I walk the half-mile stretch down and back on my driveway at least four or five times a day.
In the winter I follow the sun.
In the summer I follow the shade.
The path I choose to take either adds to or subtracts from my ability to make the trek in relative comfort.
Read the rest here: Sun & Shade: Picking My Path
I am not sticking my head in the sand.
My family has regular discussions about current events and while I don’t watch televised news, I read widely each day about what’s going on in the world.
Even still, a steady diet of nothing but dire reports is anything but good for a heart.
So each day I try to focus on some happy moments as well.
Let me share a few with you.
This past week I’ve gotten a good bit of outdoor work done, sweated tons and walked farther and longer than usual.
Our weather turned from rainy and excessively humid to sunny and actually pretty dry (for Alabama!).
My chickens are laying well and our little local produce man had watermelons and peaches.
This afternoon I’ll hop in my not-very-big above ground pool and cool off between chores while Frodo the goat watches me.
Black-eyed Susans are blooming by my mailbox.
I had lunch with a friend.
And I had a video chat with four other amazing bereaved mamas.
Finding at least one thing each day for which to be thankful helps my heart hold onto hope.
I make a conscious effort to breathe in beauty and enjoy those moments.
When I was fresh on this journey it was hard to receive anything as “good”. Everything was filtered through the lens of loss. So I understand if you think this is a futile exercise.
But eventually I was able to see more than my son’s absence and feel more than pain and sorrow.
Life is still life and there are still beautiful moments. Sunlight through the trees, a baby’s laugh, friends and family around the table, flowers, furry friends, a favorite meal, or the perfect cup of coffee are all things I enjoy. They don’t take away the sorrow of missing my son but they are worth celebrating.
I’m learning to hang onto them with both hands and to cherish them as a gift.
Think about it.
What made you smile this week?
Wanna share?
I’ll be honest.
Before Dominic ran ahead to Heaven I could be awfully self-righteous.
I could not understand how some people (notice how I dehumanized them by lumping them together) couldn’t just act right, do right, pick themselves us by their bootstraps and get on with life.
Not anymore.
Now I am more apt to wonder, “What awful thing has happened to this person?” instead of “What is WRONG with them????” when I notice someone acting a bit out of character or not quite living up to their commitments or somehow missing the mark of societal expectations.
Take all this coronavirus craziness.
Some of us are being more cautious.
Some of us consider caution a sign of insecurity or fear or lack of faith.
None of us have enough information (really!) to make an informed decision.
Lack of testing, lack of research, lack of transparency and not enough time means we are all essentially guessing what is the most prudent and appropriate individual response to this threat. I’m choosing not to judge anyone’s choices even if they are different than my own.
I’ve felt judged many times in the past six years since Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.
People who haven’t buried a child really don’t understand how it changes EVERYTHING. But that doesn’t stop them from offering an opinion or advice or making comments on social media that are clearly intended to correct or shame me.
Now that things are opening up on the back side of blanket stay-at-home orders I’m probably going to be judged again.
What people don’t know about me-what they can’t see and can’t know unless they ask-is I suffer from an autoimmune disease. The treatment impacts my ability to fight off infections. It lowers my white blood cell count. It makes me susceptible to things that other folks never have to worry about.
I had latent (non-contagious and asymptomatic) tuberculosis a couple years ago.
I’m not part of population that would normally be considered “at risk” and only found out about it because it’s protocol to test for TB before prescribing some of the more potent medicines used in treating rheumatoid arthritis. I still have no idea where I was exposed to it.
Eight months of antibiotics with unpleasant side effects later I was disease free.
Based on first person accounts of what it feels like to have Covid19 (not even considering the most dire outcomes) that was a cakewalk.
So I’m not standing in line to try my hand at surviving this new threat.
And I have other, very real, very painful, experiences which inform my choice to be more cautious. I know that regardless of odds, of treatment and of what a heart HOPES will happen, things don’t always go as planned or as predicted.
I know the horror death leaves in its wake. I know the toll trauma takes on a life left behind.
My family has already had to deal with more than I could have imagined and I will not purposely expose them to something else if I can help it.
So regardless of local, state or national guidelines, protocol or recommendations I will be mostly staying home.
It’s not lack of faith. It’s not fear. It’s prudence based on experience.
You can make a different choice and I will absolutely positively respect that.
Agreement is not a prerequisite for kindness.
Your shoes are not my shoes.
And that’s OK.
