Immediate CPR For Parents
Parents who have lost a child face an immediate crisis and likely have no idea where to turn or what to do. There are a few things that should be communicated with a bewildered parent to help them get through their horrible first week that I call Immediate CPR for Parent's HeartsMore...
Major Decisions
If you have just lost a child, your heart is spinning, falling and tumbling. You have lost a huge part of your center, your desire and your will. Your decision making is and will be hugely different than it has previously been because you care very little about anything else other than being with your child. Therefore, it is important that you recognize that you are not in the frame of mind to make big decisionsMore...
You Are Not Alone
Unfortunately, others have been on this sad, sad road ahead of you, and you are not alone in this terrible experience. Perhaps the experiences of others could help you bear the incalculable burden you now bear.
Early on in my own steps in this canyon of grief, I realized that I was learning things in the process; profound things. To ensure that the things that I was learning stayed with me long enough to be able to build a foundation upon, I started to write them down. Over time I realized that together, the things that were of comfort and solace to me, might similarly be as helpful to others.
Eventually I built my notes into paragraphs and then chapters. What resulted was a book that I call You Won't Cry Forever. More...
Read Now From the Book
Your Goal
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Just Get Through This One Day M T W T F S S « Yesterday Tomorrow » x x x x x x 7 x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
"I Lost My Child"
BEYOND MY REACH
Chapter 4 (from: You Won't Cry Forever)
Your questions are many. They hurl through your soul like water over Niagara Falls; yet the answers are few. You wonder, what is my child thinking? What is he doing? What is his experience?
When your child is small and is in another room, your ears hear everything he is doing. Your mind is on his activity, what he is doing, what he may get into, etc. You listen for what is usual activity and also can hear anything that may seem unusual or out of place, because he is not beyond your reach or awareness. All of this becomes natural, like a second nature to a parent.
But what happens when he is no longer there? Are we supposed to just stop caring about what our child is thinking and feeling? We cannot just stop! It is in our nature now. We can't just quit caring about what he is feeling and experiencing. I love him. He is my child. You love your child. Of course we care as we always have. That doesn't just stop or go away.
But since my boy is beyond my reach, and I am limited to what I can know about his current situation, I must lean on what I already know about God's kingdom, and what I can learn about God's kingdom, for me to have an understanding of what my boy is up to at this moment. If you are like me, and I suspect that you are, then you are experiencing an insatiable hunger to know more about the world where our children are existing right now.
Parts of the Bible that were not necessarily spectacular to me before, now have become vital. For example, as just mentioned, when the thief on the cross next to Jesus rebuked the other thief who railed against the Lord, and then asked Jesus to remember him when He came into His kingdom, Jesus' astounding reply, worth repeating, is extremely relevant to us today. He said, "Truly, I say unto you that today you will be with Me in paradise." I get that, now, in a new way! He said that the man would be WITH Jesus. IN PARADISE!!
I don't know how that statement affects you, but to me, it is living food. It gives me total hope. It confirms everything I want to know and am hungry to know about my boy's condition. This assures me that my son is WITH Jesus! IN PARADISE! And from there I can go exploring what that might be like.
This statement is like the sounds of my boy in the other room. It tells me that first of all, he is safe. He is protected. He is under the supervision of the Ultimate Supervisor. Even more, he is in the care of his True Father, his True Parent; his True Creator. He is, in all senses, home; even more at home than when he was here with me.
Because his physical body remains here, like the thief on the cross' body did, then there must be something to actual 'life' that goes beyond our common understanding of life. Did the thief's body go to paradise? No, it was likely buried. So what part of him did go to paradise? It must have been his spirit, his soul. It must have been the life that lived inside his body that traveled or was taken to paradise.
Our common culture does not have a real good grip on these things. Oftentimes we are presented with stories about ghosts and spirits who have not 'crossed over' yet, usually with some kind of spiritist who claims to have some kind of authority to command such said entity over to the 'other side.' Just exactly what authority the spiritist does have in the actual spirit-world, and where he got it, remains a mystery, yet we still gobble this stuff up. I mean, it is reasonable and natural to want to know more about where our child is and all, but does not such a serious inquiry really demand that we enter such a quest with our eyes wide open and evaluate soberly, instead of getting carried away by some cultural hearsay?
Perhaps we truly owe it to ourselves at this point in time to reference Someone Who truly does have authority in the spirit-realm, and all realms, based on the sacrifice of His sinless body; and that, of course, would be Jesus. Perhaps we might want to listen to the One Who actually came back from the grave and see what He has to say about the spirit-world. The rest of the so-called 'experts' in the field leave us with few answers and simply more questions.
So, considering that Jesus thought it pertinent enough to die for the cause, let us interpret things through His lens rather than through the culture's spiritual amateurs, who, though they mean well, are inept to answer the vital questions about life beyond the grave. For a true examination of the spirit-realm must include One Who actually rose from the dead. That would pretty much qualify Him as an expert, wouldn't you think?
And Jesus testifies in John 4 that God the Father, "is Spirit and seeks those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth." So we do not want to follow fables, suspicions, mysteries and ghost stories. We want to follow in spirit AND in truth.
So when Jesus says that the thief on the cross would be with Him in paradise that day, Jesus is testifying that indeed there is a part of us that lives on past the grave. And that part is not our bodies. Our life is indeed within our bodies, but it is not restricted to physical life only. In fact there must be something exciting about that other part of our natures, our spirits, which can enter into and experience something called paradise.
Furthermore, Jesus says that we will join Him where He is and that He will be with us always. Since the thief on the cross' body stayed here, there indeed exists a part of us, perhaps our truest selves, that joins Jesus where He now is. Friend, this is the part of your child and of my child that is with Jesus now. It is not the temporal part, that is, the physical, but it is the eternal part, or the spirit.
My boy is experiencing life in a full manner in the presence of the Lord. It is not that he is limited because he is separated from his body; rather, he is freed from the earthly restrictions of his body! I need not feel sorry for him. He is fine; very, very fine. He actually could feel sorry for me because I am yet restricted and limited in this physical suit, and am therefore unable to comprehend things like true paradise.
Our worlds have been shattered. Our dreams have been crushed. Our hearts have been broken. But, think about it; was there ever any real hope of an eternal existence here on this planet, inside these bodies? This is a broken world. Our bodies are finite mechanisms. Physical life is fragile. We know these things. So where is the surprise when one's physical life comes to an end? It was going to happen eventually anyway, wasn't it?
The fact is, is that we have put all our eggs in a broken basket. We have hitched our wagons to a horseless carriage. The physical realm never did possess any long-term promises. It never has been able to answer our deepest longings. It has never sufficiently even defined what it means to have life, to be alive.
But Jesus does account for these things, and more. He expressed things about life that were unheard of in His time. He addressed things related to man's very nature, his longings and his future. And He expressed a clear confidence that life is more than the physical body, which to us now, is of tremendous comfort.
We may not be able know our child's specific thoughts or his experiences. Neither can we now hear our child in the other room. But, exactly what language would my son have to borrow to be able to express or explain to me what his experience now is? No doubt the words wonderful, joyful, blissful, and fulfilling, etc. fall far, far short and are simply inadequate. I believe that it would be utterly impossible for our children to be able to share with our limited, finite minds exactly what their experience is, because such ideas and experiences cannot fit into earthly words.
My son may not be in the next room, but the room he is in is quite beyond wonderful. And he is not beyond the watchful eyes and ears of Jesus.