Grieving the Life of Bryan Dunagan
Right now, a few days out, it's the shock that is the hardest part for me. My thoughts cannot stop spinning inside of me, as my mind and soul are trying to get a grip on something so surreal. To be honest, it makes me nauseous. It's more than I can handle.
I know that once this part of the grief system is lived through by all of us, the reality is that more hard is yet to come. The actual grieving and acceptance part. The living on and pressing on without a person who was larger than life, and who made big impacts on all of us. The suffering is real, and it's painful and it hurts.
I know from experience that nothing can take the pain and hurt away. We will grieve and suffer and cry out together. Like most of the psalmists, we will cry out in raw, utter, messy pain to our Father who made us all. It will be hard. We will as a community, put on figurative sackcloths and mourn together.
Everything in me wants to say, “BUT! But we have hope! God is good!” That was the quickest response fellow believers gave to me in the midst of our own personal suffering and grief. And it made me feel even more alone. Yes, yes He is good, yes He has a plan. We know that. We believe that. Yet, here is the thing. We are still here, saints walking among the earth trying to make sense of all of this and our huge loss. We will hurt, life will feel hard. Instead of responding to our pain with “BUT” let's respond with “AND…….”
“.....This is so painful and I am grieving, AND! And we have hope! Hope in Heaven! God is good. He loves us. He loves Bryan and the Dunagan Family. He sent Jesus ‘the man of sorrows’ who is well acquainted with our grief, and is currently grieving alongside us, looking over us and saying, this was never meant to be. Death and sin were not a part of my original plan.’”
The night our precious baby passed away in the wee hours of Christmas eve morning, Bryan Dunagan showed up, in our hospital room. He came to baptize our precious baby right into the arms of Jesus. It was a sacred moment. It was a painful moment. It was a moment I will never forget. A moment in time where the line between Heaven and Earth feels so thin, so close together that you feel like you can almost reach out for Eternity, and touch it.
That night, I had a dream, of Christmas in Heaven. Oh how I cannot wait to be there someday soon, with my fellow saints because it was just. That. awesome. But until then, I will share it below:)
She was there.
Squatting down like all toddlers do. She had on a fresh white dress with white buttons all the way down her back. Her tiny brown curls rested on the back of her neck and the back of her heels stuck out underneath her dress as it billowed out over her squatting little body. Thats all I could see of her, her tiny little backside, because she was facing the throne room.
She was ok. She was whole. She was home. Something I needed to see after her nine and a half hours of deep suffering and pain she lived here on earth; Things every mother longs to know when their child is away. Although this was different.
Christmas angels were all around her, gathering little ones just like her so tenderly around the foot of the throne to hear the Christmas Story proclaimed that night. All I could hear was the sound of their wings hustling and bustling about getting everything and everyone ready for the biggest celebration of the year. Both in Heaven and on Earth, Angels were preparing.
The colors. There were some we would recognize and some we have never seen before. But they were there. Filling the scene with warmth, joy and love. The deepest love. There was this one color, that the only way I can describe it is its
"the deepest understanding of each human soul l've ever created" color..
It was this dream that led me to paint one of my first abstract paintings. It was from my mind’s eye that I painted what is now known as the painting “Christmas in Heaven.” The gold in the upper left hand quadrant alludes to the Great Throne Room—where the King of Heaven reigns and sovereignly rules. The bold streaks of red and green splayed across the bottom right is a nod to all of the occupants of Heaven, gathering ‘round in joyful expectation.
The warmth that this dream brings during the holiday season cannot be expressed in words, only in paint strokes and candle light.
This abstract painting is a gentle reminder to me that we have hope, an everlasting hope. That Heaven is real, and Christmas is worth celebrating BIG because of the reality of Jesus. He humbly came down to earth in the form of a baby, to save us from death, and reconcile God’s story back to His original intent, and allow us to have Hope here on earth. Hope in Eternity. It's going to be awesome. :)
Until then, Join me in dreaming about it.