When a child has died, a man and a woman who loved that child are experiencing a chaos of emotion.  Two people in brokenhearted chaos, living together, sounds like a recipe for relationship disaster!  Usually, life allows you to take turns with difficult situations that produce big emotions. In better days, you may have a good pattern of helping one another in turns when you had these kind of challenges. But not now, when you both lost a child. These patterns may not work at all because each of you is so broken.

Each of you may be wanting and hoping that you can lean on your spouse the way you used to. But, frankly, my friends, those are unrealistic expectations at this time. Neither of you has the resources within you to be that strong tower on which the other can lean.

Each of you will need to share your emotions and listen to your partner, but you can’t resolve the other’s emotional battles. Not at this time. Each of you needs to find an ally but be careful!! Don’t expect too much from your brokenhearted partner, but be aware there could be danger for your marriage when seeking comfort from another person, because that helping, comforting relationship inherently has a degree of emotional intimacy. Be careful.

I propose this plan for your emotional support:

• Share your thoughts with your mate. But don’t expect him or her to solve your problems.
• Find an ally for you personally, and make sure your spouse knows and approves of this person. This ally is one to whom you can talk honestly about anything and everything. They’ll listen without judging. They will give good sound godly advice, but infrequently. They’ll speak words of truth and grace to you. They will listen again and again, as much as you need to talk. And they won’t make the kind of emotional attachment that’s reserved only for your spouse. 
• This ally could actually be a support group, a group of godly people.
• Lean into Christ, and then share what you learn from Him.

If you are leaning into Jesus and leaning into the grief, you will be closer to your spouse than it seems. You are both leaning in the same direction. If you are sharing your thoughts, sharing what is comforting you and listening to your partner, that’s true communication, even if you can’t solve their pain. And remember, that you each are grieving your own different and unique losses in your own unique way. The Lord who made and understands each of you individually, is meeting your heart needs in unique ways. Don’t expect that what helps and comforts you will help and comfort your spouse. But keep sharing. It’s Biblical: Weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. Comfort others with God’s comfort to you. (Romans 12:15; II Corinthians 1:4)

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I am reading a little book by one dad about his loss and grief. His 17 year old son died of cancer of a rather fast moving kind. He wrote: “[his mom] cried often, but I could not cry. I often longed for the relief of tears, but the ability for such a release seemed to be dammed up. No matter how big a head of emotion lay behind the dam.

“…our culture… gives us, as men, only 2 acceptable ways to handle our grief. We can bury ourselves in activities, our work, or do-it-yourself projects, hobbies, church or other community chores, or we can exercise anger. We can be as angry as we want to be about drunk drivers, police, doctors, hospitals, our dead children, ourselves or God. Considering our limited grief options, there seems to be little chance that most of us will come to terms with our grief. Meanwhile our wives stand by in despair as we seem to suffer silently accepting no help.” (Andy’s Mountain Fathers Grieve Too  by Dwight L Patton; pg 17, 19.)

Men and women do grieve differently. Women often cry and want to talk about it. Men, not so much. In fact, more than once I’ve witnessed at a support group a man sharing something about his grief and the wife saying “I didn’t know you grieved that way!” Sometimes the wife misses knowing about the husband’s grief because she is looking for something that looks like her grief. But he is different.

This is one of the great blessings of a support group. Men can express grief in a masculine way and be understood by the other men. Women express their thoughts and feelings in a feminine way. Each gender gains a better understanding of the other. Each spouse gains a better understanding of their own partner. But this little advertisement for a group is off the main point – that men and women are different in their emotions and expressions.

Now, I want to be sure you understand that what I say next are broad generalizations. Each gender can experience any or all of the following symptoms of mourning.  But, men tend to grieve silently, with work, in their car, through sports or building or fighting. Baseball and golf allow the man to whack something, as does building with a hammer and nails. Women tend to grieve by talking, crying, shopping, reading, emotional outbursts. I have heard one speaker refer to the differences as follows: men tend to use their large muscles while women use their small muscles.  

Both have deep emotions, but men, as Dwight Patton mentions, tend to express many emotions as anger. Fear can disguise itself as anger. So can sorrow or discouragement. Women generally have more diverse expressions of emotions, but they, too, can mask other emotions as depression: such as discouragement, fear and anger.

God made us male and female. On purpose, He made us different.  He understands the differences. He made the female for the male because “It was not good for man to be alone.” God made Eve as Adam’s helper. That implies Adam needed help! And it implies she brings to him something that is truly helpful. He is wise who receives that gift of useful help. It’s practical, including here in grief. She can teach him to feel and to name his emotions. He can teach her to find ways to function anyway. Let each learn from the other. Let each lean on the other for the strengths he/she has that you don’t have. Lean on each other as much as possible, but know that your spouse can’t be your all in all. Not now is their grief, not ever. That’s God’s place. He alone is your always present, available and able helper. He alone is your all sufficient source of all sufficient grace.   

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Mother’s Day was last weekend. Father’s Day is around the corner. Every child who has died had a mother and a father. They may also have a step-mom or step-dad, probably some grandparents too. So there may several mom types or dad types who are grieving and who don’t know what to do on these days celebrating motherhood and fatherhood.

The loss of a child brings up certain questions including “Am I still a parent?”

Let’s think about this from the beginning.  A man and a woman made love. A baby, a small human, was conceived. God oversaw her growth and development in the womb. God saw the child. Whether you are the birth parents of that child, or her adoptive parents, you are her parents from the moment of conception, or the moment you conceived of the thought of adoption. The child is an eternal being, made in the image of God, under His watchful eye, with plans of important work for that child to do to glorify her creator. The child is eternal even if her life on this earth does not last many years, months, or days. You are her parent then and now. Yes, you are still her parents.

Here are some scriptures to back up my statements:

• “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Psalm 139:13-16
• “Then God said, ‘let us make man in our image, in our likeness…’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:26-27
• Paul says “for me to live is Christ, to die is gain… I desire to depart and be with Christ,…”          Philippians 1:21,23  This passage is rich with implications of life beyond the grave.
• “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” I Corinthians 15:20  The fact of the risen Christ is historically proved in I Corinthians 15: 5-8. As Christ is living after His death, so shall we be living after ours. We are eternal beings.

For bereaved parents, it is often painful on Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. While others in your congregation are receiving words of encouragement and perhaps a rose, what do you do? It’s a dilemma. God  has taught us to think of Him as Father (in the prayer He taught the disciples in Matthew 6:9); and has used the images of both mother (in Isa 66:13 Isa 49:15) and father (Ps 68:5) to help us understand the nature of our relationship with Him. He knows both the mother’s hearts and a father’s. He understands each or you and why the dilemma is troublesome.

In my opinion, you are a parent and deserve a rose. But if you feel more discouraged or lonely because of being recognized in this way, you have permission to make your own choices and to not accept that rose.  God knows your heart and your heart-ache. Like He saw your child’s development in the womb, He sees yours now. He sees you and knows you and loves you completely. He offers His love to comfort you even in this dilemma.  

The is God speaking to you: “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you;..” Isaiah 66:13

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