Monday's Mourning Ministry-I Bowed on My Knees and Cried Holy ~Gaither Vocal Band ~David Phelps, Michael English, Bill Gaither, Guy Penrod, Mark Lowry

Monday's Mourning Ministry

I Bowed on My Knees and Cried Holy

~Gaither Vocal Band Reunion 2009

~David Phelps, Michael English, Bill Gaither, Guy Penrod, Mark Lowry

I dreamed of a City called Glory,

So bright and so fair

When I entered that gates I cried, "Holy"

O, the angels all met me there...

They carried me from mansion to mansion,

And oh the sites I saw.

Then I said, "I want to see Jesus,

The One who died for all."

I bowed on my knees and cried,

"Holy, (cried) Holy, (I cried) Holy."

I clapped my hands and sang,

"Glory, Glory to the Son of God."

Then as I entered the gates of that City,

All my loved ones they knew me well

They took me down the streets of Heaven

O, the scenes were too many to tell...

I saw Abraham, Jacob and Isaac;

I talked with Mark, sat down with Timothy,

But I said, "Timothy,

I want to see Jesus,

'Cause He's the One who died for me!"

Yeah, I bowed on my knees and cried,

"Holy, (I cried) Holy, (Holy Lord) Holy."

O, I clapped my hands and sang,

"Glory, Glory, Glory, Glory!"

I clapped my hands and sang,

"Glory!"

O, I clapped my hands and sang,

"Glory!"

O, I clapped my hands and sang,

"Glory!"

O I sang, "Glory to the Son of God!"

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgVs7_vdy9c

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

Monday’s Mourning Ministry

Searching the Bible on Behalf of us Bereaved Parents as we Grieve Our Great Loss…

Monday’s Mourning Ministry

Streams of tears flow from my eyes because my people are destroyed. My eyes will flow unceasingly without relief, until the Lord looks down from Heaven and sees . . .

My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord. I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:

Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.”

Lamentations 3:48-50, 18-23 NIV

He’s Always Been Faithful

~ Sara Groves

Great is Thy Faithfulness, Lord, Unto Me

(He's Always Been Faithful)

Morning by morning I wake up to find
The power and comfort of God’s hand in mine
Season by season I watch Him, amazed
In awe of the mystery of His perfect ways
All I have need of, His hand will provide
He’s always been faithful to me.

I can’t remember a trial or a pain
He did not recycle to bring me gain
I can’t remember one single regret
In serving God only, and trusting His hand
All I have need of, His hand will provide
He’s always been faithful to me.

This is my anthem, this is my song
The theme of the stories I’ve heard for so long
God has been faithful, He will be again
His loving compassion, it knows no end
All I have need of, His hand will provide
He’s always been faithful, He’s always been faithful
He’s always been faithful to me.

Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHFK94QH5sU Sara Groves: He's Always Been Faithful

http://thundafunda.com/393/?level=picture&id=3184

Losing My Mind

Losing My Mind

God, my family thinks I’m losing my mind,

And some days I have thoughts of the same kind...

They’ll tell me something, and minutes later,

I’ll forget...my mind filled with things graver...

Like death, dying, and where’s my baby girl?!

My mind is spinning; my brain is awhirl—

Nothing’s no longer right in this wrong world!

I don’t belong here, without my li’l girl....

Into a living nightmare I’ve been hurled

Where thoughts and beliefs and feelings just swirl,

But no matter how I pine and ponder,

My mind cannot rest, but starts to wander:

Is there some thing I can DO t’ make it right . . .

To end this horrible state of my plight?

And please don’t tell me she’s not coming back;

I cannot take a life filled with such lack!

We went through Father’s Day; she wasn’t there—

It felt so wrong ...our fam'ly circle, square?

Voices so lively, yet SHE wasn’t there!

On a day so special, her place was bare...

How do I go on, a hole in my heart,

A knife in my gut? My world falls apart...

So, no, I don’t think so clearly just now;

My mind can’t conceive of just where or how

Life should go on; who am I anyhow—

A counselor with no heart? – We can’t allow

Clients to come in, to talk problems out

With the counselor whose heart has been ripped out!

So I guess it’s going to take awhile

Till my heart, soul, and spirit reconcile

That th' horrible absence that is present…

Is just part of our heav’nly investment—

She is now wearing her heav'nly vestment…

Though absent here, she is very present…

In the stillness, we will feel her essence

As she blesses our hearts with her presence.

