Sunday, March 13, 2011

From Mourning to Morning

There is a time for everything and a season for everything under heaven…
A time to weep and a time to laugh
A time to mourn and a time to dance. (Ecclesiastes 3)

Life’s journeys can bring us both weeping and mourning as well as Laughing and dancing. And sometimes the same circumstance can bring one to a place of dancing and the other to a place of mourning. The action comes out of the where the heart is in the journey.

This road I have been down with my son has brought me both. I was reminded of my time of deep mourning just this past Monday. I went to my first parent support group and found there those who were hurting deeply, they were in their time of mourning. My heart broke particularly for this one woman whose healthy son could not understand her need to mourn. We parents must mourn. The loss we feel during this difficult season calls us to do so.



They are our sons, our daughters, the very children we carried in our swollen bellies, we birthed, we rocked, we bandaged their boo-boo’s. These are the children we have prayed over, dreamed for, and loved. All those dreams of who and what they would become, the aspirations we have had for the lives they would one day live. Gone. Or at the very least put off to a distant time. A time we can't quite see or sure exists.
Addiction has stolen our dreams for our children, its stolen their dreams for their own lives.

My son is gifted and talented in so many areas. When clean I have watched him excel in two different trades, I have heard his bosses sing his praises.

Addiction has robbed him of that.

So I have mourned that loss.

Addiction has stolen his dignity and relationships with his peers.

So I have mourned that loss.

Addiction has stolen days, weeks, and now years of his life.

So I have mourned that loss.

As a mother who has watched her son become an addict, I have mourned the loss of who he was, the little blonde haired blue eyed boy whose smile brought joy to my heart. The small child whose heart cried over seeing a homeless man in the park, his compassion for others is swallowed up in his need to get drugs. So much potential for life and goodness seemingly gone…

And so it’s our season to mourn.

But the pendulum will swing in the other direction, and as they get clean and stay clean we will laugh once again and we will dance, and we can be there to hold up those who mourn.

1 comment:

  1. Thank-you for sharing your feelings with others. Some of them, until now thought they were the only ones going through something like this. You speak to their hearts. they now know they are not alone. May you continue to write from your heart.

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