Thursday, November 15, 2007

Out of the Mouths of Babes!

This will make you cry as it blesses your socks off!

Monday, July 16, 2007

The Fog is Clearing!

I’m alive again.

It’s been a year and a half since I lost Sondra. I have been strengthened by the Lord and observing His precepts, and depending on His Truth to sustain me, but . . .

I feel that ever since the day Sondra was diagnosed with cancer, I have been in overload mode, fight or flight, survival mode . . .

So many people have come to my aid . . .

So much has taught me so much . . .

Yet I have been rocked to the very core of my being.

I have trembled while standing on the Solid Rock of salvation.

I have shaken while being held by the unmistakable, unshakable Christ.

I have tried to steer my ship toward shore, though there was none in sight, and nary a star to guide by.

It’s like going into a fog bank, and losing all of your senses that allow you to navigate, yet having to navigate each new day, with people depending on you to show them the way. In the dense fog you begin to see bright lights piercing the darkness. Are they friend of foe? Do I steer toward them like a guiding light, or could they be the beam of a light house warning of impending doom of the rocks and shallow waters too dangerous to negotiate? I still have my spiritual compass, to follow what is right as prescribed by heaven. I still have a hope that endures, a joy that is independent of happiness and the experience of grace, mercy and love that comes from the Father of all giving the ultimate assurance of our ultimate end. But what of happiness, what of feelings, what of the aloneness I feel at night when I am used to the oneness that only can be found in the touchable presence of ones other half to whom God has joined you into one. For a long time now, only my dear sweet child has come close to bridging the gulf from the joy of our Lord to the happiness of feelings the tells your soul, you are not alone! Lily has truly brought happiness to my darkest days and helped sustain me. Yet I have tried to fill her emptiness when I was near empty myself. I have had so much help with her, to help sustain her and give her a measure of what her mother wanted so badly to supply. And now, in the fog, in the darkness, a touch, a hand of friendship like so many friendly hands in the past, yet different, able to speak words, and even volumes in the mere touch of a hand. I know that over the past two years I have never really been alone, for I know my Christ has always been there, yet I have known that by faith. I have also known that many have experienced similar fates, and have found their way to restoration. But, alas, what I have known only by faith, I can now feel, and may one day see. Yes, like the ultimate gift of Christ, there is completion only when faith becomes sight, and hope becomes reality. When faith becomes feeling, smelling, touching, hearing, seeing! Our senses are restored! I’m alive again! Faith has become sight, and what has been only hoped for is real for the first time! That is resurrection. That is restoration, which is the newness that only God can give. I’m alive again.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Good Grief Charlie Brown

Grief is a good and necessary part of dealing with loss. A necessary evil, if you will. I believe it is easier analyzed when looking a particular situations or losses. Take Prince Charles' Lady Diana, and our recent loss of James Brown. Lady Di was seen as such a tragedy; a tragic loss, if you will. She was such an innocent: a young teacher caught up in the pomp and circumstance of Englandish, if not outlandish, royalty, then scandal and tabloid exploitation. The same exploitation fueled the paparazzi that chased her limo to the tragic end of a car wreck and multiple deaths. Lady Di, a true innocent, mother, beauty, dieing young; leaving behind young children to be raised by an estranged spouse in a corrupt system of royal family. The whole world seemed to mourn this loss. Then more recently, there was James Brown. A master musician and icon of the Afro-American struggle for freedom and respect. He lived a long, lucrative life, accomplishing much, revered by multitudes, and dying in an honorable old age. Mourned by many, but differently, respectfully, and with a sense of resolution. Loss, mourning, grieving in both situations, but one a timely death, a timely loss; the other, so untimely, so tragic. Here lies one of the key differences causing people to grieve so differently. With faith in an afterlife, in a Creator who is in ultimate control of the universe, there is completion and a sense of fruition when we see a life end in old age with a completion of their life's work, and accomplishment of their goals. Conversely, when we see someone die young, with young children, weather by accident or illness, it seems so untimely and abrasive to nature and God's system. Yet, if we still believe in faith, and God's control over His creation, we try to reconcile our faith with our circumstances, maybe even adjusting our world view to try to unify our beliefs with our experience.