grace – Page 20 – thelifeididntchoose

Feet of Clay

God is not offended by my human frailty. He isn’t looking down from Heaven, shaking His head at my halting steps forward on this long, hard road.

He understands my fear, my sadness, my longing for wholeness.

But sometimes it’s hard for me to remember that.

I’m surrounded by messages that scream,

“You can do better!”

“Be all that you can be!”

“Try harder, practice more, do this, do that and you can attain your dreams!”

Even in Christian circles we tend to rank one another based on hours spent in Bible study, Sunday School lessons taught, singing in the choir, serving on committees, showing up at services.

That was the way of the Pharisees-impossible burdens piled high that crushed precious hearts so that they couldn’t imagine a Father in Heaven Who loved them.

That made Jesus angry.

They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden.

Matthew 23:4 NLT

He didn’t come to mock my limitations or make light of my struggles.

He came to Shepherd my heart past those very things to see His heart for who He created me to be.

He reaches out and reaches in. He sings love and courage and hope when I’m desperate to hear it.

For the Lord your God has arrived to live among you. He is a mighty Savior. He will give you victory. He will rejoice over you with great gladness; he will love you and not accuse you.” Is that a joyous choir I hear? No, it is the Lord himself exulting over you in happy song. “I have gathered your wounded and taken away your reproach.

Zephaniah 3:17 TLB

Reality is this: I AM broken. I AM frail. I AM burdened by this life on earth. It is absolutely too heavy for me to carry. I will be crushed to dust beneath its weight.

But He offers to take that burden for which I was never made and replace it with the one perfectly fitted for my shoulders.

His yoke is easy.

His yoke is light.

And He is the One Who pulls alongside me to bear it.

Subtle Disapproval

I mention that today is a hard day to someone who knows my story and the words fall with a loud “thud!” between us.

I don’t know whether to pick them up or not and she isn’t having anything to do with them.

So I move on to another topic. Clearly this one isn’t going anywhere.

There are lots of ways to send messages of disapproval. You can “just say NO” like kids are told to do in anti-drug and anti-bullying campaigns. You can rant and rave and argue and rail against someone or something in person and on social media.

Or you can just ignore someone when they spill what matters to them like an offering on the ground at your feet.

The opposite of love is not hate.

It’s indifference.

The opposite of support is not opposition.

It’s looking the other way.

Strangers line streets to cheer marathoners on-offering cups of water and words of affirmation.

“You can do it!” “Keep going!” “You are more than half-way there!” “Don’t give up!”

And yet many of us are running the race of our lives without a cheering section.

I get it–you are so very tired of the fact that I am so very tired. I have worn out the welcome mat to the door of your heart. It DOES get old when I bring the same baggage with me each time we talk.

Trust me, I’m working hard at unpacking it. I’m doing all I can to lighten my load and what I ask you to help me carry.

But it is a slow, slow process.

And every time I need help or encouragement and don’t get it, another brick is added to the suitcase.

You might think you are helping me learn to ignore the pain by ignoring my mention of it but I don’t have that luxury.

It’s my heart wound, not yours.

It’s my child buried, my child not here, my child gone from sight-how exactly should I ignore that? Which of your children could you put away for a lifetime and forget was ever here?

If you want to help me lighten the load,

let me unpack my pain by telling my story.

If you want me to finish the race strong,

cheer me on.

I Don’t Get to Be Ugly

It’s easy to justify bad behavior when I am hurting.

As the saying goes, “Hurt people, hurt people”.

But if I know Jesus, I don’t get a pass. I don’t get to act ugly or pretend I don’t know better or have His Spirit to help me BE better.

Sometimes I AM ugly. Sometimes I do act badly. I am ashamed that even though I am fully aware of my own desperate need for grace and mercy I sometimes withhold it from others.

I’m also ashamed that I can be judgmental and hateful and short-tempered and short-sighted. I can exclude others and run out of patience and choose to turn away when I should be tuning in.

And I’m really, really sorry.

