This month alone my blog as been viewed by readers in the United States, Kenya, Ireland, Canada, Philippines, United Arab Emirates, Spain, and New Zealand. I’m so happy to have the opportunity to reach people in so many places. I don’t know, honestly, if I’ve truly helped anyone. I am hopeful and the outlook is good.
The more I write, the more I wonder about the stories and values of my readers. I really want to find a way to involve others. If you have anything to share, weather it be a story, poem, article or even a piece of art please send it in. I would love to help you share your story–your values–and your truth.
Sincerely,
Torie Simmons Donnelly
tbsimmons63@gmail.com
My Aria 
How do you react when God says “NO” to something to exquisitely painful and sharp? Could be that you no longer believe in Him. Or perpetually angry? Or still believe but numb yourself with alcohol, drugs, self-destructive behavior or all of them?
Its an ultimate act of faith to give up on what you know to be true and what is going to be bring great pain, to God. To truly trust in Him.
He won’t give up on me will He? I am a good person, volunteered untold hours to help others, I believe it helping and made a career in healthcare to help those going through their worst day. I have always believe in God and made it priority in my life. Not always at the very top but close. Isn’t this enough?
My newly married, shy son found the love of his life. It look him a bit to find his way but by age 28 he was on a great path, and found his wife on the internet of all places. They didn’t want to wait and during a blizzard we traveled over two mountains for his wedding. His smile was as big as the sun that started to shine later on that day. Those pictures haunt me now because unknowing to everyone, cancer was hiding. Stupid cancer. Hiding in plain sight.
A few short months later he called to tell me he had back pain. Since they had just gotten done with moving, it sounded like back spasms. A month later he would have his wife call from the ER–he was vomiting blood and had severe stomach pain. Diagnosed with peptic ulcer. The medicine brought some relief but he still had it. Just needs to heal.
Over the course of the summer I would miss seeing him as I was working nights in an acute care psychiatric unit and slept during the day, or tried too.
We saw him in his birthday in August and I was scared to see significant weight loss. He was getting weaker and weaker and finally his wife took him to a doctor who ordered a CT scan. The doctor called when the results were in and wanted to speak to the both of them at home. She hurried home to receive the call and thus began my personal hell. Stage 4 stomach cancer in a 29 year old. MY SON.
I am nurse very well versed in taking care of cancer patients and I knew what this meant. My son would die soon. Unless God changed this course.
Sitting at my river at this diagnosis I cried and begged and for a moment, wrestled with the idea that I would stop believing in God–I knew my son would die from this. Decided to truly believe God all the way, even if the unbearable pain would come my way.
It did–5 months later. And through another blizzard we traveled the same path as his wedding, to his first of two services. The first one almost exactly one year from his wedding.
I gave my promise to God and didn’t shy away from the hard truth–a Christian mom living with the grief of burying her son. Did I not pray enough? Was I not good enough? Could you please take the pain away???
I don’t really know why my son had to leave so soon and when things were so good in his life but I do know that throughout living with grief, I have been utterly and truly blessed with messages for me from Him. He did not have us suffer out of spite, just needed my son in Heaven is all and no where is written that anyone guaranteed a long life.
Nowhere.
I have many many blessings in the darkness and one is being able to truly help others with their grief. The blessings are really too many to count by now—but things like messages from God, dreams where you know He came to you, the knowledge that place you were drawn too when the pain was at its worst was the VERY PLACE HE HAD SET UP FOR JUST US! He was there the whole time and I didn’t know it. Finding feathers in very strange places. Having it become supernaturally quiet when I was bawling and broken over his grave. One of the first things that God did was having to stop my nursing job because I couldn’t sleep during the day at all, no matter what I did. Right when he was diagnosed and I was able to spend much time in the chemo room with him or making emergency trips to the ER’s. I had the time to be with him. And though it was financially tough, we were okay. But time is way more valuable and I was blessed to have been there with him. Those last moments.
My relationship with Christ is immeasurably deeper now and more personal. And I let Him know sometimes that I really don’t like the choice he made and why???
And you know what? He is okay with that. He does not give up on me and I can absolutely feel a different presence sometimes. It is as real as the tangible things on earth.
So with the proof I have seen, I now have this. The miracle of not only surviving with grief but also feeling joy again. The two can intermingle in the same person. Grief does not have to be the only thing that marks you. It will change you but it does not have to be the only thing you define yourself as. Yes I am a mom of a son in Heaven but I can also help those going through the same thing with much more understanding. We that are in this group we did not want to be in. I am so more apt to talk to God about things and give thanks for what I do have. I am at peace during the storms because I know there is someone waiting for me on the shore. Well not all the storms and not all time. He is is there no matter what is coming our way. I just need to trust to get out of the boat.
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