Thursday, September 25, 2014

Mourn With Those Who Mourn

427. A number that changed our lives.

Our nightmare can also be abbreviated T1D.

Our feelings? Shock is the simplest word.

Dear little Grace, who has been the sunshine of our home for nearly ten years, was diagnosed this weekend with type 1 diabetes. Thanks to social media, we soon were flooded with phone calls and messages and posts from kind friends and strangers alike. Tears streamed as we scrolled through or recounted the sad story of watching our sweetness melt before our eyes, and how the Lord led us to the right diagnosis before a crisis came on.

To be completely honest and unconcerned about offending someone, some of those messages irked me. Oh, I know the authors had good intentions and gave the best they had. But as a mom who lost her first baby at 3 months, 12 days, and knows how fragile her last baby's life is, I can tell you a little about grief and comfort.

Assurances that all will be well, that she is healed and all we need to do is claim it, that God is in control, have a way of irritating rather than comforting. If all will be well, why do some children die from this? Why should my child have a ticket of safe passage and not another innocent one? If she is healed, why do I have to put 6 needles into her tender flesh every day? If God is in control, why did part of her body quit?

We worshipped Jesus as we drove away from the hospital where I left the body of my infant. My faith and trust has been tested in fire, and has proven as gold. Never has it crossed my mind that this is God's fault, that He has somehow failed me or left me. But things that are not according to his best wishes happen in this world. I don't understand it, but I know my Father enough to be satisfied with trusting His goodness, no matter the circumstances. He doesn't control everything. But He has the power to do anything. A mystery I've come to peaceable terms with.

Jesus taught us how to comfort those who hurt: cry with them. Be with them. Touch them.

Easy religious phrases are a cop-out for feeling another's pain deeply. I understand. It is uncomfortable; it hurts! Someone has said that pain is what keeps us human. We can only be compassionate by experiencing suffering in our own flesh and soul.

Life is to be shared, both its highs and its lows. Mourn with those who mourn. And another day, they may be able to rejoice with you in your gladness.

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