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Deep Grief Leaves Deep Scars

When we are deeply wounded, a scar is left behind. That happens both physically and emotionally.

When I was around three years old, my dad took my sister and me on a bike ride around the neighborhood at my grandma’s house. We had done it before. My sister was sitting behind him, and I was sitting in front of my dad as he was pedaling the bicycle. This one time, when he turned the wheel, I didn’t spread my legs far enough and got my ankle caught in the bike spokes. It took out a chunk of my ankle, and I ended up with a staph infection.

It took me out of commission for quite some time, and I didn’t get to play in the water that summer. I had to sit on the edge of the pool with my injured ankle wrapped in a plastic bread wrapper to make sure it stayed dry. We have a picture of me dangling my non-injured leg in the water while watching my sister and cousins splash around having fun.

I recovered, but I still have a scar on my ankle and always will.

At age forty-eight, my husband, Dave, ended up having quadruple bypass surgery. Recovery took a long time, and over ten years later he still has some effects from it and is on certain medications for the rest of his life. He also has a permanent scar, reminding us what he went through.

If you have been connected to GPS Hope for very long, you know that my daughter, Becca, had her leg amputated when she was only three years old because of bone cancer. (She died at age twenty-nine due to long-term heart damage from one of the chemo drugs given to her at that time.) Obviously, she had a scar on her stump from the amputation.

Becca’s missing leg can be a good illustration for to us, as bereaved parents. Having our child die is like having an amputation; a part of our very being has been cut off from us. The wound is severe, but it will eventually heal, but there will always be a scar, reminding us that a part of our very being is missing.

But the comparisons don’t stop at the scar of the injury.

Did having a staph infection in my ankle keep me from ever riding a bike or swimming again? No way! I loved riding a bike, especially as a kid (although I recently switched to enjoying riding my mini Segway) and I love to swim and be in the water, especially in warm places with beautiful beaches.

Did having quadruple bypass surgery keep Dave from permanently doing things like holding and playing with his grandchildren, or starting new adventures like selling our house and learning how to drive a 38-foot motor home that we now live in? Nope!

Did having an amputation keep Becca from running and playing with the other children? No, it definitely did not! It may have slowed her down and caused her to adapt to how she ran and how she played, but it didn’t stop her.

When these horrible things happen, including something as terrible as the death of our child, does it mean our life is over, and we will never be able to live a full life again? No, it doesn’t.

We need time to go through a “recovery” process (for lack of a better word) and need time to learn how to function with our child no longer here, but it doesn’t mean we will never be able to function again.

  • We will go through times when everyone around us is splashing and playing while we are unable to participate because of our wounds.
  • We will go through times when we can’t function and have to wait for more healing.
  • We will go through times when we have to adjust the way we do things.
  • We will forever bear the scar of our tragedies.
  • We will always have things that trigger reminders.

But we are not permanently injured to the point of being out of commission for the rest of our lives.

Our lives will never be the same. We will never be the same. But within that, we can make sure the tragedies in our lives are not wasted by leaving us incapacitated. And that includes the tragedy of the death of our child.

We can allow God’s love to wash over us, to heal us, and to take this change in us and use it against the enemy who brought death into this world.

And just think, all of our scars will disappear someday, both the physical ones and the emotional ones, when we join our children in that place where there is no more pain, no more sorrow, and all of our tears will be wiped away.

But until then, we need to remember…

Wounds heal so that we can continue living. Yes, our scar reminds us of what happened, of who was cut off from us, but it also reminds us that our life isn’t over. There is still more living to do, if not for yourself, then at least for those who love you and still need you in their lives, and for your child who is no longer here.

We can (and need to) learn to live with our scars in a way that honors our son or daughter, not in spite of our child’s death, but because of his or her life.

 

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Expressions of Hope is written by author, speaker and singer Laura Diehl. She and her husband, Dave, are the founders of Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope). Dave and Laura travel full time in their Hope Mobile (a 38-foot motor home) to be more easily available for speaking and ministry requests, including being invited to hold one-day GPS Hope & Healing conferences.

 

If you would like more information about Laura as a speaker for your next event or want more information on hosting a GPS Hope & Healing conference, click here.

 

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Why Bother Praying Anymore?

