Unconditional Love and Forgiveness
Family relationships are always hard but even more so after the loss of your hero. Whether that hero was your son, your daughter, a sibling, or a spouse, that death will deeply affect your relationships with the rest of the family.
The first year of grief generally separates the wheat from the chaff. Relationships may change dramatically. Some family members, so at a loss for words, will slowly drift away, unable to understand, unable to initiate a conversation, and fearful of what your response will be.
The passage of time reveals the deeper cracks in once comfortable relationships. Family members, once supportive, cannot understand decisions you now make in your life. They wonder why you choose to take a path that may diverge from one previously planned.
Here is the deal. Unless you have experienced that deep, gut wrenching grief, you will never understand the way it affects the lives of the survivors.
I had a path. It was one I chose; one of those decisions we make day in and day out throughout our lives. It involved a considerable sacrifice of time and of money. Friends and family encouraged me along the way. Then came that moment; the call in the middle of a freeway commute delivering the worst news of my life. Everything changed in that instant.
Psalm 91:11, 14-16
I tried to continue as if I could rise above the event, get over it, or “move on.” My feeble attempt to explain to my friends and family my sudden lack of enthusiasm for staying on my previous path only served to make me seem weak and indecisive. Only Michael, my husband of so many years, could see what was happening every day. And even though he was trying to help me, he too was carrying the same pain. I was lost in a grief so deep and paralyzing that the best I could do on some days was to ask God just to let me rest in his arms. And He did. He let me rest. He carried me like no one else could. He alone taught me that I could make it through this valley. He alone encouraged me. He alone was not disappointed when I could not complete the path I had worked so hard to follow.
You see, here is the thing about our Heavenly Father. He is never disappointed in us. He always sees our potential, even through our setbacks and failures. He understands our frailties. God has set our path and He is able to complete us even if we take a few diversions along the way. His goal in our life is set and He gently directs us so that we accomplish His purpose, and in doing so, glorify Him. As I have referenced in a previous post, God alone can take the misshapen lump of clay that is our life and recreate it into something perfect.
As humans, we always want to succeed in big, splashy ways. That is because our pride wants to be stoked by the praise of others. But God always sees us as successful when we walk in His ways and turn to Him in our brokenness. His idea of success may be the one life we unknowingly influenced in a passing moment. We may never know how one life or many lives were changed because of one moment in our own life.
Our heavenly Father represents the perfect family relationship: unconditional love, utter forgiveness, and not an expectation of success, but a perfect confidence in our ability to accomplish His purpose in our lives. If our earthly family relationships are lost, or floundering, or broken, we can have faith that our relationship with the true Father is perfect in every way. Each daily step along this new path serves to remind us of the family relationship that is most important above all others – the relationship with our Lord and Savior.
She is also the mother of an American Hero. Her only child, Sgt. Rhys W. Klasno was killed in action on "Mother's Day," 13 May 2007 in Haditha, Iraq. Read her American Hero Tribute Blog and check out her Roofing Solutions Wonderkid Blog
- HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY RHYS - July 16, 2016
- Running the Race - August 4, 2014
- Testing the limits of my endurance - July 4, 2014
