Dignity

The son came back. The father saw him coming, ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. He smelled, he was dirty and had offended his father more severe then we can imagine. Still he hugged his son and gave him a coat, a ring and sandals. He received new dignity, new authority. From a vagabond and beggar he became a son. Restored. Renewed. Forgiven.

I suddenly thought of Jesus. Stripped, wounded, humiliated, He was nailed to a cross.
While He was hanging there, the soldiers were distributing His garments.

Exchange

Jesus was deprived of dignity and humanity. The prodigal son was clothed with dignity and authority. I had heard about ‘the exchange of the cross’, how Jesus went through all kinds of things, so that we didn’t have to go through it ,or could receive the opposite He received.

I was so in awe of this that I wrote a song. I really like to share it on this Good Friday. You can find it on Deezer, Amazon Spotify or your favourite music stream service, but now there’s also a lyrics-video: https://youtu.be/TYXBnYCDSEo?si=N8tly3wsUgcWTA4b. Please share it with others, so this good news can be heard everywhere.

The Prodigal Son

There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father.

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.

Luke 15:11-32, NIV

Come To The Water

We sang the song Oceans in church, a few months after Amanda was stillborn. I used to love that song. I always longed to walk in faith wherever God would lead me. But now I found myself not being able to sing it. What if going wherever He leads would mean I lose another child? I suddenly realized I didn’t trust God anymore. I was shocked.

Some months later I went to a songwriters retreat. In a workshop the leader invited us to write down what bothers us and to give it over to God. After that we asked God what He wanted to show us. I ‘see’ a man on the water. The sea is calm and the sun breaks through, right above the man. We told each other what we received.

We prayed again and I ‘hear’ a song line from Live: ‘Run to the water. I find you there’. I thought it was funny. I’ve always loved Live and God knows that of course. I didn’t know what to do with it, though.

‘Isn’t that man Jesus?’ someone said. I was startled and immediately thought of Oceans. I realised Jesus was inviting me to walk on the water, in the light. I wrestled with what this means exactly. I listened to Oceans again and then the last line hits me: ‘in the presence of my Saviour’.

That’s what someone said as well: ‘But Ineke, you don’t walk alone on that water. God is always there.’ It is true. If I honestly look back, I can’t recall a moment I was completely left alone. I was always in the presence of my Saviour.

I kneeled down and told God that I don’t dare, but somewhere deep-down want to trust Him. I just didn’t know how. Then I described what I saw in this song. In the months following, I sang it again and again. 

Last week this song was released. You can find it on Spotify, YouTube and other music stream services. It is also on my cd. You can order it here.

Standing on the beach, almost on my own
Looking at the sea, all is calm and quiet
Suddenly a man is walking on the water
The sun breaks through the sky, he’s right there in the spotlight, saying:

Come to the water, it’s where you’ll find me
Come to the water, ’cause you’ll find me there
Come to the water, take my hand now
Come to the water, ’cause you’ll find me here

I’m still standing there, looking from afar
Wondering if I should accept his invitation
I’ve been there before, when the waves were rough
Now it’s calm and still and with some hesitation I decide to

Come to the water, it’s where I’ll find him
Come to the water, ’cause I’ll find him there
Come to the water, I take his hand now
Come to the water

Do I dare to trust again?  
Lay my life back in His hands?
When He calls me to the water
I’ll be listening

Hope without hope

It is a while ago now, but I remember it very well. Amanda’s death was already some months ago, but I couldn’t write songs anymore. I felt just numb. I wanted to write, but what should I write? And what about?

When I shared this with another songwriter, he said: ‘Aks your pastor for a theme’. I liked that idea and my pastor immediately said: Romans 15:13. It is the theme for this year in our congregation. People need to hear about hope with all that is going on.’

Paul wishes that the God of hope will fill you overflowingly with all joy and peace in believing. The goal: that you are full of hope, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

I actually didn’t know what to do with this. I write about this in my book. How can you be full of hope? What is hope? I studied Romans in all translations I could read. I started to understand a bit more, especially when I considered the life of Abraham too.

