Finding Community in my Despair

27 December 2015, I blogged looking forward to 2016 and thinking, “I might just make it." Today almost three years later I'm thinking, “what were you thinking... This grieving thing is too much to handle!!!!!” As I write that a bunch of things are going through my heart and mind. I feel a failure... pretentious... and a whole bunch of things I never wanted to be.

A very well meaning person that I love and respect told me a few days ago that he thinks that it is about time I get up and face my grief and move on.

WOW! That really struck a nerve. I did not know what to say or do after that. I thought, “Isn’t that what I have been trying to do?” Then I thought a few other things that I can’t dare to say out loud or write down. BUT really... is it really time to move on from my grief? Is that even possible? How would I do that? Could I really have grown stuck in despair? WHAT’S GOING ON? I don’t like this feeling... It sucks!

Seriously... Is this guy serious? How do you even begin to 'let go'? Who cares about joy? Right now I am struggling to breath... struggling to just cling on to life. Joy and love is not some magical bandage that wipes away loss or pain.

Despair is a present emotion... a very real everyday feeling... not some past feeling of regret... a everyday fight with darkness that tries to overwhelm you. It's not some decision to not feel pain or regret or loss. It's a conscious recognition that darkness is pushing in on you and that your capacity to overthrow it is very limited, But you certainly are more than a conquer through Christ that strengthens you.

Pain, especially the pain of loss, is overcome through surrender... surrender not to the pain but to the notion of healing it by yourself.

Our healing, if such a thing exists, lies in Christ and Christ is best experienced in His Faith Community. In fact, Christ is Christian Community! The Church is the body of Christ (or at least, we are suppose to be) supporting and aiding each other so as to ensure the entire body growing.

What am I saying? Let's see if I can make sense of my ramblings.

1. PAIN IS REAL, DON'T IGNORE IT!
2. CHRIST GIFTED US WITH COMMUNITY
3.WE WORK OUT AND THROUGH OUR PAIN, IN COMMUNITY
4. TRUE COMMUNITY IS CREATED THROUGH BEING

So, here is my plan. I will continue to face my pain (one day at time) and will endeavour not just to find Community but to BE Community... even if it's uncomfortable or painful... a Christ Community that not only receives the vulnerable but also become vulnerable. So that together we can edify, support and heal.

I have come to believe that moving on from my grief simply means embracing Community. COMMUNITY WITH EACH OTHER IN COMMUNION WITH CHRIST!

"Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it."
1 Corinthians 12:12‭, ‬14‭-‬14‭, ‬18‭, ‬26‭-‬27 NIV

This is hard! But Not Impossible!!

Grief makes me mad! It imposes on my life all the time! So I sat down to "declutter" my life, hoping to delete all the "mad", only to discover a precious gift.

Have you ever received the perfect gift... or have you been given a gift that you feel you did not deserve? I think those are the best gifts, not just to receive but also to give. However, all too often gifts are demanded or prescribed... I know someone who said, "I am so bad at giving gifts to my wife that I simply asked  her to tell me what she wanted. I would then go out and carefully buy exactly what she requested"... Shame the poor thing, his life is much better he now only gets in trouble for not wrapping it properly. You see, even if we manage to find the perfect gift... there will always be the issue of the gift wrap. 

Christ has given us the perfect gift in the perfect wrapping. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Ephesians 2:8-9(ESV)

I just realized that the best gifts I ever gave were the gifts that cost me the most... don't misunderstand. I am not necessarily talking about monitory costs... I think that time, effort, thought, sacrifice, etc is just as valuable, if not more. Often we give gifts that are valued extravagant in monitory terms but has no real value to the recipient.

"Grace is a free gift of bountiful love wrapped in faith and is meant for restoration."

