Note: I began writing this blog post back in December (2015) shortly after the event I mention in the first paragraph. I began writing on this WordPress Blog as an almost therapeutic outlet. I have only written two posts including this one and actually didn’t begin writing either of them with the intention of publishing them to the blog. I appreciate you taking the time to read this post but want to note this disclosure that I don’t purport to “have it all together” nor do I feel like I am in the position to advise. Remember, this is simply a means I have chosen to use as an outlet. This probably won’t be my last post but it may be a while before there is another one. 

The first Tuesday of December (2015), the hospital sent us an invitation to be a part of an annual event. It is the “Club Meeting” for all of the parents who, unfortunately, are a part of this fraternity in which we had just recently found ourselves. As soon as we saw the invitation, we both agreed that we wanted to go. I didn’t exactly know what to expect nor can I put down in writing what I thought it would be like…I truly had NO idea what to expect. I can tell you that I hoped it would be an evening that left us feeling encouraged. I can say that I left disappointed.

When we arrived, we were greeted by a very sweet lady who showed us back to the room where the event would be held. We were encouraged to bring the kids with us to the event and we were glad to see that they had little ornaments for the kids to decorate in honor of their sibling. We were able to take their ornaments home for our tree, nice touch. We were seated and a couple of the chaplains came by and greeted us and visited with our kids. After a little while, the chaplain that I met at the hospital the night McKinley was born recognized me and came over to say hello. She said that she hoped the night would be beneficial for us and thanked us for coming. It was nice to see her again as she was a very sweet lady and was very kind that evening. In fact, all of the chaplains and staff from the hospital were great.

The evening was emceed by a ‘club member’ of 2 or 3 years. He told us a little snippet of his family’s story and, after some other things, introduced our speaker for the evening; another ‘club member.’ He began to tell us a little bit about his story and poured out his heart about how difficult it was for him to lose his son. It was heart-wrenching to hear him recount his son’s last words to him – “I love you, Dad.” – and to tell about the difficulty of having the machine that was keeping his son’s body alive turned off. I will leave out many of the details of the rest of his story as I don’t feel that I have the right to share it. Suffice it to say, he was angry with God and wasn’t afraid to say it.

This was a very short, incomplete version of the story but, as you can probably deduce, there was no hope and no encouragement. We had been given swimming lessons from a drowning man. We went away from that event slightly disturbed. We ended up going over to Georgia’s parents’ house so we could see someone who would give us some encouragement. We ended up sharing some laughs and went home better equipped to face the silence of our house once the kids were asleep.

I mentioned to Georgia that what we had witnessed in that room on that evening was how the world deals with grief. We witnessed how people deal with the grief of a great loss when they don’t have a relationship with the Lord upon which they can lean. I don’t mean to say that any one person in that room suffered more or less grief than the other; we were all hurting. In many ways, our grief was the same. The pain, the deep sense of loss, the sorrow…they were all present with each of us. The difference was HOPE. The difference was COMFORT. The difference IS Christ.

In my first blog post, There Was A Day, I mentioned the darkness that felt as though it might completely engulf us as the seconds, minutes, hours, and days slowly dragged on. It felt as though we had fallen into a deep, cold pit and someone was filling it up with heavy blankets of darkness. Darkness that felt like deep water covering our heads and stealing away all of our light. The kind of darkness that any Christian who ‘has their act together’ would be ashamed to admit that they felt, but it was there. Now, even months later, I have found myself in a mental fog. We had our family out for the funeral, we were given a trip to Kauai to help us get away from it all, we have gotten back into the routines of life and work. Yet this shadow remains. What is it? It isn’t like we sit and talk about the loss all of the time, we aren’t sitting around moping, we have 4 wonderful children who need us to live our lives with them. We have ministry work that we both are involved in and love doing. Honestly, I’ve had trouble understanding why I was having a difficult time mentally. It didn’t make sense. My thinking has been, “It has been 4 months. We went and designed her gravestone and, though it wasn’t easy, we were able to do it without falling apart. I should be fine but I don’t feel like I am.”

Physically speaking, there is nothing that can pull us out of the disparity of sorrow. Sure, contact with family and friends is vital to us since God made us to love being social but that only brings a short reprieve from the grief. Eating comfort foods and watching mind-numbing TV shows on Netflix does nothing permanent to bring us up out of the pit. Some turn to alcohol, drugs, and/or other vices. All of these things are merely temporary distractions from a grief that cannot be dealt with from outside sources. I love humor. I love laughing. But going to see a Tim Hawkins show isn’t going to replace the grief and sorrow we have had to, and still do, deal with. There is nothing wrong with laughing, there is nothing wrong with crying. I just want to be cautious not to mask or suppress any grief and sorrow that remains by using laughter. I also don’t want to become so entrenched in grief and sorrow that I forget to live my life so much so that it seems as though it ended the day McKinley’s life ended.

Grief and sorrow can slowly turn into anger, bitterness, depression…etc. Grief, sorrow, sadness…etc., are real emotions. They’re so real, in fact, that they can absolutely consume your life. This is a real danger since you may not know that you’re having an issue with grief until you have an issue. So, what is my issue?

One thing is for certain, I have been dealing with things on my own without any counsel or advice. That has changed. Talking with a friend, pastor, and/or someone who has gone through a similar situation and has come through are great ways to finally have some closure. One piece of advice I have received is to give it time. Time doesn’t heal all wounds, time allows wounds to heal if we’ll refrain from picking at them. God requires faithfulness from me. I have to remain faithful in my Bible reading, I have to remain faithful in my prayer time, I have to remain faithful in all areas of my spiritual and personal life; and then give time a chance to allow the wound to heal.

I was given some wise counsel recently from someone who had gone through a traumatic, life-changing event several years ago. I had been talking with them about the fact that I am in a fog for lack of a better term. They said, basically, God is the One in Whom we place our trust and, when things turn out badly, we have to make a conscious decision to trust Him again. It isn’t a loss of faith, it isn’t blaming Him. It is simply this fact: We trust Him to keep us, to sustain us, to protect us…etc. and things seemingly fell apart all around us. Life had been a roller coaster – up and down, up and down – except we weren’t expecting the downs after the ups. The way we want prayer to work is: We pray for something and God grants our wishes exactly how we want Him to. That’s how we pray, too. We have faith that God will: cure, heal, and/or fix. When He chooses not to do that, we have to choose to continue to trust Him. It isn’t simply, “Keep Calm and Carry On,” it is a choice that I will continue to place my trust in Him, the One who loves me more than I can even love myself. The One Who not only knows what tomorrow holds for me, but also cares and has a vested interest in my tomorrows. God isn’t only worthy of my praise, he is worthy of my trust.

When I received this advice, this song by the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir immediately came to mind, Still I Will Trust You. This has become another song, in a list of songs, that has ministered to me.

♦ Psalm 57:1, “Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast.”

♦ I Samuel 7:12, “Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord Helped us.” (underlined for emphasis)

♦ Psalm 3:3 – 5, “But thou, O Lord, art a shield for me; my glory and the lifter up of mine head. I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill. Selah. I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the Lord sustained me.”

-Chad