My Obed-Edom

There are times when my hurt is so overwhelming and the pain is so intense that I feel incapable of trusting God. My faith is shaken because God has not given me the life that I imagined and He does not answer my prayers the way that I want or at the time that I want. Like David’s reaction after Uzziah was struck instantly dead after touching the ark of the covenant (II Samuel 6:9-12), I feel angry at God and scared of a God who could have allowed this pain to exist for an extended period of time in my life. God knows every thought I have so He knows my resentment, my anger, my disappointment, my bitterness. It sometimes leads me to a crossroads and I must choose to decide to trust God more than I trust my own disappointment. Will I glorify God by the changes in my life or will I vilify Him?

Reflect on a time when you watched God richly bless someone else in the area of finances, ministry, physical healing, or the like while you were enduring something painful. Picture him or her as your own version of Obed-edom. How did you respond to it? Before you answer the question, please trust that the purpose is not to make you feel condemned if you didn’t handle it well. Rather, it is to help us see if we’ve distanced ourselves from God and grown resentful so we can then run back home to His heart. (Beth Moore. Annointed, Transformed, Redeemed: A Study of David.)

Survivor's Guilt

I must warn you that there will come a time during the grief process where we must detach ourselves from our loved one(s). I remember shortly after the accident a man who had recently lost his wife told me the same thing and I rebelled inside and felt that it would never happen to me. But it did. My life has and is continuing to go forward even while my heart is still tied to those I lost. I will always love Aaron, but the pain won’t always be as sharp as it was immediately following his death. For all practical purposes, I am now single, alone, and no longer attached and a part of a couple. New memories are being made and life moves forward even though we are no longer together. It hurts and there is a measure of guilt involved -- guilt that everything changes and that I am changing too. Time passes even when it seems impossible. There were days when I didn’t think that I had the strength to make it through the next 10 minutes, let alone the next day. Every tick of the clock seemed an eternity, but time inevitably passed even if it was in lurches. As much as I want to keep things frozen in time, I am powerless to do so, as powerless as I am to bring Aaron and Grace back.

Where Are You Lord? Why Am I Forgotten?

Isaiah 41:13 “For I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.” (KJV)

Psalm 46:4-5 says, “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at the break of day.” (NIV). If I lived in a city during the time of King David and an enemy’s army was outside the walls, the scariest time would be the dead of night. I liken that to my grief. The scariest times for me were in the darkest time of night when I was confronted with my loneliness and my vulnerability. When I would lie in bed and beg God to change my circumstances, restore my joy, and give me peace. I could identify with the Israelites and how they must have heard the enemy soldiers outside their walls even though they could not see them and had no idea how many were. My biggest fear was also the unknown and the future that stretched before me with no hint of light or end of pain. When we are in these circumstances, this verse encourages us to stand our ground. Even though things sound bad and we have no idea what is ahead, God is going to bring us help, comfort, and aid at the break of day. We just have to have enough faith to stand firm all night at the city wall and wait for the daybreak to come. So the question we all wonder is “What if that day never comes?”

The disciples also give us another example of questioning God’s timetable. Matthew 14 tells the story of the day that Jesus fed the five thousand. After this miraculous event, he sends his disciples out alone on a boat around 6 p.m. and a storm struck. In fact, hours passed and Jesus did not come. The disciples must have been angry and asked the same hard questions that I would have asked:

• How much longer do I have to wait for this storm to end?
• If Jesus was God, He must have known the storm was coming and yet sent us out onto the water?
• I am crying out to Him and He promised to hear my voice so why isn’t He responding?
• Why did He care about feeding five thousand people and not me, His follower?
• Am I not important to Him?
• I can’t see him through this storm. Is He even there?
• Is everything I believed a lie?

Many of us find ourselves in the same situation: waiting for the Lord to change our circumstances, searching for hope and for an end to our loneliness, our problems, our disappointments, and our sorrow.

Matthew 14:25 tells us that Jesus finally came by walking on the lake during the fourth watch of the night (3:00 to 6:00 a.m.). Why did He wait so long? If we study the passage further, something remarkable happens. Peter steps out of the boat and in a demonstration of his faith, he walks on water to meet his Lord. Stop and consider what Peter was feeling. Many times when I read these stories, I fool myself into believing that these are characters who were not real people just like me. I have always assumed that Peter was confident and full of courage and knowledge after his time with Jesus, after all according to church history he was the man who asked to die hung upside down on the cross because he did not feel worthy of a death like his Lord. But, after thinking about Peter’s dilemma, I think Peter was tired of being in the boat. He knew that he couldn’t fight the storm any longer and that he had reached the end of his reserves. In desperation, he took a chance and walked to the one person who could save him from his circumstance. Peter would not have dared to walk on water if he hadn’t endured a long night in the middle of the storm. Like Peter, I am on a sinking boat of sorrow and loneliness, of unfulfilled dreams and disappointments. My choice is to stay where I am at and continue to sink farther or to climb out and draw close to Jesus in a way that I never would have dreamed possible if I hadn’t been forced to make the choice. I had to draw upon my Lord’s strength and determine that I was going to go on. It takes amazing courage to live a different life than the one that you had expected and dreamed of having.

