Spelunking

I've been spelunking….

...exploring the depths of this new normal. I've questioned the peace and dove down into the pain. I examined thoughts that were previously shelved.  I opened the drawer and pulled out each piece of the loss. Once again, I laid each piece out and brought them into the light.  And the jury is in and the verdict is read, I choose to trust God.    

"With the birth of a child our lives change instantly, we love more, we feel more, we hope more.  

"With the death of a child, our lives change beyond all measure.  All we can do is love our children in the time we have them, love them without end."

This quote is from a series titled Grantchester and was a pivotal statement that drew all the haphazard pieces laying out on the table together into one cohesive position where I have chosen to continue to stand.  It gave me renewed permission to embrace the peace I have surrounding the loss of my son Robbie.  

My decision is not for everyone.  We are as unique as our circumstances.  I simply offer this for those who have been given a sense of peace after the greatest loss a parent can walk through, so they would perhaps hesitate before they throw the peace away and opt for continued sadness.

I had the absolute pleasure to raise two boys,  to love two boys and to have the hope that those boys ushered into my life.   

As a woman of faith, I know that I arrived in this world with nothing and will leave this world with nothing.  My faith reminds me that our children are God's, as are we, and that I was given the distinct honor of raising two of God's beloved children.

I have to remember that it wasn't all the times I told them to be careful that kept them alive.    There were events and experiences that were for them alone to wade through that had nothing to do with me but had everything to do with their life and the story God was writing into their lives.   Do I understand the how and the why's in the story?  Not for a minute but I trust the one who writes it. 

It truly breaks my heart to see the already suffering mistakenly claim responsibility for life-changing events that they have no control over. 

"Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" (Matt 6:27) …or if I might have the freedom to add,  can add a single day to their children's life?

My thinking could be and was for a miserable period of time, well, what if I didn't have to raise the boys as a single mother, Robbie might still be alive.  What if Robbie didn't get into that car accident, he may not have decided he liked pain medications, or if he wasn't bitten by that water moccasin… Maybe if Robbie had moved in a third time to live with us he wouldn't have gone out that night and gotten himself killed. The what-if train will drive you into a land of no answers and continued trickery as if you were the one who held control over life and death.  

I was numb for the first two years after Robbie died.  Those years were put into someone else's pocket and they moved away.   I heard and listened to others grieving the loss of their children.  I knew their pain, felt their pain and decided to pull mine out again and feel it,  all the rough edges, sharp edges,  the hardness of it all and the bitterness.  I questioned the peace I had.  I dissected it, doubted it, argued with it and was ready to turn my back on it and begin to wail.   

At one point I even came to the conclusion that something was deeply wrong with me.  That the peace I was experiencing was an illusion I used to escape living in the land of grief.  I went into that land again.  Wore the sadness again and what I found was the sadness didn't fit me anymore.  It was a garment I wore for a time that isn't comfortable now.  Do I still get sad?  Of course I do, but it isn't something that lingers for long.  

"Oh, she really didn't love her son if she can put aside her grief."  So grateful to God that I don't have to live seeking man's approval.   If God gives you peace and says trust me, be thankful.  

The amount of your grief is not commensurate to how much you loved your child.  I learned I don't have to continue to grieve hard to prove I loved Robbie and I don't have to grieve long to prove I LOVED ROBBIE.  If love could have kept him alive he would be living.  But if Love decided to bring him home, I won't turn my back on trust and question His Love.  I know God loves my son greater than I ever could.   

Without faith, this would be impossible.  Oh, my heart breaks for the grieving who don't have hope in a future where every tear will be wiped from their eyes. 

My prayer for all the beloved brokenhearted parents in grief is that the God of all comfort covers your sorrow with a love that heals and grants you a peace that goes beyond any earthly understanding until you hold your loved one again.      

"I will hold you in my heart Robbie until I can hold you in heaven".  

Cave Photo by Devon Janse van Rensburg on Unsplash

Dogs, death, divorce, deliverance

It was four years ago today that my son Rob stepped into heaven. These last four years have been a deep valley I've traveled through which has brought me to new vistas in my walk with God. Robbie's memories don't pierce me as they did when I first wrote this story I'm sharing with you today. His memories are more like whispers now, sweet and nostalgic.. I miss him most when I see his older brother hold his son, or when his friends get married and I watch their lives unfold without him. It's the life he didn't have that can prick like a thorn now.

Also since the writing of this story, his dog Shelby has passed away. Although I would like to believe "all dogs go to heaven". I only truly know that she has been set free of the disease that robbed her of mobility and crippled her. It has to be better for her now.

So on this day of remembering Robbie's departure, I offer my blog to all the road-weary as encouragement and inspiration to live greatly despite your circumstances. To quote my acupuncturist, "A miracle is that we keep going in spite of everything and that we keep looking to and thanking God."

