I Have to Write About It

I said, in a blog post last year, that I no longer felt the need to write about the loss of my 25-year-old middle son 9 years ago. But that has proven to be a mistake. I need to write about it. That is, after all, the reason I started this blog. Though I let the pressures of some well-meaning (I hope) people push me toward not writing about my grief, I’ve decided I need to ignore those pressures and do what I need to do for my own emotional health. I’m sure my husband will appreciate this decision as he bears the weight of my tears and talk more than anyone when I don’t write about it. So, write about it I will.

I hate making others feel like they have made me feel, and I hope I don’t do that. But I am going to address some things spoken to me that have made me feel pressure to be less than honest about the difficulty of living after one of my children has passed on. It is not an easy thing to do, this living after child-loss. It feels so backward; so upside down; so completely unnecessary; like God made the wrong decision in taking my son and not me. I know, though, that God makes no mistakes; that He is with me and loves me, and He has and is with my son in the most coveted real estate in the universe and beyond.

Someone recently told me, on Facebook, that Jesus would heal my heart if I would let Him. I’ve rejected my responses to this statement in my mind many times. The most important command I believe the Lord tells us in the New Testament is to forgive. Matthew 6:14-15 says, “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” I strive daily to obey this command. And I have come to a place where I feel I can address things that hinder my progress through grief while still forgiving.

One of the downfalls of being a true Christian – and by “true” I mean someone who really loves God and pursues Him, seeking to know Him and who He really is – anyway….one of the downfalls of being a Christian is an arrogance born of a misunderstanding of God’s love for us. What a statement! I’m kinda flabbergasted that I wrote that! But I think there’s some knowledge and wisdom to be gleaned from this.

Throughout our walk with God, studying His Word, praying to Him and listening to His voice speak to our hearts, we fall more and more in love with Him as we learn of and experience His love and care for us. It feels so intimate and exclusive. But that is where we fall into the arrogance I mentioned in the paragraph above. We sometimes believe this exclusivity we feel is ours and ours alone. And this is a natural way to feel, since we are so natural, whether we want to admit it or not. My husband and I are extremely intimate and absolutely exclusive in that intimacy. No one is allowed into our relationship but the two of us. (And of course you know I’m not talking about our relationships with our children, grandchildren, other family members or friends.) I’m talking about the kind of intimacy that comes between two people who are completely honest, vulnerable, trusting, trustworthy, faithful and above-all loving and respectful toward each other. I’m talking about marriage. And I’m talking about relationship with our savior, Jesus, our heavenly Father and our helper, the Holy Spirit. The difference is, though we don’t always realize it, that God is with every believer the same. He is as intimate with me as He will be with those who seek Him sincerely and are honest, vulnerable and loving with Him. And this is where that downfall of arrogance comes in. If someone were to try to tell me my husband thinks, feels or says such-n-such about me that is not true, I would know it immediately. We have that kind of relationship. I know what he thinks, feels and might say about me. He is that open, honest, faithful and loving toward me…at all times.

And such is my relationship with my heavenly Father…..or I should say such is my relationship growing with Him. I talk to Him. And I know He listens to me. He speaks to me through many things, though mostly through His Word. He has spoken many loving, encouraging and healing words to me since my son passed on; many of which are so intimate I wouldn’t share them with anyone but Dan. And this is how I know He wouldn’t tell someone to tell me that He would heal my heart if I’d let Him.

I have made so much progress toward wanting to live after such a tragedy in my life and the life of my family. When someone says something like the above statement, it has the effect of setting me back a bit on my journey toward healing. It makes me wonder why someone would want to do that. It reminds me of our lawyer telling me, mere months after our son had died, that he didn’t want me “perseverating”. I’m sure he meant well. But after I learned the meaning of the word, what I heard him saying was, “You just need to stop making yourself think about your loss and then you won’t cry so often about it.” I still, to this day, have to wrestle down the condemnation this statement from a trusted hired professional put on me. Words matter. Especially to this porcupine with inward facing quills! (That’s how I described my ultra-sensitive self to my dad once. He was nodding in agreement so heartily I thought he might injure himself.)

Like I said above, I never want to cause someone hurt or condemnation. That is the exact opposite of what God wants us to do for each other. I want to walk faithfully with God and that means not only loving God, but also loving and caring for the other human beings God has me living alongside in this time in history. Let’s not make that any harder than it already is!

Thank you for reading my blog and allowing me to be honest and open with you.

Till next time….when I will be writing about this journey through grief…..love you all.