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Lord, when one of us hungers, make it our instinct to feed.
When one of us is displaced, make it our instinct to share our home.
– Common Prayer
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I totally get it–we are ALL so busy.
Calendars crammed weeks and months in advance and no white space left over to pencil in lunch with a friend even though we desperately NEED it.
It seems impossible to make that call, write that note or stop by and visit a few minutes.
How can I meet my obligations if I use precious time doing the optional?
But when the unexpected, unimaginable and awful happens, suddenly that calendar and all those appointments don’t matter. Balls drop everywhere and I don’t care.
Because when your family or best friend needs you, you come-no questions asked.
You toss a few necessities in your carry-on, lock the door, unplug the coffee pot and RUN.
You connect that phone to the car charger and dial away as you drive down the road.
And you show up.
Because when someone needs you, REALLY needs you, there is NO SUBSTITUTE for presence.
And the world keeps spinning.
All those “important” commitments cluttering my calendar are still there. But a few phone calls later and they are easily rearranged. Medicine refills can be sent almost anywhere. Church responsibilities can be shouldered by someone else. Social dates can be rescheduled.
The only thing that matters is being exactly where your heart tells you it needs to be for exactly as long as you need to be there.
But you don’t have to wait until it’s an emergency to show up.
If it can wait if it HAD to, then it can wait.
You will not be going over a “to do” list with your last breath.
Choose to make people a priority right now-you might not get a second chance,
It’s not enough to shake my head and say aloud, “How awful!”
It’s hardly a challenge to agree with every voice that decries tragedy and calls for justice.
But it’s something else again to move my body, give my time, put my money where my mouth is.
Sympathy says and does what makes ME feel better.
Compassion requires that I do what makes SOMEONE ELSE feel better, even when it makes me feel worse.
Sympathy is easy and short-lived-that’s why even this awful Los Vegas shooting incident will be old news by the end of next week.
Reporters are already scrambling to find obscure but interesting tidbits to hold their audience’s attention and maintain ratings. Sympathy lasts only as long as it takes to make a Facebook post, send a card, shoot a text or grab a tissue to dab a few tears.
Compassion doesn’t need salicious details to keep its interest.
Compassion (to suffer with) cannot be ignored. It accompanies every waking moment and follows my heart into dreams. Compassion forces me to do what I would not otherwise do because the pain won’t let me rest.
Compassion is in it for the long haul.
So I’m going to turn off the TV, the radio, stop searching the Web for news and tune in to what my heart says I need to DO.
I refuse to participate in a culture of HYPE but am committed to work toward a culture of HOPE.
Violence doesn’t spring from nowhere.
Hate isn’t grown in a day.
We all know how it is-you move, you lose an address or phone number, you lose touch.
But sometimes friendships end more abruptly-not because lives drifted apart but because one person became so uncomfortable she chose to walk the other way.
That’s what happens so often the other side of child loss. Friends disappear because loss makes them profoundly uncomfortable.
I get it-I’m a walking reminder that if it happened to me, it can happen to you.
You don’t know what to say when the tears flow. You feel helpless in the face of my helplessness. You are afraid my questions might weaken your faith.
And after months of avoiding me you feel guilty.
But may I tell you something? I still need you.
It doesn’t matter if you have the perfect words. Your presence is what lifts my spirits.
I won’t chastise you for your absence.
We try to separate the two.
We want to draw a line that marks when one ended and the other began.
But it’s impossible. Because grief and love are of one piece.
Grief isn’t what comes AFTER love, grief IS love.
Grief is love with no place to go.
It’s what a heart is left with when the person upon which that love would be lavished is no longer available to receive what is offered.
We celebrate lifetime love. We make much over marriages that survive the years. We applaud the lost pet that pads his way home in spite of miles and misery to lay at the feet of his master.
Yet we want grievers to give up their sadness and bottle their tears because it makes US uncomfortable. It reminds us that next week WE could be the ones left with unspent love in our hearts.
But grief can never be small where love is large.
Last week I wrote a post titled They Don’t Know What They Don’t Know and made the case that often folks say insensitive things but truly don’t mean harm. Many are walking in the dark and step on our toes because they can’t see.
But there are some people who make it a habit to be insensitive.
They are the ones who delight in speaking their mind regardless of how it hurts another heart. They pride themselves on “telling it like it is” and justify the fallout as a necessary consequence of “opening the eyes” of people they consider “blind to the truth”.
And while I believe that it is my duty as a Christ follower to forgive these folks when they hurt my feelings, I do not believe that I am required to continue to offer my heart to them to be tossed to the ground and trampled.
I do not have to welcome them with open arms and invite their untimely and unkind comments.
