Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Pain In Loss

What does it take to rid pain? I can bury it beneath the already hidden wounds that are stashed away in my heart just waiting to be dealt with. But then I don’t deal with the pain because, well, it’s painful, unpleasant, and brings such harshness to a numb, but seemingly fine reality. But I feel stranded because each new ache brings up old ones and somehow they are all connected to things that just happened in recent days. I told my brother today that I wanted to dig a hole, climb into it and never come out. This morning I found out that my childhood dog past away last night due to spleen cancer. There have been many, many memories connected to him. His name was Duke! The Grand Duke of Hop Canyon, (the place where my parents live). Many days I would wake up and find Duke just waiting at my bedside for me to get up and pet him. He was that kind of dog, waiting to love us and always was there wanting to play, or go on a walk. He was always there, and now he’s not. One might think that it was just a dog, but not me. He was my dog, our family’s dog, a part of our family. He would always go outside and find large sticks to drag around and collect. Some of them weren’t even sticks but almost as large as tree branches, as he would drag across the yard as his head was bended due to the weight of the branch. My Mom has written a great blog post about him plus she has pictures of him if you want to go check it out. Her blog is (Blog When I Can) it is the second to last blog link on my blog roll! Most of the day I mourned for my Dukey, but while I was crying today, I was reminded of recent pain our family have been going through concerning family relations falling apart. I feel broken and helpless and I just can’t hold it together any more. All of these wounds are connected because each pain ends in a loss. And those losses have taken their tow on my heart. I feel like I have many holes in my heart that are yet to be mended, and I am losing energy to continue. I asked God to help me deal with the pain, and today he grieved with me. He held me and said it was okay to grieve, for that is a part of releasing and accepting what was to what is. Then I thought about what Heaven is going to be like; there won’t be any loss, any grief, pain or past wounds that add up throughout a lifetime, but a God waiting for me to get there to love on me even more when I am in his presence, just like Duke used to wait for me to get up. He will be greatly missed.

Father, please heal the pain and pour your love upon me as I seek your face for comfort and as you help me deal with losses that I have dealt with in my life. I know God that pain is inevitable in this life, but I also know that your love and healing hands are too, and you can use each loss that I have experienced to build and bring me up to be a woman who you call daughter. I love you Papa…

9 comments:

cybeRanger said...

Cheer up!
May this video speak to you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RVuq-kwNz8

Shalom,
http://cyberanger.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

Nicole,
My dear friend. I love you, sweet sister.

It is absolutely both normal and beautiful to mourn over a pet. Quite honestly, I believe they are treasures Papa has given us. In fact, for some, they actually become like children for those who may never have them.

You go ahead and grieve. Allow yourself to. This is important to naturally let your heart do what it needs to. To try to "force" yourself to "cheer-up" will only delay FULL healing.

I loved what you said here:
"I asked God to help me deal with the pain, and today he grieved with me. He held me and said it was okay to grieve, for that is a part of releasing and accepting what was to what is."

Anyways, my thoughts and prayers will be with you.
Your prayer at the end was beautful.

P.S. Just a little aside, one of my grandfather's "favorite" dogs was named Duke. He was a hunting dog, and well loved.

Blessings,
~Amy :)
http://amyiswalkinginthespirit.blogspot.com

Nicole said...

Amy,

Thank you so much for your sweet kind words. I was hesitant to write about it yesterday, but I think it helped me feel some relief, and when I woke up this morning. I felt a lot better! Father really has been comforting me! It has been a good process to grieve and that is a huge part of life, and I know Father can touch many who allow themselves to grieve when they are hurting, even if its over a dog!

I appreciate you Amy, you always seem to use the right words to encourage and build up! Thank You!

I love you too!!!

In Freedom, Nicole!

Bino M. said...

Nicole,
I feel for you, sis! We adopted a dog few months ago because all of us love pets in general and dogs especially. It was primarily for my 4 yrs old daughter who is crazy about dogs. Anyways, we brought this 12 months old puppy home (we named her lucy) and it was lot of fun, also some work. Oh yea, they do poop!
But, my 2 yr old son wasn't getting along well with her (allergy etc). So ultimately after about 2 months we had to make a difficult decision to give her back to the donor.

Till today we miss her. My daughter named all her 20+ stuffed dogs lucy. It was just a 2 months relationship but I am amazed how deeply we loved her.

I can relate to your pain. It's ok to mourn over any lose, especially the things which are close to our heart.

Aida said...

Nicki, I'm so sorry about the loss of Duke. Pets really are a special gift from our Daddy. In my opinion, they reflect the love of God. They love us unconditionally and just want to be with us. Their love is not based on our behavior. It's solely based on relationship.

I know Duke will be missed. He sounds like he was an awesome friend.

I'll be talking to Daddy about you today. I love you.

Aida

Nicole said...

Thank you Bino and Aida!

Bino, yeah, dogs or any animal in which we feel close to is always a hard lose that connection with and it will be hard to go this weekend and not see Duke run up to greet us when we drive up! I told my mom that I don't think any dog will be able to take his place. He was unique and fit into our family so well! I will miss him!

Aida! Thank you for praying for me. It has been an emotional couple of days once we lost him, but I am hoping that I will see him again someday in Heaven. I am not sure if that is biblical, but I believe that he will be there waiting! I love what you said, "They love us unconditionally and just want to be with us. Their love is not based on our behavior. It's solely based on relationship." That is what I think too, and that is what Duke portrayed in our family!

Anonymous said...

I have absolutely no biblical proof of this, but it seems to me to be a very small thing for God to reunite you with Dukey some day? We miss our English bull dog Murphy and it was a very difficult time when she died. I still think it is a possibility?? We know that the lion will lay with the lamb. That means there will be animals so I say why not??

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