I’m here to tell you: don’t drown your important relationships in unsaid words, unshared feelings, unacknowledged wounds.
All that does is guarantee distance grows between your hearts.
If you let the distance become too vast, or the pile of unsaid truth get too high, you might just find you can’t reach that far or that high to reconnect.
It takes a bit of brave to say what’s important and uncomfortable.
Read the rest here: Speaking Truth
I think I counted months for nearly three years after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.
Just like when he was an infant and toddler.
When he was living and growing I celebrated each milestone. But after he left, I cringed when the twelfth rolled around again.
Every time I folded the calendar back to reveal another four weeks had passed, I felt my heart flip flop in response to time’s unstoppable progression.❤
The months roll by, the calendar pages turn, soon school will be back in session and you are still not here.
Sometimes I think I have figured out how to do these days that remain between now and when we will be together again.
And sometimes I realize that I haven’t.
Read the rest here: Keep On Keeping On
These years since Dominic ran ahead to heaven feel like instrument flying.
I’m in the clouds.
The landmarks I’ve used for navigation all my life are obscured and sometimes I can’t even tell if I’m upside down or right side up. I don’t know if I’m going fast enough to stay in the air or if I’m about to stall. I’m tempted to use my feelings to determine true north and to decide on a course of action.
But I know if I do, I’m likely to crash.
Read the rest here: Flying Lessons
Can I just say how very grateful I am for every single person who joins me here and in online groups?
I have been overwhelmingly BLESSED by comments and messages time and time again. It’s definitely been a lifeline when grief, other challenges and everyday living makes this old wounded heart want to give up and give in.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I never take your presence for granted.
Today I’d like to ask a favor.
Would you pray for me and my husband?
This morning my husband and I are getting up before the sun and making our way to a local hospital for surgery. He was diagnosed a couple months ago with prostate cancer and, while caught early, it is severe enough to warrant treatment.
It’s certainly not the most fearful thing we’ve faced together and we have every expectation that it will go smoothly and will result in him being cancer-free for the rest of his life.
But it’s still kind of scary.
When the worst thing you can imagine has already happened it doesn’t take much for a mind to wander that dark and well-worn path back to potential tragedy.
So I’ve been concentrating on good things like our grandboys, recipes for Thanksgiving desserts, stitching this year’s family Christmas ornament and the amazingly hope-filled statistics for this particular type of cancer.
I’m choosing not to google complications or listen to anyone’s horror story of how “my cousin had that done and…”.
My loins are girded with coffee and optimism (and my favorite prayer for mercy and grace!).
I’ll let you know how things go.
❤
It is scary to speak aloud what you hope will never happen to you. It’s unbelievably frightening to admit that we really have no control over whether, or when, we or the ones we love might leave this world.
But I am not going to keep silent.
Not because I want pity or special treatment, but because I want that parent who just buried his or her child to know that you. are. not. alone.
Read the rest here: Courage is a Heart Word
In the midst of a difficult week, we got some disturbing news that had the potential to make it even worse.
My fleshly response was to go down rabbit trails of “what if” and “why us”. But I know from experience that is a fruitless exercise.
So I literally took a deep breath, reminded my heart that in every storm we’d faced, our Shepherd King had been there. He had never abandoned nor forsaken us.
This storm would be no different.
It might be rough (probably will be). It might be frightening (most certainly). It might even end with hopes dashed or worse.
But no matter what, He is here. He speaks peace when all seems lost.
We are safe in His hands.
❤ Melanie
Life is full of storms.
Some are outside myself and others start in the secret corners of my own heart.
All of them make me wish for quiet and calm, peaceful waters where I can sail the ship of life and not worry about sinking beneath the waves.
When I’m afraid I remind myself that Jesus is the Peace Speaker.
Read the rest here: Sea Of Love And Goodness
I was unprepared for the many traveling companions grief brought with it. I knew to expect sadness and despair–but what about anxiety and guilt?
I had no idea how large a space guilt would soon occupy in my thoughts and heart-guilt over what I did or didn’t do when Dominic was still with us, guilt over what I do or don’t do now.
I can do nothing to change what happened in years past.
Read the rest here: To My Fellow Grievers-Love Brave
I had never been afraid of speaking in public.
I had never been afraid of strangers.
I had never been afraid of heights.
UNTIL.
Until I had children and then I was afraid of nearly EVERYTHING for them.
I didn’t want any harm to befall these tiny humans carrying my heart outside my body. I wanted to protect them, to cushion them, to wrap them in a bubble so that nothing bad ever happened to them.
As they grew, I learned to let go- a little at a time. I learned you can’t prevent the scrapes and bruises and heartaches and disappointments of life. And I learned that a little “harm” made them stronger.
I forgot most of my fears and was again unafraid.
UNTIL Dominic was killed.
Read the rest here: Unafraid
There is SO much meat in today’s devotion/reflection/challenge.
Once Jesus had wrestled His own will to the ground, submitted fully to the Father’s will and accepted that He would have to drink the bitter cup, and firmly faced cross-ward, He was safe from intimidation.
As Chole points out “Fear is intimidation’s oxygen”.
My enemies-spiritual or physical-can exploit whatever I fear and leverage it to intimidate me.
Jesus was totally free.
Safe and secure in the center of the Father’s will He was free from manipulation and intimidation. He was NOT safe and secure from pain or sorrow or trauma (He did not escape any of those things) but He chose to rest in the promise that no matter what man did to Him, His Father was in control.
Oh, how I long to be completely free of fear and thus free from the power of others to intimidate and manipulate me!
It’s so hard when I know precisely how painful the worst IS to resist the enemy of my soul’s taunts. Satan will tempt me (like he did Jesus in the wilderness) to test God and try to escape pain by whatever means are possible, even if they are outside the will of the Lord.
So I remind myself that Jesus (because He was fully God) KNEW what was coming, could feel what was coming (because He was fully man) and yet clung to His Father’s good, good character and love.
Fear is a liar and a bully.
But God’s perfect love casts it out when I listen to His song over my heart.
What do you fear? Being misunderstood or misrepresented? Being unwanted or unneeded? Illness or injury? Today, seek to fast intimidation by not letting fear bully you.
Alicia Britt Chole
**As promised, I am sharing thoughts on 40 DAYS OF DECREASE (a Lenten journal/devotional). If you choose to get and use the book yourself, I’ll be a day behind in sharing so as not to influence anyone else’s experience.**
When I wrote this a couple of years ago I had fallen outside when feeding the animals.
But I was reminded of the post when I fell-hard!-on sharp rocks in our creek playing with my grandson. I was holding his hand and both of us went down when my foot slipped.
I hobbled up the bank with a giant bleeding gash on my knee and I’m still living with a sore spot and (probably) permanent knot on my kneecap. Poor little guy was frightened but not hurt.
He has recited that incident over and over and always ends it with, “I’m okay. Mama D okay. We’re okay.”
He can’t wait to get in again when it’s warmer.
I absolutely love, love, love that my sweet little boy has already learned the lesson of getting back up, even when it hurts.
It’s something I need to remember every. single. day.
❤ Melanie
I hate that question that every doctor’s office asks now, “Have you had any falls in the past twelve months?”
I always say, “no” even though that’s rarely true.
Because I know what they are looking for is evidence of disease that might be impacting balance and I’m perfectly free of that so I don’t want to place a red flag in my medical chart.
But I fall down pretty regularly.
Read the rest here: Falling Down and Getting Up Again
thelifeididntchoose 