why I gave you Sunshine."

I said, "God, life is so hard."

And God said, "That is why I gave you loved ones."

I said, "God, my loved one died."

And God said, "So did mine."

I said, "God, it is such a loss."

And God said, "I saw mine nailed to a cross."

I said, "God, but your loved one lives."

And God said, "So does yours."

I said, "God, where are they now?"

And God said, "Mine is on My right and yours will be in the Light."

I said, "God, it hurts."

And God said, "I know."

~Author Unknown

Poem, via ~ Wings of Hope-Living Forward

But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren,

concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not,

even as others which have no hope.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again,

even so them also which sleep in Jesus

will God bring with Him.

For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord,

that we which are alive and remain

unto the coming of the Lord

shall not prevent them which are asleep.

For the Lord Himself shall 

descend from Heaven with a shout,d

with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God;

and the dead in Christ shall rise first;

Then we which are alive and remain

shall be caught up together with them in the clouds,

to meet the Lord in the air;

and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

~I Thessalonians 4:13-18

~~~~~

There are no easy answers

to what you now endure,

no ways to dull your sorrow

and no quick or simple cure.

You have lost

someone you cherished

and their passing brings such pain,

but God gives you His promise,

one day you'll meet again.

~Author Unknown

All pictures, thanks to ~Wings of Hope~Living Forward

Saturday's Sayings - Progress in the Healing Journey… - Part Three

Saturday's Sayings

Progress in the Healing Journey…

Part Three

"There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and have recovered hope."

~George Eliot

~~~

We never really "heal" from Child-Loss Grief and Trauma, but we're always in recovery. We can be in a process of healing, but healing will not completely happen this side of Heaven.

Amidst our Child-Loss Grief and Trauma, when you think about it, we have been assaulted emotionally, physically, and spiritually! We never really "heal" from Child-Loss Grief and Trauma, but we're always in recovery. We can be in a process of healing, but healing will not completely happen this side of Heaven.

~Angie and Tommy

~~~

"The case of a parent losing a child is very special because the most deep-seated protective and nurturant emotions are brutalized. Because this “injury” is so severe to such primitive emotional processes, the grieving parent is likely to feel and express the pain associated with it for the rest of his or her life."

~Dr Joanne Cacciatore

~~~~~

~Death of a Loved One

Although it is human nature for us to ask, "Why?" as Dr. Teddy (Edward) Rynearson teaches us, we learn not to stay in the land of the morbid, asking God and/or ourselves over and over and over, "Why?" as this question really cannot be completely answered in this earthly lifetime. 

~Angie and Tommy

~~~

In Dr. Rynearson's words (from his book, "Violent Death: Restorative Retelling":

(We need to) disengage from this impoverishment of questioning and retelling:

 How could this have happened?

 How could I have kept this from happening?


 How can I find retribution for this dying?


 How can I prevent this from happening again?

~Dr. Edward K. Rynearson

~~~~~

~Sweet to the Soul

"Come away with me by yourself to a quiet place and get some rest." 

~Mark 8:31

~~~

Quietude, which some men cannot abide because it reveals their inward poverty, is a palace of cedar to the wise, for along its hallowed courts the King in His beauty deigns to walk. 

~Charles Spurgeon

~~~

In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness.

~Author of "Sweet to the Soul"

~~~~~

~Sweet to the Soul

"My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." 

~Psalm 73:26

~~~

Being strong doesn't mean you have to feel strong inside. In fact, being strong means admitting when you don't feel it. God is our strength and He can walk us through any memory, any raw emotion, any deep scar. They are not to be feared, because He has them in His hands. 

~ Christi Armstrong

~~~~~

Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed.

~Picture, thanks to Grieving Mother, Dani

We begin to recognize why some people shy away from us… and then we begin to understand why they will never really hear us nor certainly understand us… 

Reality is too stressful for their delusions and illusions to remain intact; keeping their delusions and illusions alive, such as their being in control of their own lives, or of the world being a predictable, manageable, and safe place for them and their loved ones, becomes all important for them.

~Angie and Tommy

~~~~~

~Journey of the Survivor (From Grief to Survival)

We learn to turn to other grievers to understand us, for how can Civilians truly understand the Child-Loss Grief and Trauma War in which we find ourselves trying to cope. Trying to help them understand seems a futile effort, so we find our efforts are better spent with those who already "get it" in regards to the vastness of the dimensions of such Grief and Trauma.

~Angie and Tommy

~~~

"Who better to softly bind up the wound of one, than he who has suffered the same wound himself?"

~Thomas Jefferson

~~~~~

And so we do… learn to tell our stories… For only we can do them justice!

~Angie and Tommy Prince

~~~

Whatever is unnamed, undepicted in images, whatever is omitted from biography, censored in collections of letters, whatever is misnamed as something else, made difficult-to-come-by, whatever is buried in the memory by the collapse of meaning under an inadequate or lying language - - this will become, not merely unspoken, but unspeakable. 

~Adrienne Rich

Picture, Broken: Thanks to ~Death of a Loved one

Friday’s Faith - Acceptance Amidst Emotional Pain…

Friday’s Faith

Acceptance Amidst Emotional Pain…

"If I allowed My Own Son be wounded,

so too could I not allow your own child

be torn, cut down, and fatally wounded

as well? Don't by th' Enemy be beguiled...

Death on this earth's not always meek and mild.

Violent death does not mean I've abandoned.

Violent death does not mean I've looked away.

Violent death does not mean it was random.

Though Satan kills, know I have the last say.

I am the Lord Thy God; I'll have My way.

"Life from your perspective won't always make sense.

My people did not expect My Son to die...

Now you see He had to make recompense—

I need you to trust when you don't know 'why'!

Your child is with Me! Can you not comply?"

My Lord and my God, You are God, not I.

You designed her, made her, saved her, not I.

You fulfilled Your purpose in her, not I.

To know You love her ensures I'll comply...

May Your grace abound in my heart…ev'n as I die.

Poem - Acceptance Amidst Emotional Pain… - Angie Bennett Prince - 12/28/09