Read on the day when it feels like the night will never end

When will it end? The darkness seemed suffocating and in the thick of it I felt blinded to anything but hurt. It was a familiar season in my life. Trauma and tragedy were becoming all too often reoccurring and I felt like I was drowning. Each time, the blow knocking me down a little further.

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Joy was supposed to come in the morning. God was supposed to turn my weeping into dancing...but there I was, gasping for breath with no relief to my tired bones and aching heart.

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Been there? Fumbling around this lightless land of grief and sorrow? That is the night. In the night, things are unfamiliar and scary. Small sounds seem magnified and our loneliness aches deep. We feel isolated...abandoned. "Weeping may endure for the night" I was expecting my immediate joy in the morning, but if you've ever been anywhere at night, you know it lasts a while.

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In my devotion this morning she spoke of the sunrise being gradual and I was like YES! That is the grief walk. A gradual rebirth into joy and hope. The night falls and it's heavy. We're confused and desperate, but never truly alone. My weeping was heard. My tears were caught. We expect this easy life from pain, but that's just not reality. Pain comes to everyone. No one is exempt from night, but we all the have the hope of the sunrise.

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Slowly small glimmers of light start peeking over the horizon. What once seemed ominous and terrifying is bathed in light and softened. We slowly see some familiarity and the anxiety settles. We begin to navigate the world around us again. Everything isn't sunshiny and bright all at once. It's a gradual bathing of hope and restoration until the day that we breathe in and realized the air went a little deeper into our lungs and our heart beats seem a little less shaky. Then, a new hope is born. The light is shining at it's peak, covering us in redemption from the terror we experienced in the night.

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Just like a child, it's in those "I'm afraid of the dark," pitch black moments at night that I just want to be held. That I'm calling out desperately and God's hands swoop me up and carry me as He slowly floods me with the light of morning. Then, at the break of day...with a new mission in my heart, He says go. He's turned my mess into a message. The sunrise. My "joy in the morning."

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We don't just arrive at joy. We have to journey there.

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And just as the coming of morning doesn't stop the night from existing, neither does new hope and joy wipe away the things that happened to you. You're just able to navigate them and use them for a greater purpose...for something that fills you and glorifies the one who brings the sunrise!

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For those still in the midst of your darkest night, you are not alone. I'm here on the other side to guide you. It's my mission to make your dark road a little easier travel. I believe it's the duty of those who've been there before. Rest, give yourself grace, pour out your anguish, and open your heart to be filled with joy again. It won't happen instantly, but start watching for those first signs of sunrise. Those tiny glimmers of newness. <3

....until we can dance together in the light of the sun with our eyes fixed on eternity where our true hope lies knowing we've conquered the darkness that tried to swallow us. I promise, that day will come.

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"You make known to me the path of life;

you will fill me with joy in your presence,

with eternal pleasures at your right hand."

-Psalm 16:11

I didn't just lose my child

I didn’t just lose my child.

On April 8, 2016 my son passed away and with him went my entire life. When you lose your child you lose your security, your hope, your comfort, your light heartedness, your compassion, and your empathy. You lose the ability to think simply, to go with the flow, or enjoy a carefree evening. You lose sleep. You lose contentment. You lose friends. You lose patience. You lose excitement.

You also gain some things…anxiety, anger, doubt, confusion, heaviness, bitterness, emptiness. The list could go on.

What people don’t realize is that losing a child touches every single piece, moment, and area of your life for the rest of your life. You are never the same. Every single joy also comes with sorrow. Every single moment also comes with a what if. What if he were here? What would he be like now? What would we be doing. There is always a hollow feeling in the room. A missing piece.

Remember when you were younger and you used to float around the water in an inner tube? You blissfully paddled along laughing and splashing until you slipped through the middle and suddenly realized you were in the deep end and didn’t know how to swim. Your security floated away and you were left drowning, gasping for air, trying to keep your head above water. You inhaled so much liquid you felt like you needed to puke and every splash of people jumping and laughing around you was amplified and pushed you deeper under. You looked up and what was once a bright and sunny day was now dim and blurry. The water sloshed above and around you and you could hardly keep yourself afloat no matter how fast you paddled your feet? That is what it feels like EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

My days are now filled with confusion. Nothing is simple. Everything is hard and complicated and exhausting. A single trip to the zoo with my daughter feels wrong because I should be taking two children instead of one. Planning holidays or get togethers with friends is too much to bear. Simple tasks like checking the mail or answering the phone now bring fear and worry because another bill or call from insurance could send me into a spiral of tears that ransacks the entire day. I am riddled with anxiety because the unthinkable has happened and I’m on guard for the next shoe to drop.

I maintained security in the fact that so many bad things had happened already. I’d seen trauma. I’d overcome the odds. Surely there was no way I’d lose my son too and then I did. Now I’m afraid. Afraid to lose everything I love. Afraid to be out in big crowds. Afraid to be alone because my mind is just waiting for what’s next. I see the blank stares and the sad eyes. They cut like knives.

AND not only do I feel all of these new things, but then I feel guilty for feeling them. I know I shouldn’t be anxious, but I am. I feel terrible for getting upset when I see new babies born or happy families who don’t have to fight just to stay afloat. I don’t want those feelings, but they are now mine for a season because, you see, I didn’t just lose my child, I lost me. I had taken on this new role as a mother of two. A heart mom. A mom of a boy and a girl. I lost my identity and was left with its shattered remains. Now I’m on the uphill journey to find myself again, but this time is different. This time I am new. This time I am a bereaved mother and it’s a title I carry with unending heartache.