Trauma

Have you ever read something or watched a news clip and experienced that moment when the news made every single nerve ending in your entire body ache with wretched grief and utter despair?

Unfortunately (and fortunately) I am extremely susceptible to being deeply affected by the moods of those around me. This can include being unbearably sad and distressed at news of other peoples woes (even on behalf of people I don't know.) For this very reason, I do not watch the evening news, or television in general. It is full of awful stories that tear my heart up and I simply cannot bounce back from all of that horrendous news on a nightly basis.

I adore Loralee's Looney Tunes blog. She is the greatest. I love how emotionally raw and brave she is. She says things in an honest and unpretentious way and she doesn't apologize for it. I just read her blog post from September 2008 that shares some of the details of the death of her precious little baby boy, Matthew. Matthew died of SIDS in 2003.

*SIGH*

It is so gut wrenching that I was sobbing -- SOBBING!!!

I just ached with sadness and heartbreak for her. I, too, felt the shattering of her heart. The depth of her despair...

Around the time I was pregnant with E (my oldest child), or soon thereafter, someone very close to me got pregnant unexpectedly and after much agony decided to have an abortion. I remember pleading with my friend to keep the baby and allow me to adopt the baby if they didn't feel prepared to raise it. I don't even want to get into the whole Pro-Life/Pro-Choice debate. It's a highly charged issue with the God-loving Christian, yet strong, crazy Feminist in me. In any case, I pleaded with her to keep the baby and she choose not to. I tried to support her and her decision as best I could, but I grieved for the lost life of the unborn baby. I am still haunted by occasional dreams of meeting that little person and wondering about the "What if's" if that little baby would have grown up.

I am beyond blessed that God has given me four beautiful, healthy children to adore, cherish, honor, worship. My biggest fear EVER is losing one of my children. I love God with all my heart and soul. I also love the children will all of my heart and soul.

It scares me silly to say this, but I do not know if I could ever forgive God if He called one of my children home to heaven. I realize this is a huge thing and an awful thing to even contemplate, but it is something I have lain awake in the middle of the night and worried about.

With my history of severe depression, I do not know if I would make it through the quick sand of endless grief if I lost a child. Even now at this moment, the mere thought of the possibility... I shudder and weep some more.

Tonight, after I am through reading Loralee's tragic, unexplainable experience, I pray for the mercy of my Heavenly Father and beg Him to never EVER put me to that test. I honestly don't know that I could live through it.

More importantly, I pray for the hope and eternal compassion of God for those who belong to the lonely, unbearable club of parents who have lost children. I pray Abba comforts these poor, tortured souls.