grief & wondering
Hey friends!!
This isn’t a topic I write about on here a lot, mostly because it feels painful & unique, & I assume others may not be interested in reading. But, in reality, I humbly acknowledge that we all experience levels of loss, grief, or changed expectations, & I think little bits of my story may be worth sharing for the growth & encouragement of others. So, I hope this reaches the right people, & that you find encouragement & strength in our Savior in whatever circumstance you are journeying through.
A little backstory…I’ve experienced a variety of griefs in my life - deaths of family members, broken relationships, changes of life seasons as in schools or jobs, & more. I’m sure you have also walked heavy challenges, walked grief journeys, or maybe you are walking through a painful loss right now. Hugs friend. The loss I’m choosing to share on here today is from a season of foster care. My biological parents did foster care for 10 years, and I had many siblings through foster care. We had one little girl who lived with us off and on for cumulatively about 10 months. For her privacy as it’s her story to share, & my family’s privacy as I’m not getting the opportunity to chat with you face-to-face today, I’ll keep some aspects vague. But, I hope it’s a clear enough picture to say that I loved this little girl (who is not so little anymore) & I still love her deeply. I loved her just as I do my other siblings. Due to the circumstances of our reality, I will most likely never see her again. I am often deep & empathetic in how I love. Sometimes, loving deeply leads to more pain, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it is wasted. The last few years have held many ups & downs, in the time we shared a family, and since she left our home. She turns another year older this month. Another birthday I won’t see. And I wonder how she is doing. I wonder if she is celebrated or has a party planned. I wonder if whoever she lives with hugged her goodnight, or sat on the edge of bed and chatted or prayed with her before she fell asleep. I wonder if someone made her dinner today, or told her that they loved her. I wonder if she needed help with her homework today, & if there was someone around to help her. I wonder if she’s gotten better at gymnastics. I wonder.
Sometimes, I think griefs are heavy because you experienced such close relationship, & all the joys & hardships that brings with someone, & it feels unimaginable to keep going without them. The joys & hardship bonds you, & a love you have for someone deepens your desire to care for them, & want good for them. Sometimes, I think griefs are felt so deeply because of the false expectations or the imagined possibilities. Sometimes grief can cause you to question why, or wonder at the nuances of loss & change, or wish it was different. This fiery girl was kind of an all-of-the-above grief for me. In this situation, I dreamed of being sisters that finished growing up together, that lived together, and that I would see her off to college, and beyond as she became an adult. I loved our adventures together. I loved hearing her hoverboard on the floor above me on my early morning treadmill runs, I loved our late night movie errands, I loved our gymnastics class or errand dates, I loved our walks & bike rides, I loved our crafts, I loved our Starbucks walks. Don’t get me wrong, there we a lot of hardships in our relationship of sharing a family for a season, & the brutal reality that foster care & brokenness was the thing that brought us together.
I keep a journal called “If I could talk to you” of letters that will never to go anyone, just for my own processing. I write them to previous siblings, and thought I would share one on here than I wrote last year.
“This weekend I wandered the aisles of Target. The one in Redmond we wandered several times together. As I was looking at kitchen things, I remembered four years ago this very weekend we were there with (name taken out for privacy) buying presents for my mom. I was there again this weekend with a nanny kiddo buying presents again for my mom’s birthday. I’d like to say I put a happy memory in a place where there was a painful one. But really, I’m growing around the sad memories, so they feel a little smaller, but they are still there. The deeper slices of pain are farther and fewer between, but this was one of them. I miss you all the time still. It’s the weirdest thing to grieve someone living and breathing and doing life still. I wish we were doing life together. I wish you had met my last 2 nieces. I wish you could be at my wedding someday. I miss your joy and exuberance and gymnastics skills at spontaneous moments. But wishing and wondering won’t get me anywhere. So I miss you, and I take a deep breath, and I keep going forward. Love you sweet girl.”
I haven’t seen this used-to-be little sister in nearly 2 years. It’s been painful to grieve someone still alive, mourning our relationship, and wishing we could be together. When people ask me the hardest part about my family doing foster care, I say it is the wondering after the goodbyes. Not necessarily the goodbyes themselves, but the having to keep moving, carrying on in life with a part of your heart walking around, never to be seen again. I have often been tempted to wallow and wonder, wishing I could be in control, and see how a child was doing, or see greater goodness in their situation. I wonder about a child I poured love and care into, & I know that I will most likely never see goodness come to fruition in their life. It makes you question if the deep pain of loving them was ‘worth it’. (Hang in there, I cover this too. Keep reading :))
I enjoy reading Kristin Hannah’s books; she writes many fantastic realistic fiction books. In one of her stories, “Magic Hour”, there are 2 people discussing a child they loved very much, who was still alive, but no longer living with them. There had been immense hardship in the time they lived together, & the concept of the loss of this child in their lives felt applicable to my experience.
