Ok, I feel like I try to be very honest about losing a spouse, grief, and single motherhood. This is going to be a hard post to post because it touches a place in my heart I don’t really talk about much, except for those closest to me. I am choosing to post it because I know that there is another out there who deals with the same emotions that I do and I want you to find encouragement in knowing that you are not alone.
Single parenting can feel like the loneliest place on earth. When you gather in settings where there is supposed to be the typical nuclear family and you are alone with your crew, the forces of evil will do their very best to sideline you with feelings of inadequacy and loneliness, even shame. Almost no single parent that I know wanted to be living the reality that they are.
I used to have stereotypical prejudices about single parents. Of course, they were only thoughts, because I would never have verbalized what I was thinking about “the why” they were single parents or the judgements that came with those un-Christlike thoughts. God has used my personal tragedy to humble me in ways that I never, ever would have willingly stepped in to. I am thankful for the much more Christlike perspective I have with those that are broken and walking the same brutal reality that I am, and that’s a beauty that only HE could create through the ashes.
As I’ve stated before, grief may change as time goes on, but it never goes away. There will continually be moments when you wish that your loved one could and should be there.
When a couple celebrates 50 years together and your heart aches because you know that will never be true of you. When a man leans over, with his hand on the small of his wives back and kisses her forehead for no apparent reason. When all the Daddies are coaching their kiddos and you wish more desperately than anything that you could bring their Daddy back so they wouldn’t feel left out and alone themselves. When your child cries for their Daddy and the only thing you can do is hug them, weep with them, and pray over their aching heart.
So though it may change, the reality of perpetual grief is true of the “not yet” of Christ’s Kingdom, on this side of Heaven. All will simply not be made right until the New Heaven and New Earth.
Although the heart will continue with its inconsolable ache, we must look to God to teach us through this pain.
We have to learn to be grateful in everything, because otherwise we will slip into the despair that Satan offers. We must learn to accept, and rejoice in, the village that HE has given for this time of brokenness. We must choose to see grandfathers and uncles and male friends as gifts from the Lord, because if we stare at the father-hole that our babies have in their lives for too long, I promise you we will fall into deep despair.
We have to learn to trust the Lord and His plan for us and our babies lives, even though it is NOTHING like the story we would have written. Evil has most definitely been given space to destroy in this world, but we all must trust that HE can make something beautiful from the ashes of destruction. We have to cling tightly to His robe, as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, because our alternative is groping about in the darkness alone.
We must speak Truth to ourselves and our children until our amnesia-hearts believe the Truths spoken by the very Word of God.
Lastly, we must reach out not only to the Lord on our hard and painful days, but we must ask the Body of believers that HE has graciously given us to help us on dark and lonely days. We must refuse the pride of isolation that Satan tempts us with, in favor of the battling community that HE designed for our souls. We are not at this alone and that is HIS plan! We must reject the unholy design of autonomy and embrace the communal plan of the Kingdom of God. There is power in sharing your heart and life with other believers!
So as I send this out into cyber world tonight, I pray that you find comfort here, in these words. I pray that you allow Him to transform you into someone who is grateful in all circumstances. I pray you cling tightly to HIS Truths and speak them over yourself and your children. I pray that you find a community of radical Jesus-lovers who live out the great design of the Body (family) of Christ in practical ways. I pray that you embrace the inconsolable ache of the “not yet”, as you marvel in the hope of Heaven. And I pray that you allow the Lord to shred all ungodliness from your soul through His severe mercies of pain.
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