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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Oct 12
This is the story of two women God brought together more than two decades ago, forging a faith-filled friendship which has seen them through incredibly scary diagnoses.
L. to R. Chris, me, Jutta Sept. 2022
Chris’s ordeal began in July 1999 when at the age of 36 she suffered a grand mal seizure while sleeping.
“My husband thought I fell out of bed,” she recalls. “He was trying to get me up, but when he rolled me over I was turning blue.”
Hospital tests revealed a golf ball–sized tumor in the right front area of her brain. Chris remembers nothing of those events until she awoke from surgery and received the shocking diagnosis of anaplastic astrocytoma, which is not usually considered curable.
“I never knew what the odds were regarding survival,” says Chris. “No one ever told me that I only had a certain length of time left. If they had, I think I would have panicked.”
While still finishing radiation and chemo, Chris was befriended by a young mom named Jutta (YOU-tuh), who was leading the women’s Bible study Chris had joined.
“I had so many questions about God and all kinds of spiritual things ,” recalls Chris, who, along with her husband and 2-year-old son had recently begun attending Jutta’s church. “I always thought they were stupid so I didn’t bring them up [before], but Jutta didn’t seem to mind explaining things to me. And she would always give me a hug when I got there and when I left.”
A friendship was easily forged between the two, and Chris’s love for God grew alongside her love for Jutta. On the one-year anniversary of her brain surgery, Chris was baptized in a swimming pool with Jutta cheering her on.
LifeHopeTruth.com
Then in July 2003, at the age of 38, Jutta also awoke from surgery to discover she had cancer.
Doctors initially thought her jaundice was due to a drug reaction, but instead discovered a malignant tumor in her pancreas. Up until that time, Jutta, a wife and mother of children ages 6 and 10, had never even considered the possibility that she might be seriously ill.
But the harsh reality was that she had one of the deadliest kinds of cancer and it already had spread to the lymph nodes.
“The day after surgery, the oncologist came up to my room and said, ‘You better get your act together. You have cancer and you’ve only got two years,’” Jutta recalls.
Hearing that she had such a difficult-to-treat cancer was shocking, but even worse, Jutta says, “was the way I was told.”
“It took me at least a month to get over that,” she adds. Eventually she decided the doctor’s prediction was only that—a prediction—and she would not live believing it had to come true.
“I always prayed that God would use me no matter what, but if I’d have known it would result in this, I wouldn’t have prayed that way,” she adds with a laugh.
Jutta, who still speaks with a rich German accent, believes setting goals is important for survivors.
“Even if my cancer would have been stage 4, I would still have gone for my goals,” she says. “One of my goals is that I want to be an encouragement to other people.”
“You don’t stop living just because you hear that word cancer–that’s the worst thing you can do,” Jutta says.
“I wouldn’t change anything about my journey,” Chris adds, ” because without it, I wouldn’t have met the wonderful friends that I have and I wouldn’t have a relationship with Jesus.”
Recently at a Cancer Prayer Support Group concert we all reconnected–three mothers diagnosed in our 30s, with the survival odds stacked against us.
It was a powerful reminder for us–and I hope for you–that statistics and predictions are no match for our God.
I am the Lord, the God of all the peoples of the world. Is anything too hard for me?
Jeremiah 32:27
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Please enjoy the music video “God of the Impossible” by Lincoln Brewster.
Sep 28
Bill and Pat Shifflet have faced five cancers in their 80+ years–some cured, others not–but please don’t feel sorry for them. The very happy couple doesn’t spend time bemoaning their own struggles; they’re too busy helping others.
“Everyday I pray ‘God, show me a need’,” explains, 82-year-old Pat, who loves to pray for people, send encouraging notes, and serve behind the scenes.
She describes her almost 84-year-old husband Bill, as an “avid giver.”
“If there’s a need, he’s ready to open his wallet,” she adds.
The couple married in 1995–she, after an abusive marriage and he, after 55 years as a confirmed bachelor.
Pat was a non-practicing Catholic and Bill says he was “raised in faith” but his lifestyle did not show it. In 2000 he agreed to visit a new congregation worshipping in a local movie theater only because he heard they had free coffee and a band.
“If they bring out any snakes, I’m leaving!” a skeptical Bill warned his wife.
No snakes appeared and the couple embarked on a spiritual journey of becoming committed Christ-followers.
It was that newfound faith which would strengthen them for what lay ahead.
A couple years earlier, Pat had encountered cancer via a malignant colon polyp. But her real trial came in 2005 with invasive breast cancer requiring a mastectomy, chemo and radiation.
Amazingly, my beautiful white-haired friend looks back happily on the whole ordeal.
“To me that was a blessing because that’s how I met Melissa and got to share Jesus with her,” Pat explains.
“Melissa was a nurse at the hospital and before my mastectomy she said ‘you must be frantic’,” Pat recalls. “‘Absolutely not; I gave it all to God,’ I told her. The next day she came into my room and said ‘When you’re well enough, can I go to church with you?'”
A few months later Pat helped baptize both Melissa and her boyfriend.
LifeHopeandTruth.com
Bill’s “turn” with cancer came in 2013–a fairly low-grade prostate tumor treated with “watchful waiting.” This year he was diagnosed with a spot of melanoma. But the toughest news came in 2018: incurable multiple myeloma.
“The MRI showed cracks in my spine and my ribs looked like Swiss cheese,” Bill recalls. “The first year, I was a mess. Besides the terrible back pain, I lost 30 pounds and shrank 2.5 inches.”
After completing his initial chemo and radiation, Bill expects to remain on a bi-weekly “maintenance” drug for the rest of his life.
“It doesn’t bother me or make me worry,” he said. “I just try to put it in God’s hands.”
But he does admit disappointment over not being allowed to downhill ski anymore.
Skiing in Salida, CO
“I always wanted to ski until I was 80, but I made it to 78,” he says with a grin.
The couple spent 14 winters skiing in Colorado. Bill, an Air Force veteran and commercial pilot for 40 years was a lifelong downhill enthusiast. Pat came to love the sport in her 40s after a friend’s invitation to help at a winter Special Olympics in the nearby Pocono Mountains.
Pat volunteered despite the fact she had never put on a pair of skis! Eagerly, she watched the handsome instructor with a foreign accent patiently teaching the special needs kids. He invited her to stay after class for some personal instruction and Pat soon was flying through the soft powder. Only later did she learn that the handsome instructor was none other than champion French alpine ski racer, Jean-Claude Killy!
So while their skiing days are over, their serving days are not.
“Our lives are not defined by cancer; our lives are defined by our relationship with Christ,” Pat insists.
They offer rides to medical appointments for those in need, collect toiletries to be distributed at a local soup kitchen, volunteer at their no-snakes-church and regularly invite people out to lunch.
“God always provides, there’s always money,” Pat says with a smile. “We may have had bad times. God never promised us a rich life without cancer, but He did promise us eternity. We’re both ready to go and pray we go together.”
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Please enjoy the short music video “Press On” by Selah.
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.
