Some of us enter trembling through the door of a new year.
This last year wasn’t so good and our hearts are broken.
What if the next year is worse? How will we manage? Where can we hide from bad news, bad outcomes, disastrous trauma?
Truth is, we can’t.
So here we are, bravely marching in, hanging on to hope and begging God for mercy.
Read the rest here: New Year’s Prayer for Hurting Hearts
We don’t know what tomorrow will bring. We plot and plan and hope and dream but in the end we have very little control over how our story ultimately plays out.
So we are left each New Year’s Eve with some good memories, some not so good ones and some we cling to like gold from a treasure chest because they are all we have.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot and days of auld lang syne?
Never.
Read the rest here: New Year’s Eve and Auld Lang Syne
Just yesterday a fellow bereaved mom asked the question: What, exactly IS grief work?
We hear the term bandied around and while it means different things to different people, I use the phrase to encompass the mental, physical, psychological, emotional and relational work (and it is work!) a grieving heart must do in order to process and learn to carry sorrow and missing.
And while I won’t pretend to be an expert (except on my own experience) I do have a lot to say about what has helped, what has hurt and what I’ve learned over the nearly nine years since Dominic left us.
So the first topic I’m going to mine from old posts, from unfinished drafts and (hopefully!!) from hearing back from some of YOU is “Grief Work”.
I think it’s a good way to start a new year when our hearts are particularly tender from the holiday hoopla and all the internal discipline necessary to dwell among the uninitiated.
❤ Melanie
I have used the term for years and only recently has someone asked me to define it.
I guess I never realized that in all the writing about it, I’d never really explained what it meant.
So here goes.
Read the rest here: What, Exactly, IS “Grief Work”?
It’s kind of funny that a new calendar and a new year prompt folks who’ve been perfectly content to coast through the old one to make bold declarations of change.
I suppose it is the nature of humans to pause at the threshold and think crossing over means something more than a single footstep.
I’m tempted to join in from time to time myself.
The thing that stops me is a fundamental understanding that no matter what prayers, proclamations or promises we lift, declare or make to ourselves or others, time has a way of unraveling them all.
Still, when I began to see social media prompts to “pick a word” for 2024, I actually entertained it for a few seconds.
Instead of inspirational words like “perseverance”, “joy”, “presence”, “love”, etcetera, the only word that came to my mind was “boundaries”. Which sounds kind of selfish and not all that aspirational.
I think it probably springs from a place deep inside my soul.
A place I don’t often explore and even more rarely pay attention to. But a place I probably (definitely!) need to listen to and take seriously.
I have joked since turning sixty that if someone wants to mess with me “they picked the wrong decade!”.
Easier said than done.
A lifetime of bending over backwards (the name of my imaginary yoga studio) has bent my heart, life and personality toward giving in and giving up. Child loss took so much out of me that what was a tendency BEFORE is practically a policy AFTER.
Too often it’s too much trouble to try to explain why I need space, time, love, attention and just common courtesy. So I stuff, stuff, stuff and do whatever someone asks regardless of how much it costs in terms of time, effort or energy.
I’m trying to learn how to say (without being snarky) I don’t think I can meet a person’s expectations. I’m trying to learn how to take up space and quit shrinking into a corner.
I won’t lie.
It’s hard.
And I’ve been met with resistance.
But this year I’m determined to make it stick.
Some of us enter trembling through the door of a new year.
This last year wasn’t so good and our hearts are broken.
What if the next year is worse? How will we manage? Where can we hide from bad news, bad outcomes, disastrous trauma?
Truth is, we can’t.
So here we are, bravely marching in, hanging on to hope and begging God for mercy.
Read the rest here: New Year’s Prayer for Hurting Hearts
We don’t know what tomorrow will bring. We plot and plan and hope and dream but in the end we have very little control over how our story ultimately plays out.
So we are left each New Year’s Eve with some good memories, some not so good ones and some we cling to like gold from a treasure chest because they are all we have.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot and days of auld lang syne?