I’m trying to lean more fully on the grace available to me through God’s Holy Spirit. I am trying to pause so that the first thing that springs to mind doesn’t always fly out of my mouth. I am learning to wait before returning phone calls, emails and text messages.

I try to take a walk when my heart is twisted ugly so that the ugly doesn’t spill out onto others and ruin THEIR day.

I don’t get to lay aside the calling to love because I’ve laid a child to rest.

I’m working hard to remember that.

Facing My Inner Pharisee

In centuries past it was common for Christ followers to fast.

They fasted for many reasons: to consecrate themselves for a task; to seek answers to prayer; observance of seasons on the church calendar; or for strength to overcome besetting sin.

Today, fasting has fallen out of favor in most western churches-deemed unnecessary or an attempt to gain favor with God by “works”.

That’s unfortunate.

Because fasting has never been about making points with God, it’s been about removing self-reliance from our spiritual vocabulary.

It’s not about demonstrating personal fortitude or displaying self-righteousness, it’s about recognizing my weakness and desperate dependence on Christ.

Perhaps the greatest hindrance to our work is our own imagined strength; and in fasting we learn what poor, weak creatures we are – dependent on a meal of meat for the little strength which we are so apt to lean upon.

~Hudson Taylor

Like the Pharisees, though, I am apt to make much of my “sacrifice” and little of Christ’s sufficiency. I want to bargain with God and rise in the ranks of His favor because I’m so “good”.

It doesn’t work like that.

I was almost to the end of a 40 day fast when Dominic was killed.

I am physically unable to fast 40 days consecutively so, for several years, I had done an every-other-day fast so that it equaled 40 days.

At some point in the first week after Dom ran ahead to heaven I remember crying out to God, “What exactly do You want from me??? I’ve done all that I know to do in an attempt to live up to Your expectations, and yet it is never enough!”

And (not then, certainly!) but at some point in the nearly 3 years since, He answered, “Your righteous acts are as filthy rags. The only sufficient sacrifice is My own Son’s blood.”

THAT was humbling.

Because even though I would have given the same answer to anyone else who thought they could “work” their way into God’s good graces, obviously the truth of it had not seeped into the fabric of my being.

I WAS trying to make points with God. And I was angry He hadn’t taken that into consideration and spared me the pain of burying my son.

We often mock the Pharisees for thinking that “getting it right” means “being righteous”, but I understand the temptation to substitute acts of righteousness for relying on relationship through Jesus Christ.

The one means I am in control, the other means I have to follow and give up control.

If there is one thing I’ve learned through child loss that I cannot forget for even a millisecond is: I am NOT in control.

I am utterly dependent on Him for life, for breath, for saving AND sustaining grace.

For it’s by God’s grace that you have been saved. You receive it through faith. It was not our plan or our effort. It is God’s gift, pure and simple. You didn’t earn it, not one of us did, so don’t go around bragging that you must have done something amazing.

Ephesians 2:8-9 VOICE

Fasting from food is relatively easy. Fasting from my tendency toward self-righteousness is much harder.

This year, as I observe Lent,

as I fast,

as I add in holy habits,

I am asking God to help me remember that I am not trying to win His favor,

I am making room to hear His heart.

Why Do We Turn Away?

The news goes out over Facebook, over phone lines, over prayer chains and everyone shows up.

Crowds in the kitchen, in the living room, spilling onto the lawn.

It’s what you do.

And it’s actually the easiest part. Lots of people, lots of talking, lots of activity keep the atmosphere focused on the deceased and the family. The conversation rarely dips to deeper waters or digs into harder ground: “Where was God?”; “Why him?”; “Why do ‘bad’ things happen to ‘good’ people?”

But eventually the busyness and noise gives way to stillness and silence.

That’s when the harder part starts.

The long hours of nightime darkness that invite questions that demand answers. The quiet hours of daylight that insist on playing a home movie of the years that went before. Forcing me to wrestle. Tossing me in the ring of trying to reconcile this tragedy with my worldview.