I know (really, I do!) that people MEAN well.
I understand the temptation to share cute little sayings like these in response to a bereaved parent’s Facebook post.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/04/27/why-didnt-i-think-of-that/
Oh, how easy it would be to become bitter!
If I’m honest, part of me just wants to tell the world to “Get lost!”.
But the wiser part of me knows that’s neither a helpful nor healthy response to even this most awful burden of child loss.
Lament is how we bring our sorrow to God. Without lament, we won’t know how to process pain. Silence, bitterness, and even anger can dominate our spiritual lives instead.
~Mark Vroegop – Dark Clouds Deep Mercy
Because my bitter spirit wouldn’t stop with me. It would spread like kudzu on an Alabama roadside.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/04/14/bitterness-is-a-terrible-legacy/
I don’t often pull the “you never know if today may be the last day for someone you love” card.
But I’m going to do it now.
People. Just stop.
Your need for a latte does not trump the necessity to stay away from potential sources of infection. Your need to socialize with friends because you “just can’t stand to sit inside one more minute” is not an excuse for ignoring requests from health care professionals to stay home.
Your careless and carefree attitude is putting others at risk.
It’s entirely possible that if or when you contract Covid19 it’s no more than a miserable two weeks. But it’s also entirely possible that the person you give it to might die.
Trust me, you don’t want to be the one who brought it home to your mama, your daddy, your spouse or your child.
There is nothing easy about watching someone you love suffer. It’s even harder to be forbidden from sitting next to his or her bedside, holding a hand, wiping a fevered forehead.
Dominic died almost six years ago. It is no easier on my heart this minute than it was then.
This is not a joke, not overblown, not a government conspiracy or a hoax perpetrated by whomever you think might do such a thing.
Do you love your family and friends?
REALLY love them?
If you do, then STAY HOME!
For those of you (like two of my children) who perform essential work during this crisis, thank you.
And may God place a hedge of protection around you and those you love.
❤
It really is possible to stay home.
Our family proved it more than 25 years ago.
Four kids, seven and under, one mama and a tiny house survived one solid month of alone time.
The chicken pox made its rounds in our local weekly Bible study and pretty much every kid that hadn’t had it got it. So it wasn’t long until more than half the class was home riding out the wave of itchy, blotchy skin, fever and discomfort.
We couldn’t get it all at once. Oh no!
It went through my four one at a time with a bit of overlap so we were slathering on calamine lotion by the quart, taking baking soda and oatmeal baths several times a day and watching waaaayyyy more television than any of my children had seen so far in their lives.
It took slightly over a month for us to finally be free of it and I’ll admit it tried my patience. I spent a lot of time looking through the windows at a busy world outside, longing to be part of it.
There was a wisteria vine in my across-the-street neighbor’s yard that crept up the telephone poll outside the living room window.
I watched as it went from brown twig to wisps of green and finally dripping purple in all its glory while I was stuck inside trying to keep unwell children happy and stop them scratching themselves into infection.
I lost that spring. We all did.
But we came out the other side just fine.
I lost another spring in 2014.
And this time it was absolutely, positively NOT fine.
It’s still not fine.
Because of both springs, I will tell you this: If staying home means I can be part of the solution to the spread of Covid 19 and perhaps spare another family a lost spring, a lost loved one, a frightening brush with death-I’m happy to do it.
My personal comfort, sense of freedom, arrogant assumption that I am the exception to the well-intentioned and common sense advice of healthcare professionals is a tiny, tiny price to pay in order to slow down the pace of this disease so those who need extra attention, hospitalization and intervention get it.
Losing a spring is an unfortunate happenstance.
Losing a son, a daughter, a brother, sister, mother or father is a tragedy.
Hey-I survived over a month with four itchy, irritable children and no internet, no food delivery, no grocery pick up, no online buddies-you can manage a couple weeks.
I promise.
❤
Not every soul lives to be “full of years”.
Some are snatched away when life has barely begun while others live a bit but not long enough. Even those whose lives span decades seem gone too soon for those left behind.
Dominic died just six weeks short of his twenty-fourth birthday.
My mother lived four days past her eighty-first.
We didn’t expect either of them to leave us when they did. Yet, here we are.
A day dawned that did not include them and there will be a sunrise that does not include me.
There is a limit to my opportunity to leave a legacy of love, of influence and of purpose to those who come behind. I want it to be one that lasts, that matters and that has eternal impact.
That’s why it matters how I spend my days.