Prayer…. What’s the point? Prayers didn’t keep my child from dying, even though I based my prayers on scriptures in the Bible. So why bother praying anymore?

This is one of the greatest struggles I hear about, in conversations with other bereaved parents. Here is part of an email I received recently on this subject.

We are told to “Ask and ye shall receive.”

When prayers are “answered” or miracles happen, we praise and thank God. But, when people die despite prayerful petitions begging to save them, people quickly say that it just wasn’t God’s plan. It feels like God is always off the hook.

Are the answered prayers and miracles part of God’s plan, too? Were those miracles going to happen anyway? Or did people actually influence God and change his plan with their prayers and fasting? If I’m “meant to” be hit by a semi-truck while driving the kids to school, should I bother asking God to ‘please keep us safe today’ during our morning family prayer?

Have I been asking for the wrong things in my prayers my whole life? I believe we can ask for and receive comfort, knowledge, understanding. But, I no longer believe we can ask for specific blessings and miracles – like healing someone, or protecting someone. I don’t think we can influence God. I think God is just going to do whatever the heck He wants and we just have to accept it. 

I’m struggling to see the point of prayer if our prayers have no influence on God?

I will admit, this is something I have personally struggled with, along with my husband, Dave, even years after the death of our oldest daughter. I have continued to pray, and have conversations with God, but I can still find myself hesitant when putting requests before Him for things like healing or protection for my family (which can really frustrate me).

So, when I received the above email, I decided it was time to settle this issue in my own heart once and for all, and yes, I prayed about it! It took me several days before I was ready to sit down and write a reply.

The rest of what you will be reading is my reply (along with some thoughts I have had since then) on the struggle we can have for many years with the issue of prayer, following the death of our child.

  • A precious friend of mine shared with me this past week that she grieved for 3 years for not being able to have children. She started out praying for “God’s will” and then got to the point that she ached for a child so badly she didn’t care about God’s will, she just wanted a child and would pay the consequences later.

That caused her to become hard hearted, and when God broke her, and she was able to once again pray for His will, even if it meant never having a child, she became pregnant. But then she lost the baby.  Talk about cruel, right? But because she had wrestled with that issue, in her deep pain and grief, she was able to trust God to get her through it. (I will say she has been blessed with three children since the pregnancy loss, but she has also gone through breast cancer, which became another level of trusting God.)

My friend told me it was because of each thing she went through, she was able to pray and trust God through the next trial.

  • Another close friend, who lost her son-in-law in a grain bin accident several years ago, has talked to me about her struggle with this issue. What is the point of praying at all, if God isn’t going to answer and just do what He wants, or not step in to save someone or protect them?

She has come to the conclusion that even though we don’t like this “Christianeze” answer (because people throw it around in a flippant way), that God does answer our prayers. But just because it isn’t the answer we wanted, it doesn’t mean He isn’t good or that He didn’t answer.

We need to keep praying because it is more about our communication and relationship with Him than it is about “having enough faith” to command things to happen in the name of Jesus. And if God backed us up by giving in to everything we prayed for, we would make a mess of things because we are so selfish and don’t see (or care about) the big picture! His will is not always our will, and we have to be okay with that in this life, until we join our children.

  • In one of my books (When Tragedy Strikes: Rebuilding Your Life with Hope and Healing After the Death of Your Child) I share a couple of things that might be helpful. When our daughter, Becca, was only three years old, she was diagnosed with bone cancer in her leg. People were fasting and praying for her, and I truly believed the more people I told that God was going to heal her, the more it showed how much faith I had, so God was obligated (according to His Word) to heal my daughter! But it didn’t work that way. Becca still went through nine months of chemo and had her little left leg amputated. This sent me on my own journey about this faith stuff!

Years later, when our daughter Becca was married and became pregnant, she was put in the hospital at around five months along and given a 50/50 chance of surviving the labor and delivery because of heart damage caused by the chemo. I didn’t understand why I was crying so much when they wheeled her back to the OR take the baby early. My husband nailed it when he said, “It’s because we don’t know which direction we are going to have to trust Him for.”

We need to remind ourselves that Jesus said those who mourn will be comforted, not that we wouldn’t have death and difficult things affect our lives.

  • The other thing mentioned in When Tragedy Strikes is when I tell about a time that I was praying one of those “fix it” prayers, quoting all the right scriptures, etc.

