Category: Tending to the Heart

Holding Onto Peace In the Middle of Chaos

So many things have happened since my last blog entry. I started dating someone in October 2019. I broke it off this February and realized it wasn’t a good fit in the long run and experienced my first adult break up since my late husband. And then this whole corona virus and quarantine and social distancing has thrown everything and everyone into a big mess of chaos.

All of these things, including the corona virus, is a form of grieving. There is denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, and acceptance. And like people say, nothing is linear when you are grieving a loss of something. Some describe it as a roller coaster but I feel like it’s more like a big ball of scribbles all tangled together like a bowl of spaghetti  and it’s hard to know what is up and what is down and how many feelings you are feeling at times.

This article goes into more depth of grief during corona: That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief

For me, there was something about having someone care about my day, check in on me, pray for me when I was having a hard day, and go on dates with that was so nice to have again. And to not have that anymore is just really hard, especially at a time when I feel so isolated from everyone most of the day.  I have felt all those stages of grief with this break up and now this COVID-19 disrupts almost every area of the way I do life. It may not feel as extreme as grieving Ben but it is something I’m learning to acknowledge and talk to the Lord about. And I think it’s important for other people to also acknowledge the grief and feelings they may feel during this hard time so they can process it and move through it and get to the other side of it.

Periodically I read out of the Life Recovery Devotional: Thirty Meditations from Scripture For Each Step In Recovery by Stephen Arterburn and David Stoop. It is for people going through the 12 steps of recovery in AA. I am not an alcoholic but I have found I actually have a lot in common with people in AA and have found I relate to a lot of the themes of loss and desperately knowing I need the Lord for help in my life.

One of the entries that caught my eye recently (pg 16) is about having serenity despite powerlessness. It talks about Mary, the mother of Jesus, and how she accepted the invitation of becoming the mother of our Messiah. She invited the chaos into her life but she trusted that God knew how to help her through it. The verse that stuck out to me in the Bible reading of her story (Luke 1:26-56) is the verse that says, “Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” It made me think about what promises the Lord has given me during this crazy time. I wrote some down:

  1. l will never leave you
  2. I will take care of and provide all that you need (people around me have been so gracious to my son and I)
  3. I love you (nothing, even the corona virus, can separate me from the love and presence of God)
  4. I am seen by the Lord
  5. I am not alone

I think it is ok, and we need to, acknowledge all the uncertainties and grief that this corona virus brings up but we also need to let the Lord help us navigate each decision and each step we need to take to get through and to the other side of this hard season in all of our lives. He is bigger than this virus and he knows the best way to help each and every one of us. This corona virus will not last and things are changing daily but the Lord’s promises don’t. I want to focus on the certainty of the Lord and His promises not on the uncertainty of my circumstances.

Closing questions: How can we invite the chaos into our lives but not be overcome by it? What promises does the Lord have for you? What feelings of grief are you feeling during this time that you need to acknowledge and need to let the Lord help you through?

And ask: Lord what is this time of isolation for? My family? Myself? For the church? For other people?

 

Someday But Right Now

Sometimes I feel like when I share my story about Ben’s cancer and death it makes people feel that what they deal with in their own lives is nothing compared to what I went through or continue to live. And then people feel they can’t complain or can’t be sad about what they are going through.

However, the reality is, that whatever struggles you are  going through, big or small, doesn’t make it any less of value or importance to God compared to mine. How we feel and  what we go through ALL matters to God!

God gave us emotions NOT to ignore but to bring to him. When we ignore how we are really feeling we are really ignoring how God wants to help, heal, and come alongside of us. God wants us to overcome whatever we are facing but MOST IMPORTANTLY he wants to be in the midst of our mess with us because we are all so precious to Him. The safest place we can process our feelings is with God. He can handle our curse words, our depression, our anger, our frustrations, and so on. It doesn’t phase him. It doesn’t make him shake his head at us or say to us that we should know better or do better. When he looks at us, it is through a lens of grace and love NOT of disfavor and condemnation.

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Just as my son is hiding in his little hiding spot, God wants us to hide all parts of ourselves and feelings in Him because he longs to heal, mend, and replace our wounds and hurts with His truth and His love

I thought I would express some of these thoughts in a poem about not minimizing or ignoring my emotions as I continue to have ups and downs in my grieving. I have already seen inner healing in myself and received new dreams and new hopes but I wanted to express that it is a constant roller coaster of: grieving and receiving comfort then receiving new dreams, getting hit with new grief and receiving comfort then receiving new dreams, and so on:

There are nights and days when the tears don’t end.

There are and nights and days I miss my best friend.

Beneath the surface, my true emotions lie-

Beneath the skin and muscle

my fragile heart begins to cry:

Like a waterfall of tears

it recalls all the years

the joys and the fears

the happy and the sad

the things that made you mad

the things that made you you

the things you use to do

the things that made you mine

the things that made me yours

the things that were entwined.

Now forever-

torn apart.

And my heart?

Will it start?

To beat-

again?

Or will it forever hold its breath?

Crying and grieving your untimely death.