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Robbie's sandcastle memorial

Dogs, Death, Divorce, and Deliverance

There's a young cardinal feeding outside my window. The comb on the top of its head is still small and his feathers haven't yet filled in with red. It chits off and on as a small downy woodpecker shows up and exchanges a chirp or two, fluffs its soft feather-white down and continues on its way. In the distance, I see a wind-mill in the shape of a flower spinning in the easy breeze that blows across the day. A cassia tree is blooming in all its yellow brilliance. 

I hear my son's dog panting quietly beside me after its romp outside with Bacon and Theo, a friend's pets. My first anniversary of becoming a dog owner is in a few days. Before Shelby arrived, I had pretty much been interested in cats; at one time being the feeder of five. One from the pound, another named Gracie who moved back and forth between my son Robbie and me and the others were delivered to my doorstep by God's grace or sense of humor. My husband and I jokingly imagine that it was our cat Suma, the goodwill ambassador, who sent the word out to all the neighborhood homeless that our home was a safe house. Shelby came to live with us last Labor Day weekend when my youngest son had his homecoming in heaven. 

This past year I've learned a lot about dogs and a lot about grief. I could also say I've learned a lot about myself but it would be more accurate to say I learned more about God. Is it possible for me to explain how the pressing in of grief has pressed me into a more real version of faith? I'm going to give it my best shot to explain. 

I had laid awake all night until the tell-tale signs of dawn began to loosen the nights hold on the day. This was the first morning that would dawn over the loss of my son. I was gripped with a deep desolation and fear at the thought of the day dawning. How do I walk through this? I remember crying out to God that I didn't know how to do this…

That morning was a year ago. Since then I still hear over and over again the words of the police officer softly explaining that they found my son and he had passed away. These two sentences still bubble pop into my day like a macabre surprise party. Not nice, sharp and convincing. Robbie was involved in a tragic ATV accident. He was 27. He loved his ATV as much as he loved his dog, Shelby. As I write I hear Shelby snoring softly on the floor next to me. She has finally settled down from her romp with the boys. 

Many storms have rumbled through my life. The difference in the aftermath of the two storms is what inspired me to write this quiet afternoon. In one storm my faith was in myself, I had no relationship with God and then in this more recent storm, my faith was in God. Maybe you've had a few storms already in your life. If you haven't, count your blessings, but know that none of us walk through our lives unscathed. It is my hope that in sharing my storms, it may help you through yours. 

The first storm was my divorce and I didn't know much about the God of the Bible during that time. I was seeking God my way. Sampling what I was going to believe as if it were a spiritual buffet. I sampled 20 years of meditating twice a day to reach God-consciousness; Hinduism, followed the teachings of Ramtha (a woman claiming to channel a spiritual entity) and countless other ways where one could work or think their way to knowing or becoming like God. So when that first storm rumbled through my life I was left with my choice, me. I was lonely, broken, spent, desperate, and hopeless for many years.

As I write this I realize it has been fifteen years since I, through some rather amazing God-incidences, took a look at what the God of the Bible had to say about life, purpose and his love for me, His created. Most of my life I believed in God but now I was believing God. I began to see my life through the lens of a holy God. I certainly wasn't as shiny and bright as I had thought. But in spite of that, there was a God offering grace to me despite all the messiness in my life. Come as you are. 

It reminds me of a poem written by Augustine of Hippo speaking about the lament of a soul who has realized belatedly that God is there, while he was not aware of it. He writes, 

"Slow was I, Lord, too slow in loving you. To you, earliest and latest beauty, I was slow in love. You were waiting within me while I went outside me, looking for you there, misshaping myself as I flung myself upon the shapely things you made. You were with me all the while I was not with you, kept from you by things that could not be except by being in you. You were calling to me, shouting, drumming on deaf ears. You thundered and lightninged, piercing my blindness."

Through this more recent storm, my heart was inclined toward Christ. I had placed my trust in Him alone. I had a strong family of friends who supported me, prayed for me, cried with me and stood beside me and in their eyes, I saw the reflection of God's love. I was surrounded by a deep love I'd never experienced before. Additionally, I experienced a peace from God that was beyond any understanding. How can I have peace when "that" happens? A pastor* I respect greatly explained it as such… 

The how has no human answer. It is beyond human understanding. Human understanding will not be able to come up with an answer as to how you enjoy peace in "that" circumstance. It is suprarational. Reasoning doesn't make the peace happen. God makes the peace happen and he does it in answer to prayer. It's a wonderful experience (paraphrased). 

These experiences of the love and peace that come from God would have just remained something I had read about had it not been for this grief pressing into my life. I'm here to tell you it is a very, very real experience, one that has deepened my faith in a way I would not have thought possible. Know that my peace during this time does not mean I don't miss Robbie. I do, deeply. But I rest in knowing I will see him again, not as he was, an earthly man troubled by sins. But as a heavenly man, as God intended him to be. And I will be the same.

"You will keep him in perfect peace,

Whose mind is stayed on You,

Because he trusts in You."

—Isaiah 26:3—

*John Piper