Christ gave us a gift that no amount of money can ever purchase... The gift of living! John 10:10 tells us that we can have life to the fullest. This is a precious gift that we have the privilege of wrapping in faith and sharing with others. The sad thing is that we too often choose to share death... we much too easily choose break relationships rather than build relationships. We find every excuse to say, "I have done enough, it's impossible to save this situation or relationship, I have enough hurt of my own I can not be meddling in somebody else's hurt. etc". 

"Faith is the impossible wrapped in the conviction that it will all work out for the best and carried in a bag knitted together by patience."

Maybe we should face what we perceive impossible! Maybe we should drop the gloom and depression and wrap our circumstances in conviction, carried by patience... I Think the world can do with a few more people who are prepared to face difficulty with conviction and is willing to see those difficult decisions through right to the end.

Today I choose to step out in faith… Even though my heart aches and the storms of grieve blow against me. I will wrap my impossible in the conviction that God has my back, even if I struggle to believe that right now.

chronic pain

❤

It has been too long since I wrote... I am not a hundred percent sure why.... but I suspect that it is because I felt little a bit like a hypocrite.

I have always been the one that said that we should be honest about our feelings and be authentic in our responses to our pain. Well... I have not been. You see, even though I had been honest in the pain I feel,  I have not been completely honest about my lack of desire to not feel the pain.

There was and is a part of me that wants to remain in the pain. It makes me get up in the morning, because it reminds me to do everything possible not to feel this kind of loss again. The pain reminds me to be extra vigilant in loving my other two kids. I don't want to miss out on anything in their lives... It gives me a crutch to lean on... as if I have permission to not be my best but at the same time a motivation... an extra push to do better and live better .

In trying to make sense of this for myself, I turned to "The Weeping Prophet, Jeremiah". He complains to God about his pain and this is what he says,

 "But why, why this chronic pain, this ever worsening wound and no healing in sight? You’re nothing, God, but a mirage, a lovely oasis in the distance—and then nothing!" (Jer 15:18 - The Message)

I am not quite sure how to respond to Jeremiah, but I know that I never want to feel like that. Can you imagine the depth of the loneliness of the Prophet Jeremiah... not sure I can call God a mirage... not sure i ever would want to. The only sense in my chronic pain is Christ... I'd  rather say that pain is part and parcel of our lives and I'm not so sure about whether or not life without pain is ever worth living. You see, if we never know pain,  we can never truly appreciate life without pain... I hate that I think that this is true... Maybe it is just my mind's way of trying to justify the pain I have in my life. Perhaps  there is some greater wisdom or mystic revelation that pain carries or maybe it's senseless.... . 

There is this song, Holiness, by Micah Stampley, that just completely messed me up.  In the song,  there is a verse that says  "Brokenness, that's what I long for...  what I need... is what You want for me."

I know I am probably completely missing the context of the song but I began to think that, "as long as I see my brokenness and experience my brokenness, the more I am dependent on God for my Holiness. The more wounded I am,  the more I need the healer...??? I don't know... All I know is that I never want to feel that my pain is so much that God feels like a mirage in the distance. I also don't want to idolize my pain and see it as some type of special passage or chanel to God... as if I cannot meet with God at anytime.

So as much as my pain (brokenness) helps and informs my Theology, it can never be the motivation for my Service to God. It can never be a good enough motivation for me to serve and love my family. There has to be more...

So here is my pledge, "I will do my best to trust God to move me beyond the pain. Because beyond the pain there is love and hope... These, I think, is a greater motivation for my life. 

Here I am again

Here I lie again... I thought I conquered it. I did so well, or so I thought. I burried my pain and sorrow deep within... I hid it behind my busy schedule, behind my new adventure, behind my new friendships, behind my spirituality... behind... way behind everything so deep that I thought it would never surface again. I got rid of it once and for all, but it's not that easy is it? You see  as much as I can pretent or as much as I may want to avoid the pain and sorrow it is always nearby.

