love – Page 65 – thelifeididntchoose

Christmas Morning Prayer for Hurting Hearts

Oh, dear one who opened your eyes to the morning light carrying wounds so deep no one can see!

I am so, so sorry.

When things have gone terribly wrong it’s hard to get up and make merry.

I know.

But that first Christmas felt more like heartache and less like ho-ho-ho. So you are in good company.

You don’t have to pretend that nothing has changed but you can reach out and take hold of what remains.

You don’t have to hide your tears or your memories but you can share them with people who love you and long to help you carry the legacy of the one you miss.

Today may be long.

But it is only one day.

You can make it.

You will make it.

I promise.

May you experience the Presence of the Christ of Christmas no matter how dark and lonely and sad you feel. May your heart hold onto hope regardless of how tempted it is to give in to despair. May the Holy Spirit Who overshadowed Mary, overwhelm you and fill you with grace and mercy. May you hear the Father whisper, “Courage, My child” to your soul.

And more than all this, may you know that you are seen, you are loved and you are being carried. ❤

~Melanie DeSimone

Christmas Drama

We’ve whitewashed everything about this scene: beatific Mary gazing serenely at a cleaned up baby cozy in a cleaned up manger towered over by Joseph and surrounded by adoring shepherds and freshly groomed, sweet smelling animals.

It was nothing like that.

Birth is pain and sweat and effort.

And messy. So, so messy.

I like to think more clearly about what that night was like. It helps my heart to know that even while God was being birthed as a man into the world He created, He didn’t hide the hard.

The world was a mess on the first Christmas night, but Jesus came. He came wearing a name of endless hope and promise: ‘God with us.’ God is with us when the money runs out, with us when the bad news comes, with us when the holiday isn’t happy, and with us when everyone else disappears. The question this Christmas is not, ‘Will Jesus show up?’ The question is, ‘Will I receive Him, even if He’s all I have?’

Today is a good day to give yourself permission to be the real you in front of the real God. You don’t have to hide your hurt or sin away. He comes to heal, to save, and to rescue. Let earth receive her king.

~Bo Stern, When Holidays Hurt

There’s no evidence that Mary was spared labor pains or all the usual difficulty of bringing forth life.

And poor Joseph! In a culture where women helped women he was alone and lonely with his young bride in a place hardly appropriate for birthing a baby much less for protecting her modesty and reputation. He was unwitting midwife to the most important birth in history.

I’ve often wondered whether Mary and Joseph were relieved to see the shepherds who confirmed again the truth that their Son was Savior or if they were thinking the visit might have been better timed a few days later when things were tidier and the idea of parenthood had settled in.

Drama.

All of it.

But the biggest drama that night was this: Darkness was overcome. Once and for all. Never to reign again.

When He created the heavens and the earth, God declared, “Let there be light!” Physical light entered time and space. Darkness was pushed back and limits set on its power and dominion.

Yet sin marred the light of God’s love, provision and perfect creation.

And from that moment on, darkness crept forward through the actions of men whose hearts were hard and by the designs of the evil one who has no heart but only destruction in his bosom.

But God….

He would not leave us this way. He did not allow the darkness to win.

We were not abandoned.

We are not abandoned.

Emmanuel is here.

And then, just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that we can scarcely withstand it, the Christmas message comes to tell us that all our ideas are wrong, and that what we take to be evil and dark is really good and light because it comes from God. Our eyes are at fault, that is all. God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment. No evil can befall us; whatever men may do to us, they cannot but serve the God who is secretly revealed as love and rules the world and our lives.

~Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Cheerleaders Are More Important Than You Think

I‘ve never been the cheerleader type.

No long legs, long hair or graceful moves that might have caught the eye of the ever watchful gatekeepers who picked the favored few each year to represent beauty on the sidelines.

So (I’ll be honest here) I really didn’t give the position much thought beyond the fact that those girls always got asked to dances first.

But in these years since Dominic left us I’ve learned something very important about cheerleaders-both the ones in the cute clothes at sporting events and the ones that come alongside others in real life: they make a difference.

Cheerleaders are more important than you think.

Someone calling courage can mean a heart holds on when it’s about to let go.

Someone reminding you what’s at stake if you give up can help you dig deep for that last bit of effort hiding inside.

Someone chanting rhythm to your plodding forward progress can provide another focus for your mind besides the throbbing pain in every step.

Someone showing up and standing by your side even when the odds are against you says, “You are worth the effort-win or lose!”

You don’t have to be a certain size or a certain type to be a real-life cheerleader.

