Incomprehensible
Realities
Carol commented this morning that she often wakes up to a
thought of disbelief – how could
Daniel possibly have died?
Her next thought is to have to remind herself, to affirm in
her mind that indeed Daniel is gone.
I confirmed that this is also a common pattern for me and
many days part of my routine, if not at the moment I wake, then sometime later
at seemingly random moments when I have the same silent and disturbing
conversation in my head.
This reality of losing a son remains incomprehensible to us
as parents. Perhaps this is normal; I
don’t know. Perhaps this is simply a
natural need to continually wrestle with a reality that no parent can ever
quite fully accept. Since we still love
our boy deeply it seems incomprehensible that he is gone.
Next our discussion turned to Hannah and Ben and our current
sense of how we are all doing as a family.
This conversation left me feeling helpless and somewhat hopeless.
I feel helpless in my current relationships with these two
kids. I feel like I fail them both, in
different ways, by not working hard enough to truly connect with them in ways
they each need me to. Today I don’t feel
much hope that we can get better at these relationships. I feel like I am hitting the bottom of my
capacity to love and to nurture – I do not have what it takes to be the parent
I desperately need to be for Hannah and Ben.
I have no where else to go but to God, seeking His grace,
love, and wisdom for this task.
God: grant me what I
desperately need to parent my children in ways that they need me to.
Brokenness
Perhaps this is exactly where I need to be – I am
broken-hearted because Daniel died and I am broken as a person, a father, and a
husband.
My brokenness is both humbling and humiliating. I cannot do this on my own and I must stop
trying to.
Today I begin again to trust God because I cannot trust myself.
I am broken.
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