Category: grief

Dec 31

The 100% True Fortune Cookie

(I’m intentionally keeping today’s blog and song quite short because it’s New Year’s Eve and well, you  and I might have other important things to do…like cheer for my Ohio State Buckeyes in the CFP quarterfinals!)

But I just had to share the fortune I recently received in my cookie:

Yeah, I bet it will. And so will February, March, April, May…and every other month. Finally, a fortune that is absolutely 100% accurate!

I love the idea of spiritual growth and am so excited about my ladies’ Bible study beginning to study the Letter to the Romans next week. When I teach little kids at Refuge Church each Sunday morning, I find myself learning right along with them. Reading God’s Word, singing praises to the Lord and hearing messages of truth are all favorite ways to stretch my faith, BUT…

I must admit that I’m not as excited about other possible avenues for spiritual growth.

Heartaches, disappointments, betrayals, losses–the list is endless. So many difficult situations in which we find ourselves or our loved ones.

Here’s the kind of prayer I have uttered in my darkest days: Lord, I do not understand why this is happening. The pain feels more than I can bear and I can’t see how I’m going to get through it. There’s nothing good that I can imagine coming from this..BUT I choose to trust You even when it doesn’t make sense. And I choose to believe in Your love even though I can’t feel it. 

Yes, January will bring you–and me–opportunities (some happy and some sad) for spiritual growth. I pray I will:


(Happy New Year and GO BUCKS!!!)
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Please open the video in your browser to be encouraged by the acapella group Bliss Zimbabwe singing “Trials Make You Grow.” (3¼ min. long)

Dec 10

For Those Without the Christmas Spirit

It’s the time of year when people talk about “getting in the Christmas spirit.” I’m not exactly sure what is meant by that phrase, but it certainly implies feeling joy and excitement for celebrating this yuletide season (like attending a CeCe Winans’ Christmas concert!)

But what about those who aren’t “in” the spirit? Those who are deeply grieving  the death of a loved one. Those who are battling depression and can barely get out of bed. Those whose hearts are breaking over a family member’s addiction. Those whose spirits are crushed by a spouse’s betrayal.

What do weary folks like these need to do at this time of year?

That’s the situation in which my friend Connie found herself back in 2004 just three months after her 47-year-old husband Brad collapsed and died while doing light construction work at a Guatemalan orphanage.  Facing the Christmas season without her “best friend, soul mate and life partner” was overwhelming.

“I felt terrible that because of Brad’s death I did not want to celebrate Jesus’ birth,” Connie recalls. “There is an unending ache in my heart and I just want him to come home–I just want to see him again.”

Thankfully, a good friend gave her some insight that helped ease the young widow’s holiday pain.

He asked and answered a question for her: “Do you want to know what Jesus is doing this Christmas season?…He’s weeping. He’s weeping with you.”

I love that image. Jesus wasn’t urging Connie to get in the spirit of the season. He wasn’t chiding her for expressing the painful feelings. The Lord wasn’t disappointed that she couldn’t just put a smile on her face.  He didn’t care whether she had a Christmas tree or sent out holiday cards or baked cut-out cookies.

No, He wept with her because her world had been rocked and her spirit was crushed.

Perhaps that’s how you feel this holiday season or maybe someone you love is struggling to “get in the spirit” because of their painful circumstances. Or perhaps you have a little of the “Christmas spirit,” but think you should do more.

What a great time to show grace either to yourself or someone else.

That mental picture of Jesus weeping with Connie in her grief helped her believe that her Lord truly did understand what she was feeling…even if no one else really could. She stopped worrying about a holiday to-do list and instead prayed:

“Just for today, I need to see Jesus.
Just for today, I need to seek Jesus.
Just for today, I need to serve Jesus.”

She celebrated the Savior…without the Christmas spirit. And I believe all of us weary ones can too.

“Somewhere in your silent nightHeaven hears the song your broken heart has cried.Hope is here, just lift your headFor love has come to find youSomewhere in your silent night.”

 

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Open in your browser and click “Watch on YouTube” small arrow in bottom left corner to hear the beautiful song “Somewhere in You Silent Night” by Casting Crowns.

 

 

 

 

Nov 26

When Life is “One Holy, Messy Struggle”

Weary…I’m guessing either you feel it or someone you love does.

