Wednesday's Woe - Did The Gates of Hades Prevail that Night? (Does Death Overcome Us, or Does God Overcome Death?)

Wednesday's Woe

Did The Gates of Hades Prevail that Night?

(Does Death Overcome Us, or Does God Overcome Death?)

I was reading the Scripture today, and was startled out of my sleepy stupor when I felt certain words from the passage in Matthew 16 reach in and rip my heart out... I knew at once those words were fodder for the "grief mill," so that I needed to process them out before God. It seems my grief is a series of reworking the Scripture through my broken heart and shattered soul until His truth penetrates for what it IS, not for what it SEEMS to me in looking through Grief's eyes, tinted by the Hurt, Pain, and Angst of a grieving mother's broken heart.

Jesus replied,

"Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by My Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it." ~Matthew 16:17-18

Did The Gates of Hades Prevail that Night?

(Does Death Overcome Us,

or

Does God Overcome Death?)

Father, please help me deal with what seems

To be a travesty within Your church:

The Gates of Hades ripped down our beams

As our baby was caught in Satan's lurch.

All our lives we tried, the right things to do,

T' raise children in Your nurture 'nd admonition;

I guess we thought we could rest in Heav'ns glue,

Yet one was blasted by Vile One's ammunition.

"On this rock, I will build My church," You said,

"The Gates of Hades to not overcome,"

And yet just now a child of Yours lies dead,

The Roaring Lion prowled, and devoured one.

How did the Gates of Hades "not o'ercome,"

Your vulnerable lambs trusted You t' intervene,

Our pray'rs crying out for You to save one

Who now has been destroyed by Death, obscene?

"My child, hear Me as I speak to you,

My Church is much bigger than this world;

Hades' Gates did not o'ercome~My Child died too...

Within His suff'ring His Own death, He saved your baby girl.

"Remember, My Kingdom's not of this world;

Remain steadfast~I will carry you through.

"Death's overcome. Satan will be destroyed.

Keep your eyes on Me, not on Gates of Hades' void.

"I am the resurrection and the life.

He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies...

Steep your heart in My truth, not in Satan's lies.

"Your child, in My comforting breast now lies,

For whoever believes in Me never truly dies!"

*****

1 Peter 5:8 Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

John 11:25-26 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die..."

John 16:33 (Jesus speaking) "I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

1 Corinthians 15:26 "The last enemy to be destroyed is death."

2 Timothy 1:9b-10 "This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning o time. But it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."

John 5:24 (Jesus speaking) "I tell you the truth, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life."

Picture: http://anarkyman.deviantart.com/art/Gates-of-Hell-105211613

Poem - Did the Gates of Hades Prevail that Night? - Angie Bennett Prince - 3/1/2011

Scriptures taken from the NIV (New International Version)

Wednesday's Woe - "The Great Reversal" or Right-Side-Up in an Upside-Down World?

Wednesday's Woe

"The Great Reversal"

or

Right-Side-Up in an Upside-Down World?

~Tommy and Angie Prince

If the New Testament is full of suffering, why are we surprised?

All the disciples suffered (all were martyred but one of the entire group of Apostles that closely followed Jesus)! So then, why are our "Assumptive Beliefs" the opposite...That life should be predictable, that we should be able to manage our own lives, that if we do the right things we will be kept safe-prosperous even, etc.

As a Christian, we are supposed to be exposed to The Truth. The world view has compromised and distorted the Christian gospel message.

"We have been lulled into a sense of complacency by our sense of invulnerability."

~Loss of the Assumptive World: A Theory of Traumatic Loss, Jeffrey Kauffman

(This statement was not said about us, Tommy and Angie Prince, though it very well could have been.)

Rather, it was said of America after "the shock of the 9/11 attacks" occurred.

