encouragement – Page 13 – thelifeididntchoose

It ALL Matters

I hate to admit it but I not only like to prioritize tasks I often prioritize people.

I divide them into two columns “Matters” and “Doesn’t Matter” and give different weight and time and effort to each one depending on which side of the paper they are listed.

While that’s just fine for inanimate objects or household chores, it’s just plain wrong for relationships and people.

Because when I’m approaching another human being bearing the likeness of the God Who made him or her, I don’t get to decide how valuable they are.

That’s already been decided by Jesus Christ.

So my responsibility is to do precisely that task I have been sent to do at that moment-whether it is offering a smile, taking a meal, lending a helping hand or writing a note or making a phone call to encourage a tired heart.

Because it ALL matters.

How “Sunday School” Answers Isolate Wounded Hearts

We of the conservative right rail against political correctness.

We chafe at the constraints imposed from government, media and society that make us feel strangled when we share our faith, our opinion and our life values.

“Free speech!” we cry.

Yet the church has its own form of political correctness that often silences and isolates the very ones we should be serving.

It comes in the form of quick Scriptural replies to heart cries of “Where is God?” (“He’s right here beside you, faithful and good.”)

“Why did this happen?” (“All things work together for good for those that love the Lord.”)

“I don’t think I can take it anymore!” (“I can do all things through Christ.” Or “We are more than conquerors through Jesus.”)

Where is the compassion in that?

I firmly believe that:

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,

2 Timothy 3:16

Yet, wisdom isn’t only knowing WHAT to say, it’s also discerning WHEN to say it.

Sunday School answers only serve to widen the gap between hurting hearts and the hallelujah crowd.

What wounded hearts need first is understanding, not correction. They need to know that church is a safe place to speak the pain they carry. They need to be welcomed into a community of grace and mercy where healing can begin.

Feel and Deal to Heal

If I touch a hot stove my hand jerks away almost before my mind registers the searing pain. It’s reflex. Our bodies were designed to react to and protect us from things that cause pain.

Run away. Don’t go back. Set up barricades and warning signs so that others can be protected.

Most of the time, this reaction serves us well.

But sometimes those reflexes keep us from healing.

Anyone who’s had major surgery knows that when the nurses come in the next morning saying, “We’re going to get you out of bed today!”, the last thing you want to do is swing your legs over and stand up. It HURTS!

We want to avoid what hurts, not embrace it.

So it’s no surprise that when we suffer deep emotional wounds, our first response is to try to run away or bury them or ignore them. The last thing we want to do is face them.

But if I am to heal, I have to face them. I have to take hold of each place where the dagger of grief and sorrow and regret and anger has pierced my heart and examine it closely. I have to decide what to do with it, how to integrate it into my life after loss.

Grief is work! That is one of the reasons grievers need solitude as well as companionship on this journey. And that is why grief can’t be hurried along. It takes a great deal of time to do the work grief requires.

If instead of facing our pain, we try to run away or distract ourselves or numb ourselves with alcohol, food or drugs, we only prolong the process. Grief will not be ignored forever.

We must FEEL what we need to feel.

Then we must DEAL with those feelings-it might mean seeking a professional counselor or a trusted friend. Online or in-person grief support groups are a wonderful resource. Journaling can help too. But we have got to acknowledge and work through these feelings.

And then we can begin to HEAL Hearts that have embraced and made some sense of grief can begin to beat again. They can begin to love again and feel joy again. They can learn to carry both sorrow and happiness-to remember and honor the missing child while also honoring and loving family and friends still here.

It’s not a “once and done” exercise.

I have repeated these steps over and over in the soon to be [nine] years since Dominic ran ahead to heaven. New feelings show up at the door of my heart and I have to choose to feel them, to search for what they mean and why they are here and then allow them to be woven into the fabric of who I am NOW-this side of child loss.

It takes courage and stamina and determination, but it is the only way forward.

Strong or Weak? How Labels Harm the Hurting

Labels and categories can be helpful. When cruising the grocery aisles I’m thankful for the signs that point the way to “vegetables” or “baking needs”.

But labels can be harmful when applied to people.

Read the rest here: Strong or Weak? How Labels Harm the Hurting

ALL Things Through Christ

It is kind of a catchy saying to plaster across a Christian school’s gymnasium wall.

I know the one who decided to put it there meant well. But “I can do all things through Christ Who gives me strength” is absolutely NOT about lifting weights, running an extra lap or hitting a ball out of the park.

No. No. NO.

Can we just look at it in context, please?

I’m glad in God, far happier than you would ever guess—happy that you’re again showing such strong concern for me. Not that you ever quit praying and thinking about me. You just had no chance to show it. Actually, I don’t have a sense of needing anything personally. I’ve learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I’m just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I’ve found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. I don’t mean that your help didn’t mean a lot to me—it did. It was a beautiful thing that you came alongside me in my troubles.

Phillipians 4::12-14 MSG

Paul was thanking friends for their concern and aid. But he didn’t want them to think he was desperately needy. He was assuring them that because he had found utter fulfillment in Christ and through Christ he could be content no matter his outward circumstances.

But there is something else here too-another tidbit overlooked in our desire to lift verses out of context.

While Paul was content in his circumstances, while he was at peace and settled in his soul, he was also deeply grateful that his friends had remembered him. He was encouraged that they had sent aid and lifted prayers and inquired as to his well-being.