 

My heart longs for hope and my heart longs to see,

the silver lining that will one day be in front of me.

But in this moment?

It just needs

To be:

Sad.

And needs to be mad.

And needs to be broken.

And needs to feel everything unspoken.

Everything not expressed.

Everything not at its best.

Everything as it is.

Everything not addressed.

Everything that use to be-

his.

 

One day, I know deep down, good will come out of this.

But right now my heart is plunged into this deep dark abyss.

And there in the depths of my soul and the depths of my sorrow,

is the One embracing my heart AND my tomorrow.

He joins me as I re-live the past and present feelings,

until I’m ready for new hopes and future healings-

that will outlast

and surpass

all that I can grasp

in the years to come.

Someday.

But right now?

I am undone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Switching the Why to What:The Battle of Logic and Heart

The reality is that we live in a broken world. Nothing is perfect. Life is this intermingling of pain and joy; disappointment and fulfillment; death and life. We may try our hardest to shield our children and loved ones away from as much grief and pain as we experienced growing up or have seen others experience but we cannot protect them from everything. And when something or someone hurts or shatters our reality of innocence or level of comfort we almost always ask, “Why God?” We might do this unconsciously but when we ask “why” we are actually coming to this conclusion of thinking that it is God himself who wounded us NOT the person or situation. That is one of the downfalls of free will.

People and situations hurt us but it is the person or situation hurting us NOT God. For example,when a parent is not emotionally invested in their child the child begins to think that God the Father is like that too. They believe things like God is busy and he and already knows what I’m thinking so why do I have to tell him what he already knows? So, without even realizing, coming to conclusions like this actually begins to shape our relationship and understanding of God that is actually NOT true at all.

The reality is that God IS emotionally invested in us and cares about how we feel. He is NOT too busy for us EVER. And yes he knows what we are thinking but that is not the point. The point of having a relationship with him and praying is all about CONNECTING. He longs to connect because he knows we need and crave it.

We are wired for connection: to be heard, to be seen, to be understood, to be loved, to be cared for.

And going back to the “Why God?” question. That question is actually an intellectual question and it is expecting and intellectual answer. I think because we live in such a broken world sometimes there are no reasons why things happen. And even if there is a logical reason why something happened what we really need in times of hurt or loss is not a logical answer. What we really need is a HEART answer. More than anything our heart needs: comfort, to be heard, to be valued, to be seen, and so on.

When there is a hurt or loss it will ALWAYS come down to what we need from God and are not getting.
Let me give an example of this. My husband dying of  stage 4 colon cancer at 29 years old is a time most people would ask, “Why God? Why would you take him when he was so young? Why do I have to raise my son without my best friend and love of my life? Why couldn’t you just heal him? I want him back.”

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Let us say God miraculously raised my husband from the dead and healed him of cancer and he was given life again.  In essence, I would be getting the answer I wanted and asked for. But is it what I REALLY need when I am hurting?

But I think what happens sometimes there has been so much hurt or loss in our lives that even if we wanted to we still can’t accept or receive what our hearts REALLY need.

That is where inner healing work and counseling can help unravel the inner struggle of what keeps us from being able to receive from God. In order to receive we need to clear away the walls or ways we try to guard or protect our heart. And there probably is a good reason why it’s protected but instead of hiding it away from others and ourselves it really needs to be hidden away  IN God. He is the safest person to guard our hearts because he not only wants to guard it but the one who knows how to tend, mend, and fix it.

A few months before Ben was diagnosed with cancer I was hitting a wall where I couldn’t receive from God so I began to see a inner healing counselor who began helping me unpack why I couldn’t receive from God and why he felt so far. As the walls or “debris” as she calls it began lifting I began to hear from God and was able to feel, see ,and hear where he was in my life more clearly.

She also taught me how to pour my heart out before the Lord when I began to feel angry or overwhelmed during intense times during Ben’s cancer.

Some of these periods had screaming and cussing and everything ugly you could think of before the Lord. Not at him but WITH him.

I beautiful image a friend got for this “pouring out” was breaking plates with God when she was angry. Not physically, although that would be cool to do one day in a safe place, but in her mind when she needed to work anger out with God. I never realized we have that much freedom with God to be able to do that.

But that is the beauty of a patient and loving God. He is not in a rush or afraid of what I needed to express first. He met me where I was at. And it was in those times  I eventually could begin to unravel what I REALLY needed.

I began  to learn how to switch my question of “why” to “what.” “What is God doing?” and “What kind of people are going to come alongside of me in my time of hurt and loss? “and “What do I need to receive from God in my time of loss or hurt?” and “What does my heart need?”

I think there are times that God does satisfy that intellectual question of “why” but I love how he cares about the “what” as well. As I have said before many times he cares about our WHOLE being.

Are there places that you need to go back to that you missed out on the “what” and having your heart tended or cared for? Are there conclusions you have made about God or yourself that you are beginning to realize are actually not true  but actually more about the person or situation? Are there places where you still need to struggle with the “why?” Let me know your thoughts or if I need to expand on something more.