Sunday's Sorrow - Honoring Fathers Grieving Loss of Child - Part One

There is a sacredness in tears. 

They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. 

They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. 

They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, 

of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love. 

~Washington Irving

Sunday's Sorrow

Honoring Fathers Grieving Loss of Child

Part One

Those who think

there is a

TIME LIMIT

when

GRIEVING

Have

NEVER

Lost a piece

of their

HEART

~~~~~

Grieving people are fighting

the most aching fight of their lives.

Stand with them.

Be with them.

Love them in your willingness to admit

that you don't know the answers.

Your presence contains more love

than any answer ever will…

~Tim Lawrence

~~~~~

"I'm...

Fine"

(Anxious, Scared, Sad; 

Hurting, Drained Hopeless;

Lonely, Dysfunctional, Weary;

Apathetic, Exhausted, Lost, Stressed;)

I wish you would 

Read between the lines.

~~~~~

You are most helpful

when you stand with

me, without

changing it, without

making assumptions.

It is okay to not have 

any answers.

~Megan Devine

www.refugeingrief.com

facebook.com/refugeingrief

~~~~~

Nothing will ever be the same.

Your life has been forever changed.

Grief is uncovering what that

change is and how to deal with it.

~Benjamin Allen

~~~~~

The ground beneath us

that collects us is too

sacred and when I enter

another's life I know to

take off my shoes for I

am on holy ground.

We are on holy ground,

the sacredness of

sorrow's healing ground.

~Benjamin Allen

~~~~~

The answer to the mystery of

existence is the love you shared 

sometimes so imperfectly and

when the loss wakes you to the

deeper beauty of it, to the

sanctity of it, you can't get off

your knees for a long time.

You're driven to your knees not by

the weight of the loss but by

gratitude for what preceded the 

loss. And the ache is always there,

but one day not the emptiness."

~Dean Koontz

~~~~~

It is within my darkest moments where I 

have found myself without words to 

describe the most brilliant presence of

love. In the heights of my joy and the

depths of my sorrow I have come to

believe that there is only love. No matter

where I go, how I feel or what I

question, I have found this presence

waiting, waiting to love me, waiting to love.

~Benjamin Allen

Title Picture:

~FarSideOfTheRainbow

https://www.facebook.com/farsideoftherainbow/photos/a.265765910132193.59124.259827837392667/1121611294547646/?type=3

2nd Picture:

~Grieving Fathers

https://www.facebook.com/131616930235995/photos/a.131661973564824.24127.131616930235995/680242952040054/?type=3&theater

3rd Picture:

~Grieving Fathers

https://www.facebook.com/131616930235995/photos/a.131661973564824.24127.131616930235995/1065748773489468/?type=3&theater

4th Picture:

~GriefDiaries

https://www.facebook.com/GriefDiaries/photos/a.306861159476121.1073741828.298729270289310/553268601502041/?type=3&theater

5th Picture:

~TheAfterloss.com (Tim Lawrence)

https://www.facebook.com/TheAfterloss/photos/pb.447234425404141.-2207520000.1464042767./855493004578279/?type=3&theater

6th Picture:

~TheAfterloss.com (Benjamin Allen)

https://www.facebook.com/TheAfterloss/photos/pb.447234425404141.-2207520000.1464042767./858083234319256/?type=3&theater

7th Picture:

~TheAfterloss.com (Benjamin Allen)

https://www.facebook.com/TheAfterloss/photos/pb.447234425404141.-2207520000.1464042767./860097287451184/?type=3&theater

8th Picture:

~TheAfterloss.com (Dean Koontz)

https://www.facebook.com/TheAfterloss/photos/pb.447234425404141.-2207520000.1464042767./860098970784349/?type=3&theater

9th Picture

~TheAfterloss.com (Benjamin Allen)

https://www.facebook.com/TheAfterloss/photos/pb.447234425404141.-2207520000.1464042767./860101534117426/?type=3&theater

Tuesday's Trust - Good Grief Starts with a Good God

Tuesday's Trust

Good Grief Starts with a Good God

~by Ben Witherington

Having recently gone through the devastating experience of having our beautiful 32-year-old daughter die, completely unexpectedly, of a pulmonary embolism, I was determined from Day One (January 11, when she was found dead in her home in Durham, N.C.) to be open to whatever positive thing there might be to glean from this. I cling by my fingernails to the promise of Romans 8:28 that “God works all things together for good for those who love him….”

The first point that was immediately confirmed in my heart was theological: God did not do this to my baby. God is not the author of evil. God does not terminate sweet children’s lives with pulmonary embolisms. Pulmonary embolisms are a result of human fallenness and the bent nature of this world.

One of the primary reasons I am not a Calvinist and do not believe in such predestinings from the hand of God is (1) because I find it impossible to believe that I am more merciful or compassionate than God. Also, (2) the Biblical portrait of God is that God is pure light and holy love; in him there is no darkness, nothing other than light and love. (3) The words “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away,” from the lips of Job, are not good theology. They’re bad theology. According to Job 1, it was not God, but the Devil who took away Job’s children, health and wealth. God allowed it to happen, but when Job said these words, as the rest of the story shows, he was not yet enlightened about the true nature of where his calamity came from and what God’s will actually was for his life — which was for good, and not for harm.

So, for me, the beginning of good grief starts with the premise of a good God. Otherwise, all bets are off. If God is almighty and malevolent, then there is no solace to be found in God. If God is the author of sin, evil, suffering, the fall, and death, then the Bible makes no sense when it tells us that (1) God tempts no one, that (2) God’s will is that none should perish but have everlasting life, and that (3) death is the very enemy of God and humankind that Jesus, who is life, came to abolish and destroy.

“He came that we might have life and have abundantly.” If there are promises I cling to, as I weep for my sweet Christy, it is this promise, not the sorry solace and cold comfort of “God did this but we do not know why.” No. A thousand times, no! God and his will are always and only for what is good, and true, and beautiful, and loving, and holy.

As I stared at my baby in the casket — who did not even resemble herself at that juncture — I was so thankful that the God of the resurrection had a better plan for her than that cold comfort that “It’s all God’s will.” I believe in a God whose Yes to life is louder than death’s No — not because God likes to hold antinomies like life and death together in some sort of mysterious unity, but because God is in the trenches with us, fighting the very same evils we fight in this world, like disease, decay, death, suffering, sorrow and sin.

They don’t call him the Great Physician for nothing. He too took the Hippocratic Oath: “Do no harm.”

~Ben Witherington

Ben Witherington, one of the world's leading evangelical scholars, is Amos Professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary. He is the author of over 40 books and is a frequent commentator on radio and television programs.

Picture: Leonardo da Vinci's painting of 'The Last Supper' as it appeared in the 1970s, thanks to Wikipedia

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/bibleandculture/2012/01/24/good-grief-soundings-part-one/

Saturday's Sayings - Grieving Fathers Write...

Saturday's Sayings

Grieving Fathers Write...

Tapestry

Perhaps life is but a tapestry

Far larger than the sky,

Stretching in panoramic splendor from

The dawn of time until suns die.

Perhaps each of us is a single thread,

Into the tapestry briefly woven and

Blended with related fibers forming

A splotch of harmonized beauty,

Lending transient continuity.

Perhaps, beyond our comprehension,

A thread may seem to end before it should,

Disrupting the entire tapestry

With a chaotic clot of clashing color,

A snarled, frayed, broken end,

Leaving doubt there is a guiding hand,

Or, if so, it fumbles and has lost its skill.

Perhaps no single thread is ever lost

But just emerges on the other side

Where the Weaver, with patient, loving hands

Resumes the ageless masterpiece

In a blessed new beginning.

Perhaps we, in eternity,

Will be given the eyes to see

Scenes we were born imagining.

~Grieving Father, Richard A. Dew, M.D.

From Rachel's Cry: A Journey Through Grief

TCF/Knoxville, Tennessee

*****

A Mule Pulling a Plow

It's been almost four years now

The day is still the same

My heart is still broken

My life is still aflame

I live in mere moments

Awkwardly trying to get by

One moment I'll smile

The next moment I'll cry

Still bearing this great loss

I stagger forward somehow

With this burden upon me

I feel like a "Mule Pulling a Plow"

I know the day will come

When I leave those fields of hurt

The plow, I'll no longer pull

As my body turns back into dirt

With purpose and reward

My soul will soar above

There I'll rejoin them

Altogether, in everlasting love

~Grieving Father, Donald Moyers

TCF/Galveston County, TX

*****

Eloquence pretends to enrich my pain
Cloaking me in words of hope, of peace
That it majestically offers unsolicited.

Whispers of our love tell me I will not
inevitably find. The loss that scars my soul
Knows no release, only wandering
No light, only shadows
No passion, only emotion
As I move from the dread of never
To comprehending always.

I no longer search for words
I no longer ask for grace.
I seek only me and still you
In the belief that simplicity will
Surround what I can never understand.

~Grieving Father, Peter Vander Meulen

*****

The king was overcome with emotion.

He went up to the room over the gateway and burst into tears.

And as he went, he cried,

"O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom!

If only I had died instead of you!

O Absalom, my son, my son."

~Grieving Father, King David

2 Samuel 18:33 NLT

"Even in darkness

light dawns...

for the Lord is

gracious,

compassionate and

righteous.

~Grieving Father, King David

~Psalm 112:4

Pictures, thanks to Writing Through your Grief