And many people turn away from the spectacle.

Even good, loving, Christ-following friends find it hard to stick around and watch.

Because it challenges their worldview too.

It makes them wonder if what they have always believed about God is true. It makes them fearful that if it could happen to my son and to me, it could happen to their child and to them. Ir raises questions, they’d rather not answer.

And they don’t have to answer them-YET-because their lives haven’t been turned upside down and inside out.

So they run.

They stop calling, they stop coming and they keep their distance in public spaces.

It hurts.

A lot.

It’s human nature to avoid pain. No one marches headlong into suffering. Empathy requres energy. Compassion demands opening your heart to the hurt hiding inside someone else’s.

I understand, truly I do.

If I could find a place where sorrow and longing couldn’t find me, I would stay there forever. But I can’t. I have to carry this load, I have to face the tough questions, I have to work hard to give my heart a chance.

It is so much easier when others come alongside. I feel so much stronger when others choose to call courage to my broken heart. I find great comfort in knowing that someone is willing to risk their own comfort to bear witness to my pain and struggle.

Please don’t lower your eyes and hide. Raise them and help heal.

I know it’s hard and you don’t have to, but please don’t turn away.

Good News

Reading through the Sermon on the Mount, it’s easy to feel defeated.

Jesus ripped off the Pharisees’ masks. He gave people a peek behind the curtain-unveiling the sin that hid beneath a facade of outward obedience and seeming righteousness.

Jesus also strips away any pretense that I can follow the “rules”.

Sure I may not murder anyone, but hate and malice-how am I supposed to get through this life without calling someone “fool”?

Line after line of impossible standards-righteousness that goes way beyond the Ten Commandments!

I am hopeless and helpless.

Jesus makes just that point-on my own, in my own strength, dependent on my own efforts, I’m lost.

That’s what makes the Gospel the Good News!

God in His mercy and grace has offered the only true hope–the righteousness of Christ, the Perfect Sacrifice and atonement for sin.

When I walk into church and pretend I “have it altogether”, when I refuse to display my brokenness and my need for forgiveness, I obscure the beauty, value and truth of the Gospel.

I raise a barrier between those who need rescue and the very means by which they may be saved.

We are all broken.

We are all lost.

Our only hope is Jesus.

May we be bold enough to be honest.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Forgive Us Our Trespasses, As We Forgive Those Who Trespass Against Us

There are lots of opportunities for offense surrounding the death of a child.

Once your heart is broken open wide with great sorrow, there’s no defense against the bumps and bruises that are a natural product of human relationship and interaction.

Friends and family that didn’t show up.

Friends and family that showed up but said or did the wrong thing.

Friends and family that abandoned me as soon as the casket closed.

People that make me feel guilty for grieving or question my sanity or my “progress”.

But I’m learning to let go of offense.

Not only because it is too heavy to carry in addition to my grief, but because the Lord has commanded it.

I grew up reciting what’s commonly called, “The Lord’s Prayer” without much thought to the individual phrases or their meaning. It wasn’t until adulthood that I read it in context and continued on to the rest of the chapter.

What I found there was chilling.

These are some of the hard words of Christ that most lay persons and many theologians prefer to gloss over.

“For if you forgive other people their failures, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you will not forgive other people, neither will your Heavenly Father forgive you your failures.”

~Jesus (Matthew 6:14-15 PHILLIPS)

WOW! The plain reading of this text tells me that if I refuse to forgive others, I place myself outside the forgiveness of my Father.

It makes sense though-if my sins were borne by Christ on the cross, then so were yours.

If His grace covers me, it covers you.

If I want to be seen through the eyes of mercy, then I must be willing to look through those same eyes at my fellow man.

At first this feels like bondage instead of freedom.

But the truth is, forgiveness is liberating.

It sets me free to operate in the fullness of who I am in Christ. It forces me to trust Him with my pain, with my sorrows, with my offenses and with balancing the scales of justice.

Forgiveness opens the path to relationship and community. It testifies to the mercy and grace of God.

