Tag: grief

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Soul cleanse

I would never begin a project if I knew it was going to take me five years to complete.  For goodness sake, I’ve never even finished knitting a scarf!

Most would be familiar with what the words ‘colon cleanse’ represent, right?  Well, something similar in a non-physical manner of speaking, is a ‘soul cleanse’, which happened to me when our teeny grandson came and went within the space of 22 days. 

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Comforted

I realised some years ago that for a variety of compounding reasons, I’d held a bunch of false expectations of God, which had led to anger, disappointment and confusion. I never quit believing in His reality, but some junk existed in my head which needed sorting.

I have never felt that God picks this one or that one, rubs His hands together and says, “right-o then – I’ll pluck off someone you love – I’ll wreck your marriage – I’ll take your baby – I’ll crash your car – you can handle it! This’ll be good for you”

…BUT…

I did realise that I had an expectation that doing life with God, would mean things didn’t hurt sooooooooooooo much.

Through a certain set of circumstances, eight years ago the ‘cruise ship’ of my faith got stripped away to a bare raft that for a while consisted almost solely of: God is real, He loves me, He is kind. One day I asked God “what ARE your promises?” as I felt like so much I had picked up over the years actually was not promised at all! – just a bunch of verses taken and applied out of context with hope or desire for control.

This stripping occurred when our tiny little grandson was born at 23 weeks and only lived for 22 days. Some of you reading this will remember that time. Our whole family was so thoroughly loved and supported but nevertheless it was the hardest year of our lives. After little Elijah died his precious mum came to live with us for a while as these two young parents (16 & 17) needed to be together to grieve. The pressure, the sorrow, the agony, the complexity – and myself still hormonal from the birth of our own little girl (then 3 months old), meant I was clinging by a thread. I would get the kids to school each morning, keep my determination until I parked back in our carport and then rest my head on the steering wheel…and sob.

There was a song I listened to daily… it somehow scoured my soul and gave me solace at the same time. Scoured my soul because it was so raw… Brought solace for the very same reason… there was no fluffing about with the truth of pain in this song. (First comment below for the link). I would have my cry, listen to my song and pull it together before coming back inside where Izzy was, and who did not need to see MY struggle right under her nose as she had quite enough of her own.

So this was the context where I felt my faith be stripped to the minimum. A little way down the track I told God I knew I had stripped away too much of Him and would He please ‘put back in’, ‘restore’ and ‘increase’ Himself to me – but only what really belonged. I was sick of fluff and padding. Fairy floss faith that dissolved on contact. The raft had taken me through the storm of that time but I also knew God to be so much more.

Then one day I had a super special time with Tarri. She’d had her immunisations and was as miserable as it’s possible to be. Temperature, local reactions and just sad, sad, sad. I had her sitting on the kitchen bench with my arms around her saying over and over “I know, I know” when…

…in that moment… God’s presence was right THERE with US. It was as though we were held in His feather soft wings and He’d come to show me He’d done the same as I was doing for Tarri – for me… for us… all this time… that just like my arms enveloped Miss Tarri, His encircled me… us… and while Tarri was too little to understand my words AND that she still felt miserable her little being was benefiting from my presence and comfort. The worse thing, the unbearable thing for Tarri (or for me) would have been to remove the presence of the Comforter and removing that presense would be the only way to know the difference between the pain with or without the comforter. Either way was going to hurt. But His presence meant He wept with us, just as I was moved to tears for this little bundle of misery in MY arms.

Yes I had still hurt, but yes, He’d been there all along comforting and whispering “I know, I know”. Sometimes life throws us things which are immeasurably painful… immeasurably difficult… all of our experiences will be different but most, if not all of us, will be find ourselves at some point in time, at (or over) the edge of our endurance.

This is when we can know and understand some of the paradoxes in the Bible as truth…

“Blessed are those that mourn for they shall be comforted” – the blessing is not the mourning – the blessing is in recognising His comfort within the mourning.
“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted” – He never said our hearts wouldn’t be broken, He said He’d be close at hand WHEN we are brokenhearted.

