silver seeds

Not long after Ben's funeral, I prayed.   I don't remember what I prayed, but I remember that as I did, an image arose in my mind's eye. I could see all the people gathered at the funeral - 400 or so of them - and all these little sparkly things began to fall from the ceiling of the church.  The passage of their fall was marked by silvered tracers.  The light in the church was mellow and gentle, crafted by stained glass and high windows.  It was a beautiful scene.

The sparkly things alighted on certain people - there were a lot of them - like showers from a huge firework - but they didn't fall on everyone.

 

I didn't understand what they were at the time, but afterwards I wondered if they were the seeds of God's Kingdom alighting on some of the souls gathered.  You may think that fanciful;  just the imagination of a grief-stricken mother. Perhaps.

The thought that God would use Ben's death to plant the seeds of knowledge of Him in the hearts and souls of those present, was like a shaft of sunlight falling on a dark and rocky place. God brings good out of bad.  It helps me to embrace the mysterious sovereignty of God amidst the brokenness of the world. It helps me to make a small measure of sense out of Ben's death.

Lord God, I pray that your Kingdom will come on earth, as it is in heaven, concerning Ben's death.  Bring all the blessing you planned, to the people who need your presence.  Water the seeds that fell, until they are strong beautiful trees.

self pity and clean grief

 Because of my previous experience of allowing selp pity to drag me down,  after I lost my son, I decided not to allow those thoughts of self pity intrude and make me maudlin.

 

There is a fine line between self-pity, and being kind to yourself as you grieve. Self-pity is a selfish emotion and will lead to destructive rather than constructive thoughts and actions.  It's one thing to validate and accept suffering and loss, but if you allow thoughts to centre on feeling sorry for yourself, you so easily descend the steps to the dungeon of self-indulgence.  All sorts of things breed down there;  resentment and blame; envy of people who haven't suffered as you have;  despair, depression; bitterness.  Self-pity can be very disabling; it keeps you in your present trouble.

These things are not in the interests of your best emotional health.  It's very hard to trudge back up out of this mire into the sunshine of effective and positive emotions. 

 

You have to deal with thoughts of anger, hurt, betrayal, sorrow.  And they arise because you have suffered something which has affected you deeply;  to not feel these things would not be "normal". You have to learn to know when you are concentrating too much on the hurt, and not enough on looking to the future. You can't deny the feelings, but there comes a time when you have to accept what's happened and decide to let it go.  You may have to decide this quite a few times;  let the negative stuff go, a little more each time.

My son drove an old 1976 Holden Kingswood.  It's a very distinctive vehicle with a distinctive sound - a V8 engine. After he died, it came back to me on the back of a truck and sat in my front yard for months.  He loved that car.  Every time I came home after being out, I would round the corner, see the car and pretend for a nano-second that he had come to visit. Eventually the car was taken by his girlfriend (still don't know what she did with it!).  But every time I would see a similar car in the street, I would think of Ben and the grief would come back.  I continued to do this for years after he died.  But after a while, I realized that I had made this car a trigger for grief which was not quite natural.  I had made it a habit;  I was slipping into self-pity and being maudlin;  the grief was no longer just a natural occurence;  I had made it contrived and was perpetuating the lovely memory of my son and his beloved car, until it was no longer about treading a journey of natural grief, but about self-pitying neurosis.

Keep your grief clean.  Don't milk it for attention;  don't squander emotional energy on self-pity. Learn to know when it's time to let go whatever it is that has happened to you.  God bless.

anxiety, endurance, and healing

I've been looking at 2 Timothy 3:11.  It's about endurance.  It's speaks of persecution and enduring with that. Paul says the Lord rescued him from his persecutions.  I suppose He did a lot of times, but I think in the end, Paul died a martyr's death.

 

When I think about how to endure, sometimes there's no other thing which keeps you going, except God. You can use strategies, diverting occupation, counselling, friends' support.  These things are invaluable.

 

But at the bottom of all these, it's just you and the problem and the pain.  And endurance will stand you in good stead.  The way to endure is one day at a time.  If you have anxiety, problems, endure them one day at a time.

 

There will come a time when you will be sick and tired of living a day at a time.  You'll long for a day when the pain/problem is less severe or finished. That day WILL come.  It absolutely will come.  And, the fact that you are longing for that healed day to come, is actually a sign you are getting better;  someone who is immobilised by fear or suffering or pain, lives in that moment because they are trapped in it.  It's only as you begin to come out of the terrible suffering or conflict, that you even have the capacity to contemplate the future.

Live a day at a time for as long as it takes to "feel normal" again.  There will come mornings of sunshine and evenings of peace.  You just have need to endure.  There will come a time when you are happier, calmer, healed. And along the way you will have learned strategies and strengths so that you will never be brought quite so low again.

 

Having said that, someone who has had terrible hurts at the hands of someone else, is never quite the same.  Certainly someone who has lost a child will never be completely healed until the Day of Resurrection dawns. Someone who has been abused as a child will always carry those wounds.