I looked up  the word “weary” in my little Random House pocket dictionary of synonyms and antonyms I’ve had since my college journalism days and synonyms include: exhausted, tired, fatigued, spent, impatient, dissatisfied, tedious, and irksome.

Any of those describe you or your loved one these days?

There are so many things for which I’m grateful, like grandkids nearby (with a cuddly new family member!). And yet there are so many hurts piling up.  A cousin enduring chemo; another one awaiting biopsy results. Friends burying their young son. Marriages on the verge of break-up. Christians without compassion for others created in God’s image. A massive stroke paralyzing a wonderful husband and father. And six months of pain/doctors/scans/therapies after my “treadmill takedown.” (But that’s a story for another blog.)

If I‘m honest, I’m sad and grieving in the midst of Thanksgiving week. Yes, I am weary.

Shannon Adducci, a self-described “wife, mom, singer-songwriter, worship leader, trauma-survivor, mountain-lover, and Christ-follower,” once blogged about her emotional struggles:

“I have been programmed through the years to think I should just be able to choose gratitude at all times and, in every instance, flip weariness or sadness on its head and replace it with the spirit of joy – with the help of a handy, hip-pocket Scripture, of course!

“And, certainly, there is a place for simply choosing joy and gratitude. I do it often. But it also is incredibly important to honor the deep emotions we might be experiencing, lest they fester unattended and infect our souls.

“So, what if it doesn’t have to be one or the other of these? Not joy instead of sadness. Or recovery in lieu of grief. Or breakthrough eclipsing stuck-ness. What if it is actually OK to be in it all at the same time? …

“What if it could all be one holy, messy struggle and me not feel guilty about it?...

“So, here’s the good news…Even in my utter weariness, Jesus offers me an invitation and not a rejection slip. ‘Come to me,’ He whispers. ‘Not after you recover, but in order to recover.’

“Jesus fully and gently acknowledges exactly where you and I are and encourages us to hang out with Him in our most depleted state.” *

Let’s cling to the truth in the words of the beautiful Christmas hymn, O Holy Night written in 1847 by Adolphe Adam:

Long lay the world in sin and error pining
‘Til He appears and the soul felt its worth
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees; O hear the Angel voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born
O night, O Holy night, O night divine!

Thank You, Lord, for coming to our weary world and calling us into Your presence where we can find rest.

*©2020 Shannon Adducci. Bold emphasis mine.
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Open in your browser to hear the encouraging words in Shannon Wexelberg Adducci’s song “Whole Heart.”

 

Sep 24

“If I had known…”

Izzy (R), cousin Abby (center) and sister Callyn (L)

On Labor Day weekend after a fun-filled family day of kayaking, paddle boarding and picnicking at a nearby state park, our oldest granddaughter started complaining about stomach pain. Just a few days shy of her 12th birthday, Izzy couldn’t sleep that Saturday night and kept waking her parents seeking pain-relief.

No fever, no other symptoms. Did she “drink” too much lake water as she lay on the paddle board and the refreshing waves splashed her face? Had she eaten something at our BBQ that didn’t agree with her?

On Sunday morning she threw up and pleaded to go to urgent care where mom Bethany quickly took her (I know vomit is the proper word, but it gives me the heebie-jeebies).

Nothing showed during the exam at urgent care, but the doc recommended they go to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia urgent care center in nearby King of Prussia to get an ultrasound and rule out appendicitis.

A few long hours later, Izzy was scheduled for admittance at CHOP so she could have her appendix removed in the morning.

“I was very nervous because I never had surgery before,” Izzy admits. “Everyone kept saying it would be OK, but I didn’t know that for sure and I was worried.”

And then what happened next really surprised her.

Post-surgery FaceTime

“My room was really cool and they wrote on a whiteboard ‘WELCOME IZZY!’,” she recalls. “There was a snack room and the nurses gave me chocolate ice cream. And there was a playroom and my Daddy and I played Rummikub, and if you took a paperback book to read, you could keep it!

“My Daddy stayed until I fell asleep and then Mommy came back,” Izzy adds. “The nurses were really nice and they checked on me all night.”

Shortly after her successful one-hour laparoscopic surgery, we FaceTimed with Izzy and she made this observation: “If I had known how great it was going to be, I never would have been afraid.”

