-
Control
I think every aspect of who I am has been exacerbated by deep grief. The good things and the not so good. I’m definitely an introvert. When I say this, it seems to surprise some people. Mainly the people I know just professionally. I worked in a corporate environment for more than 30 years before…
-
Mama
This past Wednesday, January 11th, marked 28 years since my sweet mama went to Heaven. She was 62. I have lived a year longer so far than she got to. The older I get the more I miss her. You’d think it would be the opposite. And granted it’s not the wracking grief of a…
-
Thanks Before the Miracle
In November I posted on Facebook about a phrase that stood out for me from a devotional. The writer was referencing the story of the five loaves and two small fish (John chapter 6) and said that she had previously missed an important detail in the telling. Jesus took the loaves and then the fish…
-
New Year’s Resolution
A note to readers: Not everything I write is directly about child loss. But, everything I write is influenced by my experience as a bereaved parent. I’ve said before that my life has been fundamentally changed by my daughter’s death, just as my life was fundamentally changed when I became a parent to my two…
-
One Day Old
Traditionally we think of today, December 26th as the day after Christ was born. Today, Jesus would be one day old. Of course, we do not know the exact day He was born, but we know the time period because of the historical context surrounding His birth. Artists depict Mary and Joseph and the infant Jesus…
-
But I Like the Night!
A very popular depiction and description of the New Jerusalem, the final fulfillment of Christ’s second coming, and the eternal state of God’s Heaven for all believers is the banishment of all darkness. Everything will be shining and bright all the time. Revelation 22:5 says: “There will be no more night. They will not need the…
-
Angel or Star?
Last week I talked about how I felt the first Christmas after Rachel died, and how hard it was to decorate and celebrate. It still is, in fact. This is the sixth Christmas since we lost our daughter, and there is always a measure of sadness leavening my joy during the holidays. Still, the decorations…
-
O Christmas Tree
Even though officially there’s a month between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it seems like as soon as the leftover cranberry sauce goes in the fridge, the Christmas decorations come out of storage. I’ve always been a stickler for each holiday having its own time. No handmade turkeys until the jack-o-lantern gets thrown out. And, please PLEASE…
-
Bittersweet
Well, I made it through another one. Holiday, that is. Boy, that sounds cynical, doesn’t it? I really don’t mean for it to. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with my older daughter and her brood plus several other family members – 14 of us in all. We ate way too much delicious food, played silly…
-
A Hard Week
This has been a hard week emotionally. A classmate of my 15-year-old grandson took his own life on Wednesday. There are almost no words to express the tragedy of a person that age thinking that life is not worth living. There is nothing that a 15-year-old could do, say, think, or feel that a parent…