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Fighting for Hope After The Death of a Child

Blog post written by Amy DeBerg in relation to the GraceStory podcast : “Hope: What Does it Mean to Fight for Hope?” (To listen to the podcast: https://www.gracestoryministries.com/podcast/episode/8a92be68/hope-what-does-it-mean-to-fight-for-hope-sue-bowles )

To read this post and others and to listen view the podcast library, go to https://www.gracestoryministries.com/

Fighting for hope can look differently given the context. In the latest episode of GraceStory Podcast, Master Certified Mental Health and Life Coach Sue Bowles shared several different aspects of fighting for hope. Including an emotional example of a time when she found herself fighting for hope during her parents’ divorce. 

Sue defined hope as ‘daring to believe when everything humanly and intellectually is telling you otherwise.’ She further explained hope as daring to hold God to his word until he shows up. As I listened to hope explained in this way, I was taken back to July 2014 with the loss of my 22-year-old son. I clung to hope as I struggled to breathe, at times, and found myself struggling to make it through each moment. Step-by-step. Day-by-day. That’s how I moved forward. 

A friend had advised Sue to watch her steps as she took each one forward. I can relate to that. Sometimes … that’s all I could do. Especially the times I was trying to work through my grief on my own. As Sue mentioned, trudging through in isolation leads to not being able to trust my own thoughts. However, when I chose to share my struggles with one or two trusted people, I made room for God to show up and walk alongside me in healing. God had blessed my family and I with multiple church and workplace families. These individuals and several hundred others that we didn’t know, prayed us through and gave us the support we didn’t even realize we were receiving. The love we received by fighting for hope in community carried me through some pretty difficult days, and continues to as there are still some times when the waves of grief threaten to overtake me. 

My Toolbox: 

*I’ve seen hope in the past through sharing my struggles with a trusted friend. *I declared that God would use my experience to help others because I surrendered it to him. *I have used what I’ve learned through my loss to comfort others in their moments of grief. *I’m writing a book as a way to continue my healing and help others through theirs. Acknowledge my emotions: 

My heart hurts from the absence of my son. 

I’m mad about what I’m missing out on with him. 

What am I grateful for: 

I am grateful for the 22 years I had with my son. 

I am grateful for the community God placed around me. 

Prompt: Build a Fighting for Hope Toolbox by integrating hope building strategies into your life. Ask yourself and maybe journal about the steps Sue shared in the podcast. 1- Identify where you’ve seen hope in the past? What’s helped in the past? 2- Where have you told God you’re expecting him to show up? 

3- How can that experience apply to your current situation? 

4- Build on your current situation. 

Since anxiety and gratitude cannot coexist, acknowledge your emotions before God AND speak truth and statements of gratitude. 

And remember, you matter and so do your emotions.

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THE MESSY MIDDLE

“Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals.  Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades.  Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.  One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.  When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

 “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”  At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.” (John 5:1-9 NIV)

[Warning: This post is a real and raw post meant to help others with truths that I am learning on my own journey.]

As I prayed, Holy Spirit brought to mind the paralytic that had been unable to walk for 38 years, until Jesus went to see him at the Pool of Bethesda. Jesus asked the man if he wanted to get well and the man gave Jesus excuses as to why he wasn’t healed. These excuses were all based on how others have not helped him or got in his way of being healed.

It occurred to me that I am that human being. I have blamed others for my not ‘getting well’ and becoming ‘holy confident.’ I have tried many manmade antidotes to be ‘healed;’ to no avail. I have sought God, but not trusted Him for His outcome; I have been seeking my own outcome. Maybe it’s in this ‘messy middle;’ with my struggling insecurity, that I am to relate to others. I have always believed that I have to be ‘on the other side of’ insecurity and the other things, in order to truly be used by God; however, that’s a lie because God can use me no matter what stage of spiritual growth I am in. This messy middle ground is where I am the closest to God and so I think I will just ‘be here’ until He moves me elsewhere; or He chooses to heal me of this current stuff. Whichever it is, I will trust God for the outcome.

In considering what the Pool of Bethesda can represent, this is what came to mind:

Seeking others’ approval for worth/value

Pretending to be someone I am not

Intellectualizing things to make it seem like I know more than others or because I want to lean on my own understanding, instead of God

Endless learning without application

Asking God to ‘heal’ me or to speak to me but then not listen for the answer

Building walls around my heart to keep others at a distance

Rejecting others before they have a chance to reject me

Just sitting in limbo and not stepping out in faith; not trusting God for the outcomes

Avoidance of the difficult stuff

My prayer is that in my transparency, you will find a nugget of truth that will be helpful for you. God gives us our testimonies not to keep them to ourselves, but to be a beacon of light and hope to others. May God’s light shine on your own path and illuminate; not only your path, but the paths of those around you!

#healing

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