Because days make up weeks which make up months, years and decades and then it’s over.
That doesn’t make me sad-because what comes next is more wonderful than what I have here-no matter how wonderful I think it is.
But it makes me thoughtful.
Paul reminds the Ephesians:
“Look carefully then how you walk!
“Live purposefully and worthily and accurately, not as the unwise and witless, but as wise (sensible, intelligent people), Making the very most of the time [buying up each opportunity], because the days are evil. Therefore do not be vague and thoughtless and foolish, but understanding and firmly grasping what the will of the Lord is.”
~Ephesians 5:15-17 Amplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC)
While the days are often long, the years are short.
I don’t get a “do over” but I can do better.
God has prepared good works for me to do. My responsibility is to look for them and to do them.
I LOVE these verses in Ephesians:
Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
Ephesians 2:7-10 MSG
Do you hear what Paul is saying?
God saved us from sin and death. But that’s not all!
He saved us TO a life of loving service. And He’s already set the opportunities in place for us to simply take advantage of as we walk on in our lives!
I don’t have to go out of my way to find them. I simply have to offer up myself as a living sacrifice and trade my will for His.
God never wastes anything.
Not even suffering.
I’ve served in some capacity within my local Body for my entire adult life. But when Dominic died, I found I was so broken I couldn’t do it anymore. I had to step back, nurse my shattered heart and try to heal.
But about a year and a half after he left for Heaven, I felt God nudging me to try again.
So I did.
I started sharing my struggle, my faith and my experience in daily blog posts.
What began as kind of grudging obedience to God’s prompting has become a lifeline for me and for other bereaved parents.
It takes time. It takes effort. It takes commitment.
And there are days when I don’t want to do it.
But I’m convinced it’s one of the works God prepared beforehand that I should do.
There will be a day when my work will cease and the book will be closed on my earthly life.
Until then, I will strive to remember what Jesus told His disciples: “While it is daytime, we must do the works of the One who sent Me. But when the sun sets and night falls, this work is impossible.” (John 9:4 VOICE)
What has God equipped and called YOU to do?
What experiences in your life, gifts and talents, opportunities is God weaving together so You can do the good works He’s placing in your path?
Someone needs you to share YOUR story.
Someone needs you to help them connect THEIR story to God’s story.
Look around, they’re right in front of you. ❤
This post is the second in a series I began writing for a presentation I gave last Saturday entitled “Don’t Grow Weary In Doing Well: Making Kingdom Work a Priority”.
If you want to read the first post, you can find it here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2020/02/07/today-is-a-gift/
❤
“Today is a gift, that’s why they call it the present.” ~unknown
Do we treat each day as a gift from a loving God, a present wrapped up in His grace and goodness, to be opened with joy, used with care and set lovingly on the shelf of life when done?
Or do we bear it as a burden?
I’ll admit not all days are equal.
Some ARE burdens.
No one (I don’t think!) loves going to the dentist. Few of us are keen on doing taxes or taking tests or slogging through the rain to work or school.
Some of us have much heavier burdens as we wake to an empty bed, an empty heart or an empty bank account.
But even these awful days are a gift.
Why?
Because God’s mercies are new every morning. The rising sun brings fresh opportunity to rest in, rely on and relish God’s grace, goodness and promised strength.
And every new day means we have more time.
More time to love the people we love, more time to find new people to love, more time to do the good works which God in Christ has planned for us to do.
We wake each morning to the same 24 hours given every other soul on this planet. It’s ours to choose.
How will we spend it? Will we fill it with foolish things? With important things?
Here’s how I do it:
And surprisingly I manage most days to get it done (even checking social media).
Life is not an emergency, although I often live as if it is.
I careen around the corner of hour after hour like I’m driving a car out of control, begging someone to make it stop.
I can make it stop.
I can take my foot off the accelerator, park it and decide where and how fast I’m going to drive tomorrow.
Every single day is an opportunity to choose.
I can start fresh and make time for the things that are truly important.
If I want to. ❤
When I opened the door to that deputy and received the news, my world suddenly spiraled out of control.
Over the next days, weeks months I would have to do things I never imagined I might do and certainly things I did not WANT to do. So, so much I couldn’t change. So many ways I lost the right to choose.
And I hated it!
Wasn’t long and that sense of helplessness permeated every corner. Even when it didn’t belong there. I began to feel as if I couldn’t control anything.
So in many ways I stopped trying.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/02/02/things-i-can-control/
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