That comment started me thinking about fear of the unknown, which led to pondering my eventual journey to Heaven (which, for all of us gets closer every day!) I turned 71 yesterday and if I’m truly honest, I have some apprehension, some concern…dare I say, a little  fear about some of the unknowns?

What will my earthly passing be like? How does it feel to be transported out of this body? What will Heaven REALLY be like?

“I imagine our first glimpse of Heaven will cause us to…gasp in amazement and delight,” writes Randy Alcorn in his book Heaven. “That first gasp will likely be followed by many more as we continually encounter new sights in that endlessly wonderful place.”

Maybe there will be a white board inscribed ‘WELCOME LYNN!” And I’m sure there will be really good snacks and really nice people.

Alcorn goes on to describe our first moments in Heaven like this:
“Now you see someone coming toward you. It’s Jesus, with a big smile on His face. You fall to your knees in worship. He pulls you up and embraces you. At last you are with the person you were made for, in the place you were made to be.”

And like my wise granddaughter, I imagine I will say “If I had known how great this was  going to be, I never would have been afraid!”

No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him. 
1 Corinthians 2:9

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Please open in browser to hear the music video “I Can Only Imagine” ©Mercy Me.

Aug 27

Navigating the Storms of Life

Photos NOT from the fateful voyage!

Many years ago my husband  and I had plans with my then-boss, Dr. Marc Hirsh and his wife Elizabeth to cruise to a marina on Maryland’s eastern shore for our annual Labor Day weekend getaway on their 32-two-foot Bayliner.

The weather looked rather foul, but Elizabeth had checked with her brother who lives right on the Gunpowder River leading into the Chesapeake Bay, and he assured us the reports didn’t look that bad despite a hurricane that was heading northward up the coast. (We later learned he had accidentally listened to the wrong forecast!)

Even though Marc and Elizabeth were seasoned boaters,  the whitecaps on the usually calm river should have been our first clue it wasn’t a good idea to head out. We had a short two-hour cruise ahead of us, but it wasn’t long before the white caps turned into three-foot waves. The wind whipped up, and then the thunder, lightning, and rain came. At first we all laughed and enjoyed the warm rain soaking us as the boat pounded through the waves.

But then I stopped laughing and my stomach started rebelling. Elizabeth handed me a supply of Ziploc bags, which I started filling.

The waves were now five feet high and crashing clear over the top of the boat’s windshield, drenching us. It was nearly impossible for Marc to see out the rain-splattered windshield, and my husband and Elizabeth were trying to read the navigational charts and look for the numbered buoys, which would keep us in the correct channel away from large shipping vessels, shallow water, and crab pots.

We were too far out to turn back toward home, yet not sure we could make it to our planned destination.

And then it got really bad.

Marc announced that according to the boat’s compass we were headed in exactly the wrong direction: south when we should have been heading north.

We all were sure we hadn’t turned around—Elizabeth was especially positive that she would have noticed if the boat had made an about-face. From past experience I knew she usually was right whenever the two of them had a boating disagreement.

The three of us looked at Marc, waiting to see what he would do. (Well, I didn’t look long because I was busy praying there were enough Ziploc bags.)

After a long pause, Marc posed his now-famous question: “Should I trust my wife . . . or the magnetic poles of the earth?”

It wouldn’t have surprised me if he’d gone with Elizabeth’s feelings because she was so adamant about them, but his scientific brain won out and Marc turned the boat 180 degrees.

Within a few moments, buoys were sighted which confirmed that we, indeed, had been going in the wrong direction despite all of us “feeling” otherwise.

The storm raging around us had distorted reality and our feelings had fallen fickle.

The same thing can happen in the storms of life. We can feel as if we’re unable to cope or that we have no hope. In those times we need a compass—something that always will steer us in the right direction.

A magnetic compass always will point you to the North Pole, and God’s Word always will point you to His unchanging truths and promises.

“The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever.”  Isaiah 40:8

Like Marc as he captained our boat that stormy trip, it’s your choice–and mine–whether or not to trust the magnetic poles of the earth. Life’s trials may distort reality, but there is a deeper spiritual reality that always an be trusted.

Excerpted from When God & Grief Meet. Copyright © 2009 by Lynn Eib. All rights reserved.
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