Guilty as Charged

My thoughts and feelings have caught me a little off guard this week. 

I have had some wonderful women send me beautiful messages of love this week.  They tell me that I am special to them.  They say they admire me.  I don't get it.  I don't feel worthy of this kind of love.  I feel like I don't deserve it.

WORTHLESS

 I feel ashamed that my baby died. I feel guilty that I didn't do something, anything to keep Seth alive. Why didn't I go to the hospital sooner? Why didn't I recongnize something was wrong?  Why wasn't I paying attention to him?  I play the last week of his life in my mind over and over and over.  I fail again and again.  I didn't do anything that could have saved him. 

SHAME

I must be a horrible mom.  I let my baby die. I am guilty as charged!   It hurts.  I have weird thoughts about how it would be better not to be alive.  Living with all of this pain doesn't feel worth it.  I don't feel worth it.

GUILT

I share these thoughts with my counselor. I am crying.  She starts to cry.  She tells me to LISTEN to her.  "Everything you just described is all part of the "GUILT" cycle of grief.  And NONE of it is true." 

I start to cry more.

She held her hand out in a fist while using the other to circle around it and said. 

"God will not tell you "why" to heal you. He will heal you by surrounding you with His love and His holiness. He is holding your pain in the palm of His hand. He will not let you get lost in your grief."

Doesn't it sound like God put the very words in her mouth?  I know He did.

I am ok.  I am making progress through the stages of grief.  It isn't supposed to be pretty.And the "guilt" phase of grief is especially ugly.  But I will believe in God's promise.  He will bind up my broken heart.  Someday I will wear a crown of beauty.  I will have joy.  I will wear a garmet of praise.

Provide for those who grieve

to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.

They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the Lord
for the display of his splendor.

Isaiah 61:3