Never.
Read the rest here: New Year’s Eve and Auld Lang Syne
Years before Dominic ran ahead to Heaven I had a little magnet on my fridge of a sinking ship with the words, “Another Day, Another Disaster” printed below.
Our lives never did run according to plan (which was a source of serious irritation to this list making, schedule printing homeschool mama!).
But it was really just a joke-because we knew whatever “disaster” befell us, in the long run it wouldn’t be that hard to work around.
Now I know exactly what true disaster looks like and feels like.
I understand precisely how life altering here-one-minute-gone-the-next news shatters a heart, a family, a worldview and a future.
So my days of resolving this or promising to do (or not do) such and such each New Year are over, over, over.
All I can muster is taking time to assess what’s currently working, what definitely needs to change and then point my heart and mind in the direction of progress.
I try to arrange the day and physical surroundings to create space for the new habits I hope to acquire. I remove temptation, when possible, to make it harder to keep indulging the ones I want to be rid of.
Which leads me to a change I’d like to make in this space for the coming year.
Many of you have been faithful followers for months or years and your feedback, encouragement and support have been a huge blessing. I pray, in return, what I share helps your heart too.
I’ve had many requests to put the posts into a physical book or devotional but up to now I haven’t had the mental, emotional energy or time to do that.
There are almost 3,000 published posts and over 1,500 lurking in my draft folder. I have dozens more topics I long to cover but doing the research for and writing an original post usually takes two to three hours and I’ve been hard pressed to find that kind of time.
I’ve thought about the best way to work through what I’ve already written, discover gaps that need to be addressed, see what patterns emerge which might point toward the shape of a book or devotional and then get some help making it happen. I’ve decided that for at least a few months I’m going to group previous posts (and finish some draft posts!) on specific themes so it will be easier for me to accomplish this task and for others to give me feedback as I do.
The downside for readers is that if they want to read what I’ve written on a wider variety of subjects, they will have to either wait through a current theme or use the search feature to find it.
I can’t promise I’ll make it past the first month.
I’m no good at guessing what a day will bring much less a whole year!
But if you are willing to journey with me and help by commenting, I’m game to try.
I saw a cute meme on social media that said, “No one claim 2023 as THEIR year”. It made me laugh. But I get it.
I begin every January thinking that THIS year things will be more manageable, things will be brighter, easier (even a little?), somehow more predictable and enjoyable instead of just survivable. But, sure enough, February comes along and knocks those fool notions right out of my head.
My life is not one disaster after another. In fact, on a global scale my life is quite lovely. But it’s consistently filled with challenges and more-than-challenges that force me to recalibrate and adjust my sails to meet the gale force winds.
I first shared this last year and find it just as appropriate for the first day of 2023. I’m not making broad predictions, proclamations or resolutions.
I just plan to take things one day at a time.
❤ Melanie
This year has been challenging in ways I could never have imagined nor anticipated. It’s been that way for many of us I think.
Communal grief, pain and loss have wrapped themselves around the unique grief, pain and loss of hearts everywhere.
Definitely plenty to give a person pause.
And while I do believe it’s a good thing to reflect every so often I’m not certain it has to be on the same date every year.
Read the rest here: New Year Reflections
Some of us enter trembling through the door of a new year.
This last year wasn’t so good and our hearts are broken.
What if the next year is worse? How will we manage? Where can we hide from bad news, bad outcomes, disastrous trauma?
Truth is, we can’t.
So here we are, bravely marching in, hanging on to hope and begging God for mercy.
Read the rest here: New Year’s Prayer for Hurting Hearts
We don’t know what tomorrow will bring. We plot and plan and hope and dream but in the end we have very little control over how our story ultimately plays out.
So we are left each New Year’s Eve with some good memories, some not so good ones and some we cling to like gold from a treasure chest because they are all we have.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot and days of auld lang syne?
Never.
Read the rest here: New Year’s Eve and Auld Lang Syne
thelifeididntchoose 