The story of Dinette Venter
- from Windhoek, Namibia
I have learned through a Christian Councelling course that there is a distinguish difference between a
heart that is BROKEN and a heart that is SORE...
Immediately after your child dies- you are totally Broken...
I remember that it felt as if my heart was ripped open and my whole body could have fit into that hole...
It’s such a devastating event- so surreal.!!
How can it be, how would I ever be a whole person, who can function the way I used to? How can I face life...
buy groceries, plan a day, return to work, face people and continue with my life? HOW???
At that moment in time a Broken heart felt UNAMENDED. I remembered that I thought it was too hard,
it felt impossible to carry on and sometimes thoughts of death came to my mind...
WHO can meant a BROKEN heart?
There is only ONE and the one and only God Almighty. Jesus took my pain on Him and helped me face
this terrible, difficult journey ahead of me.
A lot of people will get angry at God and feel He could have prevented it, or asked where was Jesus when my child died?
These are hard core questions and only He can comfort you and help you to understand the BIGGER picture and that we live in a broken sinful world. Jesus gives ultimate peace and closure.
When Jesus lifts your heart brokenness, there will still be heart sore. You still miss your beautiful precious child, you long for him/her... and it is definitely OK to be sad, to grieve.
Jesus is the great comforter, Yeshua, your Father in Heaven. He can fill you up with the Holy Spirit, with His LOVE and fill the emptiness, the heart brokenness..
All you have to do is ask Him, Trust him, walk daily with Him. Seek Him with everything in you.. although you might feel dead, lost and disconnected.
If you struggle, see a christian counsellor that can guide you and pray with you.
My personal story began 13 years ago when my little baby boy, Henk, died on the age of 9 months. He simply died in my arms, one early sunny morning in October 2005. His heart just completely stopped and he immediately died...
I first though he might have choked, because I gave him some colic medicine seconds before that, he was so unsettled and cried so intense. He was pale as an angel.. a thought that came up in my mind...
50 devastating hours later, my father read the death report and he explained to us that Henk had died of a heart condition, which was only then discovered, where his heart muscle was 4 times the size on the one side, than normal. He had cardiac failure which lead to cardiac arrest.
The moment my father explained to me that it wasn’t my fault that my baby had died, I felt a lot of light falling from heaven, it felt like buckets and buckets of light that was poured over me... and in that moment God gave me immediate peace and I knew Henkie was with Him.
The peace of knowing my baby is in heaven and that we will one day be united again, was and still is a great comfort for me. But it doesn’t take away your intense sadness and longing for your child. You have to be kind to yourself and see the whole grieving as a journey.
In my particular journey the hardest thing was accepting my husband’s way of grieving, of not being there for me in the way I wanted him to be... of being alone and full of hurt.
In closure I like to compare the grieving journey with a huge mountain. Nobody can climb it for you- it’s your mountain. You do not want to climb this flippen difficult mountain... Some days you realize that you have climbed a few steps up and other days you feel like sliding backwards again..
Eventually, after 10 years to be exact, I can tell all of you- I was on the top of my mountain of grieve and am so proud to say I have survived and enjoy life again, love again, sing again, dream again.
I can look back and see God’s grace in our journey, my 3 beautiful daughters and loving husband is living proof of that.
All our tears have been collected by God’s angels and He has turned our unbearable situation into good and gave us meaning... to live with a grateful heart.
Many blessings
Dinette Venter