In a sermon my pastor shared that hope in Greek is ‘elpidos’, which means ‘expectation of what is certain’. So no hope in the sense of: I hope the weather is nice tomorrow. Because that is not certain. The hope Romans speaks about is certain.

In my book I write the following about this:

‘It doesn’t speak to me yet. I don’t feel hope and I don’t have hopeful thoughts and writing a song about hope when you don’t feel any hope yourself is quite difficult. I decide to ask the Holy Spirit to guide me because He is the source of hope and strength; that much I understand from this verse. I immerse myself in the letter to the Romans and read it in all the translations I can find. Because I go to an English-speaking church, I read the text also in different versions in that language. I want to know what it means to expect what is certain. To hope. I read and read and pray that God will show me what it means, and what should be in the song.

Because I want to be authentic and don’t want to write a song that might be factually true and correct but I can’t sing from my heart, I end up in a considerable struggle. Romans talks about Abraham. He had to wait for years until the promises of God were fulfilled. He kept on hoping.

In the text God is called the God of hope Himself. In fact. He is hope. He is our hope. It is not necessarily about hoping for our wishes to come true. It’s about putting our hopes on Him, no matter what will happen. In my thoughts I hear Cody ask again: ‘Do you still trust God?’ and I think of what I discovered some time later: What do you trust God for? If you trust Him so that all your plans will succeed, or your wishes come true, or trust your interpretation of what God says is right, there will always come a moment when this trust turns out to be weak. When you trust God Himself, His character, His hand in your life, His promises that He is with you, you have firm ground beneath your feet after all. Whatever happens. Because no one will take you from His hand. So that’s the hope that’s certain. He is with me. I put all translations together and chose words, interpret their meaning and write a song that is surprisingly hopeful and yet still acknowledges the despair that still rages in my heart too.’

I wrote this a few years ago. But still the second verse of my song moves me deeply. To close I’ll share some more words from my book:

‘In March 2018, a year after Amanda’s death, I sing it in church when I lead worship. I become emotional when I sing that last verse: We are fully aware that He’s there with us in trouble. Suddenly I realize that I believe it.’

That is why I now professionally recorded this song. You can find it here.

When Nothing Beats Anymore

When our baby died, I had feelings I had never felt before. At first, I could find strength and peace in my faith. In God. But some weeks later our baby was buried and the world kept going on like nothing ever happened. I felt devastated and lost. And I struggled to keep the faith.

I wondered how people did this, walking through the valley of the shadow of death. I had heard testimonies wherein someone shared that the road was dark, lonely, hard, but he or she came through it and now they walk in faith, more than they did before.

How did you feel in that valley, I wondered. What did you do, think, experience while walking that sinister, seemingly unending road?

I searched for books describing how it felt or what someone thought while living life after a deep disappointment, a shipwrecking loss. Was it normal what I was feeling and wanting and doing? I couldn’t find anything reassuring at that time. How I missed an honest book about how to walk through the valley in faith.

So I wrote a book myself. It took me some years, but in January 2021 my book was published in Dutch. A book wherein I tell my story honestly and in a way others can easily take out what might help them in their journey.

As I was corresponding with another mom who lived in another country and also had lost her fifth child, I wanted to share my book with her. So, after I wrote the book in Dutch, I translated it into English and my publisher helped me to send it to English publishers in the US, Canada, Australia and the UK.

Now, I am happy and proud to tell you that my book has been edited and corrected and will be published in English this month!

If you live in Europe, you can preorder a copy by sending me a message.
If you live in the UK, you can preorder your copy here.
If you live on another continent, the book will become available via amazon soon. If you would like to receive a message when you can place your order, please contact me and I will let you know.