There is no pass out of the pains and sorrows of this life – but there is the reality and promise of his presence. And the reality and promise that when we seek Him with our spare time after we finish on FB or watching movies, that He will be able to be found by us. Actually no… I am busted… it doesn’t say that at all… it says that when we seek Him with our WHOLE HEART, He will be found.

Christians are always banging on about how Christianity is not a religion, it’s a relationship. Well – in fact it is a religion BUT at it’s core, if it’s not a relationship, it’s not real. There is no Priest or Pastor or mentor or formula who can make this happen… it really is between us and Him directly.

It’s a growing thing… but growing needs a beginning.

And I know I need His arms around me.

(Written and shared with Izzy’s blessing xx )

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Anger masking

I see anger as something that can not only be destroying but also as something very motivating… it creates surges of energy… some anger can’t be avoided for sure but underneath that anger lies the real reason and the real reason creates – sometimes, screaming agony. In that agony there is a kind of helplessness -which – we prefer to avoid. We’d rather the energy and momentum of the anger than feel/know/address the true core. Praise God we are not helpless in fact, but we do have to recognise and explore the pain that is there in order to heal.

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Losing my car

I experienced something of a time-warp today.

Have you ever headed out into the carpark in the direction of where you parked your car the LAST time you were there? That’s what I did today, not altogether uncommon for me but the twist to it today was that it was over four years ago that I parked in the spot where I found myself looking for my car.

The place was Pinnaroo Cemetary and I had just been to the memorial service for a wonderful fellow who has been our neighbour for over 22 years.

Doug was the kind of neighbour that everyone needs. Friendly, cheerful, chatty, genuine, gentlemanly and retired. The combination of his nature and the fact he was retired, meant he knew, noticed and cared about the happenings in the surrounding homes. He knew and asked after everyone by name… remembered all the kids ages… and who always went the extra mile.

There was the time we went on holidays and as well as feeding our cats and collecting the mail, he took the bins out on rubbish day (which I hadn’t even thought of) AND WASHED THEM after he brought them in.

There was the time some 7 years ago when I knocked on their door full of emotion at our family happenings and barely got hello out of my mouth before dissolving in tears for his kindly face of enquiry.

There was the time shortly after that when he and his wife Pat came over for morning tea and I heard a little of their life and travels.

Gems.

I love watching couples who have been together a long long time.

They teach without knowing they do.

I’ve never been to a funeral and not wished there had been more time.

Throughout the service it was as though I was existing in another service in the same chapel both that moment AND four years ago. Doug’s service today remembered and celebrated a long life of nearly nine decades – the service four years ago was for a life of only four years. It felt like it had been just last week so real was the overlay of memory.

I’ve never been to a funeral and not wished there had been more time.

Remembering two special people today.
One 88, one 4.
Both Home.

“Lord, make me to know my end and [to appreciate] the measure of my days—what it is; let me know and realize how frail I am [how transient is my stay here]… So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom…”

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Our longest day

Today marks the sixth anniversary of the longest day of our lives. Well, it actually began a few days before but extended for 22 more from this point on, while a little life hung in the balance and the rest of us held our breath.

I am not the centre of this story, but his life in many ways has been at the core of mine.

The time from when we knew he was on the way, till the time we said goodbye, has been like a BC – AD division of history in my life. There is Before Elijah and After Elijah. So significant it has been. And due to his coming and passing, so much in my heart and life changed. One night I wrote a list six pages long of areas of my heart and thoughts that had been impacted by this season. I only stopped writing because I was too tired to continue.

I think more about him in this month of February, but there isn’t a day that I don’t think of him at all.

That long long day was a succession of phone calls and drives to KEMH, tension, precious moments, the continuation of normal, exhaustion and tears.

And it was followed by a much much longer night. A night which is not mine to tell but in which I was deeply enmeshed and which was mostly invisible to almost all around. A night which lasted years…

Some of you are my Facebook friends because of contact made around this time six years ago… And others or you are still my friends because of the love and care expressed through that time. I feared judgement and we received grace. I expected rejection and we got loved. I still have all the emails in a folder… A great many of the stories shared were different situations but of people’s greatest pain and have lodged in my heart as the most significant kind of sharing – and like the little box of Elijah memories under our bed, I cannot open the email file – I know it is there and i treasure it all.

