grace – Page 22 – thelifeididntchoose

Safe Friends

I hope you have one.

That one person who knows your greatest joys and deepest pain and keeps it locked in her heart as if the secrets were her own.

She is a gift from God to me, that friend.

She’s the one I call when I’m wracked with sobs and the words won’t come. She knows it’s me and just waits on the line until I can speak. She gets my jokes, knows my weaknesses, my strengths and helps me steer a better path on this hard road called “Life”.

She is a safe friend.

A safe friend listens.

Just listens.

She isn’t formulating an answer while I am talking, she isn’t rounding up cliches or Bible verses or platitudes meant to make her sound wise and shush my sharing. She hears my heart even when my words might not make sense.

A safe friend sees.

Really sees.

She looks in my eyes and pays attention to my expression. She notices when my smile doesn’t match the tone of my words or the silent language of my hands.

She won’t let me by with a quick, “I’m fine!” meant to brush off the real need to spill my guts.

A safe friend stays.

As long as it takes.

She doesn’t leave in the middle of a hard conversation. Even if life gets in the way, she will come back and pick it up. She checks in with me and doesn’t let time unwind the threads that bind us together. If I don’t contact HER, she contacts ME.

A safe friend walks with me.

No matter how steep the path, no matter how rocky the road. We might be hobbling along, broken together, but she keeps going and she keeps me going.

A safe friend encourages me to look to Jesus.

She admits that she doesn’t have all the answers. She agrees that there are many things we will have to wait to understand. But she reminds me that for this, we have Jesus. We have a High Priest Who was tempted in every way yet was without sin. We can enter boldly into the Holy of Holies because by His blood the veil is rent.

She doesn’t issue spiritual ultimatums that undermine, instead of strengthen, my faith in Christ.

A safe friend doesn’t cut me out of her life when my life is a mess.

Even if the mess is of my own making. She helps me untangle the knot, own up to the sin, reach out to Christ and make amends.

A safe friend doesn’t just “happen”.

She allows the grace and mercy and love of Jesus to mold her heart so that He can use her.

Everyone NEEDS a safe friend.

Anyone willing can BE that friend.

Monday Musings: Be Kind

I wrote and scheduled this post BEFORE the Nice terrorist attack and BEFORE the gunning down of police officers in Baton Rouge just yesterday morning.

But how very timely-as long as we divide the world into “us” and “them” we fuel hatred and acts of violence. As long as we choose rhetoric rather than reason we encourage a mindset that believes only radical action will spur change.

As I wrote over a week ago, My Heart Hurts. And I refuse to be part of the division that will only surely result in more death and destruction.

Instead I will choose to be radically kind.

This year has been filled with divisive politics, headlines and heartbreaking reminders of the many ways people can hurt one another.

I have my own opinions and positions on various issues and sometimes they are at odds with those of my friends or acquaintances.

But I am committed to speak, write and interact with everyone I meet in kindness-respecting our differences.

Because we are all image-bearers of the One True God.

James said, “With our tongues we praise our Lord and Father. Yet, with the same tongues we curse people, who were created in God’s likeness. Praise and curses come from the same mouth. My brothers and sisters, this should not happen!” (James 3:9-10 GW)

Jesus answered the question, “Who is my neighbor?” with a well-known parable that shocked His audience and challenged their preconceived ideas.

As soon as I ask, “Who is my neighbor?” I am trying to draw a circle around who I should and should not be obligated to treat with kindness and love.

I’m not going to do that.

Henri Nouwen writes:

Kindness is a beautiful human attribute. When we say, “She is a kind person” or “He surely was kind to me,” we express a very warm feeling. In our competitive and often violent world, kindness is not the most frequent response. But when we encounter it we know that we are blessed. Is it possible to grow in kindness, to become a kind person? Yes, but it requires discipline. To be kind means to treat another person as your “kin,” your intimate relative. We say, “We are kin” or “He is next of kin.” To be kind is to reach out to someone as being of “kindred” spirit.

Here is the great challenge: All people, whatever their color, religion, or sex, belong to humankind and are called to be kind to one another, treating one another as brothers and sisters. There is hardly a day in our lives in which we are not called to this.

