Category: grief journey

Chapter 15
Slippery Sheep and Healed Hurts

“You anoint my head with oil.” – Psalm 23:5 NKJV

The continuing blog experience through Max Lucado’s book “Traveling Light“

Ok so I have not wanted to write about this chapter. I’ll give you three reasons why – death, loss and disappointment. Not an easy task writing about the events in your life that have caused you such pain, sorrow and misery. Even though the healing has begun, the holes that have been placed upon my heart will forever remain. Which I believe, makes my vision so much clearer when it comes to grief and the disappointment that comes from experiencing loss.

In the three years and seven months since my daughter’s death I have known what is like to have wounds that seem as if they would never heal. That life just couldn’t be the same, or couldn’t be worth living without my daughter’s bright light that made life so worth living for. In the days and weeks after her death, I lost an incredible amount of weight. My clothes became very loose, the skin on my face seemed to just hang like the clothes; the luster gone from my life. The disappointment of my loss was so very visible during this time.

For many months I prayed for God to ease the pain and the space in my heart that ached with every beat. And over time, I felt like the sheep in Lucado’s story – the shepherd bathed the sheep with oil to keep the bugs from attacking them while they grazed on the pastures. For me God began in subtle ways to bathe my heart with His oil. And slowly but surely I began to come back into the light. But the light, it was hazy and not very bright. Something was missing and I couldn’t see because the pain was still so very evident as I moved throughout my days.

The sorrow still very present, although I was becoming very good at hiding it. So many things had gone wrong in my life for so long, I couldn’t see clearly anymore – life had become this vast space of nothing to me. I was able to work without too  much difficulty, which was a blessing. I had seen such a financial fall out from her death that having a job and being able to work kept me busy. But underneath – life was meaningless.

But God being who He is continued to bathe my wounded heart with oil and I began to gain weight and I looked a little healthier. I even began exercising again. Exercise had always meant a great deal to me and it gave me a way to “work out” my pain. Even though I was still grieving terribly over the loss of my daughter, my life and everything I held dear to me; I still could see I was moving toward a new life. The oil was working.

Lucado mentions something interesting in this chapter and I found it very helpful and a reminder that I am still being covered with oil, that God is still on task – taking care of His sheep. Lucado says this about life “The large portion of our problems are not lion-sized attacks, but rather the day-to-day swarm of frustrations and mishaps and heartaches.” I was reminded that even though I have come a long way in my grief, it’s the everyday life that can still hold you back from enjoying the life God intended if you don’t stay focused on Him. Let Him bathe you with the oil.

“If the Gospels teach us anything, they teach us that Jesus is a Good Shepherd” Lucado writes. I know God has seen me through some incredibly difficult times over my many years. I also know that God has a wonderful life still prepared for me, and my job, it’s pretty simple really. I just have to believe. I have to be willing to be bathed with the oil. I have to give up control and let God do what He does best. Heal.

until next time,

m

Chapter 14
The Crowing Rooster and Me
A Journey through the burden of shame…..

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. – Psalm 23:5 NKJV

 

I’ll have to admit this wasn’t an easy chapter to read nor to write about. There was one sentence though that really struck me and that is: “The one who will speak with power is weeping in pain.” In this chapter Lucado speaks about Peter’s betrayal of Jesus and how horribly shameful Peter must have felt. Jesus was already fully aware that Peter was going to betray him even before Peter did. As it is written we know that: “But Jesus said, ‘Peter, before the rooster crows this day, you will say three times that you don’t know me.'” Luke 22:33-34

After reading this chapter I realized that even though the many times I have drifted away from God, how many times I felt broken because I wondered if He cared enough for me. Throughout my life, the times when life was just barely worth living, when all around me life was crashing in, I would look up and ask God “Where are you?” “Don’t you care about me anymore?” But the one thing I’ve never, ever done is deny God. I may have been crushed by life, but I have never given up hope.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve come very close to giving up because the burden of life had become extraordinarily hard to bear. Loss after loss life seemed full of tragedy and failure for me. Even as a young child and moving through the many years of life I have often wondered if I was even suppose to be here on this earth. What possible reason would it serve to continue when my heart was so broken, my soul so lost and my life bleeding out before anyone to see. Yet I am still here.

Lucado speaks of that place where one goes when they feel they have betrayed God with sin. That in our boasting we proclaim that we no longer will do whatever it was that brought us such shame. Yet rather than resisting the temptation, we return to it. Then we again relive the cycle of hearing the “rooster crow” and the “conviction of our sin” and then we weep. We go back to our old lives because it is what we know. And for me one of the most gut-wrenching statements, Lucado states “And we question whether Jesus has a place for folks like us.” I too somedays when I feel lost, I ask that same question. Have I gone so far that there is no way back.