Being content does not preclude discouragement.

I can feel both deep peace and experience confusion over my present circumstances.

It’s just then that I need faithful friends to remind me that I’m not alone and I’m not abandoned. That is precisely the moment my spirit cries out for compassionate companionship.

This life is not meant to be lived alone-even in a prison cell.

It’s meant to be lived in community with others who come alongside and call courage to our hearts.

Baby Steps and Falling Forward

Sometimes I schedule a post the night before and wake up to a day that contradicts everything I just wrote.

Grief is like that.

Good day. Bad day. Better day. Worse day.

I can barely predict one moment to the next, much less a day or a week.

It’s easy for me to become discouraged when I stare at my own feet-measuring paltry progress when I long for leaps and bounds.

But truth is, no life is lived primarily by giant strides. It’s mostly baby steps and falling forward.

Got up this morning? Step.

Remembered to make that phone call? Step.

Smiled at the bird outside the window? Step.

Looked at Dominic’s picture and treasured the memory instead of crying? Step.

And when I trip over my broken heart listening to a song on the radio and tumble headlong into wracking sobs-I reach out and fall forward, still making a little progress toward learning to live through a day.

It doesn’t matter how fast or how far I’ve traveled in this Valley.

It only matters that I refuse to give up.

Note To Self: Forward is Forward

I’m pretty sure the first time I wrote a note to myself was in second grade.

I had discovered a book of quotes and decided that some were worth remembering so I copied them down and taped them to my bedroom wall

Now I have notes all over the house-on kitchen cabinets, the refrigerator door, my bathroom mirror, above my bed-anywhere my eyes might land when my heart needs encouragement.

Here are the ones I have posted now:

[Be present.]

I don’t want to miss a single moment with the ones I love because I know too well that more moments are not promised.

[Choose to listen.]

It’s so easy to babble on and not HEAR the other person in front of me or on the phone. I already know what I’M thinking and feeling, listening is the only way to know what THEY’RE thinking and feeling.

[Escape ruts.]

Habits are helpful when they remind me to brush my teeth. Not so much when they lead me down paths of fruitless relationship patterns and knee-jerk responses. I’m not a thoughtless amoeba. I can change.

[Forward is forward.]

If I am ONE INCH closer to my goal then I have made progress. I refuse to be discouraged, no matter how slowly I am walking, crawling or limping ahead.

[Laugh!]

Laughter makes life lighter. There is already too much heaviness in this journey. Never miss a chance to laugh and lighten the load.

[Do small things with great love.]

I will never take a national stage or be able to address giant problems, but I can bend down to kiss a skinned knee, open a door for an old lady and bake cookies for my neighbor. I won’t neglect or despise the small things waiting for the big ones that will never come along.

[The best is yet to come.]

The life I see is not all the life there is. In fact, it’s not even the best life there is. The best is yet to come when all this pain and sorrow and hurt will be redeemed. My heart and my family will be restored. My tears will be wiped away and I will stand in the glorious Presence of God and Christ forever.

[Love wins.]

I have a choice of what I allow to fill my broken heart. I will not choose bitterness. Bitterness is buried with the heart that carries it. But love lasts forever. Its impact ripples through eternity. It cannot be silenced or stopped.

To The Friends Who Stay

Sticking with a friend whose life is hard and is going to continue to be hard is not for the faint of heart.

Not all wounds can be healed.

Not all problems have a resolution.

Not all relationships follow a path that leads to a happy ending.

So here’s to the friends that don’t give up, that refuse to leave and whose presence remind me that while life is painful, it is also beautiful.

Here’s to the ones whose commitment to love me in the dark places reminds me that love still lives.

You’re my lifeline.

Something To Sing About

If you live in the city or a heavily-developed neighborhood you may only see a few birds. But out here in the country, with plenty of cover and a variety of bugs, trees and weeds, there are dozens of species living within earshot of my house.

And I love, love, love hearing their songs.

Sometimes it’s the keening wail of a hawk flying high and searching for something to eat. Sometimes it’s an owl calling to its mate or warning off another suitor. Often it’s the chitter-chatter of wrens or robins or cardinals as they go about their daily business and fuss over patches of ground finding food.

The blue-jays chase the squirrels.

Mockingbirds dive-bomb crows.

Each one doing what it was created to do, not worrying about a thing.

A veritable chorus fills the air.

And at night I get a lovely bonus-a whippoorwill’s voice drifts toward my window through the dark reminding me that not everyone is ready to fall asleep.

All these songs make my heart sing too.

They lift my spirit and fill me with hope.

They remind me that I have also been given a song though I often forget it.

Yet in the light of day, the Eternal shows me His love.
When night settles in and all is dark, He keeps me company—
His soothing song, a prayerful melody to the True God of my life.

Psalm 42:8 VOICE

But when I choose to remember and sing, it calls courage to my heart.

Repost: Mother’s Day as a Bereaved Mother

I didn’t know last year that there was an International Bereaved Mother’s Day celebrated the Sunday BEFORE the U.S. Mother’s Day.

I hope that my bereaved mother friends took advantage of that day to think about and honor their missing child(ren).

But we still have to make it through tomorrow. And that can be very challenging.

I wrote this last year: Mother’s Day as a Bereaved Mother

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: