Saturday's Sayings - Crushed in Spirit with Sorrow

Saturday's Sayings

Crushed in Spirit with Sorrow

God of our life, there are days when the burdens we carry chafe our shoulders and weigh us down; when the road seems dreary and endless, the skies grey and threatening; when our lives have no music in them, and our hearts are lonely, and our souls have lost their courage. Flood the path with light, run our eyes to where the skies are full of promise; tune our hearts to brave music; give us the sense of comradeship with heroes and saints of every age; and so quicken our spirits that we may be able to encourage the souls of all who journey with us on the road of life, to Your honour and glory.

~Augustine

*****

Thus, at the very moment I dreamed of the greatest happiness, I found myself most miserable: and seemed as if fortune wished to give me this taste of joy only to render the reverse more poignant.

The change I now experienced was as painful as it was sudden and unexpected. It was a change indeed from a state of bliss to a scene which is inexpressible by me . . . and wherein such instances of hardship and fatigue continually occurred as I can never reflect on but with horror.

~Equiano, Beyond the Suffering

*****

Grief is itself a medicine.

~William Cowper, Charity

*****

In my Lucia's absence

Life hangs upon me, and becomes a burden;

I am ten times undone, while hope, and fear,

And grief, and rage and love rise up at once,

And with variety of pain distract me.

~Joseph Addison

*****

The sorrow which has no vent in tears may make other organs weep.

~Henry Maudsley

*****

It's so curious: one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses.

~Colette

*****

Sorrow removes your attention from the active life and focuses it on the things that matter most. When you are going through a period of extreme loss or pain, you reflect on the people who mean the most to you instead of on personal success; and the deep design of your life, instead of distracting gadgets and entertainments. You may be more open to the beauty of your world as a relief from distress. Beauty is always present, but ordinarily you may not notice it because of your priorities or your absorption in other things.

~Thomas Moore

*****

Victory comes through defeat; healing through brokenness; finding self through losing self.

~Charles Colson

*****

My groaning has worn me out. At night my bed and pillow are soaked with tears.

~Psalm 6:6

*****

Pain can be exhausting. Feelings of sorrow, depression, grief, and fear can eat away at us internally to the point that we feel our bodies will waste away. We lose strength. We forfeit any sense of balance and control over our emotions. We’re reduced to groaning, powerless, grief-stricken creatures.

Emotions are very fragile things. When you’re working through old hurts or new struggles, your emotions can help you deal with them in a healthy way. Stuffing them, pretending you don’t feel grief or fear, won’t help at all. In fact, it will hurt you in the long run.

~Peter Wallace, What the Psalmist Is Saying to You Today

*****

Help me, O Lord, to throw

myself absolutely

and wholly on thee, for better, for worse, without

comfort, and all but hopeless.

~Puritan Prayer, The Valley of Vision

*****

Learn to trust Jesus always, even when you cannot understand something.

~J. Heinrich Arnold, Discipleship

*****

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

~Psalm 34:18

Thursday's Therapy - Tears: You're Stuck With This Pain

Thursday's Therapy

Tears: "You're Stuck With This Pain"

from

A TCF Speech – 8 Things I’ve Learned About the Grief of a Grieving Parent

Part One of Eight

Jayne Raines Newton of The Atlanta Compassionate Friends mailed me this wonderfully therapeutic speech this week, and I'd like to pass it along to you!

Jayne’s words:

Charlie Walton and his wife Kay joined us in Marietta last night to hear Alan Pedersen perform. Charlie is near and dear to me. He was the first person who introduced me to TCF in Nov 1996..two months after my son had died. Thank you Charlie for all you do for bereaved parents.

******

Sunday, July 6, 2003 - TCF National Conference

Conference Closing Speech by Charlie Walton

Charlie’s words:

Thank you for the kind introduction... and for the invitation to speak to this audience of "reluctant heroes." I clearly remember sitting where you are sitting, watching some poor guy step to a microphone like this, and mentally daring him to try and say anything that would make a difference for me.

One of the real downsides of writing a few books about anything is that people get the idea that you know the answers. But the most important thing I have learned in these years of talking with people in grief is that

The world's leading expert on your grief...is sitting right there in your chair.

Human grief has no easy answers.

I named my first book When There Are No Words... because that is exactly the situation when your child dies. There are no words that help.

The pain comes to stay and. no matter how much people want to kiss it and make it well, grief runs on its own timetable.

Your kid... was like no other. Your grief... is like no other. And the gradual easing of your pain is not going to happen by anybody else's formula.

Maybe the most liberating thing that first book did was to give its readers permission to grieve in their own time and in their own ways.

SOME THINGS I'VE LEARNED:

I'd like to spend a little time with you this morning talking about a few things I have learned during the past seventeen years since two of our three sons died. These are personal observations based on, first, being a bereaved parent, and then drawing on a lot of conversations... and emails... and letters that have come as a result of my books.