So here is my new, new plan. No more hidding... no more pretending... here I am... Again...😟

Tonight I miss my boy... more then ever. I feel the need to cry, but my tears are all dried up. All I feel is pain... the pain is pearcing through my back, my neck, my shoulders and my feet. My heart feels empty and my arms feel weak. I dont know how to deal with all this... as much as I experience this physical pain I know that it is mere a physical manifestation of what I have been avoiding for much too long.

So dear friends reading this blog with me... please hear my plea... Don't ever loose sight of your real emotions. Feeling pain... experiencing sadness is no less valid than joy or peace. Allow yourselves to feel... express yourself, even if only in the privacy of a journal or confession.

The only way to get to the otherside of an emotion is to feel it and deal with it.

I know it is not always easy to do but you don't have to face it alone...reach out to friends, family and loved-ones. They might not always know what to say or do, but we dont need answers... We need companionship and companionship starts by us being real and reaching out.

I pray for you as I hope you are praying for me. Thanx for listening.

Drowning in the pool of fear...

It is 11 Months since we lost our son. He drowned in the pool at our home. We had all the illusions of safety. We kept the faith... taught the kids the joy and dangers of swimming, kept the doors to pool closed, etc. Yet in the midst of ALL the precautions Judah got out to the pool somehow... and so began the most painful chapter in our lives, yet.

After Judah died I put up the pool net.... not just of the physical pool at our home, but to the pool I dare to call my life. Occasionally I would venture out to swim in the pool of my life, but today, like most days ... I find myself grasping for air. You see, I have fallen into the pool of fear... fear not of life or even death, but the fear of loosing.  I find myself holding on to everyone and everything I hold dear. So much so that I feel like I am drowning in the fear of loss and I might be dragging everyone down with me.

I fear loosing my mind... not being able to rationalize my thinking... loosing my theology... not being able to find adequate words to describe my faith. I fear loosing my identity... not recognizing the person in the mirror and worst of all loosing my wife and kids... because life as I use to live is no longer a viable option.

As I wrestle with this notion I come to the conclusion that the only way for me to survive (I really want to survive and live) this struggle in the pool of fear is to swim... to kick as hard as I can and to realize the the life guard is already in the water with me... the problem is that I am fighting so much to stay alive that I am not allowing the life guard to pull me out.

Help! I don't want to drown. 

Peter and the disciples of Jesus found themselves in a storm... the other disciples were as good as dead because they were drowning in the pool of fear, right there in the safety of their boat... Peter risked it and said, If that is you Lord call me to walk on the water to you. I must be honest enough to admit that I do not know if I have the courage to say as Peter did, but my survival depends on it. The Survival of my family and love ones depend on it. So here goes...

Lord... I am scared... I don't want to drown... If that is you call me out... command me to walk on the waters of fear to you. I give myself over to your will for my life... NOW MORE THEN EVER BEFORE!

That sucks!!! (I Thought) by Roger And Desiree

(This Blog is special to me because it is the first one that Des and I actually wrote together… hopefully it’s not the last one.)

I started this blog with an urgent need to write but not much to say, so I googled some sites that might help me make sense of some of my thoughts. 

I came across the following quote, "Some things in life cannot be fixed. They can only be carried." Megan Devine  (www.refugeingrief.com) In all fairness I am probably read this completely out of context. Nevertheless...

I hated the feeling that this quote awakened within me, because it goes against everything that I believe in and hold dear to.  How do I carry this feeling? How do I deal with this grief that cannot be fixed.... 

This is hard for me especially since my faith had always kind of leaned towards the, "God can and will fix everything that is broken. It is only these days that I am beginning to see things differently. I must admit that I do not like that notion... It is easier for me to believe that things will be fixed... then to believe that I will be expected to carry this brokenness within me. 

We are now entering Lent... A time for reflection…  A time of greater awareness of the suffering of Christ and what that means for us.... I am anxious about lent, because I am aware that I would have to deal with these issues of grief that I have been avoiding all along. As I reflect on this, even now, I begin to see a shift in my thinking... maybe healing is not fixing, but rather discovering how to carry our loads to Christ. 

