~ Children In Heaven ~ 2 Cor 1:3-4

[TrustingHim]

Hi, sisters, just coming by to share a hug.
Jubilee21, thank you for those beautiful, thoughtful posts. You give us much to think about.

Tomorrow is my Mark's birthday. He would be 30 and this is the 7th year he hasn't been here to celebrate with us. My heart and soul are weary from missing him so much.

Peace to you all.

Love,
Trusting (Another Sue !)

[pumkin67]

TrustingHim, :hug you'll be in my prayers. Birthday's are hard.

[Anddra]

In the name of our precious, faithful, Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus this is my prayer for you and others here .:hug

Thank you for sharing all these things with us, Jubilee. There is a lot sitting behind your post. :hug

[Amanda's mom]

Hi, sisters, just coming by to share a hug.
Jubilee21, thank you for those beautiful, thoughtful posts. You give us much to think about.

Tomorrow is my Mark's birthday. He would be 30 and this is the 7th year he hasn't been here to celebrate with us. My heart and soul are weary from missing him so much.

Peace to you all.

Love,
Trusting (Another Sue !)
:hug :bighug :hug

[TrustingHim]

Thank you, Pumkin and Amanda's Mom!! I needed the hugs and prayers!

I was thinking about my post last night. I should have said that yes, my heart and soul are weary from missing Mark so much, but my spirit rejoices that he is safe in Jesus' care! And how I, like all of you, look forward to the blessed reunion!

Love and peace to you all.

Trusting

[Amanda's mom]

God willing, that reunion will be very soon. I am so tired of this life and all its burdens, of longing to see Amanda and to be free of this body to which I am chained. With everything that is happening in this world, surely it can't be much longer.

[ihope]

God willing, that reunion will be very soon. I am so tired of this life and all its burdens, of longing to see Amanda and to be free of this body to which I am chained. With everything that is happening in this world, surely it can't be much longer.

I pray (write in my journal) that you are right! I had such a hard day today! I cried so much over my daughter Erica! Is it wrong to want to be in Heaven so badly? I had a close call on my bike today and I didn't even care. Life w/all its burdens is hard! Losing a child and hurting this much takes so much energy! I've been praying and reading my bible today and even planted some plants but I also cried so hard in her room. Today is not a good day and I hurt and I pray for ALL of our tears to wiped away soon! :hug

[Amanda's mom]

I pray (write in my journal) that you are right! I had such a hard day today! I cried so much over my daughter Erica! Is it wrong to want to be in Heaven so badly? I had a close call on my bike today and I didn't even care. Life w/all its burdens is hard! Losing a child and hurting this much takes so much energy! I've been praying and reading my bible today and even planted some plants but I also cried so hard in her room. Today is not a good day and I hurt and I pray for ALL of our tears to wiped away soon! :hug
:hug I know how that is. I think that I get caught up in thinking about Amanda and I make mistakes that could have bad consequences (God has protected me so far from these). I go into Amanda's room which I still need to do so much on and just want to cry; sometimes that's all I do. I hold her bathrobe which still smells a bit like her or hold the lock of her hair up to my cheek and remember how it felt to have her head against my cheek. I look at all her books and toys and collectibles. about 6 years ago, DH brought home a cement chinese dragon meant to be a garden decoration. Amanda fell in love with it and bought it from him. It sits on the mantle in her room in front of a picture her grandfather had painted. We called the dragon Norbert and said he was a chinese cookie dragon. She had to feed him "cookies" to keep him from eating all her ducks. She'd always laugh and throw imaginary cookies up to Norbert, make chewing sounds like he was eating, and then pretend he was quite content. I see Norbert and remember all of that. It makes me even lonelier for her. Her pillow still has a dent where her head rested that last morning and a strand of her hair rests just above the dent. I can't bear to move them and I have no real need to. I cry every morning in the shower. Sometimes I think I couldn't possibly have any more tears left. But they always come back.

http://www.rr-bb.com/picture.php?albumid=11&pictureid=51

[Jubilee21]

I am so touched to hear each voice that has shared their losses here..the sorrow is palpable even over the computer screen but so is the love..the enormous love each one of you have for your precious children..and that is for me personally, one of the most validating gifts of being alive and as a Christian woman, mother, sister, daughter, friend and former wife for such of my life.

The thing that comes to my mind perhaps as one of the most needed steps of grief is to know its Ok to mourn..and to have those times of solitude where nothing else demands anything from us..that we can just be "us", and allow this grief to be released..to go to God and feel safe that we can allow the pain that is inside our hearts to come forward when we feel as if our chests are going to explode..some see this as 'bad' or "frightening'..

for me each time in my life I faced a loss that completely changed me and my life from anything it remotely ressembled before I lost a loved one..there was mourning..I had to mourn..I had to express my grief, to allow it to be just what it was..there is a time to stop being "brave or strong"..its Ok to "need" its natural and it healthy, and it's life affirming..for someit can be found in one way, and one length of time for another something completely opposit of that..but what we hlod in common is that it has to happen and in its own way and on our hearts terms..no one elses..there are no rules to this except this one when it comes to mourning.