You don’t even have to fit into those cute little skirts.

The only qualification is an unqualified commitment to showing up and being seen and holding on and hanging in no matter where life takes the ones you love.

You have the power to be the difference in somebody’s life.

I guarantee it.

So get out there and cheer them on!

❤

“Special Handling Required”

This time of year all the package handlers are busy dropping off the bounty of online shoppers’ purchases to millions of doorsteps around the world.

It’s a wonder that most of it arrives on time and in good condition.

I suspect though, that you, like me, have gotten one or two boxes over the years that arrived dinged and damaged, battered and broken.

While it can be a real hassle to get the product replaced, it’s usually only a matter of time before a brand new “whatever” arrives.

People aren’t so easily mended, though.

And I think we forget that.

People are more fragile than they appear. Words are more piercing than we realize. We should add in an extra notch of kindness and gentleness whenever we can.

~Gavin Ortlund

I have friends that take more care with their smartphone than with their spouse or children or parents.

Things can be replaced. People can’t.

Mass produced consumer goods-no matter how expensive or treasured-are worthless compared to a heart.

In an age where clicks and phone calls make it possible to fix so many things, they are rarely helpful in fixing relationships.

“Special Handling Required!” should be plastered across every human’s forehead.

People are irreplaceable, fragile, beautiful gifts.

More valuable than anything we could ever buy. ❤

Qualified by Hopelessness: An Empty Heart Can Be Filled

I don’t know about you but I’ve never thought of hopelessness as something I wanted on my resume.

Hopelessness is typically tossed into the pile of “negative” feelings we all acknowledge but don’t want to experience and if we do, we try to minimize, rationalize or disguise them.

If I admit to it at all, I tend to look downward, whisper quickly and pray that no one takes much notice because it feels shameful.

But maybe hopelessness is the first step to truly celebrating Christmas.

Think about Scrooge. When was his heart able to make the turn and embrace the joy that Christmas represents? It took one long night and four strange visitors to take him down a path where he understood his own strength was woefully inadequate to accomplish anything. It was finally the spectre of death-death of relationships, death of a child and the certainty of his own lonely demise that shook him from slumber and awakened him to real life and love and joy.

I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Now consider the story of the first Christmas. Two poor sojourners in desperate need of a place to stay and, even more important, a place to birth a baby.

But not just any baby. No, this was the Promised One, Immanuel, Jesus, Messiah, Light of the World. Yet He made His appearance in the dark, in a stable and unnoticed.

I don’t know if Mary felt hope-filled or hopeless as she labored without the company of other women to encourage and guide her. But I can imagine there were moments if not hours, of something like hopelessness.

Yet it ended with her holding the God of the universe in her hands.

What about Israel? Four hundred long years since Jehovah had shut the mouths of prophets and allowed the Apple of His Eye to wallow in the darkness they had begged for by turning away from the God Who loved them. Prophesies were still handed down like good luck tokens but many who heard them had long ago decided they didn’t matter.

It was dark in the world of Judea.

So, so very dark.

Hopelessness prevailed.

And that is precisely when the angel showed up and the sky was bright with praise:

Don’t be afraid! Listen! I bring good news, news of great joy, news that will affect all people everywhere. Today, in the city of David, a Liberator has been born for you! He is the promised Anointed One, the Supreme Authority!

~Luke 2:10-11 VOICE

It was all the brighter because it was dark. It was that much more joyous because hopeless hearts were longing for something to cling to.

There is no shame in being hopeless and broken.

God loves the broken. Christ came for the broken. It’s the broken and breathless who long for the Spirit to blow life across their wounded hearts.

It’s the hopeless and fearful that run faster to the safety of their Shepherd.

It’s the worried and weary who are thankful for a Burden-bearer.

Christmas is the story of Hope entering the world, of Light shining forth in darkness, of Love overcoming death.

A heart has to be looking to find it.

A heart has to be desperate to believe it.

A heart has to be hungry to come to the table of everlasting bread.

Have you been living in the land of deep shadows? I have. I’ve spent long years in that gray and weary country, and sometimes it makes me feel disqualified from Christmas. Most Christmas carols do not talk about daunting shadows or dreary days. They talk about sparkle and shimmer. They talk ho-ho-ho-ing and mistletoeing, and all of that is fine and fun if you’re having a great year. But let’s be honest about the fact that this relentless commercialized happiness is not really what lives at the heart of Christmas.

