Category: compassion

Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday: A Study in Contrasts

Twenty-four hours separate one of the most outlandish global parties and one of the most somber religious observances on the Christian calendar.

Many of the same folks show up for both.

Mardi Gras, “Fat Tuesday”, is the last hurrah for those who observe Lent-a time of reflection, self-denial and preparation before Resurrection Sunday.

It’s a giant party-food, fellowship and fun-a wonderful way to celebrate the blessings of this life.

Ash Wednesday, by contrast,  is an invitation to remember that “from dust you came and to dust you will return”.  

None of us get out of here alive.

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Even where the Gospel is preached every Sunday there are those who forget this life is hard and often full of pain and suffering.

If your experience so far has looked more like Mardi Gras and less like ashes, well, then-be thankful.

But don’t be deceived.

“From dust you came and to dust you will return.”

For some of us it was a similar twenty-four hour turnaround that upset our world, tossed us headfirst into the waves of sorrow and burned that truth into our hearts, not just dabbed it on our foreheads.

Sometimes I feel excluded from fellowship with the saints because I can’t join in the celebratory spirit of a worship service.

When the hymns only focus on our “victory in Jesus”  my heart cries, “Yes-but perhaps I won’t see the victory this side of heaven.”

When the congregation claps and dances to feel-good songs that celebrate the sunshine but ignore the rain, my eyes swim with tears because I know the reality of a downpour of sorrow.

Because sometimes praise is a sacrifice.

offerings

Church needs to be a place where we can share the pain as well as the promise that Christ will redeem it.

Jesus Himself said, “in this world you will have trouble”.

So I can’t claim allegiance to the Church of the Perpetually Cheerful.

I want to create space for the hurting and broken and limping and scared.

How about a new denomination that acknowledges the truth that life is hard.

Instead of the “Overcoming Apostolic Praise-filled Ministers of Eternal Optimism” I would name it the “Trudging But Not Fainting Faithful.“

By all means enjoy the “Fat Tuesdays” in life.

Drink them in, dance, celebrate! 

But remember that it can change in a heartbeat.

And that it HAS changed for many of us.

There is hope.

All is not lost.

But in the meantime, it’s hard.

will-have-trouble-but-i-have-overcome

Repost: Exploding the Myth: God Doesn’t Give You More Than You Can Handle

You know, I don’t expect those outside the Body of Christ to have good theology-that’s like expecting me to be able to explain thermodynamics.  

Ain’t gonna happen-it’s outside my scope of understanding and practice.

I do expect those who have spent a lifetime reading Scripture, studying Sunday School lessons and listening to sermons to know better.

But many don’t.

Read the rest here:  Exploding the Myth: God Doesn’t Give You More Than You Can Handle

True Love

It’s nice to get flowers or chocolate or balloons or cards that say, “I love you”.

But true love can’t be bought.

True love is marked by sacrifice, ongoing support, genuine compassion and willingness to do whatever it takes to “be there” for another person.

It means standing with someone even when walking beside them includes bearing the unbearable. 

So I have a radical suggestion for this Valentine’s Day-instead of lining the pockets of America’s merchandising gurus-take a moment to write a note to someone who has truly loved you.

Tell them how their love has changed your life.

How their patience gives you space to grow.

How their kindness sings hope to your heart.

How their refusal to envy, boast or brag allows you to rejoice in their blessings without feeling left out or less than.

How their humility and gentleness invites you to share the deepest things, certain your secrets are safe.

How their refusal to keep a tally of the ways you’ve disappointed them grants freedom to try again.

How their trust and hope shine light in your life and give your heart something to hold onto.

How their enduring love gives you a glimpse of heaven.

Let the ones who love you well know that what they do makes a difference.  

Every. Single. Day.

love is not what you say it is what you do pooh

 

Not-So-Random Acts of Kindness

I love the idea of Random Acts of Kindness-it’s a beautiful way to spread love and joy in our broken world.

With a few dollars or a few minutes, I have the opportunity to make someone’s day brighter, their burden lighter and remind them that not everyone is “out to get them”.

BUT-as I’ve written before here:  Relational Acts of Kindness, it’s relatively easy to do my good deed and walk away.

When I bless a stranger, my work is done.

I feel good, they feel good-it’s all good.

