Lonely, So Lonely

There are 6.8 billion people on the Earth at the time of this writing, and yet I am lonely. How is this possible, there are people everywhere! It’s obvious that loneliness is not cured by having people in your vicinity. Max Lucado writes, “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.” While you may be facing these things, you aren’t alone for the Lord is with you. God loves and will not leave you even when your friends don’t give you the support you need or at night when you cry yourself to sleep. Your future is not empty. You have God walking alongside with you and don’t need to be desperate for the love of others.

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you." (Deut. 31:6 NIV)

Always Winter, But Never Christmas

In the winter following Aaron and Grace’s death, I would look out my window and see the barren trees and think to myself how my life mirrored them. My feelings are echoed in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, that when the White Witch cast her spell she trapped everything into an “always winter but never Christmas world”. Lewis’s illustration of snow melting is a good one, I think, to suggest how a person’s long coldness of heart may be changed, bit by bit, into a warmer, living heart for God. Like the tree in the summer, my life was once lush, beautiful, rich, full of color, and fragrant. Then fall set in, and the bright green summer leaves fell away and left the tree ugly, barren, dark, and empty. Now, I look out at the trees and know that even in the midst of winter, the trees’ roots and foundations aren’t injured at all. It is making way for new leaves in the spring. Our lives are like that too. The disappointments and pain in life make room for new and different blessings. We will bloom again someday.

"All around them, though out of sight, there were streams chattering, bubbling, splashing and even (in the distance) roaring. And his heart gave a great leap (though he hardly knew why) when he realised that the frost was over." C.S. Lewis

Help! A Milestone is Coming.....

Some suggestions for upcoming milestones are as follows:

• There is no right or wrong way to handle the day. Some may wish to follow family traditions, while others may choose to change.

• Focus your celebrations on the season: go to a mountain lodge; go sledding or skiing, or just take a walk in the woods--time out to enjoy what nature has to offer in this season.

• Include the deceased in your conversations and celebrations. Hang a stocking for your loved one in which people can put notes with their thoughts or feelings. Look at photographs. Once others realize that you are comfortable talking about your loved one, they can relate stories that will add to your pleasant memories.

• Keep in mind the feelings of your children or family members. Try to make the holiday season as joyous as possible for them.

• Plan to be with the people YOU enjoy.

• Do something for others: volunteer at a soup kitchen; visit the lonely and shut-ins; ask someone who is alone to share the day with your family; provide help for a needy family; volunteer at the airport to pour coffee for stranded travelers; or offer to volunteer in a hospital on the holiday; if your city has a Ronald McDonald House, see if you can help make their holiday happier.

• Don't be afraid to express your feelings. Allow people to comfort you. They need to feel they are helping in some way.

• Remember, anticipation of any holiday is much worse than the actual holiday.

• Donate a gift or money in your loved one's name.

• Try to get enough rest.

My Friend is Experiencing Loss: What Can I do?

Your friend is hurting and in crisis. You want to help, but you don't know how. Here are some suggestions and tips. Please reread the post "How You Can Help Me" on this blog for additional practical ideas:

If you are geographically close, drop by as much as possible and just keep your friend company. If you aren't nearby, call her daily to let her know that she is not alone and look closely for abnormal depression. In my experience (a general rule of thumb), the most critical times are weeks 6-10 when depression really gets a hold on you after the shock and adrenaline wear off. If you see signs of utter despair and hopelessness and the Holy Spirit plants an urge in you to worry, you need to drop everything and go to her and don't wait. Just knowing that someone will be stopping by helps you feel more accountable. Just draw upon your own experiences and remember what helped you when you felt lonely and depressed and hopeless. Most of all, I think what helps people is just not being physically alone.

Is she a believer? If so, you can (gently) share the Bible with her. Stay away from Romans 8:28 and those verses because right now she is not ready to hear that God intended this for her good. She can't see past the sorrow right now. I would share these verses with her first: Isaiah chapter 41, the Book of Psalms and Job. Again, start with verses where someone is crying out to the Lord in times of trouble because that is where she is right now.

This is not an exhaustive list, but these are verses that I found comfort in during hard times:

Psalm 27:13-14: “I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the Lord.” (NASB)

Jeremiah 29:11-13 “For I know the thoughts I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you and expected end. Then shall ye call upon me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” (KJV)

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

Isaiah 57:1-2 “The righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart; devout men are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death.” (NIV)

II Corinthians 4:7-9 “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” (NASB)

“ I will feed My flock and I will lead them to rest,” declares the Lord GOD. “I will seek the lost, bring back the scattered, bind up the broken and strengthen the sick . . . ” Ezekiel 34:15-16 (NASB)

“For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, he will lead them to springs of living water; and God will wipe every tear from their eyes.” Revelation 7:17 (NIV)

Job 42:12a “The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first.” (NIV)

Psalm 84:11 “For the Lord God is a sun and shield; The Lord gives grace and glory; No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.” (NASB)

Job 23:10 “But he knows the way I take; when He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.” (NASB)

James 5:11 “We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord’s dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.” (NASB)

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.