{"id":5949,"date":"2017-10-16T00:02:47","date_gmt":"2017-10-16T06:02:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mops.org\/?p=5949"},"modified":"2017-10-16T00:02:47","modified_gmt":"2017-10-16T06:02:47","slug":"love-leaves-a-mark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/love-leaves-a-mark\/","title":{"rendered":"Love Leaves a Mark"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the night of Cam\u2019s funeral, we lit paper lanterns and watched them float across a starry Nashville sky. Some of the lanterns came together and formed the letter C, as if God was saying, \u201cI see you here. I am honoring Cameron with you. You are not alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes during the day, I see clouds in the shape of the letter C, and I can\u2019t help but wonder if it\u2019s my imagination or if it\u2019s another supernatural gift of love.<\/p>\n

For a long time, I thought, perhaps na\u00efvely, that tragedy and suffering were exceptions in life. That painful moments were experienced only by a small, unfortunate slice of the population. Why did I ever believe such a thing? I wanted to make sense of the nonsense. I wanted to find meaning in it. I wanted to rationalize the problem of suffering. I am a preacher and church leader, and I wanted my questions answered so I could write a good sermon on this topic. I wanted to wrap pain up in a pretty little bow.<\/p>\n

My sister-in-law, who knows me well, texts me encouraging words every now and then. Usually along the lines of: \u201cYou don\u2019t have to have all the answers, Aubrey. It\u2019s OK to just be sad.\u201d But how can I explain this type of sadness to my kids? \u201cUncle\u201d Cam, who just carried you in his arms, who just showed you the inside of his plane, who just sent you postcards from Rome, is now no longer with us. How can I tell three precious, expectant and innocent faces that we have to learn to live with grief? We have to keep going, to do life. We have to empty the dishwasher and fold the laundry. The only difference is, we are now changed as we do it. We are a differently marked person today than we were the day before.<\/p>\n

Since I can\u2019t rationalize or explain away my grief, I decided to commemorate it. I feel this loss in my skin and in my flesh, so the only proper metaphor felt like a tattoo. Lying on the table, listening to the buzzing, I breathe deeply as the needle impresses upon my skin a new wound. It\u2019s not a blinding pain. It\u2019s a steady-like-a-train pain, like a Johnny Cash song. All of it makes sense to me.<\/p>\n

After the damage is done, I sheepishly peek in the mirror at the vintage lock, opened, permanently engraved on my back. It\u2019s an homage to Cameron, a symbol of being set free. I\u2019m scared for a moment that I will regret it. What have I just done?<\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t. I love it. My tattoo mirrors my grief and love for Cameron perfectly. It tells a story.<\/p>\n

Most people never see my tattoo, but each summer when I brave a tank top or a swimsuit, someone discovers it and asks, \u201cYou have a tattoo? What is it?\u201d In these moments, I have the great privilege of talking about my cousin, Cameron, who died while snowshoeing and how he was deeply loved by me and my boys. I don\u2019t say everything about suffering and splendor and how somehow God\u2019s presence meets us in our wounds, turning our scars into something meaningful.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cHave you ever felt unloved?\u201d I ask my boys.<\/p>\n

My 7 year-old son, who on the outside is bubbly and confident but has a powerful inner emotional life, responds. He allows himself to be vulnerable. He knuckles away tears as he tells us that sometimes the kids at school say they are \u201cunfriending\u201d him. It makes him mad. It hurts his feelings. He feels unloved.<\/p>\n

It feels like a holy moment, my son opening up about his pain. So I tread lightly; I don\u2019t want the moment to pass because I became overbearing. So I stay quiet, and in a moment of unexpected brotherly kindness, I hear my other sons speak into his hurt. \u201cCome find us at recess,\u201d they tell him. \u201cWe won\u2019t unfriend you.\u201d<\/p>\n

I bask in this display of love between my sons and finally add my two cents. \u201cI am so sorry, Honey,\u201d I say. \u201cI wish that wasn\u2019t happening. That would make me sad and mad, too. Sometimes there are bad things in life and they can really hurt us. Sometimes friends are mean, or we get sick or sad things happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLike your tattoo, Mommy? The one about Cameron?\u201d my oldest asks.<\/p>\n

\u201cExactly like my tattoo. That is a sad thing. But I want you to know this: No matter how hard and sad things get, the thing about God\u2019s love is that it reaches down through the hurt and marks us. It changes us. It transforms us. In the midst of darkness, we can find floating lanterns that form the letter C, tattoos that tell tremendous stories and amazing friends who encourage us when we are hurting \u2013 people who won\u2019t \u2018unfriend\u2019 us, no matter how sad we get.\u201d<\/p>\n

I know it\u2019s above their heads. But I hope one day they will understand that suffering and tragedy are not the exceptions in this life, and if they\u2019re open to them, they\u2019ll find that love is the wondrous surprise which accompanies them. It is pain that initially scars us, but it\u2019s love that permanently leaves a mark<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>Aubrey Sampson is the author of Overcomer: Breaking Down the Walls of Shame and Rebuilding Your Soul <\/em>and an upcoming book on lament and hope. Aubrey travels the country teaching at churches. She and her husband, Kevin, and their three boys are church planters in the Chicago area, where Aubrey serves on the teaching and preaching team.<\/p>\n

\n

This article currently appears in the\u00a0fall 2017 issue of\u00a0The MOPS Magazine<\/em>. If you didn\u2019t get a copy and would like your own, you can\u00a0subscribe<\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/em>to get\u00a0The MOPS Magazine\u00a0<\/em>in your mailbox every \"\"<\/a>season. If you subscribe, forward your receipt to\u00a0magazines@mops.org<\/a><\/em>\u00a0and we\u2019ll shoot a copy of the current issue in the mail to you for free \u2026 just because we like you.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the night of Cam\u2019s funeral, we lit paper lanterns and watched them float across a starry Nashville sky. Some of the lanterns came together and formed the letter C, as if God was saying, \u201cI see you here. I am honoring Cameron with you. You are not alone.\u201d Sometimes during the day, I see […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":5951,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,102],"tags":[47,87,330,54,55,56,1217,1282,272],"class_list":["post-5949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith","category-relationships","tag-grief","tag-love","tag-magazine","tag-mama","tag-mom","tag-motherhood","tag-scars","tag-tattoo","tag-vulnerability"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/140"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5949\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}