I find it much harder to purpose to be kind every day to the people I actually KNOW-the one who may have said cutting things in the past, the one who consistently rubs me the wrong way, the one I feel is lazy or subversive or just holds opinions with which I disagree.

How about the one I thought would show up to help but didn’t?  Or the one who has told tales about me or my family?  The one who lets her children run wild at church? The one who makes others uncomfortable with her dress, or language, or lack of social skill?

Being kind to THAT person is hard.

I want to turn the other way.  I want to make excuses.  I want to pretend that my kindness toward strangers balances my lack of kindness to those with whom I walk daily.

It doesn’t.

I am called to be kind at precisely that place where it is most difficult.  I am called to act in love toward just that person who is most unloveable.  I am called to lay down my life where it looks most likely to be unappreciated.

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Denying myself is the very method by which Christ builds His kingdom.

Offering my body as a living sacrifice is the pressure He applies to mold my flesh into His likeness

washing-feet-beauty

But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the heathen lord it over them and that their great ones have absolute power? But it must not be so among you. No, whoever among you wants to be great must become the servant of you all, and if he wants to be first among you he must be your slave—just as the Son of Man has not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life to set many others free.”

Matthew 20:27-29 PHILLIPS

 

 

Choosing to See Wounded Hearts

I can see her all the way down the aisle-even if she doesn’t say a word,  I know.

I know.

widow

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?  

Making a decision without her better half to help her is overwhelming.  She wants to cry but holds back the tears because, “What would people think?”

So I go up to her and tell her what I think:  “Would you like some help?”

That opens the floodgates.

“I’m looking for hairbands-something to match my white hair.  I have so little left-losing it because of stress, you know. “

Silence while I help her look.

“My husband passed three months ago.  We were married 60 years.  I just can’t believe he’s gone.”

I tell her about Dominic-brief version-so she knows that I understand.

“He’s not suffering anymore and I guess I should be better.  But I just miss him!”

I take her hand and look into her beautiful eyes-eyes that are full of love and compassion and sorrow-and tell her that she will miss him as long as she lives.  That’s how we’re made.

Great love means great grief.  A shared lifetime can’t be severed by death.  We carry that sorrow because our hearts still carry the love.

ann voskamp love will always cost you grief

And I tell her that no one has the right to rush her along. Her wounded heart is a witness to love.  It’s a tribute to her husband and the life they shared.  It’s testimony to the power of God in her that she can bear the wound and still remain.

We prayed, and hugged and both went away refreshed.

Walking wounded has made me much more aware that God places people in my path who are wounded too.  

I want to be the person that stops, no matter what.  I want to be who God created me in Christ Jesus to be.  I want to walk in the good works He has laid out for me ahead of time.

It’s a way of redeeming this sorrow and weaving something beautiful from  my tears.

God has made us what we are. In Christ Jesus, God made us new people so that we would do good works. God had planned in advance those good works for us. He had planned for us to live our lives doing them.

Ephesians 2:10 ICV

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Repost: The Cost of Compassion

 

compassion is a choice

I can’t help it.

I think too much.  I wonder too often.  I work too hard to make sense of things.

And the thing that is puzzling me right now is why people pull away from those experiencing deep and lasting pain.

Read the rest here:  the cost of compassion

Burning Bridges and Other Impulsive Acts

If you’ve followed the blog for awhile you’ve noticed that I rarely use this space to comment on current events unless they intersect with my experience of child loss.

So I have pretty much stayed away from our crazy political scene during this presidential election cycle because why add another voice to the screaming chorus when no one is listening anyway?

But as we make our way to the inauguration and I see heightened animosity, ugly speech and cruel separation of previous friendships, I realize that my experience is relevant right here, right now.

Until you wake up one morning to find out that your child whom you love, whom you raised and whom you were absolutely certain would bury YOU is gone, you have the luxury of assuming whatever bridges you burn can be rebuilt someday.

You may feel pretty confident that in a few days or months or years you will have the opportunity to pick up the pieces and reinvest in the relationship. You might justify your arrogance and impudence and violent speech that pushes others away by standing on principles, waving the banner of your just cause or simply being adament that YOUR viewpoint is the absolutely only correct one.

angry-man-pointing-finger

 

I’m a firm believer in social justice, political action, correct theology, and strong opinions.

If you’ve been around me for more than five minutes, you know this.

