Tag: choice

Accommodating Grief

The doctor I see every six months or so for my rheumatoid arthritis always fusses at me.

One of the routine questions is, “How’s your pain level?”

I usually say, “About a three.”

And then she looks at my hands and my feet-at the swollen joints and twisted toes-and shakes her head.

But here’s the deal:  sure they hurt, sure I can’t do all the things I used to do, sure I have to do many things differently than I did them when my hands and feet were unaffected by this disease-but I’m STILL moving and doing what needs to be done.

I don’t really know how to do anything else.

And that’s how it is with this grief I lug around-it’s heavier some days than others-but I’m STILL moving and doing what needs to be done.

fall still moving.jpg

This is not the life I thought I would be living, but it’s the life I have.

So I make accommodations for my sorrow just like I make accommodations for my hurting hands and crooked toes.

  • I try not to over-schedule my days.  If I have an appointment I mark it on the calendar and refuse to pile other commitments on top of it.  That way if I’m wiped out I have some built in down time.
  • I prioritize what needs to be done.  Whether it is for a week or a day, I jot down a list (still using paper-but a phone would work) and then decide what are the two or three MOST important tasks that must be done in that time frame.  If I find myself running behind because it’s a hard grief day (or week), I can quickly make choices that ensure the needful things are done and the others laid aside for when I have more energy to do them.  I’m less anxious about what I don’t get finished because I know I did the most important things first.
  • I build rest into my days.  When I’m overtired, I’m more susceptible to grief attacks. I pause every now and then to sit or take a quick walk outside or simply change my work from detail-oriented to broad strokes.  I have more flexibility because I work at home but even in an office it’s possible.  My husband walks every day on his lunch hour-sunshine and physical activity make his afternoons easier to bear.
  • I ask for help. When I’m drowning in grief, I reach out for a lifeline.  There’s no shame in asking for help.  I have a good friend that I can text or call anytime I need to and ask for prayer or a listening ear.  I belong to a couple of online grief groups and they are full of people who understand my pain and will lift me up in prayer and encourage my heart when it feels especially broken.
  • I accept my limitations.  My toes don’t allow me to wear beautiful shoes anymore so I’ve learned to wear what fits instead of what’s in fashion.  I am not the same person I was before I buried a child so I’m learning to live with the new me.  I don’t like crowds.  I don’t like unexpected change.  I feel anxious in unfamiliar places and around strangers.  I make choices that limit my exposure to those things when possible.
  • I shake off the really awful day.  I can’t help that some days take a nosedive into terrible as soon as I leave the bed. I admit that grieving is hard, that it will continue to be hard.  But I won’t let my worst days be my only days.

I am not in control of everything, but I can control some things.

I would not have chosen this life for myself, but I can make choices that help make it bearable.

losses-and-choices-nouwn

 

 

 

Choosing the Eternal Path

jer-6-16-web-21

It’s easy to develop the habit of hurrying.

An inner voice screams, “I’ve got to do it NOW, I’m running out of time!”

When I talk to people, or overhear others’ conversations, they say, “I just don’t have time” or “I’m so busy, I don’t know what to do”.

I have said it myself more than once.

For most of us in America it seems that we rush from place to place, from event to event, from meal to meal, from crisis to crisis.

But when I read the Gospels I don’t feel a sense of rush at all. 

Jesus expressed urgency when proclaiming that the kingdom of God was near, but He was never in a hurry.

He walked everywhere He went even though His was the most important ministry ever executed on the earth and it would have been much more efficient to choose a faster mode of transportation.

The message I receive from His life in this regard is that the journey is as important as the destination.

We justify our lifestyle by claiming we have no control. 

We just can’t help the fact that our cell phones ring, that we have to go here or there and that we can’t seem to get a handle on our schedules.

I think that as Christ followers, God would say:  “Choose!”

We do have control over how we spend our time. 

It is true that we have to fulfill our God-given responsibilities and that may include work-hours we can’t choose.  But even those who work full-time have many hours that they direct.

How many conversations do we neglect with the very people God has put in our path because our minds are focused on the next thing? 

How many times are we multi-tasking with our phones or Ipads and missing a divine appointment to show the love of Jesus to someone right in front of us?