Right now, I am happy to present the cover and backcover of my book:

Baby loss awareness week

‘Are you paying extra attention to Amanda this week?’ The question took me by surprise. But when I thought about it, I think it is a very logical question. This week I had re-shared an article on Facebook. It was an interview about Amanda in the local newspaper, written because of Baby loss awareness week last year.

I had already seen some posts on Instagram and Facebook about it. And my publisher texted me if I was ging to pay attention to it. He made a nice post about my book. I didn’t have the space in my head to write anything new. But I did repost the article.

My answer to the question asked was: No. We’re not doing anything special around Amanda this week. We do join Worldwide Lighting Candle Day on the second Sunday of December and we celebrate Amanda’s birthday as a family. It is good to have some moments to reflect on her as together as a family. Grieving together has proved impossible, but we do seek connection in shared, but differently experienced grief. A special occasion helps.

In addition, everyone has his or her own memories and moments wherein loss is felt deeply. Sometimes they are linked to a day. For me, that’s the day I found out I was pregnant, the time we knew she wasn’t doing well, the day we found out she’d passed away, and the due date. But most of the time, we are randomly and without warning, thrown back to our love for her, the hospital, and other memories. A smell, a sound, something someone says, an image, a move can cause that very powerfully. At such a moment grief can be overwhelming. We now know that it is good to take space for it. By talking about it, taking a walk, crying a lot, kicking or hitting something or cleaning up fanatically.

Baby loss awareness week has nothing to do with that. For me, this week is more about making others aware of the impact that the loss of a baby has. It gives a reason to talk about stillbirth and deceased babies. To make it negotiable that for me as a parent loss is always present somewhere and is not linked to a week like this.

Still, it’s nice that this week is here. I am finally writing about it myself. A question like the one I got makes me think about what such a week actually means to me as the mother of a stillborn baby. It gives me space to explain something about the impact the loss of Amanda has on my life. I can invite you to read my book so that you understand more about grieving[1] and – in this case – what grieving does to your faith. That’s nice.

So at the last minute I also reflect on my grief again and I gain a little more insight into how that works for me. I can then pass that on to you.

Baby loss awareness week
does not make me aware
of what I lost
but does help
to take space
to be heard

Baby loss awareness week
is more for those who don’t know
your heart torn apart
when your baby died
listening and asking helps
because you never forget

Baby loss awareness week
if it can be there both
the joy and the loss
You can handle the pain
better than if
you pretend it’s not there

Blogs related to this:
Smell,
Keeping Silent,
Waves,
Twenty-four hours of Light

---

[1] My book ‘When Nothing Beats Anymore’ will soon be available in English!

It’s Almost Too Much

‘It’s almost too much’, a listener wrote.

I had an interview with a radio station in which I also got questions about my youth and my illness. It was a bit difficult to talk about that, but also quite special. I am who I am, partly because of what I experienced, in my youth, and later on. Not only what I went through when our daughter passed away brought me where I am today, but also what happened before that.

It’s almost too much and I didn’t even share everything. These words touched me. Honestly, I think the same sometimes. It’s a lot and maybe it’s almost too much.

But I’m still here.
I live, grow, and develop.
Went on. Not without struggles.
Not pretending nothing ever happened.
I’m learning to look back with more honesty,
while less allowing my past dictate where I am now.

The bullying damaged me.
My hearing is not as it should be.
Limitations colored my perception of life.
Death trampled into my life and nearly overruled me.
It’s almost too much.

But I’m still here and I can only say, ‘Thank you Lord for being there. If you hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have been here anymore and I wouldn’t have been able to tell what happened, what that did to me and how You were there, even though sometimes I didn’t feel anything at all.’

It’s almost too much. Maybe it feels the same for you. I am not the only one who experienced or is experiencing difficult things. Only by watching the news I hear about Afghanistan, Somalia and closer home about injustice and child abuse.

It’s almost too much. But you are not alone. I can say that, because it was almost too much.