Christmas is deeper than that. It reaches into darker places. Jesus didn’t come to cheer us up. He came into the shadowlands we call home to set us free. He came to untangle us from the despair that wraps itself around our joy and peace and purpose. It seems, then, that hopelessness is the very first qualification for receiving the bright hope of Christmas. Perhaps you are exactly where you need to be to experience the miracle of Advent after all.

~Bo Stern, When Holidays Hurt

Another Year, Another Christmas: 25 Practical Ways to Give Holiday Hope to the Grieving

This is the fifth Christmas without Dominic. There really are no words to describe the intersection of holiday cheer and another milestone in this journey of child loss.

I’m not sad all the time-far from it. Often I am very, very happy.

But I will never stop missing him, missing the family we used to be and missing our blissful ignorance of how quickly and utterly life can change in an instant.

And I will never outgrow the need to have others remember him as well, to encourage my heart and the hearts of my family members and to help us make it through another year, another Christmas. ❤

Here are some great ways to do it: 25 Ways to Give Holiday Hope to the Grieving

Child Loss DOES Define Me

It’s popular in books, self-help articles and even in some grief groups for people to declare , “Child loss does not (will not, should not) define me”.

And while I will defend to the end another parent’s right to walk this path however seems best and most healing to him or her, to that statement I say, “Bah! Humbug!”

Child loss DOES define me.

It defines me in the same way that motherhood and marriage define me. It defines me as much as any other major milestone, event, choice or experience defines me.

How could it not define me and inform the person I am today?

But it does NOT circumscribe me.

Listen carefully to these next words: Child loss is a huge part of who I am but it does not draw a circle around who I am becoming. It is not a line in the sand I cannot cross. It is not a ball and chain weighing me down and preventing my forward motion.

It is not the ONLY thing I am, but it is an important part of who I am.

In many ways it has made life harder-especially in the first three years after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven. But in other ways it has made my life more open, larger, expansive and inclusive. Child loss has opened my eyes to other hurting hearts in ways I doubt I would have noticed if my own had not been broken. Child loss has taught me the language of compassion and the necessity of listening well to other people. Child loss has rearranged my schedule and my priorities.

It most certainly helps to define the woman I am today.

Would I have chosen it? Absolutely not!

But I won’t waste it.

I choose to enfold it into who I am and what I do and how I live.

I cannot set it aside and ignore it any more than I could set aside my son.

Could you?

Legacy of Love in Spite of Pain

It’s said that “Hurt people, hurt people”.

And it’s true-often in my own pain I lash out and hurt others. Partly because my pain is so huge and so real and so blinding that I don’t always see what I’m doing to others.

But also, sometimes, (and I hate to admit it!) because misery loves company. If I’M hurting then someone else better hurt too!

That’s not the high road.

And it’s not the road Jesus paved with His blood.

I need to take my brokenness to Him. Because truth told, He’s really the only one that can minister true healing.

When I use my pain-even the unfathomably great pain of child loss-as an excuse for bad behavior all I do is spread the hurt.

It doesn’t take one bit of my own away.

So I try to be more mindful of when discomfort authors my words and stop them before they pour from my mouth on some unsuspecting victim.

I want my legacy to be love.

It’s a daily choice.

The Importance of Silence: Holding Space so Hearts Can Speak

We do it all the time in the physical world-leave the shopping cart in line with the admonition to the person behind us to “hold our place” while we run to get that forgotten item.

We leave a gap for that minivan to pull in just where the construction cones narrow a highway from two lanes to one.

We open a door and step aside so the elderly lady with her hands full can manage to get through without dropping the load.

But most of us are not as good at it in relationships.

Read the rest here: Holding Space

George, Barbara and Robin: Child Loss, Love and a Lifetime of Service

I’m not a huge fan of the images of Heaven that feature people floating on clouds.

But I love this one.

Here’s why: Because it highlights the lifelong impact of child loss on a parent’s heart.

You can agree or disagree with his politics or her choice of service projects, but you can’t argue with the evidence of lives lived passionately committed to loving others and doing good in the world.

And I absolutely, positively believe that a huge part of what informed that passion was burying a child.

A heart that has endured such painful loss cannot remain unchanged.

Brokenness begets bountiful love if you let it.

And I believe the Bushes did just that.

I am thankful they are reunited-no more pain, no more suffering, no more waiting for redemption.

So I’ll hang onto this whimsical cartoon as a reminder to my heart that even as I wait, longing for the same, I can choose to live a life of loving service.

As long as I am here, I will reach out

reach down

reach across

to touch the hands and hearts of other hurting humans.

Thank you, George and Barbara, for your example.

Enjoy your reward. ❤

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