Monday's Mourning Ministry - "Talitha, Koum!" / The Voice of My Beloved ~Cynthia Clawson

Monday's Mourning Ministry

"Talitha, Koum!"

/

The Voice of My Beloved

~Cynthia Clawson

In Scripture, when Jesus was asked by a father, a man named Jairus who knew he was about to lose his daughter, to come to his home and lay hands on his daughter who was about to die, Jesus was very responsive and went right away with Jairus to the man's home. Even though people from his home town came and found this father in the crowd of people traveling with them, to tell him not to bother Jesus any more because his daughter had already died, Jesus ignored the people and told the father, a synagogue leader, "Don't be afraid; just believe." 

When He arrived at the house, Jesus questioned the many people that had already gathered there inside the home, why they were making so much noise weeping and wailing, and said, "She is not dead, only asleep." The people began mocking Him, full of disbelief, so Jesus threw them out of the house. Jesus then took the child's father and mother and His three disciples into the room where the little girl was;.He then took the little girl's hand, and said the now famous words, "Talitha, koum!" - Aramaic for, "Little girl, rise up!"

~~~

Jesus could have said these words to my child as well on that night that was fatal for her, but He did not... Ofttimes I wonder why He didn't utter those words to her that night… And yet, I imagine what my child must have heard when Jesus did call to her that night… Was it the voice of her Beloved as the song so tenderly describes, as she heard, "Precious child, rise up, and come to Me!" 

Either message Jesus delivered was His voice of love calling out to both girls. Either message He uttered was a message of love. In a different, but equally loving way, my child heard His words, "Talitha. koum!" "Baby girl, rise up!" And for that I am so very grateful… If she could talk to me tonight to describe it to me, would she tell me what she heard that night… words similar to Clawson's? 

"Hear the voice of my Beloved 

gently call at close of day:

'Come my love, come and meet Me!

Rise, oh rise, and come away!'"

Hear the Voice of My Beloved

~Cynthia Clawson

(Gaither Homecoming)

Hear the voice of my Beloved

Gently call at close of day:

"Come my love, come and meet me!

Rise, oh rise, and come away!"

Winter’s Dark will soon be over

And the rain is nearly done

Flowers bloom and trees are budding

Time for singing has begun.

I have waited through the Shadow

For my Lord to call for me.

Now the Morning breaks eternal

In its light His face I see

Now the Morning breaks eternal

And at last His face I see.

When you see the fields re-budding,

You will know the summer’s near

And when you hear the words I’ve spoken,

You will know My coming’s near!

So keep on listening, my beloved,

For My coming’s very near!

~~~~~

Mark 5:21-43 (The Expanded version of the Bible):

Jesus Gives Life to a Dead Girl and Heals a Sick Woman

21 When Jesus went in the boat back to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him there. 22 A leader of the synagogue, named Jairus, came there, saw Jesus, and ·fell [bowed; knelt] at his feet. 23 He begged Jesus, ·saying again and again [earnestly saying], “My daughter is dying. Please come and ·put [lay] your hands on her so she will be healed and will live.” 24 So Jesus went with him.

A large crowd followed Jesus and pushed very close around him. 25 Among them was a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years [C probably a chronic menstrual disorder]. 26 She had suffered very much from many doctors and had spent all the money she had, but instead of improving, she was getting worse. 27 When the woman heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his ·coat [cloak; garment]. 28 [For] She ·thought [said], “If I can just touch his clothes, I will ·be healed [get well; be saved].” 29 Instantly her bleeding stopped, and she felt in her body that she was healed from her disease.

30 At once Jesus ·felt [perceived] power go out from him. So he turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

31 His ·followers [disciples] said, “Look at how many people are pushing against you! And you ask, ‘Who touched me?’”

32 But Jesus continued looking around to see who had touched him. 33 The woman, knowing that she was healed, came and fell at Jesus’ feet. Shaking with fear, she told him the whole truth. 34 Jesus said to her, “·Dear woman [Daughter], ·you are made well because you believed [your faith has saved/healed you]. Go in peace; be healed of your disease.”

35 While Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of the synagogue leader. They said, “Your daughter is dead. ·There is no need to bother the teacher anymore.” [Why trouble the teacher anymore?”]

36 But Jesus ·paid no attention to [or overheard] what they said. He told the synagogue leader, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”

37 Jesus let only Peter, James, and John the brother of James go with him. 38 When they came to the house of the synagogue leader, Jesus found many people there making lots of noise and ·crying loudly [weeping and wailing loudly].39 Jesus entered the house and said to them, “Why are you ·crying [weeping] and making so much noise? The child is not dead, only asleep.” 40 But they ·laughed at [ridiculed] him. So, after ·throwing [putting] them [all] out of the house, Jesus took the child’s father and mother and his three followers into the room where the child was. 41 Taking hold of the girl’s hand, he said to her, “Talitha, koum!” (This means [in Aramaic, the language Jesus commonly spoke], “Little girl, I tell you to stand up!”) 42 At once the girl stood right up and began walking. (She was twelve years old.) Everyone was completely amazed. 43 Jesus gave them strict orders not to tell people about this. Then he told them to give the girl something to eat.

Picture, thanks to, "Hope for the Broken Hearted" 
Grief Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-FGjI4WVG4

Saturday's Sayings - "What Other Answer Would Suffice?"

Saturday's Sayings 

"What Other Answer Would Suffice?"

~Safehaven For Widowed

“For in grief nothing 'stays put.' One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral? 

"But if a spiral, am I going up or down it? 

"How often -- will it be for always? -- how often will the vast emptiness astonish me like a complete novelty and make me say, 'I never realized my loss till this moment?' The same leg is cut off time after time.” 

― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

~~~~~

~Safehaven For Widowed

“I thought I could describe a state; make a map of sorrow. Sorrow, however, turns out to be not a state but a process. 

"It needs not a map but a history...” 

― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

~~~~~

~Safehaven For Widowed

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing. 

"At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.” 

― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

~~~~~

~Safehaven For Widowed

“If a mother is mourning not for what she has lost but for what her dead child has lost, it is a comfort to believe that the child has not lost the end for which it was created. And it is a comfort to believe that she herself, in losing her chief or only natural happiness, has not lost a greater thing, that she may still hope to 'glorify God and enjoy Him forever.' A comfort to the God-aimed, eternal spirit within her.  

"But not to her motherhood. The specifically maternal happiness must be written off. Never, in any place or time, will she have her son on her knees, or bathe him, or tell him a story, or plan for his future, or see her grandchild.” 

― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

~~~~~

~Hers to Treasure

“...My idea of God is a not divine idea. It has to be shattered from time to time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence?..” 

― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

“Reality the iconoclast once more. Heaven will solve our problems, but not, I think, by showing us subtle reconciliations between all our apparently contradictory notions. The notions will all be knocked from under our feet. We shall see that there never was any problem.” 

― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

“If my house has collapsed at one blow, that is because it was a house of cards. The faith which 'took these things into account' was not faith but imagination.” 

― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

“I know now, Lord, why You utter no answer. You are Yourself the answer. Before Your face questions die away.  

"What other answer would suffice?” 

― C.S. Lewis

Pictures, thanks to ~Grieving Mother Dani, ~ Safehaven For Widowed and ~ Hers To Treasure 
C.S. Lewis Quotes, thanks to goodreads.com

Wednesday's Woe - Shattered Beliefs...

Wednesday's Woe

Shattered Beliefs...

…….My daughter was killed…

But He wouldn't do that to me.

…….She was killed violently.

But He wouldn't do that to her.

…….God sees all.

Did He see her then?

…….God knows all.

Did He know that was coming?

…….God is everywhere.

Was He with her that night?

…….God is love.

Does love ever kill?

…….God is a Shepherd.

Does a Shepherd watch while a lamb is killed?

…….God is a Refuge.

Could she find safety that night?

…….God is Ever-Present Help in times of trouble.

Did He help her that night?

…….God came to give life.

Did He give life that night?

…….God is our Rescue.

Did He rescue her that night?

…….God is merciful.

Did He have mercy on her that night?

…….God is all-powerful.

Did He overpower Satan that night?

…….She is His child!

My kingdom is not of this world.

…….She is with Him!

My view is much bigger than yours.

…….He saved her!

This world is not all there is.

…….God is peace.

Your little lamb, My little lamb, is at peace.

…….God is love.

Picture, thanks to ~Out of the Ashes

Friday's Faith - The Answer to the Question Many of Us Ask

Friday's Faith

The Answer to the Question Many of Us Ask

When I recently read in theologian and grief father Jerry Sittser's book When God Doesn't Answer Your Prayer, I found that I had not gotten very far into the book when I suddenly felt the strong urge to pick his book up and throw it as hard as I could across the room…

... Sittser was citing the story Jesus told regarding whose prayer is acceptable and whose is not, as Jesus went to the Temple and observed the prayers of the self-righteous Pharisee whose prayer was prideful and filled with many words, versus the humbled tax colliector's simple cry of desperation:

"His emptiness ran so deep that he could hardly name it, except to say that he needed God's mercy. 

"Barely able to speak, he choked out a short, simple prayer."

Sittser goes on to say, 

"Jesus said that it was the tax collector's prayer that proved to be the acceptable one, because (according to Sittser) he knew his true need and admitted it."

Then Sittser continued on:

"The heart of true prayer is this cry of desperation… (W)hat is most fundamental is the spirit of our prayers, the cry of the heart to get help from the only one who can meet our deepest need. 

"Desperation is the first and primary condition for true prayer...  Desperation forces us to pray as we ought."

When I read these words, I admit, my spirit plummeted. I was so furious, I had to put the book down. Not until tonight did I open it again to record his words here. 

Why was I so furious?