But I believe even more firmly that nothing gives me the right to be hateful, to be dismissive, to act superior or to cruelly treat another human being.

I am also a believer that whatever happens in Washington is only part of what makes the world.

Laws have consequences.

Policies have impact.  

Politicians make decisions that make life better or worse for millions of people.  BUT-how I treat the people I come in contact with every day also matters.

You can call me a coward or tell me I’m “selling out” but I am convinced that I can champion a cause without condemning a friend. I know I can disagree without being disagreeable.  

If my goal is to sway opinion, what hope do I have of that if I am blasting holes in the fabric of relationship?

Each one of us is making the world-day by day, decision by decision, interaction by interaction.

We are burning bridges or building relationships.

Today–just for a single day–let’s all be kind.

be kind2

Let’s not bash others with our team banner, our polical banner or the banner of our favorite cause.

Let’s just love one another and offer a smile instead of a smirk- a hand up instead of a put down.

We might find we like that world a whole lot better than the one we are currently making.

coke-teach-the-world-to-sing

 

Repost: Subtitles

My husband is the child of immigrants.  And even thirty years after coming to America, my in-laws preferred their native Italian to English.

So when we would be in a crowded room, comments flying, I struggled to keep up with what was being said because I didn’t speak the same language.

Sometimes feelings got hurt because what one of us thought we were saying was not what the other person heard.

Read the rest here:  Subtitles

Who Steps In? Who Walks Out?

I was absolutely overwhelmed in those first days.

Cars, cars, cars filled my long driveway and front yard.

People spilling out like ants scrambling after the hill is disturbed.

Oh, our hill was disturbed-knocked wide open by that deputy’s visit.  Phone calls to let others know.  Phone calls from people who couldn’t get in touch with him and were just checking “in case something had happened”.

It had happened.

It. HAD. happened.

After the customary ceremony and handshaking and food, the cards flooded in. Some with hand-written heartfelt messages of, “praying for you”, “we are so very sorry”, “we love you”. Some with pre-printed poems that absolve the sender of the need to find words for things for which there are no words.

My son is dead.  What can you say to that?

And then the silence.  The morning that I woke up to  realize I had done all I ever could do for Dominic.  My last act was to find his body a resting place and pray his soul to heaven.

He was home.

I was left in a strange country filled with landmarks I no longer recognized and a language I no longer understood.

Who comes into that?

Not many.  Only a few brave souls stick around for the after-only a few true friends keep calling and coming and caring for the long haul.

Because sitting with me in my grief, listening to me question my faith, keeping company with uncertainty and loss of control is frightening.  It takes great self-control to simply be present and not try to say something or do something to try to fix the unfixable.

If it could happen to MY family, it could happen to theirs.  And no one wants to think of that unless they have to.

So many leave.

Not immediately and not flamboyantly.  They just drift away like unmoored sailboats caught in the rising winds of life and busyness and school plays and church socials.

My personal tragedy is a footnote to their life journal-and who reads footnotes?

But there are a few who purpose to make my burden their burden.  

A few who call and write and text and message on the important dates like when he died, his birthday, Christmas, Easter.  Even fewer who call and write and text and message just because-just because they heard a song or saw a sunset or remembered for a moment that there is a mama out there who carries this grief 24/7.

I have no idea how Jesus will reward His followers when they make it Home.  But I have a sneaking suspicion that the ones who choose to run in when others run away will receive a crown. Because their faithful love in the dark places brings life and light to hurting hearts.

And isn’t that the essence of the gospel message?

You are not alone.  

You are loved.

There is a way forward.

When you have exhausted all your own resources, God has made a way where there was no way. Even when you can’t take a step on your own-especially when you can’t take a step on your own-Jesus will carry you.

The ones who stay sing the gospel song to my heart.

They remind me that Jesus hasn’t forgotten.

presence best gift

One More Time: What Broken Hearts Need From Others During Holidays

I know it is hard.  I know you don’t truly understand how I feel.  You can’t.  It wasn’t your child.

I know I may look and act like I’m “better”.  I know that you would love for things to be like they were:  BEFORE.  But they aren’t.

I know my grief interferes with your plans.  I know it is uncomfortable to make changes in traditions we have observed for years.  But I can’t help it.  I didn’t ask for this to be my life.

Read the rest here:  Grief and Holidays:What the Bereaved Need From Friends and Family