 

But there will come a sort of "healed, mended frailty"; not unlike a leg that once broken is always a little tender on the break site. 

 

For me, the anxiety and panic attacks can never have the power to completely control me, as they did in the past, because I learned how to "bluff them back".

it's all about love

Derek thought it stupid that a woman who was so ugly would bother wearing lipstick.  It was glumped all over her big rubbery lips.  He could barely contain his contempt.  Where the hell did these people crawl from?

The woman wouldn’t have noticed his contempt;  she was too absorbed with getting help for her grandson. He was about 4, grubby and bloody and screaming the place down.

“Jakey love, quiet down.  The nice man’s gonna help. Now hold still”  Gradually the child’s screams subsided.

The nurse began to clean the cut on his head. “ You’re very brave Jake.  We’ll just clean this off so Doctor can take a look.  Might need a stitch or two Derek, what do you think?” Derek could see the gaping sides of the wound; the pink flesh still oozing blood.

He addressed the woman archly, “Mrs Fletcher, is it?”  She looked up at him, her eyes boring into his. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to stitch it." Her huge lumpy body was heaving and her face was all red and blotchy. “Sh*t!”, he thought ”I hope she doesn’t have a heart attack”  The thought of actually touching her was repulsive. “Now you listen to me”, she said “you just get on with the job and do what has to be done.  Jake’s a big boy.  He knows you have to fix him. He ain’t no namby-pamby wuss.”  “Right then” said Derek, feeling a bit chastised. “Now if you could just hold him still” He bent over the child and said quietly “Now Jake, I’m just going to fix your cut so there’s no more blood.  It won’t hurt, I promise”.

The woman rounded on him. “Whattya mean it won’t hurt?!” Mrs Fletcher shouted.  Whattya telling him lies for!?  ‘Course it’s gonna hurt!”    She pinned Derek with her eyes, and her voice became quieter but was very firm….. “But you be just as gentle as you can”.

“Well, of course…” he began.  But she’d turned back to Jake.

“Now Jakey love, it’s gonna hurt but it won’t be too bad.  You just hold still;  here, give Grandma your hand.  Now let’s think of something else for a minute.  I know!” she looked at Derek with a swift nod to get on with it… “Remember when we all went to Dream World?  Remember that Jakey?”

And so it went.  Derek was able to stitch the little boy’s head.  His eyes stayed fixed on his Grandmother.  His hands, both of them, were clamped on hers with fierce intensity.  But he didn’t move.  He listened to his Grandmother with a look of stoic decisiveness on his little face, as she listed all the attractions of the visit to Dream World.  Finally the job was done, and the pair disappeared out through the front doors of Emergency.  They got into an old Ford Falcon and drove away.

Derek discarded his gloves and washed his hands. “Geez, you get all sorts;  what a bogun she was!”

The young Doctor had completely missed the real woman which existed beneath the low socio-economic façade.  He’d looked for nothing, and that’s what he found.  He was blinded to what really mattered; blinded by his own importance and intellect and wealth.

He’d completely missed the love.

aqua-aerobics

I’ve been to aqua-aerobics today. Fun.  And we use a foam "noodle" and bar bells. "OK ladies, now we're going to mount our noodles" huh?  Mount my noodle? What? Like a horsie? Ok, if you say so. "Now ladies, we're going to peddle for all we're worth. Start peddling". So far, so good. "Now ladies, we're going to peddle BACKWARD on our noodles". What? Has he actually tried this underwater?! It's ridiculously hard to achieve. So, there I am, concentrating hard on getting my legs to paddle backwards, while astride my noodle.... then this... "Ok ladies, now we're going to speed it up". You're kidding; you get in this pool now and let's see YOU do it!

And the language... "we're working our obliques now ... 1! 2! 3! 4! Get those arms pumping... Now the other side... four more...4! 3! 2! 1!".  Obliques? Um, er what are they again? I forget. So, apparently, we worked our obliques and our triceps and our biceps and whatever that muscle is at the back of your arm. ... all sorts of muscles... I've forgotten them already. But I'll be back next week!

desert lessons

When Jesus was in the desert being tempted, it was before his ministry began.  The gospel of Luke records that he was full of the Spirit when he went to the desert.  He was led by the Spirit to the desert for 40 days to be tempted by the devil.  He was led by the Spirit to that arena of testing.  What might this say to us in the light of our own battles with temptation or trial?  Has God led us there?  Does God have a purpose in it?  Christ's temptation in the wilderness was to equip and strengthen him in the journey of sacrifice and service which was coming. Can we see our own testing in this light?  Suffering and trial, when walked through with the Spiri,t makes us powerful for God - tried and tested and equipped and moulded - like a horseshoe in the molten furnace we are turned to usefulness and strength.  God is in the lonely wilderness of temptation as much as he is in the lakeside walk of temperate sun and happy companions.

You just can't comprehend that, when you are in the furnace!