Guest Post: Grief & Hope

Grief is a funny thing.

It hides from you when your mind is busy and occupied, but jumps out and attacks you the minute you let your guard down.

I can be reading with the girls or doing my dishes, baking or sorting laundry, but the minute I open my baking-cupboard door and the pictures of my precious boys (that are taped to the inside panel) reveal themselves, my heart skips a beat with an instant of excitement and then an even quicker instant of realization that we've lost them.  It's the combination of a high/low surge of emotion in a split second.  And Ooooh the pain.  It actually hurts, physically in my chest.  Like a heavy knot that's pulling down.

This experience is so different from when we were going through the height of everything with Ella.  With her, it was up and down, up and down...  we were on an endless roller coaster ride.  It was exhausting and excruciating.  Sometimes I had wished God would just make up His mind and either take her home or make her well, but the not knowing was so difficult.  I never wanted her to die, but the emotional pain and energy it took to guess and wonder and especially surrender second by second took more strength than I had, by a long-shot!  But that's why and how God's glory was revealed!

"But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

With the boys, everything is so final.  There is no energy involved with an up and down emotional ride, but there is exhaustion.  Tears come when they want to come.  In an instant they're here whether I want them to be, or not.  And they don't ask permission or look to see who's in the room, they just take over.  One minute I'm fine, the next minute a fleeting thought enters my mind without even the manners to ask if they're welcome, and then I'm a puddle of tears.

Sometimes I think, "Wow, we're all doing really well!  I think we're really healing!  Everything seems normal, we're laughing and going on as usual..."  but then something will happen.  Like Ari's dinner prayer last night:

"And Lord, be with our baby brothers..."  her voice trailed off.  She was so used to praying for them and for a moment had forgotten that they had passed away.  She bravely continued and prayed, "...and help them to like Heaven!"

And suddenly I'm fighting a horrible pain deep in my chest that brings unwelcome tears, yet again.

Other times it's when I'm in conversation with close friends and talking "objectively" about the situation in Congo, brainstorming about water-filtration ideas, or sharing how it came to pass that this tragic event took place that a sweeping sorrow takes me to unstoppable tears again.   I can't say what happened (not yet, anyways) without feeling and seeing it in my heart and mind.

I picture my boys, both incredibly young, deathly ill, laying there with no energy, no mama to hold them, no one to clean them up right away (because all the other precious children were going through the exact same thing) or even to cry with them.  Every sip of water brought them closer to death.  Each passing moment they are ravaged by violent bloody diarrhea episodes and completely alone.  What does an orphanage look like that has THIRTY-ONE children, mostly under the age of 5 years old, pass away from blood-loss and dehydration within a week!!!?  I cannot imagine.  No matter how vividly I try, I don't think I can really imagine what it must have been like.  I think those nannies must've had sobs of unbelievable grief rising up that had to be constantly suppressed and shoved downjust to get the job done!  They had to have been racing from child to child seeing who needed help, who needed to be cleaned, who had passed away.

And who had the job of burial?  I think if I was there, I might have benefited fromthat job.  The intense physical labor it would have taken just to dig all those holes would have been an outlet for grief in and of itself.  But the minute you'd see another baby or small child placed inside, you'd need to dig another hole!  Not just because there was another child needing to be buried, but the emotion of witnessing another lifeless babe would surge overwhelmingly through your body and demand expression!

But I wasn't there.  I wasn't there!!!  My babies died and I wasn't there!!! 

I know that what's done is done.  They're gone.  They're really gone.

I can't change it, nor do I want to. After all, my children are in the soothing arms of Jesus and completely healthy.  It just hurts to understand what the situation really was. 

When this was happening in Congo, we had no idea.  The orphanage was desperately trying to get a hold of our agency (All Blessings International, which isamazing) here in the U.S. to request funds to get the kids to a hospital, but because of only occasional and spotty cell phone and internet coverage, it tookdays to reach them.  We had been praying for our boys each day (during this time, not knowing what was happening) that they would feel Jesus in their lives, holding them.  I remember praying every single day that Jesus would be so real to them that when they came home and we told them who He was that they'd tell us that they already knew Him.  And remember, we didn't even know what was going on.  We were just aching to get to our boys because they were ours!

Jesus knew in advance what was taking place and gave us that prayer to pray, knowing that now, we can find comfort in the fact that HE was there with them. He was there, wiping their tears.  He was there, holding them.  He was there, in a real way, so real that they knew who He was!

"Sing to God, sing in praise of his name,
    extol him who rides on the clouds;
    rejoice before him—his name is the Lord. 

 A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
    is God in his holy dwelling. 

 God sets the lonely in families"

Psalm 68:4-6 

  “I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you."

John 14:18

Our boys' new family became all of the angels & saints.  Jesus is their Father!  Their home is the Holy of Holies in the never-ending presence of God!  Wow!

It's beautiful and lovely and so amazingly wonderful (beyond comprehension) that they were gloriously saved from their orphan-status and physical suffering to be with the One who's name is above all names, Who's majesty we cannot comprehend...

How can we grieve when this is the rescue our boys have received?  I don't know.  Grief is a funny thing.  I am not sure how long we will grieve, but our grief is not without hope.  And the Hope that Jesus provides is limitless and abundant.

"We do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope."

1 Thess 4:13 

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."

Romans 15:13

- Jen Wilkins, Adoptive Mother