You Decide; Holding onto Pain or Celebrating Life?

Recently, I received a large envelope with letters to our family. These letters were from children who spent a week at Kids Kamp last summer through Ward Church. This particular camp holds special meaning for our family as it is a way we remember our son, Kodey, who died in October 2002.

To honor Kodey's love of Kids Kamp, we set up a scholarship to help children attend who may not otherwise be able to, due to financial strain. Although not required, we often receive letters from the kids who go.

 

Here is the brochure. The Camp is at Center Lake Bible Camp in Tustin, MI. The hovering fog over the lake in the early morning hours appears mystical.
 

 

 

Here is my boy. I love the grin and eagerness in his eyes to throw that water balloon. It's a perfect image of him as almost everywhere he went became a celebration.

 

 

Here is one of the letters we received. I kept the writer's name hidden. But I could not resist sharing her words of gratitude.

 

Her palpable words "I know why Kodey liked it so much." surfaces a smorgasbord of emotions for me; ache, validation and blessing.

 

Ache because I have never stopped longing for him. The early years of my loss I would not have used the word ache. I would have used the words searing or unbearable pain. When Kodey died many people flooded me with their "good news" such as;  their children had received Jesus, they had a better appreciation of their children, they no longer valued stuff so much... My pain pervaded every word. I could not rejoice with any of them. To accept that my son's death delivered the means by which God worked good in their life was inconceivable. To surrender my pain in those early days or even years, felt like I surrendered the very existence of the one who took a piece of my heart with him.

 

The pain held me, kept me hostage for a long time. When I started to accept the pain's presence, I accepted the reality. When I accepted the reality, I slowly let go of the pain by letting Kodey's life be remembered wholly. I made scrapbooks, wrote volumes of journals, talked about him, celebrated how God had entrusted his life to me as his mom, planted trees in his memory, and started (with lots of help) a scholarship for the camp he loved.

 

Doing all this did not mean I stopped longing for him. The decision to not hold onto the pain as a measurement of my love for Kodey birthed ways to remember with less pain and bring healing.

 

Holding onto pain hinders releasing ourselves to healing and remembering.

  

Developing ways to honor someone's memory permits us to remember more than their dying, their death. It gives us the ability to incorporate the things that mattered to them, that matter to God, into the here and now with the belief God will work for the good in even this. I found my pain released through doing things in honor of my son. It became a new way of being Kodey's mom..

 

The scholarship's main purpose is to share someone our son loved, Jesus. However, to have one of the kids connect Kodey's love for camp to their own love for it, validates his well lived life. He is not forgotten. His passion for camp lives on through new campers.

 

Remembering validates what God creates.

 

In September 2012, I awoke from a dream saying aloud, "Ok, God! We will have a fundraiser." Two months later we hosted a hugely successful fundraiser in our home, raising over $2000.00. The letters from the kids who went to camp last summer also came with a financial report. Apparently the scholarship had a negative balance in September 2012, unknown to me. With fundraising and generous contributions of others totaling over $1000.00, the summer of 2013 sent twelve kids to camp.

 

Reading the letters, seeing for myself what God has done blesses me. It gives me closeness to God. Ultimately it is God who brings good out of heartache and broken dreams. Blessing penetrates to my soul because pain is not in the way. 

 

Blessings are God remembering us.