Category: wounded Mother

Faith · Hope · wounded healer · wounded Mother

The first heart to break

dawnhirn2 Comments

I believe that life is not selective and that all people, no matter who and where they are, are not singled out for disaster.hurricane

Think about Katrina in Louisiana or 9/11 in New York.

Are they SERIOUS when they call those disasters ‘‘acts of God’’?

When a disaster is so beyond explanation, ”It must be God-at-work.”

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Think about it, we look at the destructive power of Nature, and we see that it’s out of control.

So we blame it on god. Even the insurance guys peddle protection against “acts of God.”

Do you really believe God singled out New Orleans and Manhattan?

Let me ask you a personal question.

Be honest.

Do you believe that God did and does all that chaos and damage, not to mention the killing?

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Ryan’s roadside cross in Texas 

I said it last week and I’m saying it again.

God’s is the first heart to break.

God’s is the first tear to fall.

dawn

 

Faith · Hope · wounded Mother

When Faith comes to town

dawnhirn2 Comments

One of 2 things happen when we decide to trust God:ff at 9:11.jpeg

  1. It can blow our private world view apart, shaking the foundations of the world we live in and the world that lives in us.                                                                            Sometimes it shoves us down under the rubble at our private ground zero, searching for any signs of life there.

Or,

      2. Faith can gather together all our loose ends.

Funny how Faith is like Crazy Glue.

It holds everything together.

I know it seems like the coming of God into our lives would be a peaceful, easy thing.

But consider what Faith has blown apart in our lives. IMG_5046

For me, it was the old world I’d been living in. It was the world that was not working in my present life.Screen Shot 2019-02-20 at 3.35.33 PM

My adolescent Faith with an adolescent God was not working anymore.

Faith blew it apart and made a space for Grace.

Grace in the shape of an Accident.

dawn

 

 

Hope you’ll join me on my daily IG @dawnraymondhirn

True Confession: My private ride on the Grief Train
Encouragement · Grief · Hope · wounded Mother

True Confession: My private ride on the Grief Train

dawnhirnLeave a comment

Remember all the Stops: Denial, Anger, Depression, Survival. Acceptance.

I realize my grief is a little unusual–the grief of losing a child.

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It’s against the natural order that parents outlive their children.

The death of a child is unnatural and unfair.

It never occurred to me that I would bury my son.

It came out of nowhere.

And so for me, Depression lasted for years and years(12 years).

On the outside, no one could tell.

Not even me.

I acted my way thru so much during the first 12 years: the death of my father 6 months after Ryan; the births of my third and fourth sons; and our family’s move from Texas to Alabama.

Everything was on autopilot. My Depression happened on such a subconscious level that I couldn’t recognize it or name it.

But the symptoms were there: lack of interest,  low energy, and no creativity.

So, I got off the Train at the Survival Stop, built a home and am living there now.

railroad

When you’re just surviving, the best thing you can do is survive, while fully functioning.

On our Train, Survival is a full Stop, and Acceptance is something I’ll take up later with the good Lord.

I’m surviving, but I’m not accepting Ryan’s death.

Maker:0x4c,Date:2017-12-6,Ver:4,Lens:Kan03,Act:Lar01,E-ve
Tyler’s HS Graduation ’18

 

 

I just can’t get there now, besides, I know the neighborhood here.

I’m not lost.

dawn

 

Encouragement · Hope · Motherhood · wounded Mother

The Best Gift I’ve ever received!

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Besides offering a funny face when I was so grief-stricken, my 2-year-old son, Tyler, gave me another gift that turned out to be the Best Gift I’ve ever received in my life.

And he gave it to me every morning of every month after “the accident.” (That’s my baby boy!)

What he gave me was a new way of looking at myself and life. He saw beyond my pain. He saw beneath my scars. He saw the heart of a mother in the chest of someone who didn’t deserve to be called a mother anymore. For him, nothing had changed. Nothing. Because every time he pushed my door open,  he saw the one thing he needed most; his mommy. He saw me as a fountain–everything he needed.

