Grief

So this past Saturday night I was all alone, which I actually do like on occasion because it means that I can watch any movie I want. There was a DVD sitting on the shelf that I hadn’t seen starring Kate Hudson, who I think is great. So I made myself a huge bowl of popcorn and sat down to watch ‘A little bit of Heaven.’ Little did I know the movie was about a young woman, Marley, diagnosed with bowel cancer, and how she and her friends and family processed the diagnosis and the illness as it progressed.

Yes, a complete tear jerker which I figured out early on and desperately went on a hunt for a box of tissues, coming back to the couch with a roll of toilet paper, no fancy tissues to be found. Extremely glad I was alone I sat there and sobbed as I watched a movie with the emotions, feelings and reality I too have experienced.

But the thing that moved me the most was how much Marley mattered to her mum, her dad, her friends and her boyfriend. She was so incredibly important to each of them in special and different ways. Not only was she not coping well with cancer and its treatment, but neither were the people around her who loved her so very dearly.

Why? Because Marley was precious to them. There wasn’t and isn’t ever going to be another Marley. She was unique, she was individual and she was special. She was so very important to each of her family and friends because she was completely irreplaceable.

Mark telling one of his ‘funny’ stories. We so miss his laugh.

I know exactly how they felt having lost my husband to cancer. Mark is irreplaceable. He was special, unique, and precious, and all of us, family and friends, love and miss him because of the unique relationships we had with him.

Just recently I read Philip Yancey’s new book, “The question that never goes away. What is God up to in a world of such tragedy and pain?” (Excellent read!)

In it he writes this, referring to the Sunny Hook School tragedy that took place on the 14 December 2012.

‘I’ve seen demonstrated a deep belief that the people who died mattered, that something of inestimable worth was snuffed out on 14 December. In the midst of trauma even a sternly secular culture recognises the worth of individual human beings, a carryover from the Christian belief that each one reflects God’s image. I recalled that after 11 September 2001, the New York Times committed to running an obituary to honour each one of the three thousand people who died in the World Trade Center attacks, as if they mattered and were not cosmic accidents in a universe of pitiless indifference.’

I love how he says that each person is of ‘inestimable worth’. Because isn’t that the truth!

God tells us exactly the same thing in his word, the Bible, about how valuable we are to him…

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!  Your workmanship is marvellous—how well I know it…

You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.

How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered!

I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand!

Psalm 139:13-18 (NLT)

And when Jesus was on earth he said this;

And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.

Luke 12:7 (NLT)

Friends

How amazing that Almighty God values us so much, that something as trivial as our hair being numbered is of significance to Him.

How mind blowing that we are so precious to Him that we are always in his thoughts.

And how crucial for us to know that we are not some cosmic accident, but every one of us is created with love as a one of a kind masterpiece.

I am challenged from this time on to remember every person I come in contact with, whether family and friends that I love, or people I meet at work or even people behind the checkouts in stores, are special, unique and irreplaceable.

Precious cousins

I am challenged to let my family and friends know that they are loved and special to me. And I am challenged to treat each and every person with the love and respect that something of such inestimable worth and value deserves.

…Body and soul, I am marvellously made! Psalm 139:14 (The Message)

So God created man in His own image, in the image and likeness of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Genesis 1:27 Amplified Bible (AMP)

I have four beautiful daughters. Misha is 21 this month, Bonnie is 19, Jasmine is 17 and Emerald is 15.

Mark and his darling daughters.

I am a solo parent to these four girls. Mark died when they were 16, 15, 13 and 11. For nearly five years I have been officially parenting alone but, because of Mark’s long and severe illness, I was essentially doing the job on my own before that.

I remember when my youngest was born, holding her and saying quietly to her, “You are going to have the coolest dad when you’re a teenager.” I could totally see Mark with his dreads, piercings and tattoos (which were in the planning stage) taking his four girls to rock concerts.

However, my youngest never got to have any memories of her dad before his first brain tumour was discovered and took us on a ten-year journey through terrible sickness.

So here I am, doing something I never, ever thought I would do when Mark and I first started our family – bringing up my girls all by myself.

I love my girls more than anything. I tell others, having children is like having bits of your own heart walking around in the world. The love of a parent towards its own child is something no words can ever explain.

But, parenting them on my own has been exhausting – especially through the teenage years. My friends will attest to the naïve dream I had of looking forward to the teenage years, when my girls would be growing up and we would go shopping together, drink coffees at cafés and have deep, meaningful conversations about all the things going on.

Misha, Mark & Bonnie at Houston Zoo, Texas.

Yes, I can hear you laughing as you read that. Because, of course, it hasn’t all been raindrops and roses. Don’t get me wrong – my girls are great. They are funny and full of life. Our house is loud, with lots of dancing and singing. And often we do have amazingly deep conversations, solving the world’s problems or discussing verses in the Bible.

But there have been great big chunks of the teenage years that I have downright hated, and I have voiced loudly that I actually hate teenagers. It got to the point where, whenever I saw cute little babies I would think, “You are not really cutey cute. You are just a big trick, because you are going to grow up and be a horrible teenager.”

But there has been some amazing learning during all this …

I have learned to let go of my girls and totally leave them in their heavenly Father’s hands.

This was a hard lesson learned, because at 18 my eldest took off (the first time) for six weeks and I scarcely heard from her. She was in a very bad place and just left one day. She was legally old enough to go and I had no say. What could I do? Nothing! So I gave her over to Jesus.

He looked after her and has continued to do so.

As the girls all journeyed through their teenage years, God has had to train me to let go and let Him be their protection and their guard.

There are many nights when I go to bed and none of my girls are at home. I lay my head on my pillow and pray, “God, I’m going to sleep now. Please look after my girls, wherever they are and whatever they are doing. You will do a better job of this than I could, so I trust them to You because You love them.” And then I go straight to sleep without a second thought.

My Girls.

An extension of this trust is leaving God to work in their lives to bring them into a relationship with Him, because it actually all comes back to this: the most important thing in the world is that each of my four daughters grasps hold of, falls in love with, and has her own heart set on fire for Jesus. They cannot live on my relationship with Jesus. It has to be their own. Because I cannot live their lives, I cannot be their faith. They, as individuals, have to make the decision to let Jesus be their Lord.

So, although the teenage years have not being my favourites, in many ways, they have taught me to let go and let God. And this, in turn, has taught me to pray for others and then relax that God is now doing His thing in their lives, too.

I have learned that I serve a very big God, who is totally trustworthy. I have trusted him with my most precious possessions – my girls – and He has not let me down.

Those who trust in, lean on, and confidently hope in the Lord are like Mount Zion,which cannot be moved but abides and stands fast forever.

Psalm 125:1 Amplified Bible (AMP)