I heard God ask me in my heart which prayer I wanted Him to answer. I was confused, so He reminded me how often I have come to Him and given Him permission to do whatever He wants to do in my life to get me where He wants to be. He then said, “What if I want to use this circumstance in your life that you are praying against, to get you where I want you to be? Which prayer do you want me to answer?”

Wow! I took the “fix it” prayer off the table and reminded myself that I have made Him Lord of my life, which trumps anything I want, no matter how painful that might be here on this earth.

During my days of prayer and contemplating how I wanted to answer this parent’s email, God gave me a very strong earthly illustration of why it is still valid and important to come to Him with our requests. I have shared it with dozens of people already, and they all say it is really good, and helps to make sense of this quandary we find ourselves in.

I will share that in a part two of this blog, along with a few things God has spoken to me since then, as I continue to meditate on all of this, asking Him to continue solidifying this new foundation He is laying in my life about prayer.

(To continue on to Part 2 click here.)

Are you struggling to move forward in your life because of the painful things that have happened? Are you confused at God’s vision for your life? Do you need a deeper revelation of who God is in you?
Laura would love to give you the eBook version of her book Triple Crown Transformation. Just let us know where you would like it to be sent.

 


Expressions of Hope is written by author, speaker and singer Laura Diehl. She and her husband, Dave, are the founders of Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope). Dave and Laura travel full time in their Hope Mobile (a 38-foot motor home) to be more easily available for speaking and ministry requests, including being invited to hold one-day GPS Hope & Healing conferences.

If you would like more information about Laura as a speaker for your next event or want more information on hosting a GPS Hope & Healing conference, click here.

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Can the Spirits of Our Children Come to Us?

The other night Dave and I went out to supper with a couple who recently lost their son from this earth. One of the questions she asked was, “Do you think our kids’ spirits can come back and visit us?”

She shared a situation where two of them had an impression in their spirits that he was there at a profound event at a certain place for a few seconds, very happy with what was happening. Plus, there was another time this mom sensed her son’s presence in a very real and almost tangible way.

These are not “flaky” people. They are very rooted and grounded in their relationship with the Lord, and spiritual leaders and pillars in the Body of Christ. They are sensitive to the voice and presence of the Holy Spirit.

It reminds me of an email I received recently:

I have a question; do you ever feel like your daughter’s spirit is around you? I always feel like she is around me. Sometimes I get confused, like I wonder did she ever cross over or does she just come back to visit? J.A.

It really is such a good question, and one that I find interesting to answer. Since it comes up so often, I finally decided to share my thoughts on this subject in a blog.

First, let me say that God makes it very clear we are NOT to go to mediums or try to call up the dead (Deuteronomy 18:9-11). That is dangerous and opens the door for the demonic realm to approach and deceive us, letting darkness have an influence in our lives disguised as light and hope. But that is not what I am talking about here.

I know strong Christians who are positive they occasionally feel the presence of the spirit of their loved one who died and no longer has a bodily form. These Christians have not sought after them as a spiritual being. They are not going to psychics or mediums to try and hear from their loved ones. But at some point, usually quite unexpectedly, they suddenly just “know” that their child or loved one is in the room with them, usually very close by.

When I started hearing these stories, I realized it was not my job to judge, but to be like Mary, and quietly ponder those things in my heart, taking them to God. And in doing this for several years now, I have only recently allowed myself to begin to explore outside of what I was taught, that when a person dies, they leave this earth and we are totally separated until we ourselves die. Period. That’s it. End of story.

I didn’t allow myself to even remotely consider anything else because I have been afraid of “being led astray” and seeing something because I want to see it, allowing myself to be deceived. But when I take anything I am questioning to God, I always ask Him to show me the truth, and not to allow me to be deceived. So, I have to believe that He will honor that, and the Holy Spirit will help me sort it out without going down the wrong path on the questions I put before Him, including this one.

So, let me take a deep breath and say that I have begun to believe that it is possible that our children’s spirits have opportunities to visit us, for the specific purpose of bringing comfort, peace, or whatever our need is for that moment. And there are places in the Bible that support this.

First, we know there are spiritual beings, angels and demons, all around us. We are surrounded by a spiritual realm that is even more real than the earthly realm we live in.