God has not called us to be a people out of breath, with no energy or heart for the ministry He has given us. 

He is the Lord of the Sabbath-the King of Peace and the Giver of Rest.  He invites us to join Him and to take His yoke upon us-a yoke neither heavy nor cumbersome.

In Jeremiah, God called Israel back to Himself with these words:

Thus says the Lord; Stand by the roads and look; and ask for the eternal paths, where the good, old way is; then walk in it; and you will find rest for your souls

Jeremiah 6: 16

Our techno-toys should be used as tools not as taskmasters. 

The activities that fill our calendars should be evaluated in light of the greater call God has on our lives, not chosen just because our friends are doing them.

We need to do “first things first” and make room for people before things and conversation before commerce.

We are free in Christ to choose. 

Abundant life is a gift of God to be experienced right now, right where we are.  

When we refuse to get sucked into the “busy-ness” of our culture, we open up a world of possibility to be the people God has called us to be.

The Cup of Sorrow

See, here’s the thing: to the outside world, my son’s death happened at a single point in time.

But to me, his death is a continuous event.

I must lift the cup of sorrow every day to parched lips.  I must choose to take it to the One Who can help me lift it.

Jesus knows this cup.

He knows my pain:  My Cup Overflows

 

Priorities

Browsing a book store (a favorite pasttime) I came on this selection in a collection of poems by Robert Frost:

A Time to Talk

When a friend calls to me from the road

And slows his horse to a meaning walk,

I don’t stand still and look around

On all the hills I haven’t hoed,

And shout from where I am, What is it?

No, not as there is a time to talk.

I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,

Blade-end up and five feet tall,

And plod:  I go up to the stone wall

For a friendly visit.

It pierced my heart.

How many times have I chosen to ignore a friend’s need for companionship-brushing past importantly as I pursued the day’s tasks?

“I’ll get around to it when I have more time,” I think to myself.

And then one day there is no more time.  The friend I kept putting off has left this world for the next and I can’t retrieve the missed opportunities.

Nothing stings like words unsaid, hugs not given or love left bound in a heart instead of set free to bless another.

C.S. Lewis said:

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously – no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.”

And I think I don’t have time?

Of all the souls born on this planet, Jesus had the most important work to do.

Yet He purposed to include people at every turn.

He healed the sick.  He spoke hope to the woman at the well and the woman caught in adultery.  He rebuked religious leaders who were more interested in burdening the faithful than guiding them to God.

Jesus walked everywhere-surely it would have been more EFFICIENT to let the Holy Spirit whisk Him from place to place as He did Phillip after speaking to the Ethiopian.

In walking, the Light of the World  was building relationship-He was speaking truth to the twelve who would be the foundation of His church.

And relationship takes time.  There is nothing instant about it.

It is clear from the life of Christ that after His Father, people were His priority.

Few of us will be called to great public tasks or lofty visionary ministry.  But each of us has been called to carry the light and life of our Saviour to every person we meet.

If we are to follow in the footsteps of our Master, then people must be our priority too.

So I will set aside my “to do” list when someone comes calling.  I will cross the street to meet that person I remember from school or church.  I’ll send a card to the sick relative and remind her that I love her and will pray for her recovery.

I won’t lock love in my heart and hoard it like gold.

I’ll shed it abroad so that it speaks courage to everyone I meet.

“Imagine what our real neighborhoods would be like if each of us offered, as a matter of course, just one kind word to another person.”
– Mr. Rogers

Surrender

“Follow Me,”  Jesus said to the twelve.

“Follow Me,” Jesus said to me when I was just a child.

“Yes,” I replied-not knowing or counting the cost. 

If it was a single commitment without opportunity for turning back then it would be easy.

But it’s not.  

Every day I have to face the question, “Did God REALLY say?” Boy that serpent knew just where to aim the spear of doubt so it would cause the greatest damage.

Can I believe that God is in control?  Can I believe that He is good?  Can I believe that He loves me?

Can I believe all those things when my circumstances scream, “NO!”

But I HAVE to believe.  

Because if I can’t trust God, then I am without hope.  If I can’t rely on His Word then there’s no foundation and no future.  If He is not Who He says He is, then I should just quit now.

