Jan 03
Do you know the first word you ever spoke? Perhaps “da-da” or maybe “ma-ma?” I don’t recall whether my mother ever told me mine, but I know for certain what our oldest daughter initially uttered.
Lindsey, 8.5 mos. old, Jan. ’83
Danielle was 8.5 months old and crawling after my parents’ Siamese cat when my mother and I heard her say “kitty.” We both thought perhaps we were imagining, but she clearly kept repeating it and has impressed us with her vocabulary ever since!
(BTW our very articulate and youngest daughter Lindsey, born on Danielle’s 4th birthday, also spoke the same first word, also at 8.5 months, also while crawling after my parents’ cat!)
I love words.
I love word games.
And I especially love the people who are willing to play word games with me (both of you)!
I know many of you select a personal word for the new year–something to inspire, encourage, challenge, or focus you. I was contemplating why I never have embraced this great idea and concluded it’s because I love words so much, I don’t want to stop at one!
Instead I’ve chosen three sentences on which to meditate as I walk with the Lord in 2023. I plan to say at least one of them each morning even before my feet hit the floor and perhaps even before I open up my eyes.
The first is: “God is God and I’m not.”
I don’t know who gets credit for this simple statement, but I’m certain that basically all my worries, fears and anxiety are centered on me wanting to be in control instead of me trusting that the Creator of the universe can handle it all. My health, my family, my finances, my future are all safe in the hands of an all-knowing, all-powerful God. I don’t have to plan it or even understand it. Instead I can respond as our Father commands:
LifeHopeandTruth.com
The second is: “God says, ‘I loved you first and I love you best’,” (spoken by pastor/author Albert Tate https://alberttate.com )
If I truly believe this in the deepest part of my being, I can quit trying to earn God’s favor because He’s the one who began this whole love relationship. He loves me more than my dearest friends. More than my beautiful family. More than my wonderful husband of nearly half-a-century. And whenever I feel lonely, disappointed or unappreciated, I can find comfort in God’s declaration:
“I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself.”
—Jeremiah 31:3
The third sentence is: “How shall I use my inheritance today?” (penned by my favorite devotional writer, Chris Tiegreen https://christiegreen.com )
“And since we are His children, we are His heirs.”
—Romans 8:17
What do heirs get? An inheritance! The Apostle Peter describes our inheritance as “priceless”–and while some of it is still to come in Heaven–much is already available now, including the power of the Holy Spirit, participation in the Kingdom of God, and authority over the Enemy!
Image by JamesDeMers from Pixabay
Tiegreen suggests you “ask God if there’s any aspect of His authority, His Kingdom, His purposes, His resources that He wants to entrust you with today” and then “watch for opportunities (because) they will come.
“The owner of all that exists…has promised everything to His Son and the Son’s siblings.”
So as you face the new year, pick one word, or like me pick a bunch of words.
But whatever trials come your way, never doubt that God is God and you’re not.
That He loved you first and always loves you best.
And that from Him you have an incredible, infallible, and inexhaustible inheritance.
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P.S. (If you’re curious about middle daughter Bethany’s first word, it was “ball” and foretold the great athlete she would become.)
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Please enjoy the music video “This My Inheritance” by All Sons & Daughters
Dec 13
The holidays often are especially difficult for those who have lost a loved one. How do we convey sympathy without saying something irritating or even downright painful? Have you ever felt helpless knowing what to say when someone has experienced a deep loss?
Here are my thoughts on SIX THINGS ALWAYS TO SAY TO GRIEVERS.
Photo by Sandy Millar on Unsplash
Mourners want to talk about their loved one and hear others speak of ways that person touched their life. I often wait a few weeks to send a sympathy card so I have plenty of time to write a meaningful note of memories. (And also because grievers are inundated with “sympathy” immediately after the death. Then everyone’s life goes back to normal, but the griever’s never will.) Don’t be afraid to say the deceased person’s name.Yes, it may bring tears to their eyes, but their fear a loved one will be forgotten is even sadder.
Grieving is exhausting work. Ask God to help you find a sitting “stone” for your mourning friend and then show you how to hold up his/her weary arms.
For the LORD comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones. Isaiah 49:3
LifeHopeandTruth.com
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I hope you are blessed by the music video “Cry Out to Jesus” by Third Day.