I do not have to engage with them on social media-I can unfollow, unfriend or simply ignore their posts. I can delete inappropriate comments made on my own posts and untag myself when they try to draw my attention to an article or meme that they think “helps” when it only wounds me.
If the person is a family member, I can choose to be polite when we meet at gatherings but I do not have to sit next to them at the table. I can excuse myself early from birthday parties, Sunday dinners or holiday meals. I can simply refuse an invitation and stay home instead.
If the person is someone tightly woven into the fabric of my friendships, I can do the same thing-choosing not to be alone with them so I’m not an easy target for their “helpful” monologues.
If the person is a casual acquaintance then I can choose not to engage them at all. It’s OK to scoot around the next aisle in the grocery store so that I’m not caught like a deer in headlights when they see me and exclaim, “How ARE you???”
In other words, it is perfectly acceptable to have boundaries around my heart so I can survive this journey.
It is healthy.
It is necessary.
I’m not required to be someone else’s punching bag.
I can see her all the way down the aisle-even if she doesn’t say a word, I know.
I know.
She‘s carrying a burden wrapped in love and buried deep inside. Someone she poured life into is no longer here. The missing and the daily sorrow is etched on her face even as she smiles.
What to do? What to do?
Read the rest here: Choosing to See Wounded Hearts
I remember the first couple times I ventured out in public after Dominic left us and the flurry of activity surrounding his funeral was over.
I felt naked, afraid and oh, so vulnerable.
The tiniest misplaced word or random glance could undo me and I burst into tears.
And I remember the phone calls, cards, texts and Facebook messages from friends and family who truly wanted to encourage my heart but often chose the wrong words and pierced it instead.
I took offense. Often.
But about a month or so into this journey, as I explored the edges of my pain and had time to think about how utterly different and unknowable it was without experiencing it, I realized that all those barbs were completely unintentional.
No one was aiming to hurt me. They were walking in the dark and stepping on my toes because they couldn’t SEE, not because they desired to cause me pain.
I was just as clueless before it was ME who buried a child.
So I learned to extend grace-to look behind the words to the heart offering them.
Because they don’t know what they don’t know.
And I hope to God they never do.
I may get jeered by my fellow bereaved parents but I’m committed to honesty so here it is: there is no hierarchy of grief and loss.
Now, am I saying that losing a dog is the same as burying a child? Absolutely not! I’ve written about that here.
But what I am saying is that grief, sorrow, loss and heartbreak comes to us in all shapes and sizes. And what may be small to me may be huge to someone else.
In the past weeks I’ve been exposed to a number of people who were waiting for those magic minutes of visitation allowed for intensive care units.
Each one had a story.
Each one had a cross to bear and a complicated life they were trying to maintain outside the additional stress and strain of a loved one hooked up to tubes and heart monitors.
None of them revealed (to me at least) that they were bereaved parents.
But I could clearly see pain, sorrow, grief and weariness etched in their furrowed brows. I could hear exhaustion in their voices as they placed phone call after phone call to update people that wanted to know how things were going but couldn’t make it to the hospital. I noticed hope spring to life in each heart when the clock ticked toward the assigned visitation window and how they leaned forward willing those last seconds to fly by faster.
I knew they were hurting. It didn’t matter if they hurt as much or less than me. There’s enough pain to go around in this life.
It isn’t a contest.
And I realized that because of my great grief and sorrow, I had a gift to share. I could reach out and take a hand, listen to a story, hug a weary shoulder empathetically, gently and without judgement.
I understand the weight of hard things.
I know by experience that life can change in a single breath. I carry both the ongoing burden of missing my son and the traumatic memory of life changed instantly by a knock on the door. It’s made me stronger in ways I would not have chosen.
I will not squander that strength.
I will put my shoulder to the harness alongside my fellow humans and offer to help carry some of their burden. I will extend my hand to the stumbling, strengthen the heart of the hurting and offer a listening ear to the one who has no one to talk to.
I cannot undo what I know. I cannot undo what has brought them here or may take them to places THEY don’t want to go.
But I can be present.
I can refuse to turn away because I think their grief is small in comparison to my own.
I can choose love.
If, as a believer in Christ, I abide in Him and am filled with His limitless love, why do I portion it out in such a miserly fashion?
I often act as though it were MY personal treasure house and that to give love freely diminishes my supply.
What foolishness!
God’s love is eternal and bottomless and as a conduit of that love He invites me to lavish love on others without fear of running out.
What does God’s love look like. It has hands to help others, it has feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.
~Augustine
Love is never wasted!
I want to love without limits and without fear, trusting God with my heart because He is the One Who fills it.
thelifeididntchoose 