What if we are too afraid to get out of the sinking boat? When we are afraid of the future and our present circumstances, God has a message to us in Isaiah 41:10 “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” (NIV). This verse reminds me of being a young child. I would pretend to fall asleep in the car on the way home so that my father would pick me up and carry me inside to my bed. I remember the feeling of my father being so strong and that I could completely trust him to not drop me. We can also trust our safety and our security to the Lord. Returning to the disciples in the boat, Jesus was always there even when the disciples could not see him through the wind and the waves. Jesus is always there for you even when you can not see him through the pain. Max Lucado writes, “Faith is a desperate dive out of the sinking boat of human effort and a prayer that God will be there to pull us out of the water.” Trust him to perform his healing on your life and for his strength. In His Word, God promises relief will come. Stand firm and believe.

How You Can Help

I didn't write this. I actually saw it on a young lady's page who lost her husband as well.

Since the loss of my husband and daughter, my heart's desire has been to help others who have suffered loss. I remember before their deaths, I would want to help others who are hurting but never knew what to say or what to do. Now, I know after having experienced it myself. I thought I would post this for others in hopes that it will help you to know how to reach out to others who are hurting. This summarizes all the things that I was feeling and didn't know how to say at the time.

HOW YOU CAN HELP ME - author unknown

Please talk about my loved one, even though he is gone. It is more comforting to cry than to pretend that he never existed. I need to talk about him, and I need to do it over and over.

Be patient with my agitation. Nothing feels secure in my world. Get comfortable with my crying. Sadness hits me in waves, and I never know when my tears may flow. Just sit with me in silence and hold my hand.

Don't abandon me with the excuse that you don't want to upset me. You can't catch my grief. My world is painful, and when you are too afraid to call me or visit or say anything, you isolate me at a time when I most need to be cared about. If you don't know what to say, just come over, give me a hug or touch my arm, and gently say, "I'm sorry." You can even say, "I just don't know what to say, but I care, and want you to know that."

Just because I look good does not mean that I feel good. Ask me how I feel only if you really have time to find out.

I am not strong. I'm just numb. When you tell me I am strong, I feel that you don't see me.

I will not recover. This is not a cold or the flu. I'm not sick. I'm grieving and that's different. My grieving may only begin 6 months after my loved one's death. Don't think that I will be over it in a year. For I am not only grieving his death, but also the person I was when I was with him, the life that we shared, the plans we had for watching our children and grandchildren grow, the places we will never get to go together, and the hopes and dreams that will never come true. My whole world has crumbled and I will never be the same.

I will not always be grieving as intensely, but I will never forget my loved one and rather than recover, I want to incorporate his life and love into the rest of my life. He is a part of me and always will be, and sometimes I will remember him with joy and other times with a tear. Both are okay.

I don't have to accept the death. Yes, I have to understand that it has happened and it is real, but there are some things in life that are just not acceptable.

When you tell me what I should be doing, then I feel even more lost and alone. I feel badly enough that my loved one is dead, so please don't make it worse by telling me I'm not doing this right.

Please don't tell me I can find someone else or that I need to start dating again. I'm not ready. And maybe I don't want to. And besides, what makes you think people are replaceable? They aren't. Whoever comes after will always be someone different.

I don't even understand what you mean when you say, "You've got to get on with your life." My life is going on, I've been forced to take on many new responsibilities and roles. It may not look the way you think it should. This will take time and I will never be my old self again. So please, just love me as I am today, and know that with your love and support, the joy will slowly return to my life. But I will never forget and there will always be times that I cry.

I need to know that you care about me. I need to feel your touch, your hugs. I need you just to be with me, and I need to be with you. I need to know you believe in me and in my ability to get through my grief in my own way, and in my own time.

Please don't say, "Call me if you need anything." I'll never call you because I have no idea what I need. Trying to figure out what you could do for me takes more energy than I have. So, in advance, let me give you some ideas:

1. Bring food or a movie over to watch together.
2. Send me a card on special holidays, his birthday, and the anniversary of his death, and be sure to mention his name. You can't make me cry. The tears are here and I will love you for giving me the opportunity to shed them because someone cared enough about me to reach out on this difficult day.
3. Ask me more than once to join you at a movie or lunch or dinner. I may so no at first or even for a while, but please don't give up on me because somewhere down the line, I may be ready, and if you've given up then I really will be alone.
4. Understand how difficult it is for me to be surrounded by couples, to walk into events alone, to go home alone, to feel out of place in the same situations where I used to feel so comfortable.

Please don't judge me now - or think that I'm behaving strangely. Remember I'm grieving. I may even be in shock. I am afraid. I may feel deep rage. I may even feel guilty. But above all, I hurt. I'm experiencing a pain unlike any I've ever felt before and one that can't be imagined by anyone who has not walked in my shoes.

Don't worry if you think I'm getting better and then suddenly I seem to slip backward. Grief makes me behave this way at times. And please don't tell me you know how I feel, or that it's time for me to get on with my life. What I need now is time to grieve.

Most of all thank you for being my friend. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for caring. Thank you for helping, for understanding. Thank you for praying for me.

And remember in the days or years ahead, after your loss - when you need me as I have needed you - I will understand. And then I will come and be with you.