Foto door Pixabay op Pexels.com

Wave of Light

Photo after photo appears on Facebook. On each photo I see a candle and underneath a name, a date and a story of love and loss. Every person who posted a photo like this, lost one or more babies before, during, or not long after birth.

In the past weeks, I actively promoted baby loss awareness week that will end today, when all over the world at 7 PM candles are lit in memory of deceased babies: A Wave of Light.

In recent days I spoke with several radiostations and newspapers. I also wrote for some magazines and websites. On every occasion, I told what my daughter’s death meant to me, why it is good that there is awareness of baby loss, and why I wrote the book I searched for when I was so overwhelmed by grief.

Every time they asked the same question: ‘how are you doing now?’ And every time I replied that I was fine. I went through the valley and lived on, changed. And sometimes, without warning, sadness comes over me like a wave that you cannot step aside from. At these moments I need to time to write or cry or talk or do something else to take it in. To weave this into my life.

Precisely that just happened again. Now that I see the pictures posted by fathers and mothers I got to know because I lost a baby myself. Abruptly and with some force the missing and the love for my own child flares up again. Suddenly I realize this week is also meant for me personally, as I am the parent of a deceased baby too. So I set my alarm at 6:55 PM. Tonight I will have dinner at home with my Love, when the kids have had their dinner and left the house for work or youth club. Now I decide I’m going to light a candle because we both love this little girl very much. A wave of light after a wave of sadness.

Amanda 22-03-2017

Gold

“You only bring out the gold in each other when you treat each other as the bearers of the gold.”

I am copying this sentence from a book[1] I wanted to read for a long time. They remind me of words that (among other things) saved my marriage a long time ago: “You think you hold a water pistol in your hand, but without realizing it, you shoot with a machine gun.”

The more intimate your relationship with someone is, the more impact your words have. Your words can harm more than you like, but also heal and elevate more than you thought possible. If you act and speak towards someone with respect and love, that person can grow and become more who they are, especially if that person is your own husband, wife, child, or friend.

I was completely unaware of this when I got married almost twenty-one years ago. I said what came to my mind, plain, random, often unfriendly. Only when I heard Tim Keller speak on the cassette tapes we got on our wedding day, that you can think you’re holding a water pistol when actually it’s a machine gun – and I saw my Love nod affirmatively – I began to see that I maybe had to do something about the way I bring things to the table.

That was hard and it took me a long time to get better at it. I still blurt out things that I subsequently regret and that hurt people. But the opposite also happens: I see how my words can build, brighten up, lift up, motivate someone. It brings tears to my eyes when I see or hear that the words I tried to choose so carefully and thoughtfully come across and someone moves on with fresh courage.

It is precisely that thought that makes me take the time to make that choice and it does not only apply to people with whom you have a romantic relation or a family connection:

“You only bring out the gold in each other when you treat each other as the bearers of the gold.”

If I see and think that the person I am talking to is valuable, worthwhile, gold, then I can and will treat him or her that way. Then that machine gun becomes a cannon of love and encouragement.

Foto door cottonbro op Pexels.com

---

[1] De Ware Worden by Rinke Verkerk and Margo den Ouden

Normal

She jumped on the trampoline, totally naked. Her mother had just scrubbed her clean after playing in the sand, but now she was dancing there. Free and lively, just having fun. Fortunately, her mother saw the fun in it, gave it a twist and took the toddler over her arm to the tent. It’s time to sleep.

Two years ago, camping was quite a torture for me. Every time a child cried, I panicked. I hadn’t paid much attention to it before, because I could always calm myself down again and was therefore not ‘limited in how I functioned’, which, according to the GP, was an indication of ‘complicated grief’. My grief was normal according to him and the lifecoach he referred me to just in case. I was grieving ‘very well’ because I was able to function normally. But it wasn’t until that holiday two years ago that I noticed how tired I was from panicking over and over and then having to calm down myself again.

