When Things Get Real

Do you remember the moment when you shifted from feeling "not grown" to "grown"? Or when you underwent any other major change of attitude, style, or sense of yourself?

I don't remember those moments. I don't remember when it happened that I stopped playing with adulthood and actually started being a true adult. Or when I stopped thinking about relationships in a shallow way and begin to understand their seriousness.

Yesterday, though, I underwent one of those major moments. Something in my soul shifted and rearranged itself in some way that I am still trying to understand.

I was sitting in my sister's room, watching as her son tried to begin going through her some of her belongings. We want to pack everything up and store them until we decide what to keep and what to donate. It's been a month now since she passed away and I guess my nephew and I thought we were ready to deal with this task. We weren't.

My nephew looked around at all those things - the hats she wore throughout her chemo treatments; the miniature bottles of perfume that she preferred over the full-sized ones: "Obsession" and "Queen" and "Giorgio"; cards and gifts that she'd received for birthdays and Christmas - and he suddenly was overwhelmed with the very gone-ness of his mother. My sister. And everything in him just gave in to the grief. It seemed that he was just winded with the pain of it.

I think this is the first time that he was understanding that she really is gone. Not here. Not ever going to be sitting on that bed, or putting on those hats or that perfume, or laughing with us, advising us, comforting us, fussing at us.

And so.

It was later, after my nephew had gone home, and I was sitting there on my sister's bed that I had that moment I was talking about. I'm not the first to have this particular moment but, for me, it was like my heart had always been partially blind until just then. That moment.

Though I'd always known that nothing is as important as the soul, it was at that moment that I truly understood that fact.

I understood that nothing - not issues of politics, race, gender, sexuality - none of it matters as much as God. What I realized is that, not only does none of that stuff matter as much as we've been made to believe, but a lot of it - most of it - is a distraction.

The other week, I saw someone online pondering about whether or not Ebola had been a distraction from something else, considering how big a media topic is was for such a short period of time. Now I was thinking of all the other issues that keep us busy and distracted and warring among ourselves.

Maybe, I thought, everything is a distraction from the biggest thing: eternity.

I think it was in "The Screwtape Letters" that C.S. Lewis talked about ways Satan and his tempters distract humans away from the very thoughts we ought to be having. I know that that's been true in my own life.

Always before, I allowed myself to be distracted from important matters. I can list things that I spent way too much of my energy on:

• Anger at injustices (personal and in general)
• Competing with myself in personal goals and with others on the job
• Finding ways to fill my "me" time with fun and adventure and any kind of entertainment
• Worrying about my shortcomings as a woman, a wife, a sibling
• Working to improve my outer self

It's not that those things don't matter at all, but I let them matter too much. I wasn't spending enough (or, in some cases, any) time and energy on things that really do matter:

• As a Christian, I am called to be ready to give an answer for why I believe. I can recite some Bible verses, but I can recite some popular book and movie lines better.
• I don't pray enough. I'm too busy allowing myself to be distracted about how and where and what to pray for. Until I get into some kind of trouble.
• I don't share my faith enough with the people right around me. I might profess my beliefs, but I don't always show those beliefs with actions.
• I don't ask myself the hard questions about whether or not everything I do might be pleasing to God.
• Most of all, I don't always live as if this moment could be my last on earth.

What I realized is not only have I allowed myself to be distracted but, a lot of the times, I've wanted to be distracted. 

It's easier for me to argue how racial profiling affects me than it is to think about racial profiling as being part of the bigger issue of ignorance, intolerance and injustice. None of those things are new and we aren't going to solve them.

That's dangerous because instead of focusing on the fact that evil and wrongdoing exists (as it always has) I (and especially non-believers) are tempted to focus on why a "good" God "allows" such things.

It's easier for me to worry about work and making more and more money than it is for me to ask myself how much money really matters. I've even allowed myself to be manipulated into worry about what kind of work I do rather than just working at all.

That's just insane because so many of us will suffer by going without any decent work because we think we deserve something better. (And "better" might mean work that we aren't qualified for, suited for, etc.) Some of us get to the point where we'd rather sell drugs than work at a fast food restaurant once we're past a certain age.

It's easier for me to pursue useless entertainment. Simple enjoyment has taken a backseat to more and more and more. Where I used to be happy with just enjoying a good book, now I get caught up in having the newest devices for reading a book. Where I used to just get out and walk and enjoy being out, now I have gadgets that monitor how much I'm walking - or I even just stay indoors and walk on a machine.

And it goes on and on.

Bottom line is, we've been manipulated and distracted. Not all of us, but so many of us - and by "us", I mean those of us who call ourselves Christian. So, if we - those who claim Christ as our personal Savior, those of us who read and study the Bible, those of us who know the warnings - then what about the people we are supposed to be spreading the Gospel to?

Anyway.

I can't speak for anyone else or have "the moment" for them but, now that I've had mine, I've got changes to make. I'm really focusing on balancing out the time and energy I spend of anything. And I have to pray constantly about these distractions.

Peace

Personal Revival in Church

I think I already said this on Google Plus, but I want to repeat it: Church today was especially awesome.

Since this is Palm Sunday, the message was centered particularly around the 53rd chapter of Isaiah. I can't wait now to read through this chapter again and re-absorb the message.

