Showing posts with label sadness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sadness. Show all posts

Try to Remember


 This week, my aunt turned 88 years old. We made the best of it we could under the circumstances. I took her her favorite Chic-fil-a salad for lunch and her brother, my Uncle Roger, baked her a chocolate oatmeal cake and brought flowers. The facility is still not allowing visitors because of the Pandemic. I did get to go around to the window and see her and talk to her though. That helped, but it still saddened me greatly.

This, like many circumstances, can send a caregiver down into the spirals of sadness, grief, and depression. It's a terrible one to have to fight, but it happens frequently. It's such a personal battle too, and we all learn ways of trying to get ahead of it if at all possible. But when there are disappointments, griefs, and sorrows stacked one on the other day after day, it makes it much more difficult to get back on top of.

It can feel like God can't hear - and if He does hear us, then He isn't paying attention. And even if He is paying attention it feels like there is absolutely no response, no relief, and no rescue in sight. It's in those moments that it can feel like life is suffocating us. (Maybe it's just me?) Circumstances keep pressing and pressing and one thing keeps getting added on top of another until the life is being sucked right out of us.

I have this habit though. When I cannot see anything God is doing presently, and I cannot feel Him or hear Him like I want to, I do what Asaph did in Psalm 77. The first few verses, Asaph describes how he feels rejected, forgotten, and "too distressed to even pray." (V4 NLT) By the time he gets to verse 10 and 11, he says he feels like God is not "with" him anymore. If we are honest enough with ourselves, can we say we feel that way from time to time? My heart knows it's not true  - but boy does my head and emotions feel that way.

Asaph goes on to basically say that when he cannot see God moving in his life, he recalls what God has done in years gone by. This is what I've done the last day or so trying to shake off and climb out of the caregiver's fog. I started thinking back about specific times when I knew that God moved on my behalf. Times He truly intervened, healed, touched, moved, quickened....me. I still exist. I'm still in His sight. I'm still precious to Him....and so are you. When there is no one around to tell us that - we must tell ourselves these things. 

Today, will you join me in a walk down memory lane? It's so individual we must all take our own walk as we remember the times God has come through for us - lest we lose heart. Remind yourself that He loves you - immensely. Tell your heart to hope again that hope is NOT lost - and He has not forgotten we are here. 

A Tight Grip

This morning I just feel creative - or maybe it's more of a need to just create. I'm not really sure what it is, but I felt like breathing some life into an old blog I used to keep. I started From the Furnace just as a place to put my emotions. It let me put them there and walk away. As time went on I stopped for one reason or another. But today I was talking about the grip of grief and just needed to get some things out.

Sometimes, caregiving comes with a living grief. It doesn't go away and it is very real. I've been carrying it for a few days now. I grieve because I haven't heard my son's voice in 10 years. I grieve because I see his friends marrying and having families. I grieve over the loss day after day. Grief seems to have a tight grip on my heart - so tight sometimes I am not sure I can breathe.

I've never been quite sure about what to do with the living grief. Some condemn it as a lack of faith. But I think it's quite the opposite. Especially as I press past the grieving to the grace. It takes a lot of faith to honestly tell God how you feel at any given moment. It speaks of a high level of trust to pull raw emotions out and become vulnerable before Him, knowing He's not going to take the grief away - but give me the grace to stand in the midst of it. This faith is not too different than the three Hebrew children standing before the king saying - We know God can deliver us - but if He doesn't - we still aren't going to bow. That's the kind of grip grace has on us. Our situations may or may not change - but our trust in Him remains the same no matter what. That's true faith, y'all. That demonstrates a grip of grace that will carry us through.

That's when I  realize that even though grief has a tight grip on me - His grace has a tighter grip. God told Paul, My grace is sufficient for you. God also promised to never leave us or forsake us. If I can put these two thoughts together, I have a grace that holds me tighter than the grief. It outlasts the grief since the grief can come and go on wave after emotional wave. But His grace - His all-sufficient grace steadfastly carries me over those waves. When I realize that and acknowledge that - peace seems to take over the turmoil.

Today, right in the midst of suffocating grief - I will trust His grace to carry me. Like the 3 facing the fiery furnace, I'll say -I'm not bowing to life's situations. I refuse to give in. I will bow to the grace of God though. My thoughts will be on letting His grace carry me and living in total surrender to His will, His grace, and His love. I'll focus my meditations on the truth that He doesn't leave me in the grip of grief or sadness, but He does extend His grace and His hand to lift me up. I'll stand in that grace and trust Him for just one more day - will you join me?

The Stare

  Do you ever just find yourself sitting and staring at the wall? It doesn't really happen too often because, quite frankly, who has tim...