My friends' little girl passed away late Friday night. It's been a very heartbreaking and hard weekend.
You know the cliche, "Motherhood is having your heart walking around outside of you"? (Or something like that.) I'm really feeling it right now. Intellectually, I know the world isn't a more dangerous place than it was before this tragedy happened, but it seems more dangerous. Especially for little kids.
But I can't wrap my kids in cotton padding, or bubblewrap, or whatever, to keep them safe. I can't stop letting them play outside, or run around, or just be kids. I have to let them go, keeping them safe where I can, and trusting in God to make everything all right in the end.
Except "in the end" is so impossibly far away sometimes.
Elder Neal A. Maxwell writes in his book Not My Will, But Thine: "There is no way to go around in this life; we have to go through it". And sometimes the way is hard. Sometimes we have to hold really tight to the iron rod, to make it through the mists of darkness. But if we can--if we can just hold on and endure the hardships that come with this mortal experience--then, at the end, is peace and joy and reunion.
I'm holding fast to that right now.
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So very very very sad. It's something I battle every day...letting them be them and live their lives but wanting to protect them so much. *cry*
ReplyDeleteCould you pass this quote on to your friend? I find it so very very comforting.
"First, please know that grief is the natural by-product of love. One cannot selflessly love another person and not grieve at his suffering or eventual death. The only way to avoid the grief would be to not experience the love; and it is love that gives life its richness and meaning. Hence, what a grieving parent can expect to receive from the Lord in response to earnest supplication may not necessarily be an elimination of grief so much as a sweet reassurance that, whatever his or her circumstances, one’s child is in the tender care of a loving Heavenly Father."
~Lance B. Wickman