Let me emphasize that

This list of "things I have learned"... did not "drop from heaven."

So, some of what I say may be the absolute opposite of what you have experienced. But. like your mama told you... "If you don't like it, just leave it on the plate."

1. YOU'RE STUCK WITH THIS PAIN.

The first thing I want to tell you is that...

You are stuck with this pain. You are going to hurt. real bad. for a long time.

And even though everybody around you is going to be wishing your pain away, you're gonna keep on hurting for a long time.

There will come a day when you will have longer periods between the pains but, at least in my experience, when the memories do come flooding back, even after seventeen years, they are going to hurt just as much as the first day you got the news.

But the surprising thing is, that's the way it ought to be. Just think about it. If I told you that I have the power to wave a magic wand and instantly remove the pain you are feeling, and if you really thought about it for a bit, I think you would say, "Well thanks, Charlie, but I guess maybe I better go ahead and hurt a little while longer."

Even though your first thought might be "I cannot stand this pain any longer!" your second and third thoughts would reveal to you that the unprecedented, unequalled pain that you are enduring is actually your tribute to what you have lost.

What would it say if you had a most precious person torn from your life, and you continued along in your life as if nothing had happened?

Pain is lousy, and it hurts, but the depth of your pain testifies to the depth of your love, and the significance of your loss.

You know, nothing gives me more pleasure in life than to hear that something I have written has helped somebody. I've tried to analyze why my book has helped. And beyond the basic fact that I have personally sat where my reader is sitting, there is also the fact that the book does not promise that everything is going to be all right. I didn't want anybody to tell me "What has happened to you is terrible, but it's gonna be alright!" I know now that that was true, but I didn't want to hear it then.

So, I tried to write a book that said, "What has happened to you is terrible" and stop at that, leaving the words about healing until much later when they might be more useful.

So, "thing one" that I have learned.

Enjoy the pain. Appreciate it. Savor it. It hurts, but it is the appropriate response to overwhelming loss.

Your tears are your tribute to one who has been taken from you.

******

Thank you to Charlie Walton, and to Jayne Raines Newton, both of The Atlanta Compassionate Friends.

TCF = The Compassionate Friends

Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome and Grief

My brother Rick is in the hospital tonight with pneumonia. Since I was a child, we had to be sure to get him right to the hospital if there was a chance he had pneumonia. You see, my brother is handicapped--he can't walk; he's never been able to walk, so he is in a wheelchair. Being in a wheelchair over all those years, (he is 58), Rick's muscles have gotten weaker and weaker, so contracting pneumonia can be extremely serious when he doesn't have the muscle-power to cough enough to clear his lung congestion.

By this evening after intravenous antibiotics, Rick is doing better, but isn't out of the woods yet (he's still in Intensive Care). He reflected back over the day with my sisters who have been with him since 8:00 this a.m. that he thought for awhile there he really wasn't gonna make it. No wonder my sisters had called me (I'm five hours away), tearful and frightened this morning. Tommy and I prayed intensely for him all day. I'm so thankful God heard and is answering all our prayers!

Having lost my daughter, I find myself getting traumatized when anything bad happens to someone I love. The possibility of losing them has become all-too-real to me. So my body and emotions fast-forward ahead to the worst possibility, and I'm there, fearful and grieving the worst.

Even though I'm a therapist, I forget that Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome can happen right along with grief. When I get triggered (like if one of my sons forgets to call me when going away, and I hit near-panic over the possibilities), knowledge doesn't seem to phase my emotions. Even though I might know intellectually that the odds are great he just forgot to call, my body and emotions are already traumatized, and there's not much I can do to undo them at that point.

Grief can be so complex and complicated. It is almost impossible to help someone else to understand all the intricacies involved with grief where one thing affects another, affects another, and so on. (I can't even understand complicated grief, and I'm living it!) Some days, I can hardly function when the grief has been intense; okay, I'll admit . . . at some level, that pain is always fairly debilitating; for it not to be debilitating is the exception.

That's one reason I'm so glad I can write during this time--doing something productive when just about everything else is "high" on the dysfunctional scale. Thank You, God, for Your creative juices to be flowing through me when I'm out for the count for much else.

But wait, isn't that how You always said it would be? 

"My grace is sufficient for you; for My power is made perfect when your power runs out."  2 Corinthians 12:9a

Move in and through me, Lord; I guess I am primed and ready for Your power to flow!

Projectile Grieving

Tommy's friend called him today. . . .I'll give a little background: Yesterday was Tommy's birthday, the third one after Merry Katherine's death. As Tommy says, "Now the numbness (of the first two and a half years) has worn off and the agitation and weepiness have set in."