So I find myself at the foot of the cross, again.  Facing my fears and having to choose: Who shall I serve?

choose this day lion

Surrender is hard.  Daily surrender is harder.

I cannot remake my heart.  I cannot breathe life into my own breathless soul. 

I can only place myself on the altar and allow God’s Spirit to do it for me.

So here I am.

Again.

Brothers and sisters, God has shown you his mercy. So I am asking you to offer up your bodies to him while you are still alive. Your bodies are a holy sacrifice that is pleasing to God. When you offer your bodies to God, you are worshiping him in the right way.

Romans 12: 1 NIRV

 

 

Hard Choice

I usually refrain from commenting on current headlines.  

I’m not a fan of inflammatory social network back-and-forth.

And I’m pretty sure that if this post is circulated outside my typical readership, someone will react badly to what I say.

But I believe I can offer some perspective that might be missing from the voices yelling at each other over the recent sad incident at the Cincinatti Zoo.

So here it is:  I have buried a child.  

I know exactly what that mother and father would have faced if their child had been the one taken out of the enclosure lifeless.

And while I am deeply saddened by the loss of a beautiful, majestic and endangered gorilla, my heart cannot make peace with the idea that there was any other option than to secure the safety of that child.

Before I go further let me say this:  I am an animal lover.  I have always been an animal lover.  

I rescue spiders and moths and take them outside.  I step over worms and beetles.  I grow flowers for butterflies and feed the hummingbirds.  I don’t use pesticides on my yard.  I don’t kill snakes.

I respect life in all its forms.

But I think that we need to go beyond blaming/not blaming the parents and blaming/not blaming the zoo personnel to a root issue.

Sometimes we are left with hard choices that have to be made in a very short time.

Animals, especially endangered animals, get a lot of press these days.

Internet websites, videos on Youtube, traditional news outlets and glossy print magazines splash beautiful and moving pictures across our computers, phones and television screens.  I’m thankful that the hearts of humans are turning from exploitation to conservation.

And I’m glad there are programs like the one at the Cincinnatti Zoo working to save species that are otherwise headed for extinction.

The death of a child rarely gets the same attention.

Unless the death is the result of a sensational act of violence or a media-worthy accident, children die every day with only an obituary mention in a local newspaper.

So I understand the outrage generated by Harambe’s death.

And I understand how even parents of young children who have never buried a child could entertain the notion there was “some other option”.

But if we covered the stories of families who have lost children with the same zeal and creative journalism as we do the lives and deaths of endangered animals, that would change.

If the despair, heartbreak, brokenness and utter horror of bereaved parents’ lives were on display like the sickening piles of poached elephants and rhinos then at least we could have a discussion that was more informed and even-tempered.

Because it doesn’t matter whether or not that child’s parents looked the other way or should have known-once the child was in the enclosure and at the mercy of a gorilla, a choice had to be made.  

We can all second guess whether this or that could have been done.  

But if it were your child, I don’t think you would be guessing.  

And from the heart of a mother who can only visit her son at the cemetery, I’m not guessing either.  

grieving mother at grave

Choosing Brokenness

From the world’s perspective there are only two potential responses to trials-better or bitter.

I can either use the struggle to strengthen my resolve to take charge of my life or I can give up and give in, wallowing in self pity.  

If I embrace popular culture as my guide, the best outcome I can hope for is that I grow as a result of sorrow, pain, conflict, tragedy and hardship.

But Scripture tells me that there is a third option:  I can choose brokenness.  

I can choose to submit my heart and my life to God and His purpose.  

I can lie prostrate, unprotected, impotent and trust that the One Who made me will ultimately remake these shattered pieces of what’s left of my life into a masterpiece, declaring His faithfulness and goodness.

“But enduring deep pain and unchangeable circumstances requires continued commitment to face the fork in the road over and over, and to choose well each time.”

It is A Daily Struggle

 

Today’s Choice

Every day I have a choice:  do I allow grief to overwhelm me and harden my heart or do I cling to mercy and grace and embrace my vulnerability?

Losing a child is a uniquely painful experience, but we all face some kind of trial.  Every one of us carries a burden.  Each of us must decide.

And it’s not that easy.

Read more here:  A Daily Struggle