H. Norman Wright - Missing the Child You Love: Finding Hope in the Midst of Death, Disability or Absence

Published by Regal
From Gospel Light
Ventura, California, U.S.A.
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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 AMPScripture taken from the Amplified Bible, Copyright 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. GNBScripture taken from the Good News Translation, Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission. KJVKing James Version. Authorized King James Version. THE MESSAGEScripture taken from THE MESSAGE. Copyright 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. NASBScripture taken from the New American Standard Bible, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. NCVScriptures quoted from The Holy Bible, New Century Version, copyright 1987, 1988, 1991 by Word Publishing, Nashville, Tennessee. Used by permission. TLBScripture 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.

2014 H. Norman Wright All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wright, H. Norman.

Missing the child you love : finding hope in the midst of death, disability or absence / H. Norman Wright.

pages cm
ISBN 978-0-8307-7023-6 (trade paper) 1. ChildrenDeathReligious aspectsChristianity. 2. ParentsReligious life. 3. GriefReligious aspectsChristianity. 4. BereavementReligious aspectsChristianity. I. Title. BV4907.W75 2014 248.866dc23 2013044389

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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 Ive learned through the years and shared in speaking and in my other writing.

Ive repeated thoughts and words. There is a reason for this. The state of grief will make it difficult for you to remember what youve 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 dont 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 recoveryHis 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. Thats exactly the way I feel. I thought I was the only one. They realize they are not alonethat 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.

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 difficultyou need to yield to the grief. You need to let it do its work in your life through mourning.

When you enter into grief, youve entered into the valley of shadows. There is nothing heroic or noble about grief. Its painful. Its work. Its 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 cant 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 griefs most important lesson is faithfaith that, even in the blackest moments of despair, a clearing will appear somewhere up ahead. There will be better timesthey do come. I can promise you that they will.

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.