I had to be able to touch and feel those things that were connected to the ones that I loved..my mothers clothing, her favorite book.my fahters pipes, his Half-and Half tobacco cans, the old denim shirts he wore and smelled like him..I didn't want to forget any of it..I need something tangible, a part of them to hold onto , becasue I simply was not ready to "let go" ..to cope with the future of them no longer being with me.

With the loss of my unborn child...I had nothing to hold onto except the utltra sound picture..in a rage of sheer meaness after I left my home due to my former husbands illness and violence, he threw away all and most of my personal belonging's..and in my concern for my children and urgency, I had been unable to take much with me in the exodus..and somehow forgot to grab that box where I kept that hidden with cards and monetos I had kept throughout the years..

When I realized what I had done, had forgotten that, I was absolutely heartbroken.but when I realized he had destroyed it..it was asif Ihad lost her all over again..losing that one piece of her , the only thing I had of "her" hit me so hard, I thought I was going to fall apart into a thousand pieces..and never be OK again..perhpas becasue at the time it happened my maraige was coming apart all around me under the worst possible scenarios,, and it was also like a death..and I was a widow..I had lsot the man I married to a mental illness, I had lost my home in having to leave to protect my children and my life..I lost my clothes, my personal history..my father was dying and I was "homeless" a mother with four children living in a house donated by a stranger but not madeinto a home "yet"..

I was so disoriented and walking around in a shock and could not make any one comprehend what was happening inside of me..I was the one who always "fixed" everyone elses lives..that was my vocation and occupation most of my life,and it was sheer force of training and experience of doing that all those years that kept me functioning on auto-pilot so to speak..

But the day came I had to grieve..I had to let it out..I had to let it blow..so I called a trusted friend, one who "got all of this" and we took a camping trip..away from my kids away from the responsibilities, away from everything in the Mts of Va, where we camped out , alone and with just the night and stars above us and the firei n front of us..in seclusion as we sat there ,she simply wrapped her arms around me and quietly said:

"Sue..its ok, it's your turn it's time to.tell God what hurt's, how much it hurts."


and thats when I let it rip..I cried, I sobbed, I think I screamed and and I wailed..so loud, with every fiber of my being..I called out to God for every loss I had and begged him to take me and keep me until all of this could come out and help put me back together for the sake of my kids..I was not letting go of the ones I loved..I was letting go of the grief..I had to be able to mourn..I had gone on too long being strong for everyone elses sake..

The waves of pain eventually lost intensity a little and the sobbing come less frequently.I found I could release it while I mourned in God's hands with my dearest friend beside me, I exhausted myself finally, let it all come out..I could breath again..I was completely "broken", and theats when the healing, began

My friend Liz, well the reason she got it was because..she had been a cancer survivor, and at this time her breast cancer had returned a the same time my mothers did in the middle of all of this I was going through, and we both knew she was not going to make it this time, just like my mothers
was going to die and leave me too..and I was looking down the road, just precious months from then when both my dearest friend as well as my mother were going to both be gone, after all these other changes and losses

Losing that picture of my unborne daughter brought all of this to bear, it was the stick that broke the cammels back for me....and it was just unbearable ..I genuinely grasped Jobs sorrow, the depths of it..with each disaster,loss or shock he had to endure as one by one, everything just turned to dust..all gone, as if it had never been..and asking God..where are you?..I can take anything God but I need to know you are near..I can't fele anything except this horrendous pain in my heart that is consuming me and all I want to to do is rip my heart out so it stops..I need to feel you but I can't thru all of this pain..I need you..do not abandone me..just let me know you are somewhere..thats all need.. then I know everything else will be Ok...today its not, and it feels like it never will be again..I need to know how this will be "OK"..and only your presense is going to make it bearable if its not.

I was shutting down, I didn't want to remember the good things, because it would remind me of what I had lost and why..I didn't want to stop remembering the good things because then all I would think of was the bad..I had to find a way to hold on for my own children but like a child I was struggling to hold on, my arms were too small, my hands not strong enough to keep holding on, and in my pain I did not want to keep trying, I wanted to lie down and never get up..

Liz and I knew the same pain and sorrow, and we had each other to hold on to while we went throughthis valley of darkness together and cried out to God to let us rest, and aly down so we could get back up when we had to for our families and those who needed us to help them go throught this as well.

But we knew we had to do CPR..Christ, Prayer and Letting Go..we had to put the oxygen mask on us first so we could put it on the ones who could not do it for themselves..this was how "we did it"..