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Tyler

I saw my failure at the ‘scene,’ he didn’t. I was more than the scars that came from the scene, he taught me that, and he hardly knew how to talk. He knew me ‘by heart’ not words. I was his mother, not the ‘scarred’ mother, but the mother who knew exactly what he needed, and when.

He showed me that I still had the Goods. He never bailed on me once while I was bailing on me every day.IMG_8684

How can a 2-year-old do that?

 

I think about the Little Prince and what he said, “ It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”

Tyler saw me rightly and I became his vision of me.

He took me by the hand into the kitchen for breakfast.

 

 

He led me to the window to show me, in a loving way, that Life goes on.

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me and tyler

It didn’t matter to him if I was ready to see it or not; it’s what he saw in me. It’s the Best Gift anyone has ever given me.

dawn

#myscars, #ryanshines, #motherhood

Good news and Bad news
Encouragement · Faith · Grief · wounded Mother

Good news and Bad news

dawnhirn1 Comment

I mentioned last time that I am beginning to find the beauty in my scars and to honor that beauty. It’s easy to say, but it’s taken me 17 years (one day at a time) to get to where I can even talk to you about it today.

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I showed you what the fire did to my legs. That scarring has been hard enough to deal with.

But there’s another scar deeper than the scars on my legs, it’s the scar behind any scar on my body.

It’s the scar that won’t heal, that chases me wherever I go.

It’s the scar way deeper than any scar you can see with the naked eye.

It is the scar that Ryan’s death left on my heart.

I see the scars on my legs every day but they always lead me back to Ryan’s face.

Ryan
Ryan

I WILL NEVER OVERCOME THAT! How can a mother overcome the death of her child? She can’t.

Let’s say God came to me during the first days of my loss and said, “Dawn, I have good news and bad news for you, which do you want first?”

And I say, “Lord, give me the bad news first.”

And God says, “ It’s gonna take you 17 years to really begin to see the Light.”

And I say, “ I can’t make it 17 years, not 7 years, not 7 hours.”

And God says, “ But that’s exactly where the good news comes in. You’re gonna make it.  You’ re not going to kill yourself. We’re gonna go thru it together. And you’ll come out on the other side a stronger person,  with a Mission the size of which you can’t comprehend right now.”

RY shines 2

To you, friend, I’m going to say the same thing to you that God said to me, “ We are going to get thru this together.”

I mean it!

dawn

Stay tuned..

http://www.ryanshines.com

Encouragement · Hope · wounded Mother

Show and Tell

dawnhirn4 Comments

If I’m an authority on anything, it’s me. And what’s taught me more of myself than anything are my scars.

Dawn, the ultimate recycler!

It’s a funny thing about scars, especially physical scars, and I have plenty. My instinct is to want to hide them. I’m bombarded with commercials that tell us that a life without scars is possible. It’s a lie.

Everybody has scars.

Whether they’re physical or psychological. Early in our lives, we’re taught how to hide our imperfections(thank God for Clearasil). Which is strange because one of the few things that we all share in common is imperfection. In other words, in our scars.

I’m going out on a limb here to show you my legs, my scars from the fire that took my 7-year-olds life and burned over 25% of our other son, 2-year-old, Tyler, and my husband and me. What I’m showing you are the scars that I carried away from this tragedy.

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My Scars

I guess what I’m thinking is that if I show you mine, you might show me yours. Will you?

dawn

#myscars

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Is there Light in every darkness?
Encouragement · Faith · Hope · wounded Mother

Is there Light in every darkness?

dawnhirnLeave a comment

When I saw Ron without Ryan in his arms, all I could see was a NO written across my heart in indelible ink.

I assume you’re familiar with ‘the big NO,’ right? I’m wondering if you found Light in your own darkness? Or is that too naive?

With time, I began to see a little Light, like a nightlight in the corner. It wasn’t as bright as I wished, but it was Light, and I decided to take what I could get.

light oliver-hihn-374500-unsplash.jpg

When I began to focus on the Light, instead of the darkness, I saw that the Light began to intensify.

