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Enter His gates with thanksgiving,
and His courts with praise!
Give thanks to Him; bless His name!
Psalm 100:4 (ESV)

Remember last month when I wrote to you about tracing a grief reaction to what triggered it? You can read it here.

I want to encourage young widows with small children that learning how to spot the triggers for your tears is something you can do to help your children with their grief. By doing this, you can teach them to understand how to point their thoughts in healthy directions.

Recapping what we learned, notice when tears and sadness emerge when something your child do reminds them of the sweet father you once had on this earth.

Or… Your child sees another father tossing his son up in the air at the community pool and he remembers how Dad used to toss him up in the air. The good memory kicks in and there’s a sad feeling of not having that father to throw him in the air again.

These are healthy patterns of grief. Pause, and relish in these good memories, even if they mean tears. In time, you might find that the tears feel refreshing. I sometimes pull out the videos or photo books of Tom at these moments and laugh at the funny things he did, even as the tears spill.

If I do that enough with a child, I find that he cries and laughs at the same time, and eventually, he will brighten at the fun memories of a Dad who really loved him. The more you can tie smiles to tears in the memories, the more you are on the road to healing.

On the other hand, watch out for moments when thoughts lead you to consider yourself a victim:

Something happens in the present that you’re not happy about.

You start to wish you had the comfort of your husband again. Letting your thoughts drift back to a happier time when he was here might keep you from thinking about the pain of this moment, but it’s not really fixing the pain of this moment–only avoiding it. And now, even that thought makes you only sadder. You cry, and if you haven’t noticed traced the tears back to what triggered them, you might tell yourself that’s okay, you’re entitled to tears. And you are. But…

Following this path of tears triggered by tough experiences at the moment unrelated to your loss and doing so over and over reinforces something you don’t want to reinforce in your heart — a sense that everything goes wrong for you… that you are a victim. It prevents you from dealing with the pain in the present.

If you notice you’re doing it, you can stop, recognize it’s not a healthy grieving pattern and deal with what’s happening—push through t Be constructive rather than sitting in the pity. Wait for the healthy grieving moments to indulge in tears. There will be plenty of opportunities!

Here’s an example of the way I sort out these types of grieving with my kids.

I hear “I miss Dad” from behind me and feel my boy’s hands gently clasping my arm.

I set him next to me. “Is something going on that’s bothering you?”

“Yes, I miss Dad.”

“Remember we talked about two kinds of missing Dad?— the kind when something nice reminds you of Dad, like a nice song, or going to a certain park he liked to go to… and then the kind of missing Dad when something makes you sad and you wish Dad were here to cheer you up.”

He nods. We’ve had this conversation before. He thinks and then says, “Brady kicked me on the trampoline.”

“So are you really missing Dad, or are you mad at Brady, and you wish Dad were here to make it better?”

“Mad,” he says.

“You know.” I elbow him and whisper. “Brady would have kicked you even if Dad were here.”

He nods.

“So what did you do about Brady?”

“I pushed him. He says he won’t be my friend now.”

“You believe him?”

He smiles. “Nah.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have pushed him. Can you forgive him?”

He jumps off the bench. “No!” He runs after Brady. “Watch your back, Brady. You’ll get it next time on the trampoline.”

Lord, I pray that this post which comes straight from my experience as a young widow raising children strikes a healing cord with some of our readers. There are many approaches to raising children and humbly, I can say that I don’t always know the right way. For many who do not have the benefit of a Christian grief counselor, please, Lord, help this post reach those who will benefit from it. Amen.