The Loss of a Child

Yesterday a great couple, friends of mine and my husbands, lost their only child, a 7 year old boy. He spent all of his 7 years in pain, experiencing seizures and not being able to live the life of a normal child. So most would say, "At least now he is in heaven with Jesus. At least he is no longer in pain." Yes, that's true, he is in heaven with the Almighty but though you know that he is no longer in pain, you are in pain because you have to live each day with him not being there, him not smiling when he saw you.

For 7 years this little boy was his mother's life. She lived, breathed, and dreamed about her son. I know this because I am the same with my children. When you love someone so much, like a mother loves her child, your very existence is your children. So how will she get out of bed each day? How will she breathe air in her lungs and not feel guilty that she had been granted life but he was dealt the hand of death? They knew it was coming, they knew that he was going to leave them someday. They just didn't know when or how long. I wonder how many days they woke up saying "Is today going to be the day I hand my only child over to God?" The strength this mother and father have had over these trying 7 years is more struggle than I myself have ever experienced and in it it shows the power of God's hand in their lives.

I bet if you were to take their life and put it on a projector screen and all you saw were the footprints in the sand, like the poem of how two sets of footprints were in the sand but sometimes, through the hardest of times, there was only one set because that is when God was carrying you. I wonder if those 7 years would have only one set of footprints. God must have carried them through this all, knowing what they would face, knowing the pain it was going to cause, the struggles it would bring forth. That has to be the only way that they would be able to stand right now.

My heart aches for this mother. It is torn from my chest for the pain that she must be feeling. I know the father feels the same way, but as a mother I feel what this mother is feeling, but in only the minutest sense. I can relate to the love that she feels for her son and just the very thought of losing one of my children takes the very breath out of me.

My deepest sympathies go out to them as they start a new chapter in their lives that they never wanted to begin.

Lord,

I pray that you will be with this family, this mother and father who have lost their very existence. Help them to feel Your hand on their shoulder, Your hands holding them up. Help them to know that their son is being taken care of, that he is running, jumping, laughing, and playing with the angels in heaven. Help them to know that someday they too will be with him in heaven and he will be waiting to wrap them in his arms and welcome them home. Please help them to know that their son will always be with them, watching over them and loving them more than he could ever express here on Earth. Give them peace, Lord.

I pray You give them Peace.

Amen.