A few parts of the pastor's message and the entire service that struck me so deeply were these:

• The song today was "Deep Cries Out". It's one I'd never heard of before and I wasn't crazy about the music, but part of the the lyrics, wow: "Deep cries out to deep". That described my own entire existence. How we can get to such bottomless despair, loneliness, and heartache that all we can do is cry out to God. Maybe that's just my take on the verse out of Psalm, but I felt like it was speaking right to my heart.
• When Jesus's first arrival as Messiah had been foretold again and again, so many people didn't want to believe. His next coming has been foretold and, still, same situation.
• The pastor and some other people from church visited some children yesterday in preparation for April 5th (Easter). Some of the non-church people were surprised that the "church" people were so normal and nice. Pastor pointed out that so many folks only view of/idea of Christians comes from what they see/read/hear via mainstream media. How true that is! Just like with any other section of society grouped in a certain way (by race, gender, personal choices), Christians have the problem of being profiled as mean, un-loving, self-righteous, etc. And, just like with those other groups of people, those negative things are true. Of some of us, not all. So, pastor encouraged us to interact more outside of our comfort zones. (I know that we can be in and interact with "the world" without becoming wordly.)

So, yeah, I got a lot of good from being in church today. Of course, I always leave feeling better than when I go in.

I hope that you all feel as lifted as I do.

Peace

Joy in Place of Grief

I'm dealing with my grief much better this week. I believe that's because of two things:

1. I went to church Sunday
2. I realized how selfish my grief is

The sermon Sunday wasn't directly related to grief, but it did affect my thoughts about death. The current sermon series is on the Bible book of Daniel. Daniel is a book of prophecy. All Bible prophecy is about the promise we Christians hold for our salvation. 

While the pastor talked on various verses, I kept reflecting on the fact that we are living in the "end times", and that no matter how long those times might last, every person - saved or not - lives their own end times because of our mortality.

My sister believed on the blood of Jesus Christ. The last hours she was alive, she called out His name and prayed, even though she was in so much discomfort. I believe now that she was praying and yearning for rest. I believe her rest was granted.

Yesterday, while I was going through some of her things, I prayed to God to help ease my sense of loss. I'm not breaking down at every memory of my sister like I was earlier on. I still have moments of pain at the "gone-ness" of her, but I feel more relief and joy as every hour passes. I think of what we all have been promised as Christians. I think of the Henry Van Dyke poem that my dear friend +Sandy Sandmeyer shared with me: 

Gone From My Sight (by Henry Van Dyke)

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,

spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts

for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.

I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck

of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then, someone at my side says, "There, she is gone."

Gone where?

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast,

hull and spar as she was when she left my side.

And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me -- not in her.

And, just at the moment when someone says, "There, she is gone,"

there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices

ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"

So now, when I think of my sister (and my mother and father and my brother), I think of their gain more than I think of my loss. While I realize, as my little brother just told me in a recent phone call, that our grief is normal, I know that it can also be selfish.

My sister would be heartbroken to think of any of us wallowing in our misery at her death. She would want us to think of her with love and laughter, not regret and pain. She would want us to go on. Mostly, she would want us to know that her death was not an end for her but a beginning.

I still miss her, but I am better now. Now when I think of her, I try to imagine the joy of those who were calling out to her as she arrived on the other shore. 

We have been promised that there is no weeping in Heaven and, if I believe in that promise, I must put away my time of weeping here on earth for those who are now Home. I'll save my sorrow for those who don't yet believe in life everlasting.

If you are in pain from the loss of a loved one, here are some of God's promises that may help comfort you as they did me:

In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? (John 14:2)

And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43)

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (2 Corinthians 5:1)

My favorite right now is Luke 23:43 because it reminds me that my sister went immediately into Paradise. Immediately. And it reminds me that my brother who, like the thief beside Jesus on the cross, was accepted into Heaven even though he found Jesus very shortly before death. Praise God.

Peace

--Free

Struggling with Grief

So, my sister died.

I'm relieved, and even happy. For her. For me, I'm just sad and lonely and in a state of anxiety.

I wake up and think about her. In the first moments of waking, I forget that she's not here. I think about something I just have to tell her. And then I remember. She's gone.

It's so odd and disconcerting to my heart when I try to realize that she's nowhere here on this earth.

And I cycle through feelings of anger, fear, loneliness, despair, and guilt. Because who am I to want her to still be here, as broken as her body was, as tired as her soul had to be - just so I can not suffer all the miserable emotions I feel in her absence.

I talk to God a lot. I ask Him questions. I want to find comfort in my faith - faith that I will see Mike again, faith that she is better and whole now - but I don't feel quite whole myself without her. So, I ask God if time passes differently for Mike now; does she miss me or not? Does the time that feels so long to me not feel like but seconds to her. The time, I mean, between now and when I see her again.

I ask Him if, when we all get to Heaven, will we know each other? Will knowing each other even matter to us? Or does the connection we had on earth disappear in the bigger connection that we will have in Heaven?

God might be answering me in ways that I'm just not hearing. Right now I can't hear anything over the pain shouting in my heart. I can't even think past the noise of my grief.

Probably for anyone who loses a person they love so much, the struggle is between the pain of remembering and the fear of forgetting. One moment, you don't want to remember; the next moment, you don't want to forget.

Sometimes, I go and sit in Mike's room and just look around at her stuff - the stuff that doesn't matter at all to her anymore - and it all matters so much to me. And it hurts that it matters. I don't want to look at her clothes and her knickknacks and the little pieces of debris that mattered to her just a few weeks ago. Things that she would have missed. I'm both glad and sad that she doesn't miss those things anymore.

I wonder if, where she is, she knows how lost I feel. I want her to know how much I miss her, but I don't think that that matters anymore. Not where she is.

I miss my sister so very, very much. I'm waiting for the day when I can think of her and miss her without feeling so torn apart by this ache in my soul.

No one can teach you how to deal with grief. For me, I can't think past it enough now to even imagine how to deal with it. So, I sleep. I function. Somehow. I get from one short moment to the next. I just want to get past this unbearable grief and get to the point where I can actually endure it. Somehow.