That world-view we had all fallen for at some level, is no different than that world view the psychologists describe as our "Assumptive Beliefs" that come crashing down when a major tragedy occurs:

There are, however, as we have seen repeatedly...certain life events that bring us face-to-face with the fact that our existing assumptive world can no longer keep us safe. What follows (after such a major tragedy) is a painful and protracted struggle to find a new set of assumptions to replace those that are now obsolete.

The life events that cause the most difficult psychosocial {and I would add spiritual} transitions are those that violate core assumptions concerning

• Self-trust, the assumption that, most of the time, I can cope with the world I meet;
• Other-trust, the assumption that, when necessary, I can count on others to keep me safe; and
• World-trust, the assumption that the world is a reasonably safe place.

Traumatic life events can undermine any or all of these assumptions of security.

~Loss of the Assumptive World: A Theory of Traumatic Loss, Jeffrey Kauffman

*****

What if the tragedies we have all undergone that have turned our lives "upside-down" are in reality the events that are restoring us to Jesus' view of what is "Right-Side Up"?

What does Jesus' "Right-Side Up" view of the world look like? Quite the opposite of what we in the west believe about the successful, upwardly-mobile life, I'm afraid..

Why did Jesus tell the rich young ruler (one who seemed to be "managing" quite "well," having achieved a fortune even), that he should go and sell it all???

"Go...Sell all you have, and give to the poor..."

"If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor and you will have treasure in Heaven. Then, come follow Me."

When the young man heard this, he went away sad for he had great wealth...

As He watched him go, Jesus told His disciples, "Do you have any idea how difficult it is for the rich to enter God's Kingdom? Let Me tell you, it's easier to gallop a camel through a needle's eye than for the rich to enter God's Kingdom."

The disciples were staggered. "Then who has any chance at all?"

Jesus looked hard at them and said,

"No chance at all if you think you can pull it off by yourself. Every chance in the world if you trust God to do it."

Then Peter chimed in, "We left everything and followed You. What do we get out of it?"

Jesus replied, "Yes, you have followed Me. In the re-creation of the world, when the Son of Man will rule gloriously, you who have followed Me will also rule, starting with the twelve tribes of Israel.

"And not only you, but anyone who sacrifices home, family, fields -- whatever -- because of Me will get it all back a hundred times over, not to mention the considerable bonus of eternal life.

"This is the Great Reversal: many of the first ending up last, and the last first."

When did we fall for the Great Lie --that we should be self-sufficient, that people around us can be trusted to keep us safe, and that the world is a reasonably safe place...?

So tell us, what do you think...

Suffering: Exception or Rule?

Picture: http://weburbanist.com/2010/02/07/flip-this-home-10-unbelievable-upside-down-houses/

Loss of the Assumptive World: A Theory of Traumatic Loss, Jeffrey Kauffman, Editor, Dr. Therese Rando, Series Co-Editor, (Brunner-Routledge: New York), 2002, pp 238 - 239.

Scripture from The NIV and The Message, Matthew 19:16-21

Friday's Faith - Collective Wail

Friday's Faith

Collective Wail

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him."

When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. "In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied, "for this is what the prophet has written:

But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.'"

Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find Him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship Him."

After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with His mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped Him. Then they opened their treasures and presented Him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.

And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, "Get up," he said, "take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill Him.'"

So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called My Son."

When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi...

~Matthew 2:1-16 NIV

*****

Collective Wail

Even at birth, the king wanted His head

the night he ordered all Bethlehem's firstborn males dead.

Grieving mothers throughout the land

wept for their children, refusing comfort.

A grievous sound rose up through the land

When mothers cried out as their hearts did contort.

Jesus' life was saved that one dark night

while Mary's heart must have been filled with fright...

But You, O Lord, knew His day was to come.....

Did You grieve like me when Your will was done?

...A sound was heard in Ramah

weeping and much lament.

Rachel weeping for her children,

Rachel refusing all solace,

Her children gone, dead and buried.*

My heart grieves that familiar sound,

As tonight my baby girl lies in the ground...

