When the Flesh Recoils and You Reach to the Eternal

I am fortunate that, in my adult life, I did not get hurt by many people.

I'm not talking about car-sliding-off-into-ditch-hurt. I'm talking of old relationships-gone-bad hurt. 

Things said without voice, arrows slung at the heart and piercing a past I thought I could hold onto forever. 

I don't often lose loved ones without them passing on by death.

But tonight showed me that I am going to have say goodbye to a significant relationship, one that was with me since toddler-hood and was a very deep tie to my beloved mother. 

Due to pain on both sides, our relationship has been strained and though I have tried to reach out in various ways, the reaching-back has become less and less to the point of his arm actually recoiling. 

I never thought the recoil could hurt so much. It's so...intentional. 

There's nothing intentional about the losses I've had that has hurt me to the quick:

my Gramma when I was 15, her dying of a random heart attack on an airplane while taking a nap. 

my dear mother who died of lung cancer 

Those two people have been the biggest losses of my life. They loved me here on earth and they departed this earth loving me. 

This person loved me then and now the love has stopped. Been recoiled. 

Or...even if the love has not been erased, the deciding to not engage at all with me hurts the most. 

And I am hurt. I am angry. .I feel like a branch that somehow kept me close to my mother has now been cut off. I cried and I flailed. 

And then I watched some home movies with my husband because I needed to hear (and remember) my mother's husky, Chicagoan voice. I needed to see her sun-scorched hair and crooked tooth. That beautiful smile, nonetheless. 

 I needed to remember that I am still her daughter, even if the relationship with the other person has withered away. 

Certain kinds of love don't leave. 

It reminds me of God's love for us. And I wouldn't have thought about that at all prior to two years ago when I became a Christian. I can't fathom going through this kind of grief without knowing that I am unconditionally loved by a God who can love me more than anyone else on this earth 

My therapist said this to me last Monday: God loves you more than your mother did. 

That puts it into real terms for me because I knew how much Mom loved me. I felt that love so acutely that I can still taste and smell it, it was that palpable. 

But God loves me more. 

So instead of being angry, vengeful, hurt over the recoiling of love that hurt me down to the quick, I am choosing to focus on God who is the God of All Comforts. 

He comforts those who grieve. He comforts those who are depressed. He comforts widows and orphans. 

"He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted

and to proclaim that captives will be released

and prisoners will be freed.

He has sent me to tell those who mourn

that the time of the Lord's favor has come,

and with it, the day of God's anger against their enemies.

To all who mourn in Israel,

he will give a crown of beauty for ashes,

a joyous blessing instead of mourning,

festive praise instead of despair.

In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks

that the Lord has planted for his own glory."

~Isaiah 60:1-7 (NLT)

And my hope resides in Him, now and forevermore.

photo from http://www.flickr.com/people/a_gods_child/

Dog Spelled Backward is God

You know when you have to hurt someone even though you know you are doing the right thing? There will be tears and anguish in this house tonight. But as parents, Husband and I must keep things calm and reassuring.

How do you tell your kids that the dog they have come to love is leaving the next day?

I haven't talked about Sam a lot on this blog. He and God haven't really overlapped. But I find myself grieved this afternoon because I know that, tonight, we are telling the kids the news.

Husband and I have searched long and hard for a better home environment for him. Sam is a fearful dog who needs a much different home than we are able to give him.

For the past year, our home has been full of kids throwing tantrums which include throwing things, yelling, screaming, fighting, pretty scary stuff.

Sam is already an "issue" dog. Sadly, he became so much moreso after almost a year with us. He is simply not thriving with us and Husband and I see that and we finally found a wonderful couple to give him a new home. He leaves us tomorrow.

I see what is coming. I see tears, I see grief. I see anger at us and confusion.

I see a 5 year old not really getting it until later, I see an 8 year old getting it more at bedtime, and I see an already angst-ridden 13 year old completely breaking down and feeling like her whole world is being taken away from her.

How do you protect your kids from this kind of pain?

Maybe you can't at all. Maybe that's the point.

My mother tried to shelter me from any pain I didn't have to feel. In doing that, I grew up emotionally stunted and unable to take care of my emotional needs.

I can't keep pain from these children.

See? I can overlap this into God:

God does not promise us that he can remove all pain from our lives. He does not say that we will never hurt if we follow him, if we love him.

Being a Christian does not exempt us from struggle.

Christianity is not for those who claim they need no help. Who have it all together. Who are not broken and needy.

Christianity is for the broken, for the down-trodden, for the weak. For in our weakest moments, those times when we feel the most separated from God, we are actually the closest to God.

When we bow in pain
God lifts our chin
to look at him
and in God's strength,
God's promise,
we rise -
a new creation.

So in shielding these kids from the pain of what life can bring, isn't that stealing their own opportunity to bow in pain, bow to God?

I know the pain of tonight is going to happen. But Husband and I have to share the news in the right manner as well as lean on the strength of God to help us through.

Without God's hand to help us, we merely hop over obstacles; we never get through them. We hop over, we avoid, we distract.

But we never face it in the face. We never face the enemy in the face and say,
Get out of here. You do not tell me who I am; I know who I am. 


I am on God's team. 

The enemy tells us we can just hop over the tough times. We need not deal with it.

God holds our hands and urges us to walk through the obstacles...all the while knowing God's promise to never leave or forsake us.

So I say this prayer for my family tonight:

Lord,
I pray that Husband and I take your hand, O God, and that you lead us through this difficult time. We know if we teach the kids to simply hop over icky emotions and situations, they will never learn that you are their ever-present companion -- during the hard times and after.
I pray that 13 year old stepdaughter does not take this as another abandonment, another reason to pull back from us, from you, God, to retreat to her own bedroom and self-destruct.
This house is so full of pain; enter into it, enter into us and create in us a clean heart.
Infuse us with your presence, your comfort.
As a nurturing parent holds his or her child and coos,
"there, there....it's okay....this will pass...."
bring us close to you
and say those words. 

Amen.