But if we’re not quiet, we might miss her...

Quiet our minds...for by faith we’ll see her!

Quiet me now, with Your comfort draw near,

Till that Day my baby girl will appear...

Picture: Angel & Butterfly card.jpg

Written 6/22/09 - Poem – Losing My Mind – Angie Bennett Prince

Heavenly "Facebook" with My Child

. . . (My) soul . . . resumed talk with my loved one: I asked her questions, and she answered; she questioned me in return, and I answered . . . .

Love goes far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance . . . .

(N)othing (not even death) could touch the strength of my love, my thoughts, and the image of my beloved . . . . I think that I would still have given myself, undisturbed by (the) knowledge (of her death) to the contemplation of her image, and that my mental conversation with her would have been just as vivid and just as satisfying.

Set me as a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death.*

--Viktor E. Frankl, while trying to cope in a concentration camp, not knowing whether his beloved wife was dead or alive.
Man's Search for Meaning
* Song of Solomon 8:6a

* * * * * * * * * *

Indeed, devastating grief is ultimately resolved this way. By experiencing the presence of the lost loved one inside of us, and sensing the way they are carried within our hearts, keeping us company, continuing to advise, inspire, and find unique value in us, we manage.

We still "have" them. We see their faces, hear their words, smile at their foibles, hold conversations with them, laugh with them, scold them, and embrace them still. In an absolute and immutable way, they still exist.

Eventually the comfort of the image takes over for the flesh-and-blood reality. We slowly trade anguish for sweet sorrow, draw nourishment from the inner companion, and transcend the loss, thanks to the gentle resourcefulness of the imaginal realm. This is the historical reason why imagery is a powerful tool that all of us know well. We leaned on it from our baby days (playing peekaboo with our mommies, we learn they are still there even though we temporarily cannot see them). It gets us through and allows us to tolerate separation and loss.

Imagery is the blankie all of us adults get to carry around--on the inside.
(Such) imagery works so well to heal the effects of (grief's) trauma.

Belleruth Naparstek,
Invisible Heroes: Survivors of Trauma and How They Heal

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The above quotes are part of my follow-up to my letter to Digger in his comment on my first post, dated February 2, 2009:

"Parents Losing a Teenager to Death - A Glimpse of Grief After Two and a Half Years"

Grieving Mother/Therapist, Angie Bennett Prince said... in response to Digger's comment . . .

"I also find I weep the hardest when I hear good gospel music, and it's like a cleansing deep in my soul." Digger

Dear Digger,

I agree! I don't know what it is about music (and particularly gospel music) that short-circuits the left brain and heads right for the right brain (and most likely, the soul), but it really does!

The book Invisible Heroes: Survivors of Trauma and How They Heal by Belleruth Naparstek reveals that the most current research in the field of psychology finds that "right-brain" activity (emotional/sensory functions of perception, sensation, emotion, movement) is the most important factor in healing trauma in a person! Staying too much in the "left-brain" (cognitive functions of thinking, analyzing, verbalizing and synthesizing) early on in one's attempts at healing can actually impede healing of trauma, (but can be very helpful in conjunction with right-brain activity after the right-brain activity has been established first).

Stay tuned, I will try to write about this phenomenon in a post on my blog soon as I think it is vital for us grievers to understand some of the most effective pathways to comfort and healing for our broken hearts!

Thank you for sharing what helps you express your grief, and the resulting "cleansing" of your soul that your weeping produces!

May God bless you and continue to comfort you in your grief,

Angie
April 1, 2009 11:59 AM

* * * * * * * * * *

From time to time, I find real treasures of books in my line of psychological counseling work; this book is one of those. It ushers in the latest research into the most effective counseling procedures to help the grieving person.

If you have a therapist, you might want to make sure they know of the late-breaking, revolutionary ways of approaching the traumatized in their healing work as the usual "talk-therapy" of the average therapist is not the most therapeutic first-mode of treatment to utilize; not only is "talk-therapy" not indicated initially in therapy with a griever; talk-therapy-only in the initial stages of therapy can actually be harmful to the traumatized griever. Attention to the right (emotive, creative) brain is critical for creating a base of safety to your emotionally-traumatized being before trying to process the left (analytical, verbal) brain to continue the healing process of integrating your severe loss and all its implications into who you are today.

May the One who someday will wipe away all the tears of His lambs, continue to comfort you in your grief,

Angie