After Tommy's birthday party last night with our family--our two sons, our daughter-in-law, and I were all present with him, yet . . . our baby girl was starkly absent . . . we sat down in the now-quiet den this morning. I took that opportunity to give Tommy a birthday card I had felt Merry Katherine wanted me to give him, and a present --two books, and a clear plastic teddy bear full of cotton-candy jelly beans which were always hers and her daddy's favorite-- When he saw the card that read, "DaDa" on the envelope, he thought it was a card from Nathan, our younger son. When he opened it, it took him totally off guard when he looked down and saw the card's picture of a little girl that looked just like Merry Katherine when she was little, and as he said it, "That was the end of being able to breathe normally for the next hour." He couldn't read the card.

After he saw the picture, Tommy's three-day agitation--like deep-freezer ice--went through an instant melt-down. Here came the gut-wrenching sobs that needed to come but had been put "on ice" to be able to get through his birthday party the night before in a pleasant way for his family's sake.

Tommy described this sobbing phenomenon in his own inimitable way this afternoon when I overheard him talking to a friend who had called him on the phone to talk and to check on him. (This friend has also lost a child):

His friend asked, "How are you doing?"

Tommy candidly stated, "It's been a rough day. It's twice as bad as the last one when you saw me so upset."

His friend then responded, "I'm sorry you're feeling bad."

Then Tommy said,

(Grief's) just one of those things that's gotta run its course. It's just like being nauseated; you can try to talk yourself out of throwing up, but you're gonna throw up anyway.

I thought boy that captures it, the inevitability of sorrow. . .that it's got to flow, or it will come out one way or another eventually! I think he was then greatly relieved to have been able to finally "feel" those pent-up feelings in a warm, safe, and private environment. The rest of the day today, he says he has felt some relief yet is also emotionally spent.

Then, to top it all off, we found out later in the day that a girl in our neighborhood (who had been a friend to our three children) was found--murdered . . . .

It's affected his ability to talk the rest of the day. And I am not doing so well either. . .

The Stone

Angie Bennett Prince July, 2007

We go today to plan your stone.
We don't want to go there--it chills us to the bone.
We miss you and want you here;
We think of you and shed more tears.

The funeral home wonders where we've been;
Eleven months now--will our hearts ever mend?
I tried to explain the difficulty one day on the phone:
The last thing we ever wanted to happen--
We now have to carve in stone?!

So we go there today in God's strength alone
To carve your precious name upon that stone
Only because we know for you death is not the end;
On that fateful day, your life in Heaven did just begin!

And since for your sins and ours Christ did atone,
We know we will join you in Heaven
To worship our Lord around His throne.
Because some day, just as He did for Jesus
When the disciples thought He was gone,
For those of us who know Him, and by Him are known,
God--in His resurrection power--will come down
Himself to earth again to roll back all the stones!


Be sure to listen to "Then Came the Morning" (see the sidebar to the left) before or after reading my poem!

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

“I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.” C. S. Lewis ...

My husband and I have been grieving now for two and a half years. Grief is so painful! I have to continually get in touch (emotionally, mentally, and spiritually) with my grief to get it "exhumed" from the inside to come to the consciousness and be expressed out so that it doesn't just build up (to later come out when I least expect it or to get expressed inappropriately). [I have a counseling practice, so I have to keep my grief flowing for this reason as well, or any unresolved "counter-transference" might affect my clients negatively.]

Grief without rest doesn't mix well. Grieving is exhausting work--I'm facing the deepest loss possible--every parent's worst nightmare--so it is not easy to do; it therefore takes a toll on my body physically. But rest, eating well, taking vitamins, exercising (which I am now starting to do a little more of), and anti-depressants if necessary, are crucial to supporting my over-stressed system. Talking to a safe person about my grief is also critical; for me, my safe person is my husband--he is very tender, patient, and accepting plus he knows the grief as well; he is going through his own! We try to support one another which works fairly well (until our timing collides, and we're both down at the same times. Those are times when it's especially important to have a close relationship with our Heavenly Father!)

Which brings me to--what helps me THE most in processing my grief--is the continuous presence of my Heavenly Father who is carrying me through this grief on a daily, moment-by-moment basis. One tool He has given me as I walk through my grief is to continually write out my grief -- in prayers to Him, poetry, essays, etc. The pain is there, but it is poignant in the writing, and then God's Holy Spirit comes into the process to bring His perspective and His comfort -- and His challenging my faulty thinking when appropriate!-- and there is a relief after the intense outpouring of hurt, pain, questions, confusion, etc. Over time, you can see the healing as you are writing, plus, the former writings continue to be a therapeutic tool to review and grieve through as necessary! I tell people, yes God is IN the grief; God is not an anesthetic to numb the grief--the pain is still there-- but He meets me IN the grief, and walks through it WITH me.

May God bless you in your grief, or in your concern for a beloved griever.