I can purpose to listen even when I disagree.

The Wrecking Ball of Grace

In the aftermath of loss, relationships suffer.

Sometimes it’s because of harsh words exchanged in the heat of emotional moments.

Sometimes it’s due to disagreements about how to deal with ongoing issues. Often, it’s because most people just don’t know what to say and don’t know what to do in the presence of great pain and suffering.

Days and weeks and months pass and one day we wake up and realize that a previously close relationship is now distant and strained.

I know that in my grief I have felt abandoned by people I felt sure would stand with me, would never leave me, would be my most stalwart encouragers.

And I know, too, that I have shut some people out. Some were too chipper or too quick to offer platitudes and others just seemed intolerant of my ongoing pain and sorrow.

Walls have been erected.

My heart sectioned off and my world divided into “us” and “them”.

I’m sorry for that. That’s not the way I want it to be.

Walls between people are built brick by brick.

A word spoken or not spoken. A call, text or message misinterpreted or mistimed.

But they can be brought down with one blow.

Grace is a wrecking ball that breaks through walls and stone cold hearts.

Grace given and grace received.

A call, a text, an email or message that says, “I’m thinking of you. I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch.”

Or a card sent the old fashioned way filled with love to assure a wounded heart that it is not abandoned or forgotten.

“”I’m sorry.”

“I miss you.”

“I love you.”

It may not be easy and it might take several attempts.

But in the end, who can refuse extended arms and an open heart?

Ask Away!

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard or read bereaved parents second-guessing themselves. They say or write: “I know you’re not supposed to ask ‘why?'”

Baloney! The Psalms are FILLED with “Why God?”

Questions are where the rubber meets the road in the Christian life.

Questions are where I learn to submit my heart to the lordship of a God Who loves me and Who has a perfect plan even when all I can see is pain.

Questions are the way I weed my garden of faith-they force me to choose between trust and doubt.

“There are those who say faith means you never doubt. Those who live by the creed, ‘Don’t ask questions!’

But I say faith is exactly what you cling to in the margins of doubt–when you have exhausted all the possibilities that exist in the physical, you-can-touch-it world and yet you KNOW there is MORE”

Read the rest of this post here:Debate and Faith

Words Matter

“Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” ~Jesus

Have you ever had a moment when words “slipped out” before you could stop them?

I have.

Standing amidst the wreckage of hasty speech I would do almost anything to stuff them back inside.

I like to pretend that I didn’t mean what I said. I like to imagine that the words don’t reflect what I really feel.

And in the wake of burying a child, I find that I am ill-prepared to keep my mouth shut. Words tumble out because my emotions are almost always close to the surface.

The truth is, a glass only spills what’s already inside and my mouth only spews what’s hiding in my heart.

I am trying hard to fill my heart with grace, love and mercy so that what comes out heals rather than hurts.

I’m not always successful-the heart is deep and my wound is great.

But being wounded myself, I long to be an instrument of healing and peace in this broken world.

Leaning on the Everlasting Arms

Growing up digesting Disney fairy tales can warp your sense of reality.

There are no unblemished princes or perfect princesses out there. The bad guys don’t always get what they deserve and the good guys don’t always win.

At least not here on earth.

Read the rest here: Messy Lives, Merciful Savior

June Challenge: Haiku

Day Seventeen of Kathleen Duncan’s June 1-30 challenge.

The prompt: Write a Haiku (Seventeen Syllables)

It was an interesting challenge to distill a message to just 17 syllables.

I have long believed that each life is also a song.

This is mine:

I am a song bird.

I sing love, grace, mercy, peace-

I learned the hard way.

Unhealthy Denial

Ignoring pain doesn’t make it go away.

The world we live in is a broken place where bad things happen and life can be hard.

Sometimes believers in Christ can convince themselves that admitting their world is dark with pain or suffering or questions diminishes the power of God–that it speaks ill of God or that it means God is insufficient to uphold us in our weakness.

If I pretend that I’m never afraid, or that I never experience darkness, I am denying others my aid.

Even worse, I may be shaming them to silence, sending the message that if they are experiencing pain, something is wrong with THEM.

