Missing the Child You Love , livre ebook

Baker Publishing Group - DMin Wright H. Norman

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127 pages

English

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One of the most devastating losses a family can experience is the loss of a child. Whether the loss is through illness, accident, drugs, suicide, or other tragedy, the pain is overwhelming and often paralyzing. Often we think of "loss" as death. However, in our broken world there are many ways to suffer the loss of a child. This book discusses how a family can learn to cope with loss of a child due not only to death, but also to a custody battle, addiction (and other choices a child makes), chronic illness, crime (human trafficking, kidnap), and other issues where hopes and dreams disappear. Wright helps readers through the grieving process and assists them in finding God's grace and comfort during this very difficult time of life. This book is unique as it is for parents as well as grandparents.

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	18 avril 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781441267740
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0432€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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© 2014 H. Norman Wright
Published by Bethany House Publishers 11400 Hampshire Avenue South Bloomington, Minnesota 55438 www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan. www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Bethany House Publishers edition published 2014
ISBN 978-1-4412-6774-0
Previously published by Regal Books
Ebook edition originally created 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patents and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
Other versions used are:
AMP—Scripture taken from the Amplified® Bible, Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
GNB—Scripture taken from the Good News Translation, Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.
KJV—King James Version. Authorized King James Version.
THE MESSAGE— Scripture taken from THE MESSAGE. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.
NASB—Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
NCV—Scriptures quoted from The Holy Bible, New Century Version, copyright © 1987, 1988, 1991 by Word Publishing, Nashville, Tennessee. Used by permission.
TLB—Scripture quotations marked (TLB) are taken from The Living Bible, copyright © 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189. All rights reserved.
Contents
1. The World of Grief
2. The Need to Grieve
3. Faces and Feelings of Grief
4. The Death of a Child
5. Recovering from the Death of a Child
6. Loss Before and After Birth
7. The Disabled Child
8. The Child Who Disappears
9. The Loss of a Child Through Trauma
10. Choosing Family Balance
11. Your Marriage Relationship
12. The Other Children—Your Response
13. Grandparents
Appendix
Endnotes
If you are reading this book, you are probably living in a state of grief or would like to be supportive of someone who is living with this constant, unwanted companion. I use the word “constant” to underscore what you will be living with for years; and if you have lost a child, for any reason, it will be for life.
I have lived this experience and have written about it extensively. The content of this chapter, which is foundational to the rest of the book, will reflect much of what I’ve learned through the years and shared in speaking and in my other writing.
I’ve repeated thoughts and words. There is a reason for this. The state of grief will make it difficult for you to remember what you’ve read. So, I will repeat what you need to internalize in this chapter and apply it in different ways according to the loss or the topic discussed. The remainder of the book is newly presented material and will, I hope, be of help to you as well.
Grief: We don’t like the meaning of the word or the sound of it, yet it is spoken of many times in the Scriptures:
I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy (John 16:20).
I weep with grief; my heart is heavy with sorrow; encourage and cheer me with your words (Ps. 119:28, TLB).
Mourning is part of the experience of grief; it is the process where grief is expressed. It is a natural, God-given process of recovery—His gift to us to help get us through the pain. Anyone who experiences loss experiences grief. Mourning, however, is a choice. One cannot make grief better, make it go away, fix it or just “get over it.”
People have created many word pictures to describe the experience of grief. Often when those who grieve read these words, they say, “Yes. That’s exactly the way I feel. I thought I was the only one.” They realize they are not alone—that what they are experiencing is normal grief.
One grieving father said:
Grief is like a wave. It comes rolling in from a far-off place. I could no more push it back than if I were standing in the water at the beach. I could not fight the wave. It moved over me and under me and broke against me, but I could never stop it. It arrived at its destination. It worked around me. The harder I fought it, the more exhausted I became. So it is with grief. If I tried to fight it, it would vanquish me. If I pushed it down it would stick in my soul and emerge as something else; depression, bitterness, exhaustion. If I yielded to the waves and let it carry me, however, it would take me to a new place. 1
Grief takes you to the top of the waves, and when the waves break, you struggle in the froth of emotion. Grief brings memories and will expose who you really are inside. As the waves move closer to the shore, their power gets spent and they slowly bubble up to the edge of the sand. The more you stand and fight and rail against the waves, the more exhausted you become. It is an exercise in futility. But the more you accept them, hold out your arms to them and even embrace them, the sooner you will recover. You need to take a step that for many is difficult—you need to yield to the grief. You need to let it do its work in your life through mourning.
When you enter into grief, you’ve entered into the valley of shadows. There is nothing heroic or noble about grief. It’s painful. It’s work. It’s a lingering process. But it is necessary for all kinds of losses. Grief has been labeled everything from intense mental anguish to acute sorrow and even deep remorse.
When our child dies, it hurts more than anything we can imagine. In the beginning of grief, we are destitute because we can’t know that the pain will end. Certainly, there is no assurance that it will ever end.
But it does. We have to learn much along the way before we can move through the process. We must learn patience, the value of change, the beauty of simplicity, the importance of laughter, the life-sustaining strength of relationships, and the joy of spontaneity and adventure. We have to remind ourselves that, deep down, each of us is a child that must be nurtured.
Probably grief’s most important lesson is faith—faith that, even in the blackest moments of despair, a clearing will appear somewhere up ahead. There will be better times—they do come. I can promise you that they will. 2
Many of us have joined a club before, but there is one club no one wants to join.
The membership requirements of this club are anything but enviable. You have to have felt the floor dropping out and the sky falling in, all in one awful, unthinkable day. You have to have wondered whether you would be able to figure out which shoe to put on which foot, and then wondered why you should bother anyway. You have to have cringed, and perhaps silently flared, when all those people who meant so well said such incredibly inappropriate things to you. You have to have believed you were the first person in the history of the planet to feel so empty.
And then later, you find out that other people have felt this way, too. You find out that they have survived, but that they—like you—have survived only as changed people.
Like you, they know there’s no going back. You may look exactly like the old you, but you’re a different person now. Grief of this magnitude changes you. 3
There are a multitude of emotions involved in the grief process—emotions that seem out of control and often appear in conflict with one another. With each loss may come bitterness, emptiness, apathy, love, anger, guilt, sadness, fear, self-pity and a feeling of helplessness.
Connecting the Pieces
Experiencing the process can be likened to putting a complex puzzle together. There are as many ways to put the pieces together as there are individuals doing it. However, there are designated puzzle pieces that fit in specific relationship to others. Only when the puzzle is complete can a person sit back and appreciate the entire picture for what it is and declare it finished. That is also true of the grief process; it is an individual journey, yet there are five specific tasks with corresponding behaviors to address to help you move through your grief detour.
Acceptance
There are certain tasks to accomplish in grief.
First, you need to accept the reality that your loved one has died and is unable to return. This may seem obvious, but emotionally accepting the reality of the death can be a tremendous challenge.
Expression
Second, you need to express all of your emotions associated with the death. Keeping emotions bottled up inside can complicate your grief journey.
Memory Storage
Third, you need to sort through and identify memories of your loved one and find a place to store them so you can begin to move on. This task basically means that because your loved one is no longer present—is no longer a dynamic and active part of your ongoing journey—you need to make him or her a vital and rich memory of your life.
Identity
Fourth, you need to identify who you are—independent of your deceased loved one. Reworking your sense of identity is a critical aspect of your grief journey.
Investment
Finally, you begin to reinvest in your life a way that is consistent with your reshaped sense of identity—determining your own personal interests and desires at this point in your life. 4 Th