Good morning…
Mary, a subscriber I have never met, wrote me again to share her process of grief following the sudden death of her son eighteen months ago. “Hi Sue, I loved reading Mosquitos In Our Mind the other day and really needed it! It was so beautifully written yet simple AND powerful! I say a lot of “breath prayers”, usually, “Jesus, help me”, but never knew what to call them. Now I do! I printed out your devotional and shared with friends who did the same! Thank you!!”
She continued: “I also wanted to share something I wrote about how I’m feeling…
Happy Thanksgiving…Not Really
Two years ago was a really Happy Thanksgiving! We were all together, and for that moment, I felt the kind of happiness and joy that comes when your adult children are home, safe, under your roof! Those were the times when I would stay up until everyone went to bed so that I could then go in their rooms, and watch them sleep, because I knew that I would soon have to let them go again, back to their lives, away from the safety of our home, and the security of their mama!
So here we are, 2 years later, having to experience another Thanksgiving without Dalton, and it isn’t happy and I don’t feel particularly thankful! That does not mean I don’t have a lot to be thankful for, because I am incredibly thankful for my beautiful daughter and her husband (and a lot more), but the pain and sorrow of not having Dalton here with us trumps any feelings of thankfulness this year! Yes, Dalton is with us in spirit, and yes, he would want us to be happy, but he is physically gone from this earth and I can no longer hold him, touch him, or smell him, and that is brutal!
Sometimes I just get tired of fighting! Everyday I wake up and have to choose to fight, to be intentional about doing all of the things I know that may help me feel better, but there are times when it just becomes too exhausting! That does not mean I am giving up and choosing to be miserable, it just means that I will allow myself to feel the way I feel, because like a riptide, sometimes when you fight it, you drown. So I will flow with my emotions and allow myself to feel the pain, the loss, the void that has been left in Dalton’s absence and the gaping wound in my heart that seems to get ripped open during the holidays!
Yesterday, one of my best friends, told me exactly what I needed to hear. She gave me permission to feel sad and miserable if that’s what I’m feeling. She encouraged me to embrace the emotions rather than fight them because God can and will handle it! She did not give me a pep talk or offer platitudes, just validated exactly what I was feeling, and that was such a relief. It was as if a weight was lifted off my shoulders!
I don’t feel hopeless, because of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, I know that one day we will be reunited with Dalton and all of our loved ones…”Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.”(1 Thessalonians 4:13)
So, I grieve with hope but for now, I just feel sad, and not particularly thankful, and that’s ok!”
I wrote her back: “I love seeing Dalton’s smiling face and the picture of your whole family on the porch a few years back. Your words are genuine, powerful, brutal. Grief is a riptide and fighting against it exhausts us. I am glad you have some great friends who are able to support all of your emotions. What a privileged journey to grieve with a friend. Might I share some or all of your words with our subscribers, anonymously or with your name attached? I am grateful Mosquitos On Our Mind helped you to better understand God’s ‘breath prayers” sustaining you.”
Considering the riptide of grief, Scripture leads us to another “breath prayer,” Save me, God! I am about to drown (Psalm 69:1, CEV).
…Sue…
P.S. To read Mary’s poignant words from our previous post, please touch on this link: https://suetoyou.com/2017/10/24/brokenness-and-joy/
