Skip to main content

One Grieving Mother To Another...Give Grace

Grace can be defined as "the love and mercy given to us by God because God desires us to have it, not because of anything we have done to deserve it."

As grieving mothers we are gifted with so much grace from others. 

We have husbands who hold us while we weep uncontrollably and hold us together when we feel like our lives have fallen apart.

We have parents who look at us and our loss is mirrored in their eyes. They remind you that we are strong and that they are proud of you...even when we don't deserve it. 

We have sisters who weep with us, who let us rage about how unfair life us, and who remind us that they miss their nephew too.

We have friends who commiserate with us, and try their hardest to understand and to be there for us. Friends who think life is unfair too. 

 We have ushers in our church who hug us as we're suddenly weeping in our seats because the sermon is about motherhood, reminding us that we will be reunited one day.

We have countless women who hug us and weep with us on Mother's Day. Women who know our pain and women who don't.

The world extends us grace. They forgive unreturned phone calls and texts. They listen to angry rants and love us. They acknowledge our loss and accept that it has changed us forever in so many ways. They give us grace.

We must extend grace to the world as well...

Because people say some pretty stupid things. People say some extremely thoughtless things. People even say some hurtful things. 
But they really don't mean to. They are just so confused and they are trying to grieve along with you. They are so desperately lost for words that they cannot comprehend that what they're saying is awful, hurtful, or just plain ridiculous.

The point is that they are trying to ease our pain. They are trying to give us hope. They are trying to love us. They are trying to grieve with us.

They don't know whether to laugh with you, or cry with you, or just be normal, because they want you to feel normal again too. 

They have not experienced exactly our loss but they are trying.

Do not get angry at them, do not become bitter because they cannot understand what you've been through. 

Give them grace, because they are trying the best they can. 

Give them grace, because they are grieving too.

Give them grace, because sometimes life is just unfair.

Give them grace, because we were extended grace when we did not deserve it.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

She Doesn’t Call Me Mom…

  My daughter doesn't call me Mom. There's a brutality in that that doesn't seem to fade. Because it's not just a name. If it was just a name I'd be okay with it...with not being Mom. But it's so much more, and in this season of life, my heart is seemingly constantly being broken in the wake of a daughter who does not want me to be her mother.  I have held in secret deep hurts and brokenness in the life of my teenager's adoption. Partly because it's not only my story, but hers as well. But this year has been so very heavy...and I have so often felt so very alone in that heaviness. Who understands the rejection of RAD? Of ODD? Of ADHD? Of Adoption? Of a child who is so very loving and kind to everyone except their mom? I've read post after post of mothers, of fathers, of siblings, of children who have faced or are facing the exact life we are living, and they a balm to my weary soul. Comfort in the knowledge that we are not alone...that I am not alon...
2 comments
Read more

Have You Tried This?

  It’s an interesting phenomenon, to have a child so deeply loved by your community and to be treated so abhorrently by that same child. My daughter was desperately prayed for. Desperately wanted. So many people in my family, and church, and community donated their time and prayers and money to make her adoption a reality.  And I am often ashamed to admit that I am locked in a manipulative and abusive relationship with her.  Please understand that she’s a traumatized little girl stuck in the body of an adult, with the coping skills of a toddler, and reasoning of a small child.  She’s had the whole deck stacked against her for the majority of her life. So, I don’t take it personally. And I certainly don’t think it’s the same as another adult being abusive.  She is still just a child, my child, and her abuse is seen through that lens.  But she thrives on creating abusive chaos in our home. And those wounds can cut deep even when not taken personally. She’s be...
3 comments
Read more

Four Years a Widow

  4 years a widow... 4 years into this journey and I can say, with some certainty, that it is a whole lot easier than it was 4 years ago...3 years ago...2 years ago...even 1 year ago. So, at the very least, it's trending up, eh? I haven't sobbed hysterically over my dead husband in ages, years even. The grief is much more sophisticated now, I get choked up, maybe let a tear or two fall out. Nothing quite so dramatic as the panic attacks I used to have. It's all quite tame and reasonable...you know...until its not...and it steals my breathe by sheer surprise. And a part of me forgets that there was ever a time when it felt normal for John to be dead. Because, 4 years in, it is normal. Normal for John to be dead. Normal to not know how to fix the broken things. Normal to sleep in bed alone. Normal to wish there was just a moment where I didn't have to manage all of these things all by myself. (Because being an independent woman is ridiculously overrated...0/10 - do not re...
Post a Comment
Read more