That’s when I learned 2 things:

  1. There is no power in the darkness that can extinguish this little Light of ours.

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      2. And if you look closely, you will find that your Light has a face. In my case, it was      my 2-year-old son, Tyler, who became the human face of God for me.

dawn

If there’s someone you know who needs this, please share.

#ryanshines#lightindarkness

Faith · Hope · wounded healer · wounded Mother

From “Why me, Lord?” to Why me, Lord?

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At first, I felt robbed when Ryan died. Like, “Why me, Lord?” Where’s my miracle since You are the Supreme Being on the Supreme Court?

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I grew up believing that God can fix what’s broken, or at least, give a heads-up. But we were hung out to dry. No warning. So, naturally, I began to look for who to blame. I finally said it face-to-face,

“It’s all Your fault, God.”

cross: cloud aaron-burden-21616-unsplash.jpg

 

This rocked my Friendship with God, and if I’m not mistaken, we broke up for a while because placing blame was the only way I knew to get clear of this. To shed my skin like a snake and move on.

But as time passed, I discovered the real Answer to the question, “Why me, Lord?”

What did I do to deserve this Grace? Nothing.

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That’s when I realized this is about God, not me. Grace is a gift from the hand of God whose face looks very much like my 2-year-old, Tyler, my little miracle worker.

 

Why me, Lord?

Dawn

If there is someone in your orbit who needs this, please share.

#ryanshines#grace

 

 

 

Faith · Family · wounded Mother

Everything happens for a Reason

dawnhirnLeave a comment

If I had a nickel for every time someone told me there’s a ‘Reason’ for Ryan dying, I’d be rich. As if it was all part of the Plan.

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At first, it brought me comfort, because that meant that nothing was my fault.

It’s all ‘on God.’

But the older I get and the deeper I understand God, I realize that there is not a ‘Reason’ behind everything happening. Some things are just plain wrong and that’s all there is to it. Like the Holocaust. There is no good ‘Reason’ behind it. It’s insane is what it is! It is pure wickedness and you can’t clean it up by coming up with a ‘Reason.’

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It’s the same with Ryan.

I’m not denying that good things haven’t come from his dying. His 2 brothers, Trenton and Colton, wouldn’t be here if Ryan had lived.

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Trenton & Colton

But that ’s not enough to convince me that Ryan needed to be ‘gotten out of the way’ for our future to continue.

Be careful when you say that ‘God engineers everything that happens.’ Because, if we know anything about God, it’s that “God is Love.”

dawn

Please feel free to share this.

#ryanshines#godislove

Faith · Hope · wounded Mother

A Severe Mercy

dawnhirnLeave a comment

Our tragedy shows us a clear picture of the Mercy of God when he entered the fire and took Ryan home just before the possibility of Ryan burning up in horrible pain.

God saved Ryan not ‘from’ the fire but ‘in’ the fire.

Child watching the fire (1).jpg

Ryan was in shock so God came to him and took him Home before the fire could eat him alive. I have to believe that to survive this.  Besides, this is what God does, right? Mercy is God’s middle name.

mercy phoebe-strafford-43386-unsplash.jpg

Nobody gets out of this life without needing Mercy on a daily basis.

When we hurt the people we love,  if there is no Mercy in the equation, then the relationship is often lost. We give Mercy, and we receive Mercy.

The clearest picture of Mercy I’ve ever seen is when Ryan was trapped in the backseat, in such shock that he couldn’t unlock his seat belt.

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So, in Mercy, God himself came to Ryan to do what Ryan couldn’t do for himself. God freed him, took him into his arms, and carried him Home before the fire got it’s wicked wish to destroy him.

I believe that at the end of time when I meet God face-to-face, he will smell like smoke. Because, to me, that’s how Mercy smells.

dawn

Please feel free to share this with anyone you feel needs it.

#ryanshines#mercy