Lucado goes on to show us through Peter’s conviction and Jesus’ grace we all, no matter what we have done, have a place at the table with our God. The one who made us and the one that loves us – unconditionally. I know that at times a hurting soul finds that hard to believe. Trust me I know it well. But I also believe in the most simplistic truth – God loves me and I hold onto that every single second, minute of every single day. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to keep moving forward.

until next time

m

Chapter 13

Silent Nights and Solitary Days

The Burden of Loneliness

You are with me. – Psalm 23:4 NKJV

****** Warning ***** this will be a very real and painful look at what loneliness looks like ************** if it makes you uncomfortable – then do something about it *****

• Here are some great excerpts from Max Lucado’s Traveling Light:
• A person can be surrounded by a church and still be lonely.
• Loneliness is not the absence of faces.
• It is the absence of intimacy.
• Loneliness doesn’t come from being alone; it comes from feeling alone.
• Feeling as if you are: facing death alone; facing disease alone; facing the future alone.

 

I have and sometimes still do experience all of the above. It sometimes feels like a weight that has become too difficult to bear. I have felt this type of loneliness since my daughter’s death – the still quietness of the house were we lived became so deafening – I had to leave it.

Funny thing is it still follows you wherever you go. Relentless loneliness, even while in the midst of people, is a constant cross to bear. I have tried to shake on numerous occasions, and just when you think you have shaken it off – there it is. Sneaking up on you and reminding you that it will be with you always.

So what do you do with that? Lucado eludes to the fact that perhaps its God’s way of stripping you down so that He can have your full out attention. That God wants you to come to Him with this loneliness that won’t leave you. All the other noise and stuff you’ve tried to distract yourself with hasn’t really been working. I can say I’ve tried just about everything I know. Not much works. Except God.

So why am I still battling this loneliness – fear – oh yeah we discussed that in the previous blog post. Fear keeps me from experiencing connections with people. Why – I have a fear of loss that is profound – because it is what I know. It’s all I know. It has become who I am.

Lucado asks the reader to underline the following words: You Are Not Alone!

“Your family may turn against you, but God won’t. Your friends may betray you, but God won’t. You may feel alone in the wilderness, but you are not. He is with you. And because He is, everything is different, you are different.”

I can say that when I stay focused on God – I can see that. I can feel that. But it is a full-time job to stay focused on God. It is not easy to remain on high-alert 24/7 and not be exhausted.  It’s so easy to turn to earthly things to satisfy the craving for love. But Lucado says this “When you know God loves you, you won’t be desperate for the love of others.”

Lucado uses the analogy of a person hungry who shops at the market on an empty stomach. So does the person who suffers from loneliness. We shop for anything that will satisfy our craving for love. Not because we need it, but because we are hungry for it. I have done that often with so many things, but in the end I still end up feeling lonely.

I have learned that when my eyes are off God, the loneliness is overwhelmingly hard to bear. The quiet is deafening, the pain excruciating, and facing the future alone is dark and scary. So you see – if you know me – you know that the life I had before looks nothing like the life I have now. The once joyous and life-loving person is now just an empty shell. Existing in a space that is narrow and hard to navigate; not the life I had imagined for myself. Would you?

But as I wait on God, I’ll try to keep my eyes on Him and not on the earthly things that have kept me from moving forward.

Until next time

m

Chapter 12 – From Panic to Peace – The Burden of Fear

I will fear no evil. – Psalm 23:4 NKJV

In this chapter Lucado speaks of fear and how Jesus may have experienced fear the night before his death. How he looked to God to take his fear away. I too in the early days looked to God to take my fears, my pain, my anguish, all of it filled my every waking minute in the early days, weeks and months after my daughter’s death.

Lucado also writes about one of my favorite stories in the Bible “The Garden of Gethsemane”.  I wrote about this previously and find that even today, 3-1/2 years after my daughter’s death – this blog post is still relevant.

The Garden of Gethsemane

As I struggled over the months to make it through, I came home and studied my bible for hours at night after work. There are so many wonderful segments of scripture that spoke to my heart during this time, but it is the story of Jesus and his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane that really spoke to me. The words helped me to define how I was feeling about the “aloneness” I was experiencing.

Matthew 26:36 – Jesus points out to Peter, James and John how distressed and anguished he was…

38: He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

39: He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”

40: Then he returned to the disciples and found them asleep. He said to Peter, “Couldn’t you watch with me even one hour? 41: Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak!”

42: Then Jesus left them a second time and prayed. “My Father! If this cup cannot be taken away unless I drink it, your will be done. 43: When he returned to them again, he found them sleeping, for they couldn’t keep their eyes open.

