It is really hard to explain to someone who has not experienced the loss of a child what it feels like. People think they can imagine, I arrogantly thought I could when my niece died and then again when my nephew died. They cannot, I could not. Make no mistake, I hurt horribly for both of those losses, but it did not compare either in length or depth. Pain, pressure, weight, exhaustion, confusion, despair, and numbness coexisting in complete chaos. If you can, image a buffalo hide made into a full-length coat with a hood; Now put that on; Continually soak it with water. The weight of it is so much that your knees are always on the verge of buckling and sometimes do. That is sort of what the weight felt like every minute of every day. You get no relief from sitting or lying down because the water is constantly keeping it soaked and heavy. This would also give you an idea of the numbness. People talk to you, and you know they are talking, but white noise and confusion in your head keeps most of the sentences from making any sense. You can make out a word or two every now and then, but they never seem to be coherent. Now inside the water soaked, full-length buffalo skin coat you have on, I want you to image needles, pins and broken glass being embedded on the inside. Every move you make causes additional excruciating pain. It makes no sense at all. So numb and yet in so much pain at the same time. My brain telling me that this state is to be your new normal for the rest of your existence. There will never be an end because they are never coming back. That is an incomplete description of what I felt, but I am lacking in ability to fully describe it to you. You relive the horrible news every few minutes, later every couple of hours. If after days of no sleep you pass out from exhaustion and you chance to dream of being with your child again, maybe a past experience or even a planned future one, just for a split second just as you wake your world is right, even more than right. Ecstatic, euphoric, for that split second… but then the horrendous moment comes crushing back down on you in full force.

You may have a far better and more descriptive way of conveying your experience of loss than mine. I’ve not included my pitiful attempt as a definitive description for the world to see. I have included this so that you, the parent who has buried your child can know that I have been where you are or have been also. Some well meaning people in your life may tell you they understand, and you can tell by looking in their eyes, they don’t….I do. I only say that so you will have some faith in the rest of my story below.

I was raised by loving Christian parents. I accepted Christ as my savior at a very early age. I did not however really live that way during my teens. I never really had any real adversity in my life until much later. I served in church in a lot of ways. Nursery, Elementary, Teens. I read the word and I had prayed the words. I spoke the words and I even believed the words of the Bible. Until the death of my son I had never really questioned the existence of the help promised those words. The words all of a sudden just felt like empty words.

My feelings during the height of my grief were screaming at me that God had abandoned me. I felt utterly alone. In my pain and numbness, I yelled at God. I told him that this felt so unfair. My future that I had envisioned, a future that everyone else gets to have after having children, was destroyed, stolen. No amount of praying, no amount of work, no amount of begging or bargaining was going to give me that envisioned future back. I felt as if God had ripped that away from me. I felt as if everything I had ever heard about His love was a lie. I accused Him of stealing my future that I deserved. But what I also realized after some time was, I was using the words feels like and felt like a lot. I know it had to be the Holy Spirit that shared with me amid my feelings, “your feelings are not truth.” Have you ever had a local anesthetic applied or an epidural? Did you feel what was going on? Was it going on even though you were not feeling the pain? God was still loving me and holding me even in the deepest darkest parts of my grief. My feelings were acting like a local, blocking the way God was loving me. I stopped screaming and started talking to Him again, constantly talking to Him, more than I ever had before. I was more honest with Him than I ever had been before. I still told Him how I honestly felt, how unfair it felt, how bad I hurt. I asked Him why He could not accomplish whatever He was accomplishing some other way than to take my son. I told him, “You are God, and you could have done it any other way”. But then I started saying things like “You are God, and I am not.” I knew in that moment that I must choose if I wanted to trust Him. Was His Word true? Was He the God of Psalms 34:18…?

“The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”

or not?
Did I believe his word in Deuteronomy 31:8 and quoted in Hebrews.

“It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; He will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”

In that moment I chose to cling to the fact that He is that God. He was there for me even if I was not FEELING it right then. I also after that, started singing praise songs in my head, (no one wants to hear me actually sing, but…). Really simple songs, songs I had learned as a child.
Thank you, Lord, for saving my soul,
Thank you, Lord, for making me whole.
Thank you, Lord, for giving to me thy great salvation
So rich and free.
I also did a lot of Jesus Loves Me This I Know{s}. God was giving me the chance to prove His words.

I can tell you now that I have a closer relationship with my Lord than I ever had prior to my son’s death. It was not overnight. I hurt very badly for a very long time. I still have the occasional days or hours of pain years later. But God was and is there for me and the more I acknowledged that and the more I praised Him the more I could see healing. I have been years getting here and I know I can still get closer. God does work in mysterious way. He is a good and loving God, and His word is true. I don’t expect to ever get OVER my son’s death, but I will get through it with Gods help and Love.

Please understand I am not saying that your child must die to get close to God. I am just telling you how God used that loss in my life. He does however want to have a closer relationship with us all.

My desire is to show you how God helped me survive my grief and help you see that He wants to do the same for you. I do NOT want to tell you how to feel. Even if that were what I wanted to do I could not, because I do not know how you feel. Your grief is directly tied to the relationship between you and your child and you are the only person that knows the intricacies of that relationship – You are the only PERSON in the universe and all of time that understands the depth and strength of that relationship and what that loss is doing to you. But God does, and He cares. He knows your pain. After all…His child died too. He knows you better than anyone else, because He made you. He knew exactly how and what I needed to heal, and He knows the same thing about you. He is right there for you. Talk to Him, yell if you need too. He is a Great Big God and can take it. You might as well say how you feel because He knows it anyway. Give Him space and listen for His answer.