Getting real with your grief is a necessary truth that has to be revealed for the growth and healing to start to mold the new you. The exciting thing is that even through the midst of your grief, wherever you are, a vision of what can be is possible. You can believe it possible, you can dream it possible, but it’s in the everyday hard work at chipping away and getting real that creates that new version of who you will become. – exerpt from previous blog post.

When I wrote the first part of Being Real I wasn’t sure where the story might go. The places I’d go and drag you along kicking and screaming. I needed some time to think about it and I realized that the message of hope for the grieving parent or any person who has faced grief, is that it is hard work. There is no escaping it. It takes you by the throat and drags you around until one day when you say “enough”!

Sometimes it’s easier to give in and just be down and out. Because truly you have every right to be. I mean your world has been turned upside down. The life rug has been pulled out from underneath you. What was is now gone and it all happened within a blink of an eye. So again sometimes it’s just easier to be sad.

But what I’m asking you to do is think “I can see joy” or “I can have hope” or “I can be happy again”. Agreeing with me will be the easiest part of this journey that I’m taking us on. However believing it, well that will be up to you. So that is where we will start. Belief.

Belief

Belief comes from faith, having a real faith that all things will work out for the good of everyone. Belief creates a space for you to exercise your faith in God to make things right in your world. Belief also requires that you give it all to God and stop trying to figure it all out. I wrote a post a few years ago about trying to figure it all out. That thinking is what keeps you from moving forward.

In John 11:25 we are reminded of how important it is to believe. “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.” What I took from this scripture is that even though everything around us is gone – keep believing in God. That God will make all things right. He will heal the broken-hearted. He will wipe away every tear.

In the hours after my daughter’s death, I would just look at her and say I can’t believe you are gone. My sweet baby and then I would look up to God and say “why” “how” “what”. Then God would send me such a peace that I cannot explain it. I mean really who can have such a peace when their only child has just died and who just hours before was as lively as could be. Then the unthinkable, the unimaginable happens – a seizure.

After many hours of treatment and several attempts at resuscitation, we were told she would be fine and by morning she would be ready to go home. The ups and downs of the worst 12 hours of my life just kept coming. Just when I could breathe again, more bad news. Until the moment when they said “her heart cannot take any more” while a PICU nurse was on top of my daughter performing CPR, looking in her eyes and knowing I was about to lose my daughter – at that moment I chose to believe.

to be continued…..

until next time.

m