God of the Day and God of the Night

Who’s Holding on to Whom?

I have three surviving children.

And every time I don’t hear from one of them when I expect to or I can’t reach them on their cell phone I have to take a deep breath and speak truth to my heart.

God began to do a good work in you. And I am sure that he will keep on doing it until he has finished it. He will keep on until the day Jesus Christ comes again. Philippians 1:6 WE

I have to talk myself out of plunging headlong off the precipice of dark “What ifs” that is always at the edge of my concious thought.

I have to remember that even when I am right there with them, I am not in control.

I am not the one who orders their days and determines their steps.

You see all things; You saw me growing, changing in my mother’s womb; Every detail of my life was already written in Your book; You established the length of my life before I ever tasted the sweetness of it. Psalm 139:16 VOICE

Losing Dominic suddenly, unexpectedly and violently has shaken my faith. All the verses I recited and underlined and “claimed” now bear witness against my doubting heart.

So I remind myself that God had a plan, He has a plan and that He worked His plan through Dominic and is now working it through me.

“Now when David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; [and] he was buried with his ancestors” Acts 13:36 NIV

Here I am, a bit more than two years later, and I can say this:

If my grip on Jesus was the determining factor in staying connected, I would have fallen into the pit long ago. If MY hold on hope decided whether or not the rope slipped through my hands, I would be lost.

But while I can muster the strength (sometimes) to grab desperately at a thread of His garment, I am not the one who holds Him. He is the One who holds ME.

Jesus said:

“I give them eternal life, and they shall never lose it or perish throughout the ages. [To all eternity they shall never by any means be destroyed.] And no one is able to snatch them out of My hand.”

John 10:28 AMPC

I still have work to do, and I don’t want to be immobilized by fear of what might happen. I don’t want to waste the days that I am given by worrying about the ones that might be taken away.

For we are God’s [own] handiwork (His workmanship), recreated in Christ Jesus, [born anew] that we may do those good works which God predestined (planned beforehand) for us [taking paths which He prepared ahead of time], that we should walk in them [living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us to live]. Ephesians 2:10 AMPC

So I recite truth to my heart.

I sing courage to my spirit.

I remind myself that while I am not in control, but I am loved by the One Who is.

A Strong Tower

In the days when battle was conducted face-to-face, before missiles were guided from planes and ships and game consoles continents away-a fortified tower, a castle or a deep cave were places of refuge and safety.

Death could be imminent, but if a harried combatant could make it to one of these places he could catch his breath, regroup, plan a counter-attack.

Grief feels like a battle.

And I often find myself looking for refuge. I need a safe place to find my strength again.

Praying is still very hard for me.

I know my Father is listening, I know Jesus is with me but I don’t really have much to say. The one great cry of my heart cannot be answered, my son will not return.

So I run to the promise that is His Name.

When I can’t even whisper a prayer, I speak peace to my soul by declaring Who He is.

Years ago I memorized this verse:

The name of the Lord is a fortified tower; the righteous run to it and are safe. Proverbs 18:10 NIV

And it has been a light in the darkest nights of this dark, dark journey.

I know many who read my blog are fellow bereaved parents and they are battling too. They are struggling to find a way to face another day without their beloved child. They hurt and they long for the comfort of hearing God’s voice in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

Prayer might be hard for them too.

I want to speak courage to your heart.

I want to whisper hope to your battered soul.

When you can’t speak, when you feel defeated, when you are running for your life from the enemy who would have you believe that there is no safe place, remember that God sees you. He is your refuge.

His name is powerful and He is mighty to save.

Many of us have memorized the twenty-third psalm. We don’t see it in English, but these verses contain several names of God.

At the start of this passage, God reveals Himself as Jehovah-Roi: “The Lord my Shepherd”.

He is the God Who sees, He is the God Who is present, He is the God Who guides me even here in this awful valley.

So I declare the truth that God is my Shepherd to whoever and whatever is chasing me.

I declare that God is with me to my weary soul even when I cannot feel His Presence.

I shout, “God is my Shepherd” to the darkness and run for safety to His arms.

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