“I wonder how she’s doing.”
“Don’t,” he said softly. “All you can do is wait.”
“For what?”
“Someday when you think about her howling or eating the flowers or trying to play with spiders, you’ll laugh instead of cry.”
This simple dialogue between the two friends grieving this little girl brought me to tears. I felt this deep in my soul because for so long, the “wondering” about a previous foster sibling was a grief that lived as a pit in my stomach that necessitated running away before the heaviness became too much to bear. And now, I laugh instead of cry most days. I remember the sweet things together, the movies & adventures & walks & gymnastics, & I smile fondly, & I keep going. I pray for her, & I give my wondering to God. I choose over & over & over to trust Him. It’s easier said then done, believe me, it’s hard. But I know I can rest my full confidence in the Lord. He will watch over her, and keep her safe, comforting her & protecting her far better than I ever could.
“So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time He will lift you up in honor. Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you.” 1 Peter 5:7
Ah! What a sweet peace there is knowing I don’t have to carry the burden of grief of loss alone, but that I can trust Jesus with it. He cares for us, & we can surrender these hardships to Him.
I still think of her daily, sometimes even hourly. I have things that remind me of her, sometimes I run across a picture, find an old card or receipt from something together, see a food in the grocery store I remember her loving, or drive past her gymnastics studio. I still have a phone alarm from when her bus would leave our house each day, so I could make sure to say goodbye before school. The growth & goodness is not separate from the grief. They are intertwined in a confusing way. His grace has proven sufficient in my deepest weakness & longing. (2 Cor. 12: 9-10) This growth in my life is only by God’s grace. I get to be a testimony of His goodness. I get to serve Him, having my heart ache because I loved someone for Him.
“So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.” Galatians 6:9
Experiencing sisterhood with her was worth it because He loves, & encourages us to not grow weary in doing good, which in this case, involved loving & caring for this child. We only get to see the ugly and confusing back of the tapestry that God is weaving. But God sees the bigger perspective. He sees the beautiful & complete, perfectly woven tapestry with intricate designs. While I am sitting here, wondering at the tangled threads on the back of the tapestry, & what the pattern must be, He is calling me to trust Him. Sometimes, I sit in anger, & sadness, & frustrated questioning of why, wishing I could cut out the old threads, or just get a small glimpse of the front of the tapestry. And those are the moments I get a choice. I get to choose to surrender the anger & loss to our Savior, who sees the whole tapestry, every why, & every step along the way. His perspective is greater than my finite & limited views, & that’s okay.
“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,’ says the Lord. ‘And my was are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9
We all live in this sin filled, broken world. I’m sure you have lived griefs as I have. Whether death, change, physical sickness, financial loss, relational brokenness, changed expectations or something else, it’s hard. Sometimes you ache for something so strongly, & God answers no. And you may never understand ‘why’ on this side of eternity. And yet, you have to keep going. It’s a battle of hope when bitterness feels tempting. I see you. I have felt some of the same things you are feeling. God has given me strength to keep going. He has taught me that in those trenches, He is still working for His glory & the good of those who love Him.
“Yet it was our weaknesses He carried; it was our sorrows that weighed Him down. And we thought His troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for His own sins! But He was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on Him the sins of us all.” Isaiah 53:4-6
A quick note on loving another people. I wrote a lengthy post about this in September called, “What is love, anyway?”, so feel free to jump back and read that. But simply put here, “We love each other because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19 God loves us with a depth & completeness & forgiveness that we could never begin to aspire too. And in His love, He calls us too reflect His character, to the best of our limited, this-side-of-eternity capabilities. Each day, through sanctification, we can become more & more like Him, as we are created in His image. Though I am sinful, & fall short of His glory daily, I continue to strive to love other like Jesus loves us. I strive to live with a servant’s heart, thinking of others before myself. I strive to consider other’s needs & interests. My point here is, we are called to love, & that command in itself is enough reason to love, even if there is potential for loss or pain.
So friends, as my memories of this sweet sister are brought to mind around her birthday, I choose to laugh instead of cry, seeing God’s goodness, & trusting her life with His ways, even though I don’t understand. I hope you can choose to rest your confidence in Him too while we wonder at some of those ‘somedays’ & ‘whys’. He is still working in the waiting. Each day, some days more successfully than others, I strive to trust it all to Him, knowing I may never get to see the glorious complexities of our stories. And I take a deep breath, & I keep going. He goes before us & with us, giving us strength to endure all the twists & turns.
Happy birthday sweet girl; I will always love you. Goodbye for now friends!