44: So he went to pray a third time, saying the same things again. 45: Then he came to the disciples and said, “Go ahead and sleep. Have your rest. But look – the time as come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 46: Up, let’s be going. Look, my betrayer is here!”

The phone didn’t ring as much, the cards stopped coming and life went on for everyone, except me. The everyday life that I knew was stuck on October 13, 2006. The everyday life I was living was foreign to me and I didn’t want to live it anymore.

I wrote the following in my blog:

My friends and family – it is so important that you stay with me on this journey. My journey in grieving for my daughter is nowhere close to being over. In fact, I’ve been very good at hiding it from everyone. It’s extremely difficult to work 9 hours a day and continue to grieve. So – it gets pushed aside only to rear its ugly head once I am home alone. I work as if nothing is wrong. But it’s all very wrong. Keep praying for me. Keep watching over me. Do not go to sleep – I need you all more than ever. – My Soul Speaks Journal Entry

 

My friends this chapter in Lucado’s book Traveling Light – is about fear. Fear can manifest itself in so many ways, but the one that a grieving parent suffers from the most is moving on, loving again and not losing the memory of the one they lost. I’ve had so many people say “oh you won’t forget her”. I’m thinking to myself “Seriously – how in the hell would you presume to know that?” Have you walked in my shoes? I doubt it.

 

****************** CAUTION *********************** ANGER and HURT AHEAD

 

My mother died months before Brittany was born. So yeah, it’s been 22 years – I have experience in that department. Oh and yeah I lost my grandmother 5 years later. So even more experience in that department. So when I say you do forget some of the memories, what I mean is you begin to forget their voice, their smell, their touch, their love. It’s an eminence pain I cannot begin to describe in words. Only in the tears that fall from my face and the pain in my chest does it begin to come close to the suffering I endure.

 

This is an incredible hurt that no one can touch. It’s the loneliest place to be. I’ve never felt lonelier than I do now. I struggle with whom I am, what I should do for the rest of my life. How am I to move forward when all I want is to have my old life back.

I just keep praying…….

 

Until next time

m

Chapter 11 – When Mourning Comes – The Burden of Grief

Well I must admit as I began to read this chapter I felt as though Lucado was reading from my heart and soul. I thought to myself “Lucado truly gets this” – read on.

“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…….Psalm 23:4 NKJV

The 1^st paragraph of this chapter killed me. The words gripped my heart, touched me beyond all measure and made me believe even more that my purpose is to write and my grief, your grief, our grief.

“….the black bag of sorrow is hard to bear. It’s hard to bear because not everyone understands your grief. They did at first. They did at the funeral. They did at the graveside. But they don’t now; they don’t understand. Grief lingers.” – Max Lucado, page 90

“As silently as a cloud slides between you and the afternoon sun, memories drift between you and joy, leaving you in a chilly shadow. No warning. No notice. Just a whiff of the cologne he wore or a verse of the song she loved, and you are saying good-bye all over again.” – Max Lucado, page 90

Those paragraphs above represent the very thing that motivates me to write. To explore with people who don’t get it – what happens to someone when they have a loved one die. The sorrow that won’t leave, it stays for a long time, never packing it’s bags and leaves – not even for a tiny vacation.

Here is the most profound statement Lucado makes in this chapter. I want you all to listen, re-read it until it hits you like a sledge hammer:

“Why won’t sorrow leave  you alone – because you buried more than a person. You buried some of yourself” I’ve said this before and I’ll keep saying it until people get it – the day Brittany died, a little piece of me went with her. My dreams for her died and I buried them with her. My future as a mother, a grandmother – all buried with her. You can’t even imagine if you haven’t had to bury a child the immense amount of pain and sorrow that a parent carries as a result of burying not only a child, but their dreams along with them.

I spent a lot of time angry – some days I still do – anger lives in sorrows house. But as Lucado eludes to there is only one truth – God is a Good God. It’s hard to understand, wrapping my head around why Brittany died. But I do understand that God is good. I have to trust that His reasons for taking her so young at that time, was valid. How else could I see it. Right? Otherwise life would be pointless for me.

“Good people are taken away, but no one understands. Those who do right are being taken away from evil and are given peace. Those who live as God wants find rest in death” – Isaiah 57:1-2

“While we are shaking heads in disbelief, they are lifting hands in worship. While we are mourning at the grave, they are marveling at heaven. While we are questioning God, they are praising God.” – Max Lucado page 92

I so get that quote, because shortly after Brittany’s death I found a project she had done the year before in a backpack that was to have been cleaned out by family so I didn’t have to deal with it. When I was about to give it to charity – I looked through it one more time. There I found a gift that could have only been from God.

