The phone rang. How glad I was to hear my oldest kid’s voice. “Mom, I would love to bring Debbie home for the KP-LOK Christmas holidays. Will this be right?”
“Of course,” I replied, thrilled. “When will you be here?”
“Friday evening. Mom, I believe a whole lot better.”
“O Chuck, I am really so happy! Take good care of Honey!”
As I put the phone down I felt a surge of trust. The Thanksgiving holidays were terrible, like a nightmare for most people, parents and five sons. We had a very long talk the very first day he had been home.
“Mom, I feel awful, and that I don’t know why. Do you believe you can forgive me for your difficulty I have given you last few years”
I will never forget that the gift of that afternoon. I need your forgiveness, too!”
We talked for quite some time after which Chuck said gently, “Mom, I’m so terribly unhappy.” He also lowered his head and mumbled, “I am thinking about suicide.”
Did I hear him say suicide? “However Chuck, there is nothing on earth which could be that bad! God loves you, son. Would you believe that?”
Even the Thanksgiving holidays went slowly, at Chuck’s ailing speed, because was ill, also. My heart grieved for him, but that I did not know exactly what to do for him personally. The day before he had been to go straight back to college, he came to my space.
“Mom, I would like you to care for my stereo for me.” I presumed that he did not wish to simply take it back until after the xmas holidays, which were three short weeks off.
And this encouraging mobile call! A day later I cleaned and stirred using a light heart. I chose to just take a brief rest and listen to some tapes. I must have fallen asleep for approximately one hour and it was during this fateful hour that Chuck came home a day early, came into the house and received the shot gun, went into the woods next to our property, and concealed. Hours later, while we’re attempting to figure out why he had been dwelling, where he was, and also why his car had been filled with everything he possessed, we heard him scream and take himself to departure.
Approximately four weeks after I wrote a booklet titled GRIEF while I had been at the depths of grief. I knew that if I didn’t write it while in the valley, then there was no way I’d have the ability to write it when developing of this horrible chasm of distress.
And this is precisely what I wish to talk with every parent who is trying to creep out of those depths of grief: hope and God’s love.
I would really like to describe how I view God’s will. I heard many times at the funeral house, “It’s God’s will.” Since I really have a loving God who gives us the nice we now have in our own lives, I cringed every time I heard it said this type of concern and love. Surely this mayn’t be quite a nice and perfect gift! And I knew these cherished friends did not understand the stab I believed everytime I discovered it said.
A buddy gave me an excellent novel on God’s is that I believe every parent who has lost a kid should read. When a parent comes to me with grief clinging on his or her face and heart, this could be the first relaxation I share together it isn’t the will of God this happened. It is my own opinion that if the parent can not accept this, then he or she might not be able to attract the good God wants out of the catastrophe.
It was published in 1944. Dr. Weatherhead composed the book to comfort people who’d lost a family member at World War II. He left a legacy for us all, he’s clarified that the clutching in a way that we’re able to accept everything happens to us His will, but it still leaves us a loving and more worthy God to bring us through the grief.
Dr. Weatherhead clarified that God’s will has three parts:
1) the intentional will of God;
2) the circumstantial will of God; and
3) the best will of God.
Then he takes the passing of Jesus and relates these 3 parts of God’s will for the most awful event with time. It was not God’s intentional will his Son should expire. The original intent was that men should follow Jesus, maybe not kill Him. Therefore, the discipleship of men was the intentional will. But men, through free will, decided evil and set up situation that sent Jesus to the cross. Jesus was made to either perish or to run off. In those conditions, then, the death on the cross has been the Father’s will.
We now come to God’s ultimate will, also that really is nothing may happen which finally defeats His intentions. For the illustration that his readers might relate with in the moment, Dr. Weatherhead informs about the dad who wanted his son to become an architect (deliberate will). His dad says to him “I’m glad you are inside the Army, John.” Because of the circumstance, it’s now the father’s will.
As I link this for my son’s death, I understand that God’s intentional is for Chuck to live a decent and productive life. However, Chuck got on medication and some one dropped LSD on him. Chuck’s brain might no longer function contrary to the drugs. A buddy said to me briefly after his departure I could accept it more readily if I could think about the mind like an organ just like the heart or liver. The difference with the brain is that, when it becomes sick, our conceptions become truths. That idea helped me greatly in the times beforehand.
Because of the circumstances of Chuck’s very own thoughtful choices (and we now have all made ridiculous choices!) And scenarios beyond his control, he even took their own living. I believe with my heart which God’s ultimate will in that will be for us to help the others within their sorrow. Hence the birth of this booklet GRIEF.
I want to tackle yet another strange problem for the families left behind when there’s actually a suicide, and it is the tremendous guilt. We inquire why didn’t we try so, why did we do that; it could carry on and on. Many more have touched on this, but I would love to share with you this notion, perhaps because of our four living sons. We’re so ready to estimate the families by the suicidal death of that kid, yet do we remember that the other kids in the family live and coping and moving onto productive and good lifestyles? I make it a point to tell every parent of a suicided child may be actually the final decision that ought to be produced: that of the family kids! I am aware you can find people so willing to estimate the loved ones and perhaps the others if this disaster strikes, however we can carry on and on straight back again to grandparents and good grandparents, etc., etc., etc.. It is wise not to conclude or exclude–only adore this afflicted family.
I also make it a place to inform the parent which individuals aren’t God and we cannot be together with our children every moment of every day. There are forces in their lives that we cannot restrain, and can we? We presume way a lot of should we presume that we’re able to spare our youngsters all of the pain. I know we would like to! Nevertheless, it’s an insult to God when we think we are able to govern every waking and sleeping moment of the life of this child who we hold so dear.
When I was in utter grief over Chuck’s salvation two cherished friends, independent of one another, gave me the same verse, and that I accepted that as a note from God I had been not to fret Kp-lok anymore about that. (Genesis 18:25, NAS). Yes! He knows where Chuck was born and where he lived–and where and how he died, too! Oh, how I thank Him for this! “The Lord will depend when He enrolls the people, ‘that one came to be there'” (Psalm 87:6, NAS).
The Bible is infused with guarantees of comfort for the broken hearted, and I discovered eventually it is the only consolation. People today mean therefore well. I can remember every one of the platitudes I willingly and meted out. And then, when my heart was shattered into shards– I realized I must have included with his or her pain. We are Job’s comforters until we sit Job sat! Alexander Pope said, “I never knew any person in my own life who could not bear the other’s misfortunes absolutely just like a Christian.” The breaking spirit needs the closeness of the person heart, not heavenly spiritual clichés. Perhaps they may come after–perhaps. “the planet perishes not of shadowy but naturally cold. The soul in its heavy distress seeks not light but warmth, maybe not counsel but understanding” (Anonymous).
