I Was Mad at Myself - episode 238
How do you get from regret to purpose? Well you take the grief you have experienced and you lean into it by learning from it, and moving forward with intention. Mary Ann Mariani is this week’s Grief and Gratitude guest. Due to some choices in her 20’s she felt unlovable and racked with shame. She was mad at herself. Ultimately she made the choice to return to her faith, and the veil of guilt and shame lifted. Gratitude came, and it was good.
She has been on the show before in A Passionate Artist of Story.
You can find Mary Ann on her website at Kingdom Presenters.
Her book is on Amazon here Your Story for God’s Glory.
In a world where you can be anything, be yourself.
— Mary Ann Mariani, advice to her 10-year old self
Some Things are Timeless
Thoughts from I Was Mad at Myself
Mary Ann touched briefly on another kind of grief: when a loved one dies. Her parents, her brother. If you live long enough someone you love will die. As many of you know (if you know me personally or if you are a reader of this blog) our infant son died some years ago. I recently re-published the project I compiled during this season of grief as I have written about recently in these pages. Since we are in Grief and Gratitude series it seems fitting that I would share bits and pieces of it as the spirit moves. It so moved today. Here is the first entry of Standing Tall: A Collection of Hope (shameless plug). As I have discovered in the rereading, the reliving, some things are timeless.
The Club
I have just joined a club. It is an exclusive club, one that nobody would willingly join, but one that has many members just the same. It is the club of mothers with dead children. I know it is a club because women whom I barely knew previously have reached out to me with open arms to welcome me. They have cried tears for me and for their lost ones as they recall their own stories and as they listen to mine. There is an instant bond with these women like I really know them. I know their pain and their grief all too well because I am the newest member. For me, it is fresh, recent. They reach out because that is what you do when there is someone new. Someday, it will be my turn to extend my hand to another.
My son died. My infant son died in my arms. The doctors tried to resuscitate him but were unsuccessful. This event marks my entrance into the club. And so begins the greatest challenge of my life. How do I go on? How do I face the emptiness? How do I heal? How do I make sense of it? These questions, and many more, become the cornerstone of my communion with these women. With them is an intimacy so immediate and so strong, it is staggering.
In joining the club, I learn I am blessed by the connection with others who have gone before me. I learn that I am blessed in many more ways than I realize, probably in more ways than I can count. This begins some of the healing.
I use the word “blessed” not by accident but by design. I am a Christian. My thoughts, feelings, and convictions center around my belief in the Lord. Even this experience, especially this experience, has been deeply affected by my faith, and my faith has been strengthened by it.
This is a story. It is the story of my son’s life and his death. It is about learning, about healing, and about hope. It tells of the power of prayer and of the love in the human heart. I know I hungered for others’ stories. I wanted to know how people dealt with their grief, how they healed, how their philosophies changed or were strengthened. If this story touches you, even in some small way, then the legacy of my son’s brief earthly existence continues on.
Beauty, pain, hope. All timeless.
They are all part of a well-lived life.
