I was early to an appointment, for once. I pulled into a Bigby parking lot, grabbed my notebook and started writing.
It was the early days of Calvin’s diagnosis and medical struggles; pain poured out of me and I had nothing but prayer and my pen to sponge it up. Reading and writing became two major coping mechanisms for me and played a vital role in healing even though circumstances did not improve.
Facing loss is hard. Especially when it’s a continuing process and your child gets worse instead of better. This made me wrestle with the Lord and cry out in confusion and often anger. God’s purpose in disability was easy for me to agree with and hard to embrace. Drawing the pain with my pen, these words are still as fresh and pertinent to me four years later.
Loss sweeps you off your feet.
It comes, uninvited, with no apology
It lifts you up, tips you upside-down
and shakes you til you’re empty
it’s hard to find any piece of you left.
It broadsides you.
You may be looking at the sun, reaching
for the next mercy that’s before you.
It hits you from behind and your feet,
they flail wildly unable to touch
the ground and find security, stability.
Survival makes them quiet. Makes
them set down beneath you and move
forward, shaky on this new ground.
Your heart stays behind but your feet
they move, driven by routine,
a stilted rhythm but
it’s in moving that your heart keeps
its beating and your life keeps on living.
They say time heals. Maybe it does.
But when I look back I still see
a deep, deep, hole. It has a sign
called LOSS at the edge. And a face
of a little boy there.
Whose face do you see?
But these feet shuffling forward
point my eyes to another spot. It is
a sign with GAIN written all over.
The boy’s face is there too.
In the folds of His providence
there are mercy treasures and
unexpected joys that my tired eyes
and slow heart never thought to see.
So all these holes and all these mercies exist,
together.
The gains do not erase the loss.
And the loss opens our hearts to
gains we’d never imagined.
I’m thankful that even though the sting of loss is still present, the balm of God’s comfort and joy has taken precedence in our lives. So much of my emotions needed to be guided by truth. These are a few of the books I found helpful; click on the book for more details.
A national conference hosted by CCEF is happening in San Diego this October. Gifted and compassionate thinkers and counselors will be leading sessions on loss. Which one of us hasn’t struggled with this? It appears the sessions will be available on-line.
Latest posts by Kara Dedert (see all)
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