This project was about how Brittany wanted her last day on earth to be and how she would have wanted her funeral to look. Who she wanted to do the eulogy. What songs to be sung. OMG – I sat and cried as I knew we had done it just as she wanted. The last two pages were drawings of her sitting with hands held high praising God and the other was little pictures of what grief would look like to us, her family, her parents.

That gift I know changed how I grieved for Brittany. He became clear to me that God took her because it was her time and she may have been directed to write about such things, to draw about such things so that her mother and father would be able to see just how much she loved God.

Knowing this has helped me see that God is leading me through the valley and not around it. As I so often try – going around the mountain always looks better than over it or through it. But God’s plan is to go through it. And with Him at my side, I find I can move through it with more peace, not always understanding it, but peace is present.

In the beginning paragraph of the chapter Lucado writes of a 3-year-old who has just passed over into Heaven. I felt that sting of grief as I know the moment Brittany died, she awoke in Heaven. And I thank Jesus every day that I know she is sitting at His feet and praising Him, dancing and singing joyful noises along with many, many others we have loved and miss dearly.

Until next time,

m

Burden of the Grave

Chapter 10 from Max Lucado’s book “Traveling Light” – I Will Lead You Home

“yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.” Psalm 23:4 – NKJV

Have you ever been on a pilgrimage? An adventure, a big move, a long and winding road that takes you places you’ve never been. I see the journey of grief as a pilgrimage. The road is long, sometimes surrounded by empty spaces, vacant spaces, road blocks at every turn. Mirages, if you will, that have you mesmerized by their unyielding draw.

Well the grief journey is much like that description. So many times I’ve fought the long and winding road. Dodged multiple road blocks, stifled by barricades that kept me from moving forward. Wondering if I will ever make it through to my final destination. Home. Not my Heavenly home, but when I say home I mean – who I am – finding my purpose. Understanding how God made me. Different, unique and beloved.

God has been my anchor through it all. The time when sometimes I’m unaware of His presence but knowing He has been there is comforting enough. His guidance through the murky waters of life is a treasure I’ll forever be grateful for.

God has taken me to the top, well maybe close to the top, through more valleys than I can share. But in relationship to grief, it has been that “scarred ravine”, as Lucado describes it so eloquently, that God has revealed himself so very dearly to me. It s the little “pot holes” of life that trip me up. When I forget to call on God for help, to lead me out and give me strength.

“For what the shepherd does with the flock, our Shepherd will do with us. He will lead us to the high country. When the pasture is bare down here, God will lead us up there. He will guide us through the gate, out of the flatlands, and up the path of the mountain.” – Max Lucado, page 82

Lucado writes, “David’s message is subtle and cruicial” “You are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me”. Don’t face death without God. Don’t even speak of death without speaking to God. He and He alone can guide you through the valley….only God knows the way to get you home. Committed to getting you home.”

Scriptures to help you see that message even clearer:

I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go – Gen 28:15 NIV

As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you” – Josh 1:5 NIV

When you pass through the waters, I will be with  you. – Isa. 43:2 NIV

In this chapter, Lucado is speaking more to our own death, but I am saying it also applies to experiencing the death of a loved one, such as my dear sweet Brittany. Oh how I miss writing her name…..

Until  next time,

M

For His name’s’ sake – Psalm 23:3 NKJV

Continuing the series “Blogging through Max Lucado’s book – Traveling Light” – Chapter 9 “Get Over Yourself” The burden of Arrogance.

Now I’ll start out by saying this isn’t one of my most favorite chapters of the book. The next two will be gut-wrenching,
but in keeping with the order of the book, I shall continue on….

The ticket is to become and, sometimes the most difficult to achieve, remain humble. If you don’t God will find a way to help you become humble. As we know, or at least I do, that God gets what he wants. All the time. When it comes to grief. God has given me much humility. Why? Because He was that sent me hope. I didn’t create it. He sent me peace. I didn’t create it. He gave me fellowship with the people of the church. I didn’t create it. God did it all – I just received it.

It’s like writing this blog or my book – it’s God behind the wheel of this train people. Not me. It would be very easy to take the credit; but if and when I do, He will send me a reminder that it is by His grace I have hope, love, mercy and redemption, not by my own hand.

So I leave you with 7 areas that Lucado says we need to evaluate in order to remain humble:

1. Assess yourself honestly

2. Don’t take success to seriously

3. Celebrate others

4. Don’t demand your own parking spot

5. Never announce your success before it comes

6. Speak humbly

7. Live at the foot of the cross

Now there is some food for thought. Enjoy.

until next time,

m