Whilst I am on about Lent... 

Allow me, please, to meander and ramble on a bit... Last year lent was very special to us, as a family... For Desiree in particular… So we are really not all that keen to reflect this year. Let me explain... Last year we gave our best in terms of our lent commitments... Judah, made our little family complete and we were extremely grateful to God for that... and gave our best and still the year turned out to be our worst…

The most sacred period of our faith, which is the journey to the cross, has  become replaced with the journey  to our darkest moment, the journey to the death of our son.  We lost Judah tragically in a drowning on Easter Monday.  This celebration can never quite be the same again.  Lent will forever be connected to our deepest pain. While others are excited about Ash Wednesday, the start of the 40 day spiritual journey, to us it reminds us of the last 40 days we had with Judah, and we didn't even know it at the time.  While others, rightly so, are excited about the fasting and wait for that breakthrough and healing after the fasting, we dread it. Simply because our fasting last year wasn't met with a breakthrough but a breakdown…

Naturally, this year we are reluctant to fully participate. That being said...  on further reflection, I think we are beginning to see that just maybe our definition of Healing is the problem. Just maybe healing is not equal to fixing... just maybe giving our best to God, especially during a time such as Lent does not make us special... so as to prevent suffering and hurt or even heal suffering and hurt, but rather that it points out our real dependence on God. 

This year we are focusing our teaching at Church about Lent on "Becoming Whole, as we become aware of brokenness". My prayer is that we as a family would be able to engage this Lenten period, deepening our relationship with Christ, becoming more and more aware the brokenness not just in our lives but also in the lives of others and therefore begin to become whole and enable wholeness in their lives... 

So with this in mind my amended version of the quote by Megan Devine would be something like this, "Some things in life cannot be fixed (healed). They can only be carried (to Christ)." You see healing or fixing, even if it seems unredeemable in my eyes, will take on new meaning in Christ... For indeed Christ makes all things new.

When Praise Dies...

The Easton's Bible Dictionary defines Judah the following way:

Judah [N] [H] [S]

Praise, the fourth son of Jacob by Leah. The name originated in Leah's words of praise to the Lord on account of his birth: "Now will I praise [Heb. odeh] Jehovah, and she called his name Yehudah" ( Genesis 29:35 ).

I remember the day we found out about Judah (that we were expecting him). It was a great surprise... But I could certainly identify with Leah. God is worthy of praise!!! The day we brought him home was even better. Indeed he not just brought joy into our lives, but he also seemed to draw us closer to God. His birth was our journey back... our second chance. 

Today I sit here missing him like never before. I wonder whether or not I have it in me to Praise again... I read an article this morning that stated, "Grief rearranged my life. There is a lot of decisions to make now". This is exactly how I feel. Everyday is a decision to live... to get out of bed, search for hope and face the day.

Judah... for me... used to mean "praise to God", but has now become "depend on God"... depend on God more and more. This is the best I can do at the moment and it will have to do. No more pretending, no more masks. Just me, depending on God every moment of every day! 

So I ask myself the question, "How can Praise bring Pain?" the only answer I have is that it can not! Or can it? Should it? Would it? I don't know... but this is what I know... My God is faithful and can bring forth praise from pain; right now I might not know it... I might not see it... But this pain can only give birth to awesome praise... 

Today is especially painful... I feel paralysed by the pain. I am not sure how I got out of bed this morning or if I will make it through the day. But my faith has taught me that no matter how dark the nights are the day is sure to come. That no matter how heavy my heart might be... Jesus is strong enough to carry it all. I know it sound like sensationalistic and over-simplistic, but this is all I have left for today.

What else is there to do when praise has died and only pain remain? As I write this I got a simple message from my wife, "... we are in this together." Immediately I was reminded that after all what remains is LOVE. 

Love will overcome this pain! Love will restore my Praise in God! Love will conquer all!