February is a month where “love is in the air” with Valentine’s Day. Personally, I always used this day to love on my kids, since I didn’t feel like Dave and I needed a day set aside to show our love for each other.

One reason the pain is so deep after the death of our child is because our love for him or her doesn’t go away when they leave us. The love we have for our children lasts forever, which is expressed in the writing below.

Forever

My child,
Flesh of my flesh,
Soul of my soul,
Part of my very being;
I had an instant deep and fierce love when I first saw you.
My heart was yours, and I knew I would give my very life to protect you.

And yet, here I sit, with the suffocating pain and darkness of knowing I was unable to protect you from death.

So now I find that just as deep and intense as my love for you, is the deep and intense pain of my grief in living without you. And yet I know that somehow, I must.

How? How God? How do I go on with a piece of my very being gone from this earth?

And as I ask and seek for this help, God in His tender love, compassion and faithfulness reminds me that I don’t have to live without you.

You are forever in my heart and my thoughts, and forever a part of my very being; that our separation is only temporary. You have just moved on to our eternal home before me and have unpacked and settled in, waiting for me and the rest of us to join you.

This isn’t a final good-by. It is an “I’ll see you later.” When I have the thoughts that I would give anything to see you again, to hug you or hear you laugh, I realize that I will! Maybe not as soon as I want to, but it will happen!

And so, I will wait. I will wait with hope, expectancy and even excitement to see you again. Every day I am here on this earth means I am one day closer to that desperate need that I have as a mother to love on you. 

And while I wait, I will choose to live my life in a way that is full; full of love, full of peace and contentment, full of laughter. And yet I know it will also still be full of pain and longing. For I have now learned that all of these things can live inside of me together.

So, let me say I am honored. I am honored and blessed to be your mom, and I imagine and dream of our reunion someday, filled with love and joy that goes beyond words to describe it.

But until then, I will have good days and bad days. I will have days filled with happiness, and days filled with pain. And all of those days I will continue miss you with every fiber of my being.

We grieve deeply, because we love deeply. That is one of the risks of love. But as the poem reminds us, our child is forever in our hearts and in our thoughts. He or she is forever a part of our very being. Our separation is only temporary, because God, in His deep love for our child and for us, made a way for that to be possible.

Consider praying this prayer with me: Lord, my deep grief is a reminder of my deep love that cannot be poured out on my child right now. But someday we will be together again, and all this stored up love will be dumped on my child! And Father, I ask that right now, you would give my child a big hug from me, and love on them in my place. Thank you.

 

If you were to buy a little Valentine gift to show your child how much you love and miss them, what would it be? I would love to have you share it in the comments below.

 

By the way, Laura has written a song that expresses some of the thoughts above. Click here to listen to the song Together Forever.

 

 

 

 

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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