The story isn’t finished, I don’t know when it will be, or even if. But for me there has been a great healing by a Gentle Friend who has walked beside in every moment.

Before Elijah was born I had a sense of stepping off a precipice. This impression came to me as I was giving birth to Miss Taryn who was three months old when Elijah was born. The precipice impression was as gripping to me as the birth process happening at the time. Tarri was posterior, the doc had commented that it was as though my body had forgotten it had done this before (7 year gap) and the pain was more like a first than a seventh delivery. I was totally loony on the gas but felt Gods presence acutely. With this impression of the precipice came the correlation to birth… That I had no option but to trust in time passing, in the process and in those caring for me… and the God who sees, cares, comforts and walks beside. In going over the precipice I had no option but to trust in those same things.

So I did.

Some years later I had another impression. This time, of having been set gently down. I had indeed gone over that precipice, but like the eagle, He had swept in under me and set me so gently down that I didn’t even know when it had happened.

Just that He had.

And so we remember
The presence and passing
Of a little life
Who mattered
One through whom
We grew and were changed
One who
Forever will be
Part of the fabric
Of our family

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Mother guilt

There was a post in a group for big families about “mother guilt”… I wrote this post there but thought I’d share it here too as I think it applies no matter whether we have 1 child or 13…

When we had our 6th I spoke to our obstetrician who was an older father of 6 and said “how can we be sure we will be able to give each of our kids what they really need from us?”. He put his pen down and leaned back in his chair smiling and slightly shaking his head… I KNEW he understood my question. I don’t remember everything he said but one of the things was that not everything our kids need has to come from US as their parents. That slightly discomforted me because in essence I really WANTED to be the sun in our kids worlds… (another issue to work on) but the very next morning as I went to wake kids for school, there was the 3 yo in bed with the 7 yo being read a story. And I understood what the Dr had said – and was happy about it.

His other answers would have been from the perspective of an older parent along the lines of… our kids (like us) have their whole lives to fill. To learn, to grow, to experience. We don’t need to pack it all into their childhoods. And not everything we want to give are the same as what they actually NEED…

And to that I would now add:
– concentrate on what they need, not on what we want, or even on what we think they want – and we will find MUCH less to feel guilty about. Love, safety, security – our best to deliver a whole and rounded life… these are their true needs…

– recognise the difference between guilt and grief. Guilt implies that there is something we could have or should have done differently. Guilt implies wrongdoing or harm caused. If something is true guilt – we can usually do something about it… change the scenario, apologise, restore with he person we harmed… But no child is harmed by lack of luxury and these are so often the things we feel ‘guilty’ over.

– Looking back there’s not a lot I feel *guilty of (have tried to keep short records with our kids – not because I’ve done it all perfectly – and still talking to them about things now they’re nearly all grown up), but there are a number of things I feel a measure of ‘grief’ over. Sadness for a few of life’s ‘optionals’ that we just couldn’t do because of time or money or prioritization restraints… and that’s OK. Guilt is debilitating – particularly false guilt . Its like continually feeling compelled to run into a rock wall as though you should be able to run through it when you cannot. Grief or sadness IS still sad, its a statement of how it is, but it doesn’t bruise OR abuse us in the same way.

– every single family, big or small has its own set of restrictions. We live much more content and peacefully when we accept whatever our OWN sets of restrictions and benefits are.

PS Date: 18 June 2020
My understanding of the way I mothered has grown over the last 6 years since writing this and apart from rewriting the whole thing – just want to add a couple of things.
Guilt is something Jesus paid to take off my shoulders so in the last 6 years as I’ve come to understand some things differently, I have indeed had washes and waves come over me as I see things I wish I’d done different if only I’d understood then. The stunning thing about His love though is that even while the retrospective realisations are true – He also takes the these burdens off me as I turn each of those things… and the kids themselves with all the results and effects to Him for His care. I’ve known some fresher sorrows, but He calls me to trust Him.