When you experience suffering it might seem like everyone around you just wants to tell you how to get through it. I think it's their way of trying to help, trying to be there for you because they really don't know what to do otherwise. The irony of this, however, is that by telling you how to get through a situation, your loved ones and friends only end up pushing you away. Because what you feel, what your heart and mind go through after a traumatic experience, only you can truly know and understand. Everyone tells you grief has many stages and this is true. But the stage that everyone seems to want to ignore and tell you not to go through is anger. Anger...such a dirty word, and yet such an integral part of walking through grief. I know because I've been there.
I sat by my first son for all ten weeks of his life and watched his tiny body slowly fail him. Stomach failure, kidney failure, and finally heart failure. It was torture. As a mom you think you can protect your babies from anything. You think you can fix anything. Or at least you want to try. But as I sat by my son and watched his body degenerate from a disorder I had no control over, I felt such terrible anger creeping into my heart. Anger at the ONE who was in control of all of this and chose to do nothing. Anger at God for letting my son be born this way. Anger that my child had to die. Anger that I had to sit and helplessly watch him die. I was angry. All the time. I was so angry I couldn't see past it...I couldn't deal with it...I couldn't let it go...but I was ashamed of it. I knew if I admitted to being angry I would hear the words I dreaded to hear: "Oh, don't be angry at God, you know He has a plan." Well I knew God had a plan and I hated His plan. I despised His plan. I couldn't handle His plan. Anger was eating me up inside, and the worst part about it was that I felt utterly and completely alone. Because who would want to know my deepest darkest moments? Who would really care about my most despairing thoughts?
Don't let guilt eat away at you like I did. Guilt will only feed your grief, not help you walk through it. After living with such anger at God, such distrust and confusion about who He was and what His plan was for my life, I finally realized that once I accepted my anger, once I admitted it to myself and to others, I could finally move on. When people asked me how I was dealing with losing a child, I looked them in the face and said, "I'm angry and I'm OK with it because I know someday soon I'll wake up and not be angry anymore." And I was right. One day I saw God's blessings in my life instead of the curse of death and loss. I could finally look at pictures of Jace and not feel angry, hopeless, and empty. Finally I could look at his beautiful, peaceful little face and realize this God's plan IS bigger than my plan, that His ways ARE higher than mine, that in this world WE WILL HAVE STRUGGLE...but I don't have to give up hope because HE has overcome the world. After walking through the fire of anger I can see God's plan more clearly than ever before. His hand on my life is evident, and He has made me a better person because of what I went through in losing my son. Because of losing Jace, I am a much better mama to the five MORE little people that He has blessed me with. I don't take life for granted. I cherish the moments.
So walk through your anger, and don't wade through it with guilt and isolation. Find someone you trust and tell them how you truly feel. Pour your angry heart out to God and be honest with Him, because believe me He is no stranger to your deepest darkest moments. He knows. He's there. Even when it seems like everything is crumbling around you, He is ALWAYS there, and He loves you just as much in your angry moments and He does in your joyful ones.
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