The thawing heart

Denial is a powerful balm.

It is like a bandage you clumsily affix upon a wound in hopes it will be enough.

However, the time will come when God will have to remove the bandage and let you walk through the valley of the thawing heart. It will hurt like nothing you could ever imagine. 

The protective layers you had wrapped around your heart to muffle the pain will be snatched away, leaving you exposed before God and the world: Your wound will be gaping, open, red and raw.

Memories will begin to resurface at rapid speed, giggles and sweet expressions of love you heard every day will taunt you and coil around you like a snake refusing to let go of its prey.

A barrage of tightly-locked memories of your child will cause your heart to tingle and compress. The cracks will be revealed, the agony will roar like a pack of lions while your heart disintegrates right inside your chest: A bomb of numbed emotions has exploded and you are left reeling from the suddenness of it.

Once again you come to the realization you are not in control. Your heart is rebelling against you and there is nothing you can do to stop it. Don’t ignore or repress the emotions, and above all, don’t attempt to hide behind godliness. When people ask you how you are, don’t feel you have to answer with a Bible verse and claim a joy that is not yours-yet. Unacknowledged emotions only fester and corrode the walls of your heart.

Be brave and acknowledge your emotions before God and a few close family members and friends. Only then will you be able to deal with them in a positive way. 

It is not wrong to feel anger, bitterness or resentment. You have lost your child, something completely unnatural according to our finite understanding of life: our children are supposed to bury us, not the other way around. 

Unfortunately life doesn’t conform to our logic or desires; we can’t cajole it into submission. Only God sees the big picture.

You may never fully understand why your child was taken from your loving arms, but rest assured one day, God will reveal it to you, here or in Heaven, and then, it will all make sense. “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13: 12).

You have two choices, two paths to thread upon: you can be bitter about the times you won’t get to spend with your child, or you can be thankful for the time you did get to spend with him/her. You can blame God for what happened and turn away from Him, or you can give Him your pain and run to His outstretched arms. The choice is yours.