the gift of grieving

until you have lost someone close you do not really understand.

you can think you do, but until your face hurts from smiling reassuringly as you intone the inevitable "fine" at all those who inquire as to how you are,

until you are wide awake in the wee hours of the morning. night after night - feeling more overwhelming alone than you ever thought possible,

until you realize that you have caught yourself once again following someone in the crowd who for one small moment you believed was your dead mother, father, brother, sister, wife, husband, son, daughter, grandmother, grandfather, cousin, aunt, uncle, fiance, or friend,

until you reach for the phone to call that someone and then realize with a sickening thud in the back of your brain that s/he is not going to pick up ever again,

until you cry because the sun is out and people are laughing and playing,

until you find yourself living each day in numbing exhaustion while holding it together for everyone else,

until then, you do not know.

grief is a process and a very personal one at that. there is no set time schedule to measure against, and there are no magical rituals that relieve the pain.

there is just time.

the shortest verse in the Bible is two short words. . . "Jesus wept."

someone shared that verse with me moments after my mother died. that someone caught me in the hospital hallway and asked point blank if i was a Christian. when i admitted that i was, she proceeded to give me the precious gift of grieving.

she explained how she had just lost her mother and that as a Christian, because we believe in Heaven and eternity AND being a good witness to God's goodness and grace in those times of darkness - it was easy to skip the grieving part of loss altogether.

she then shared the shortest verse saying that Jesus wept knowing full well that he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead.

Jesus wept knowing Lazarus would walk out of the tomb into the lovingly astonished arms of his family.

Jesus wept knowing his next conversation with his friend was only a command away. . .

Jesus wept.

Paul cautions us not to grief as the those who have no hope. Paul does not caution us NOT TO GRIEVE.

it is easy to become so focused on heaven and God's goodness that we do not allow the painful reality of death to touch us and we short-circuit the very process that leads to healing.

we end up living a half life while having those around us praise our faith and our witness - this only ends up encouraging us to linger and not move on.

we need to embrace the pain, knowing Jesus knows and understands.

we need to grieve as those who have hope.

we need to accept the gift.

The Emergent Church

wow - haven't seen anything like this. . .

IRON BABY

happy Thursday!!!

hey, i wanted to wish you a happy Thursday! we all got another one this morning to spend as we like.

some of us will be going to jobs we love - and others, well, maybe not so much. some of us will have sunshine and searing temps, while some will have sunshine and no need to run the a/c. some of us will be dealing with some hard circumstances, the kind that bring the gut punch of reality and take our collective breath away. some of us will be celebrating first steps, a birthday, a promotion, a job, a hard won day of sobriety, a car in the garage, a soldier home, another year of school completed.

there are no extra minutes for good behavior. or an hour subtracted for being a grade A jerk. homicidal maniacs and saints both get the same 24 hours for mayhem or for mercy (and everything in between, of course).

i know that we know :) that it is what we DO with those one thousand four hundred and forty-four minutes that counts. . .

so. . . what are you going to do with your Thursday???

another kind of dumb

i posted on a different blog an unfortunate incident concerning plugging in my dying laptop and shocking myself silly. . . actually i shocked myself silly twice within oh, about 4 seconds and with all due intent. i couldn't believe i did it, so i did it again. and yes, that was dumb. it got me to thinking about a different kind of dumb, the kind that needs to be addressed every so often. . . so i followed it up with this post. . .

there is another kind of dumb. . . the kind of dumbness that takes over our spiritual lives. . . yep, you guessed it. . . DSD. . the Dreaded Spiritual Dumbness.

DSD can strike anyone at almost any time - although more common in Christ followers who have some years under their belt "doing" the Christian life. DSD creeps in and slowly, insidiously begins to suck the joy right out and leaves a kind of unfulfilling, uninspiring, "ok-ness." gone is the passion, the excitement, the fervor. DSD has claimed another victim.

i have personally suffered from this ailment - more than once even (see there is a tie-in to my last post, you can be dumb more than once in a short amount of time). i woke up one day and realized that i was coasting, no longer walking, coasting, meandering, wandering without a clue. kept reading the Bible, praying, going to church, trying to do all the right things for all the right reasons and knowing that something was missing.

now what did i do about this "missining-ness" once i realized?

nothing - i just read the Bible, prayed, went to church, tried to do all the right things for all the right reasons.

right there was the proof that i was suffering from DSD.

one of my favorite definitions of insanity is this - one from Albert Einstein “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

DSD is a lot like that.

i kept expecting something to change. after all, i was doing something. i was staying busy and pretty much outta trouble ( well, for me at least). AND that dang Holy Spirit was part of this equation wasn't He? And just where was He anyways???

treatment for DSD is easy - TAKE SOME RESPONSIBILITY AND DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT IN YOUR SPIRITUAL LIFE!!!!

if you are reading in the New Testament, find some dramatic readings of the Old Testament and listen to them, REALLY listen to them. or grab a couple of friends, go to the park, sit around a picnic table and take turns reading out loud chunks of verses through the book of Mark. take a walk ANYWHERE and listen to worship music that is based on scripture.

at church, find a different seat, far, far away from where you usually sit - scary, i know - but you will probably see and meet some new people, see the same stuff from a new vantage point. if your church has more than one service, attend the one you usually don't. if you usually sing, don't. listen and let the voices flow around you. if you usually don't sing, then sing and make a joyful noise, though you might want to watch the volume on that. . .

shake up your prayer life too!!!! pray with your eyes open. hands open. eyes and hands open. eyes and hands open and standing. laying face down on the floor. praying with a pen and notebook (also called prayer journaling - i highly recommend). praying with a friend. praying with more than one friend. BUT ACTUALLY PRAYING - not just doing the catch-up prayer circle. call your pastor and ask him for some things to pray for. . . current missionary concerns, church finances (this is always on that list it seems), the youth group, the youth pastor. better yet, get the names of a few of the members who don't get out much and go visit them and ask to pray WITH them and FOR them.

there really is no excuse for suffering along with DSD once you've diagnosed yourself.

get out there. . . get moving. . . or quit moving. . . only you know what you've been doing/not doing that hasn't been inspiring you to be more like Christ.

quit being a spiritual retention pond. . . they seem to get stagnant or they dry up. . . choice is yours. . .

Tim Hawkins-Hey There Delilah