Nov 29
Is there anyone you’ll be missing this Christmas? I know so many who have “lost” loved ones this year. A spouse of 55 years. A 43-year-old father of two teenage girls. An 88-year-old amazing grandpa. A 22-year-old son killed on a motorcycle. A best man from a long ago wedding. A 9-year-old little girl tearfully taken off a respirator.
How can we offer sympathy in the face of such sorrow? Let me start with what not to do.
SIX THINGS NEVER TO SAY TO GRIEVERS:
Photo by Sandy Millar on Unsplash
2. At least you have other children.
I remember when I miscarried our first baby at three months gestation on Mother’s Day of all days. A nurse came by my hospital room that night and commented: “You’re young—you’ll have other children.”
Her words did not comfort me. I didn’t want a “replacement” baby—I wanted the one I already loved. I needed to grieve the baby I would hold only in my heart and never in my arms.
And as devastating as a miscarriage can be, the death of a child is even more so. A parent burying a son or daughter is so unnatural, I believe this is the deepest grief to bear. And having other children still alive does not diminish the loss. The less said by onlookers, the better.
3. At least they lived a long life.
If this thought gives you comfort when your loved one passes, by all means say it to yourself, but it’s not a phrase to share with grievers. Simply because someone was 80, 90 or even 100 doesn’t mean it feels OK that they are no longer in this world. In fact, when a loved one has been in our life for a long time, it can feel really difficult not to see/call/take care of them each day.
My Mom passed away at the age of 82 after many health struggles and I mistakenly thought that because she had been in my life for six decades, I wouldn’t grieve as much. It has been eight years and I honestly still could cry every day.
Photo by Claudia Wolff on Unsplash
4. You’re young—you’ll find someone else.
Even if this comes true, such a statement minimizes the special love relationship two people had. Those burying a spouse/life partner do not need to run out and find a new mate. They may indeed experience love again, but first need to grieve what they had and lost.
5. I know just how you feel.
I remember when someone said this to me shortly after my 86-year-old father passed away. I wanted to shout: “Really…your dad died a few hours before your mom got home from a 2-week hospital stay for cancer surgery complications? So the day that was supposed to be your parents’ happy reunion became the date your brother had to drive three hours and break the news to your Mom? And meanwhile you hurriedly drove seven hours in a vain attempt to say goodbye to your dad? Really…you had all that happen to you, too?”
Every grief has it’s own uniqueness, including how it affects those left behind. So while you may have an inkling, you do not know exactly how someone feels.
Lifehopeandtruth.com
6. I thought you’d be over this by now.
People do not get over grief. They get through it. There is no universal timetable for grieving and grief work is not a linear progression. “Getting over it” is what we do when someone we’re dating breaks up with us, or we lose a job, or someone hurts our feelings. The idea of “getting over” our grief implies that we’re never going to miss that person or be sad again. It’s simply not true because when we love deeply, we grieve deeply.
In two weeks I’ll share “SIX THINGS ALWAYS TO SAY TO GRIEVERS.” In the meantime, here’s a prayer to lift to God for yourself or for those who mourn:
Lord, you know the hopes of the helpless.
Surely you will hear their cries and comfort them.
Psalm 10:17
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If you haven’t ever experienced a deep grief, I especially recommend listening to the song “I Will Not Say Goodbye” written by Danny Gokey, contemporary Christian artist–and former American Idol contestant– after the death of his 27-year-old wife.
Nov 08
I don’t know about you, but my life has been full of a lot of “setbacks” lately.
Our friends’ new home (before the landscaper arrived)!
For a couple of months we’ve been helping some very dear friends in Colorado purchase the house across the street from us. I’ll share more about this long-distance adventure in a later blog, but suffice it to say it has been a real roller coaster fraught with tons of setbacks. One minute the four of us were cheering and thanking God, and five minutes later (after another upsetting communication from the house’s previous owners), we were in tears and ready to forget the whole idea.
Now, I realize that in the whole scheme of life, my setbacks right now are fairly minor. But I have several good friends who are experiencing major setbacks–life-threatening health issues, painful difficulties with teenagers, unsettling hitches in important plans, and overwhelming problems with terrible anxiety. Each is facing a huge setback and trying to find hope and peace in the midst of it all.
I’m curious…what is your first reaction to setbacks in life?
Complaining? Obsessing? Blaming?
Depression? Avoidance? Maybe anger?
“When we suffer a setback,” author/teacher/historian Chris Tiegreen* says, “our first instinct is usually to lament about it, analyze it, wonder what we did wrong, and try our hardest to get out of it.”