I had been there for her both times when she had to grieve, had to have her time to mourn and I had done this with her..its how we found strength to face each of our paths we had found God had taken us on as we came to terms we were on them and we could not take them without Him. In her case, Liz was leaving three children and a husband with whom she had just reunited with after a horrendous period in her life where thru all of this he recieved Jesus as his savior and this had healed their marraige. They were just begining their new life together , and then came the diagnosis ..her breast cancer had return and it was 'bad'..her chiildren were not going to have her in their life within a year or less ..

So together we grieved our losses, we helped each other mourn..as David did right up until the day he found out his son had passed away, then with Gods provision, found the strength to get up and move forward and do the next thing that came "next"..Liz her losses that were ahead of her, , I was going to lose her too, my mom after losing my father, their home, my only hom lefton this sideof the grave I had at the time.. along with mine that were behind me..and both of us know we would never be the same again, nor would our lives ever be the same again..

everything had changed and we had to find our new "normals, by taking each day, hour by hour , sometimes, breath by breath , footstep, by foorstep..and each one required a prayer for God to provide the way as well as the strength for two sparrows who had lost their homes, their past with its future that was the only one they had knownwe werei n a stange land, and all we had was the present to find our way.


I know folks think because I functioned that I was "getting over it", but in reality I can say that the pain was just lesseningand becoming more managable, I made a decision to survive and to live with the mercy and grace of God as my life line. I had to learn how to be happy again..literally had to relearn this all over again and make all of these things part of my new history..and how to live in my "new life"..to be kind to myself and learn who this stranger was that was "me"..life had betrayed me, it had not played fairly and acording to these rules I had made for it when it came to much..we all do this and the anger needs to come out along with the sorrow and grief, the mourning allowed that does not end when we leave the cemetary, it simply begins..

So , no do not let go, let what is be, until God takes yout through the next step..remember what is good and precious, do not allow the pain to deprive you of that..take that pain and mourn, cry your heart out, allow yourselves to embrace all the things of what is behind you that you want to bring with you as the precious gift it is that willone day be sucha comfort..whenthe pain simply begins to lessen and you allow yourselves not to feel guilty because you can feel happiness fromtime to tiem..and that you feel the life you have beging tocome into focus as God shows you the purpose He has for the balance of it until you are reunited with your precious lved, children or others you have lossed. You may feel adrift like a sparrow, and that you have no sense of "home" becasue your life has changed and nothing that you knew that was normal becasue it is is gone..it feels this way becasue it is..and that is why we must be like the sparoows and allow God to provide the rest, the place to land and rest, the time to mourn, the time to live again..there is a season for everything my precious family in Christ..be still and know that God has never been closer, He is ther and allow Him to let you grieve, take your heart through this pain..and to cry..because those tears are indeed precious jewels to Him as they should be they come from the heart and everyone of them is full of love..

Cry your heart out, for there is nothing more precious than to have loved and cherished a child, that has been taken from us for a time..but always remember through those tears, this IS IN Gods time, the seasons will come full circle and those tears can and will be for joy again..do not doubt this!

Embrace those memories..they are the pictures of your loved ones that your heart and your tears have painted and never, ever should be thrown away or forgotten.It took me years to be honest before my life and its circumstances of all its changes allowed me to grieve..to mourn properly and healthily for each thing Ilost, gradually I did, I am still "doing this" to this day..and I hold this poem close to my heart when a sudden rush of grief shows up out of the blue..I come across things that were my parents I had boxed away in many moves and never got to..I can remeber the child Ilost and it is the sheer joy I had themonet I knew she was in me as my "picture" and the one that keeps the others out..like David I donot fear the giants, I am armed with the neede skills and weapons that God has proivide whenIhave to go to battle with my worst fears, and Know I wil not be defeated because Jesus is my hope..my hope will never die nor can be taken from me.

When I let go of my worst sorrows and fears, it was hope that took their spots, filled those holes that used to break my heart when they were filled with the heartbreaks of life.

I finally can look at pictures of my children when they were babies, with their father in them, hundreds and not mourn the loss of his absence but take comfort of what was good in him still remaining in my children from the times that were the happiest of my life.I am indeed like the sparrows God takes care of..I just understand their songs now!

That pain you are feeling, allow it to come and God to show you how to mourn as it is a needed friend, to get that hope back into your hearts again -

Like a bird
Singing in the rain,
Let grateful memories
Survive in time of sorrow.

Robert Louis Stevenson

:hug :bighug :hug

[Ironguild]

Wow, this is a really touching thread.
My mother had 3 miscarriages between my brother and I, and I can't wait to finally meet my other siblings when we are translated to the Kingdom of our Lord!
And I lost a child due to miscarriage a few years ago, unfortunately my ex-girlfriend and I were in a sinful relationship...Either way, I'm sure I'll be bawling when I get to meet and hug my unborn child in heaven.