*****

"If the grief cry were simultaneously expressed by each parent who has lost a child at The Compassionate Friends Convention, I would imagine that such a collective wail would go up, that it would bring down the entire building."

~Tommy Prince

Pictures: CartoonStock.com and FotoSearch.com

*Matthew 2:18 ~The Message (Translation of God's Holy Word) This verse marks the fulfillment of the prophecy made by Jeremiah hundreds of years before, found in Jeremiah 31:15

Poem - Collective Wail - Angie Bennett Prince - 9/23/10

Thursday's Therapy - 45 Major Reactions Spiritually After Your Child's Traumatic Death ~Tommy and Angie Prince

Thursday's Therapy

45 Major Reactions

Spiritually

After Your Child's Traumatic Death

~Tommy and Angie Prince

45 Major Reactions Spiritually After Your Child's Traumatic Death

• Feel abandoned by God or Feeling a much more intense intimacy with God
• Fear God was neglectful~He didn't stop what He could have
• Fear God took your child
• Feel betrayed by God
• Disillusionment with God
• Alienated from God
• When most need comfort, fear trusting the Comforter
• Shattered "Assumptive Beliefs"
• Feel confused by your mistaken "Assumptive Beliefs" about God or how things work spiritually
• Needing to reassess the accuracy of your current "Assumptive Beliefs"
• Spiritual foundation crumbles or is shaken at a time it is needed to be intact and secure
• Confused spiritually
• Fear of God
• Feel angry at God
• Feel scriptural "promises" for "safety for your child" were violated
• Question the true character of God (If God is truly omniscient {all-knowing}, omnipresent {present everywhere at any time}, omnipotent {all-powerful}, how could He allow a child to be killed?)
• Too traumatized to pray (e.g., If you prayed for safety and your child was killed, you think, "How could I ever pray again?")
• Attempting to make sense of God's actions (e.g., "Where were You God?" thinking if He saw what was happening, He surely would have stopped it, and if not, why?)
• Spiritual foundation feels shattered (Questioning if you can trust God, questioning your former notions of God promising protection for you and your children, etc.)
• Avoiding God, or Intense Need for God (e.g., I tell people I need God "intravenously" now~I cannot handle jokes or trite stories or talks of nationalism in a church service; I need "straight-God" to survive what I am going through.)
• Questioning why bad things happen to good people
• Disillusionment with God
• Wondering, if God is a good God, how could He allow such evil as a child's death to occur.
• Fearing that sins or shortcomings of your own could be used by God against you to take your child
• Needing extreme amounts of alone-time with God for survival of Grief
• Either increased desire for formal group worship, or withdrawal from formal group worship
• Clinging to rituals to cope with grief
• Agonizing before God with any feelings of culpability you may have had in or around the time of your child's death
• Negotiating with God
• Wondering about a deceased person's continued interactive presence in the world
• Wondering about meanings of your child's demise, death, current happenings that seem to be "messages" from one's child
• Wondering about the possibilities of one's deceased child still being a part of your current world in some way
• Searching for meaning regarding your child's death
• Reassessing your personal sense of meaningfulness and purpose in the world
• Reassessing meaning in terms of who you are now, and what is now important to accomplish while you remain in the world.
• Current loss resurrects old, unresolved issues you had with God or your faith
• Wondering where your child is now
• Need for developing a transcendent narrative that gives meaning to your child's death and the events and circumstances around that death
• New clarity spiritually in recognizing what is really important this side of Heaven
• Deeper feelings of intimacy toward God and/or empathy for others
• Numbness to God around the loss of your child
• Paranormal experiences pertaining to your child (such as hearing or seeing your child, having a sense of your child's presence, etc.)
• Protesting with God
• Negative reactions to spiritual platitudes about your child's death
• Ambivalence toward God since the death of your child

Spiritual aspects regarding your child's death will be continued.