Remember when God opened Jacob’s eyes to see a ladder to heaven with angels ascending and descending (Genesis 28)? So, if our children are no longer contained by their bodies, isn’t it possible that God occasionally allows them to ascend and descend as spiritual beings also, if there is a purpose for it?

Then there is the time when Moses and Elijah came to earth to speak with Jesus before His death (Matthew 17).

And how about the “great cloud of witnesses” that Hebrews chapter twelve talks about, referring to the entire previous chapter of those who had died? Is it just those in Hebrews 11 who are in that group, or is it everyone who has died and now has full access to the Father as a spiritual being without bodily limitations?

We are three-part beings. We have a soul (our mind, will and emotions), we live in a body, but we are a spirit being. Jesus was very clear that He was leaving this earth so that the Holy Spirit could come (John 16:7). He lives inside us when we believe and receive by faith that Jesus died for our sins and was resurrected. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19), so our spirit is fully connected with the spiritual realm, whether we are aware of it or not.

In John chapter ten, Jesus says His sheep hear and know His voice and follow Him. As Christians, we are supposed to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit, growing in knowing His voice, so we can grow in our direct communion and fellowship with Him. It is a Spirit-to-spirit connection. So, if we are aware of God’s presence, is it that far off-base to occasionally be aware of the presence of our child’s spirit, who is connected to Him, Spirit-to-spirit as well?

Let me also say that I believe there are many times when God knows we need encouragement, so He will send us a sign that relates to our child, but it is not him or her. For example, let’s say a grieving parent is floundering hopelessly in the suffocating darkness of their grief. A cardinal comes and sits within 3 feet of them. Knowing their child loved and collected cardinals, some parents will think their child came to visit them as that cardinal. There is no scriptural ground that anyone’s spirit comes back in the form of an animal. However, I do believe that God, in His deep love and compassion, sent that cardinal to give peace and comfort, because of the special connection their child had with cardinals.

One thing that I become more aware of with each passing year, is how much I don’t understand about God. Even having the Bible to read and study, His vastness, His majesty, His glory, His love, is just beyond what I can comprehend or wrap my head around. Paul tells us in I Corinthians 13:12 that we see in part and we know in part. We cannot see the full picture, because what we see here on this earth is like looking through a dark glass.

Yes, I know we have the Word to teach and guide us, but there is not one single person here on earth who doesn’t have blind spots and wrong beliefs in some areas. Not a single one of us knows all truth. But we are constantly being taught by the Holy Spirit, who lives inside us, having our eyes opened to more light and more truth, which continues to set us free from false beliefs.

Have I had a sense that Becca’s spirit is around at some point? No, but I have had twice when I fully believe I was in heaven with her. God gave me a vision, allowing my spirit to join her before His throne and in the heavenly city.

So, in answer to the question, “Can the spirits of our children come to us?” I will say that I have started to believe it is possible that our children’s spirit can come and be with us at times on assignment for a specific purpose.

I would love to hear from you on this subject. If you do not agree, please share in a loving and respectful way. Anything harsh and judgmental will not be approved to be posted.

 

One of the sessions of the GPS Hope on-line summit was “What About Psychics and Signs?” where Dave and I discuss the topic. The entire Virtual Summit is on sale in our store, but if you would like this session for free, we would be happy to send a link for you to access it. Just fill in the information below. (It will also add you to our Weekly Word of Hope emails, which you can unsubscribe from at any time.)

Expressions of Hope is written by author, speaker and singer Laura Diehl. She and her husband, Dave, are the founders of Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope). Dave and Laura travel full time in their Hope Mobile (a 38-foot motor home) to be more easily available for speaking and ministry requests, including being invited to hold one-day GPS Hope & Healing conferences.

Laura is a national keynote speaker and has also been a workshop speaker for events such as The Compassionate Friends and Bereaved Parents USA national conferences, along with being a guest on radio shows, podcasts and other media channels such as webinars with Open to Hope.

If you would like more information about Laura as a speaker for your next event or want more information on hosting a GPS Hope & Healing conference, click here.

 

GPS Hope exists to walk with grieving parents through the suffocating darkness of child-loss, guiding them to a place of hope, light and purpose.
 We also support families, friends and coworkers who want to know how to support these parents both short and long-term.

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