So after that summer vacation I went back to the GP and got a referral for a psychologist. She diagnosed PTSD and suggested EMDR. That opened up a hidden box of memories that went back much further than my deceased daughter. I encountered loneliness in the hospital, fear of death, the desire to always do everything right and to not be a burden to anyone. My daughter’s death had put all that on sharp. It was the last straw that left me unable to control the panic. EMDR helped. I calmed down and a summer later I could smile at that toddler who was taken off the trampoline screaming of protest, although it did awake the deep longing for the toddler who is not there because she died before becoming a toddler. But that’s normal grief. Normal grief that you have to weave into your life.

A few weeks ago I was camping again. I didn’t panic about crying little ones and didn’t have that sharp pain anymore. But sometimes it flared up again and at those moments I felt very strongly that she belongs in our family, that mourning is just part of it, that I am no longer who I used to be and that I don’t have to. After such a moment of feeling intense loss, I wrote at the campsite a few weeks ago:

How would it have been with you here with me
In the tent at the campsite
Running around barefoot
Hair quickly put in ponytails
To the calves, to give a bottle
Brushing horses shiny with Sister
Watch out, another tractor is coming,
Big Brother, stop her!
How fast they drive, it isn’t normal
Stay with me, close to me, Amanda
–  Oh no, you’re not here                     

I posted this on Facebook and wrote underneath it: I don’t feel that way all the time, but now I do, so C… when such a wave suddenly hits you again. Grief still doesn’t take a holiday. Someone replied: “You don’t have to apologize for it… It almost seems that way reading your last sentence. I can imagine that it comes to you at times and certainly at such a place and such a moment. Just so you think… What if?”

She was right. I did indeed feel that I should apologize and it hit me again in that place and at that moment. Apparently I still think that at some point it has to be done with the missing, longing and mourning. But it appears that isn’t possible. I have progressed further in the process compared to a few summers ago. But it’s normal. It is normal that loss sometimes suddenly and violently rears its head and today I just want to say that to you who mourn or you who want to support someone who is grieving. That your heart still loves the one who is no longer there and that that feeling sometimes overwhelms you, that is not complicated. That is normal.

God and food

He came every week. For a whole year every Thursday afternoon, he stood on the doorstep with a bowl of food. At the time I was so overwhelmed by life while taking care of four small children that I could only accept it gratefully. I didn’t even wonder why he was doing this.

I wasn’t sick or something like that. I did the things that had to be done and I was capable to cook myself and I did that for the rest of the week. Yet he saw something in my situation that moved him to cook every Thursday afternoon, drive twenty minutes to my house and hand it to me personally. I don’t know how he knew I needed this attention and care. He didn’t say much. Most of the time he didn’t even come in. He brought food that we had to learn to appreciate. But now when I come across a whole peppercorn in a meal, I think of him.

Yesterday I was reminded of him when reading Our Daily Bread of that day. It was about what true religion is: looking after widows and orphans, and how our actions reflect the sincerity of our faith and what that can lead to. The question at the end was: ‘How have you experienced the love of Jesus extended to you? What can you do to help someone in need?’

I immediately thought of this man. He showed me something of God. In the food, but also in his faithfulness, as he showed up every week with a homecooked meal. Without questions, without reproach, even without well-intentioned advice. Rarely he came in, but when he did, he prayed with me, allowed me to cry for a while. Apparently he felt how hard life felt to me. (It wasn’t until many months later, when I couldn’t get out of this state of mind, that I discovered that I had ADHD and was ‘just’ suffering burnout at that time).

In what he did, I saw God’s care for me. And because I now suddenly thought of that again and recently learned that it is good to tell about the beautiful things you experience and how you notice God’s love, I thought: let me write about that. Maybe it helps or inspires you.

And to that man, whom I haven’t seen in years, I want to say how much impact his faithful coming to my house has had. Thank you. In your faithfulness, attention and care, I have seen something of God. I am so grateful to you. You are a great example to me.

Foto door Eneida Nieves op Pexels.com

Originally written in Dutch