Permission to Grow: Joy in the Mourning by Kelly Nickerson

This week’s “Permission to Grow” guest post comes from Kelly Nickerson. Kelly is a mother to two kids on Earth and four in Heaven. The Good Grief Girl teaches us not to “get over” our losses but, instead, to grow from them.

Permission to Grow

Joy in the Mourning

I kept his room the same for over a year. His crib, chair, and toys… . His Boppy where we rested his head still held his imprint.

Everything was frozen in time, and I wanted it that way.

I didn’t want to move on. I loved God with all of my heart, but I couldn’t understand why He would choose to take the very children we had prayed for.

What was even harder to understand was good coming out their death. I would search for reasons to try to look for the good, but honestly, I just wanted them back.

For me, after losing our children we felt rushed to “get over it.” (They were two years apart, so a lot of grieving took place.) I know now that our loved ones just didn’t want to see us hurt, but in the moment it felt like we were being told to hurry up.

You never “get over” the death of your child.

You can’t get over someone who was a part of you. I believe that the memories of our loved ones were never meant to be erased. They are there to make our lives richer and to be cherished for a lifetime.

I remember for the longest time after each child died, I had this unsettling feeling that they weren’t really gone. Before you call a doctor, stay with me here. It just felt like it was all a mistake and at any moment someone would come knock on our door and explain there was a mix up. Like it just wasn’t finished.

But that never happened.

I had held both of them for long enough to know that their spirit had left their beautiful shells vacant.

After the shock of their loss, I found myself reading everything I could on Heaven. It made sense why that feeling of things not being completely over was there, because we were never meant to part.

One step further, because this place is not our home.

My children are the ones that are truly home.

As I poured myself into Scripture, I began to realize that me missing my children wasn’t being stuck.

I am a mother. We love our children before they are born, and we hope they outlive us as well. In my case, that was not to be.

But the love doesn’t stop, it grows.

Once I began to realize that nowhere in the Bible does it say that I need to “get over” the loss of my children. Instead God invites me to experience the very emotions that He Himself has felt.

He knows loss well.

He didn’t forget about His Son, instead He continued to prepare a place for Him at the right side of His throne.

As I began to embrace that my suffering wasn’t in vain, I began to love God in a brand new way. He knew my pain. He changed my mindset to that of an eternal reward, not just the here and now.

I will be honest, for years I struggled with finding joy. I felt guilty for laughing, living, or even thinking of wanting to have more children, it’s been a long and sometimes grueling process.

But I am now seeing the beauty from the ashes.

Through our pain and loss, we have learned compassion and empathy. Because of what we went through, my husband and I are joining the ranks of ministry to come along side those that feel too weary to walk. To help lift their eyes to true hope and know that their pain can be redeemed.

I am learning that fame, money, and things don’t matter. It’s the relationships with those around us that are the priceless treasures.

I hope to take all the love that I have for my children who are no longer here on earth, and share it with those who truly need it. Every time I think of my children I miss them.. But I know that they wouldn’t want their lives to be what stopped my love for God, or others.

I think they would want me to remember them with joy. That every time someone said their name I wouldn’t cringe in pain but would smile and be filled with love.

The author of Ecclesiastes 3:2,4 (NIV) says:

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot … a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.”

Can you feel it?!

As I read these verses I began to understand our whole lives are a push and pull of joy and sorrow. This is living!

Grief, pain, loss, and sorrow have been some of my best teachers.

They have taught me gratitude, mercy, joy, grace, and glory. They all taught me how to love better.

I have learned so much.

I have learned so much, and I have much more to attain.

What I have learned is that we can grieve deeply and still follow God. We aren’t the first, and we won’t be last to experience loss. In the pain I learned that we can all be the hands and feet of Jesus. We walk where it may be hard, and we hold up who are too weary to stand. We do what Jesus told us to do and keep looking to the Father and know that this place is not our home. And we are just passing through and our reward is eternal.

But until then, we can bring Heaven to Earth in our actions.

Each moment of love that is shared brings healing to our pain. Each root of bitterness that we choose to cut off, become a bloom of hope.

I have learned that the darkest depths of my pain, have brought an awareness of His presence and as I rested in His strength, He had done a good work in me.

Life isn’t to be taken for granted.

Not one moment goes to waste.

What I saw as loss, I see now as gain.

What looked like a broken mess, is a beautiful mosaic of a bigger picture that we can’t fathom.

Till Heaven, may we not look to “get over” our losses, rather they transform our hearts to love more deeply than we could have ever dreamed.

Kelly Nickerson

Kelly Nickerson is a homeschooling mama with two beautiful kids under her wing and four dancing in Heaven. She also has an amazing husband, who supports her like no other.

Kelly is a firecracker prayer warrior who shares honestly about her brokenness, while praising and clinging to the God who sustains her. When she isn’t hunting down germs with disinfectant, you can find her writing of her adventures at kellynickerson.com.