However, a “better instinct,” Tiegreen says, “is to ask God what He is doing in it and open our eyes to the opportunities it creates.”
Let me be the first to say that I don’t find this kind of response comes quickly and easily. But I do agree with Tiegreen’s assertion that “whatever situation we find ourselves in, there is some way to reflect God’s face.”
“Does it give us a platform to show God’s mercy? His power? His compassion, patience or love?” Tiegreen asks.
When our friends and we were dealing with the many setbacks in their home-buying process, we all prayed that God would shine through us.
Was it easy? No way. Did we still have to fight against the urge to get back at the wrongs done to us? Absolutely. But in the end, I’m so grateful that God’s Spirit empowered us to exhibit our heavenly Father’s patience, offer His compassion, and show His mercy (after all, the latter is undeserved for all of us).
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
“Train yourself to think differently about your hardships,” Tiegreen recommends. “See them as opportunities for God to manifest His character and His kingdom. Pray toward that end and step through the open doors.”
We can do this with assurance and trust in our faithful God because as Tiegreen concludes: “Everything that happens to you is under His hand–and somehow useful in yours….Our crises are usually His stage.”
“Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides.
You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors.
So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely.
Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.”
–James 1:2-4 The Message paraphrase
Ask God to let your crises–your setbacks–be His stage to reveal Himself through you. It’s a prayer He longs to hear…and answer.
*Quotes are from The One-Year Heaven on Earth Devotional by Chris Tiegreen, my favorite devotional author. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I hope you’re encouraged by this music video from Casting Crowns. God is the “God of all My Days”–especially the ones with setbacks.
Oct 25
I remember so well the first cancer support group meeting I attended at our community hospital. It was the summer of 1990.
Fall 1990 reporting on a P. Buckley Moss art show
I was a 36-year-old reporter for a York, PA, newspaper and recently had interviewed Mary Flinner, the new group’s facilitator. When I showed up at a support group meeting a few weeks after my story was published, Mary naturally assumed I was visiting the group as a follow-up to my article.
“How sweet that you would come to our meeting,” she said with a big smile.
“Actually, I was diagnosed with colon cancer last month,” I told her as her jaw dropped.
It was an incredible irony.
I remember that I had to talk myself into attending that meeting because I wasn’t sure I really wanted to be with a bunch of cancer patients. As introductions were made around the table, I happened to be the most newly diagnosed and the last to introduce myself.
I burst into tears before I could even get out my name.
I felt really silly for falling apart like that, but I had been trying to hold it together in front of everyone else for so long that it seemed good to let down my feelings with others who had “been there, done that.”
Daytime Cancer Prayer Support meeting
Before I retired as a patient advocate, I constantly invited cancer patients and their caregivers to my support group meetings, but often people told me: “I’m not really that depressed that I need to come.”
To which I replied, “Great! I need people there who aren’t depressed to support those who are!”
What life difficulty are you facing or has God already brought you through? Divorce? Addiction? Cancer? Special needs parenting? Relatives with dementia? Abuse? Job loss? Infertility? Grief?
The list of life’s trials is endless…and so is the grace of God to see us through.
“God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort.
He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others.
When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.”
2 Corinthians 1:3-4
Courtesy MorningbirdPhoto
Don’t waste the pain you’ve encountered by failing to share your experiences with others. The troubles you’ve faced with God’s strength will be a comfort to those facing the same kinds of circumstances.
When the Apostle Paul was down and out, God sent his friend Titus at just the right time to him.
“When we arrived in Macedonia, there was no rest for us. We faced conflict from every direction,
with battles on the outside and fear on the inside.
But God, who encourages those who are discouraged,
encouraged us by the arrival of Titus. His presence was a joy.”
2 Corinthians 7:5, 6
I think each day that you and I fit into one of two categories: someone who needs to be encouraged or someone who needs to be an encourager. Which are you today? If it’s the former, ask God to send a “Titus” your way and if it’s the latter, ask God to show you who might need you to step in and be their “Titus.”
I pray that we each see one another–family, friends and even strangers–through the eyes of God. As the beautiful Brandon Heath song below says“give me Your eyes for just one second.”
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I’m a newspaper reporter-turned-author. And I’m a passionate encourager, but always a truth-teller. I worked for nearly two decades in a unique position as a patient advocate in my oncologist’s office and the Cancer Prayer Support Group I founded in 1991 is the country’s oldest such faith-based group.