It shines like a beacon of light in a dark world.

It is the power of Christ in me.

To forgive another person from the heart is an act of liberation. We set that person free from the negative bonds that exist between us. We say, “I no longer hold your offense against you” But there is more. We also free ourselves from the burden of being the “offended one.” As long as we do not forgive those who have wounded us, we carry them with us or, worse, pull them as a heavy load. The great temptation is to cling in anger to our enemies and then define ourselves as being offended and wounded by them. Forgiveness, therefore, liberates not only the other but also ourselves. It is the way to the freedom of the children of God.

~Henri Nouwen

Surviving Social Situations After Child Loss

The first three months after Dominic ran ahead to heaven were full of social obligations.

Dominic left us in mid-April. My youngest graduated college five days after we laid Dom to rest. My eldest son graduated as a veterinarian two weeks after that. He married two months to the day from Dom’s funeral.

Friends and family members stepped up and lent a hand. Most people present were very aware of our recent loss and didn’t force small talk. My living children were amazing-flexible, supportive and loving even in their own deep sorrow.

But I’ll be honest, it’s mostly a blur.

I have photographic evidence of each event, but not a lot of personal memories.

Fast forward a few months and there are other social occasions I must attend.

By this time, for most folks, Dominic’s death was an event marked on a calendar they discarded at the end of 2014. For me, it was as fresh as ever and the pain had actually increased as the absolute truth that he was gone, gone, gone was settling in my bones.

Without a thought, people I’d known for years trotted right up and said, “How are you?” They didn’t really want to know.

They were tossing me the conversation ball in the only way they’d been taught to do it.

At that moment, I had a choice: I could give in to my inner child and shout, “How the heck do you think I’m doing???? I buried a child!!!” OR I could extend the grace I long to receive and say something more controlled and measured.

Now, I’m not nearly as grace-filled as I ought to be or long to be, but I did manage to construct some “pre-recorded” answers to that question in a sincere attempt to be kind. They continue to serve me well.

Heres how I do it:

I give an honest, brief response that does not leave room for additional questions. Something like, “As well as you would expect” or “It’s hard, but I’m trying to hold on” or “I’m here” or “Today is a hard day” or “Today is a better day”
I turn the conversation back to them. I might ask, “How are you and your family?” or, if I had information about a specific event or person in their family, “How is so-and-so doing?” or “I heard you had a new grandbaby-tell me about him/her!” It’s absolutely amazing how easy it is to get people to talk about themselves.
If the person is insistent or persistent in questioning me and digging for details I politely say, “I can’t talk right now. I want to be able to enjoy the (whatever event we were attending) as best I can. Sorry.”

I also plan a physical escape route if needed:

Whenever I enter a space, I scout the restrooms and exits so that if I need to, I can leave a conversation usually by saying I need to go to the restroom.
I take note of who’s present and keep an eye out for a safe person I can migrate toward in a crowd.
If it’s a sit-down event I make sure to choose a seat where I can get out without having to depend on anyone else-the end of an aisle, table near the door, etc.
If I feel myself losing control, I try to leave before it becomes obvious to anyone else.

And I come prepared:

I carry tissues,
drink plenty of fluids,
have some aspirin and usually an anxiety pill with me,
wear one of the special pieces of jewelry my children have given me in honor of Dominic and touch it often to keep myself grounded, and
wear comfortable clothes and shoes.

I choose a focal point if I must look in the same direction for a long period of time (like at a wedding) and force myself to consider details so my mind won’t wander as much and possibly take me places I don’t want to go.

I remind myself that when that one person I thought would be there for me and but wasn’t floats up like there’s no rift in our relationship, this is not the time nor the place to correct that.

I smile and wave and preserve the dignity of the situation.

Most of all I try to remember that the people most likely to be insensitive or rub me the wrong way are blissfully ignorant of the weight of the pain I carry. They can’t see the fragments of my shattered heart. They don’t know how much courage it takes to show up.

I thank God they don’t and pray they never do.

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