Because these were exactly the kinds of prayers Tommy and I had each been crying out to our God for our child. Abject desperation was present, and God clearly had to know that, sense that, and feel that coming from us. (And I am sure from many of us Child-Loss parents when we still had our child with us!)  So… if "the heart of true prayer is desperation,"

Why were our prayers denied?!

The only reason I could pick the book up again today was I received my answer, not through the book, but through THE BOOK. Amidst Scriptures, I had read many, many times, I read anew these words today, yet this time it seemed my "answer" leapt off the pages at me!

I was reading in Hebrews 11, often known as "The Faith Chapter" of the Bible because it elucidates many of God's early followers who chose to follow Him essentially blindly (by faith), and God used their lives mightily and was commending them for their faith… Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, to name a few, names we recognize as true fathers of our faith, who lived their faith to the end, yet this is what Scripture tells us:

All these people were still living by faith when they died. 

They.did. not. receive. the. things. promised; they.only.saw.them.and. welcomed. them. from. a. distance. 

~Hebrews 11:13

And they admitted they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country - a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

At the end of the chapter, the Scripture reiterates this message:

These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect. 

~Hebrews 11:39

And I say, 

O what a party that will be, when our desperate cries are met--along with our loved ones--- "as only together with us"--- will we all be made perfect, with all of our prayers perfectly answered in one another's presence---together--- but this time, together... forever!!!

Picture, thanks to ~Journey of the Survivor (From Grief to Survival)

Tuesday's Trust - Child-Loss: Hurricane to My Faith? ~Tommy Prince

Tuesday's Trust

Child-Loss: Hurricane to My Faith?

~Tommy Prince

"What do we ever know that is higher than that power which, from time to time, seizes our lives, and reveals us startlingly to ourselves as creatures set down here bewildered?"

"Why does death so catch us by surprise, and why love? We still and always want waking.”

~ Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

The Death of Our Teenaged Daughter… 

Hurricane to My Faith?

Faith...

Her death has changed everything about how I approach my faith. Everything.

~~~

“'Last forever!' Who hasn't prayed that prayer? You were lucky to get it in the first place. The present is a freely given canvas. That it is constantly being ripped apart and washed downstream goes without saying.” 

~ Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

~~~~~

Music…

I am a drummer. I have always had a rhythm going through my head… That is until the lights went out. Light turned to Dark. Sound turned to a Dusty Nothingness...

~~~

“I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.” 

~ Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

  

~~~~~ 

Christian Music…

Before her death, I could pretty much enjoy most of the Christian music out there...

After Merry Katherine was killed, for quite awhile, I didn't want to hear any of it. Over time, there's been a little bit of opening, and I can hear a select type of song now.

~~~~~

Corporate Worship:

Forget going to church. In terms of a corporate worship experience? No Desire. It seems Grievers and Non-Grievers don't mix well.

~~~~

“Why do we people in churches seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute?” 

~ Annie Dillard

“There is always the temptation in life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for years on end. It is all so self conscious, so apparently moral...But I won't have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous...more extravagant and bright. We are...raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus.” 

~ Annie Dillard

~~~~~

Intimacy with God:

“We sleep to time's hurdy-gurdy; we wake, if ever we wake, to the silence of God. And then, when we wake to the deep shores of time uncreated, then when the dazzling dark breaks over the far slopes of time, then it's time to toss things, like our reason, and our will; then it's time to break our necks for Home.

"There are no events but thoughts and the heart's hard turning, the heart's slow learning where to love and whom. The rest is merely gossip, and tales for other times.” 

~ Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

“You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.” 

~ Annie Dillard

~~~

I find myself being very shy about approaching the throne of grace. Casualness about my spiritual life has been eliminated. I cannot take anything for granted now.

The Assuredness Factor has been shattered. When I hear people talk about spirituality in a superficial way, it is Anathema to me.

Scripture very clearly states, "You will know they are My disciples by how they love on each other."

(Jesus speaking,) "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

~John 13:34-35 NASB

But all I hear are either fear-based ideations, or superficial claims on God with no love in it. There's a false sense of confidence, and a false sense of power. There seems to be no awe of God in the religiosity around us. 

~~~

"On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return. ” 

~ Annie Dillard

~~~~~

True Power...

We are not the one in charge here: God is. 

The Bible is not like a menu where you can select what you want.

~~~~~

Hurricane...

Child-Loss in regard to my faith is like a hurricane that has swept the foundation right out from under me, and I've collapsed in on myself…

There is no spiritual "FEMA" coming to my rescue. Quite the opposite. Everyone disappears. The recovery period to renovate my faith is snail-slow and turtle-tedious… one centimeter at a time.

~~~

“What does it feel like to be alive?

"Living, you stand under a waterfall. You leave the sleeping shore deliberately; you shed your dusty clothes, pick your barefoot way over the high, slippery rocks, hold your breath, choose your footing, and step into the waterfall. The hard water pelts your skull, bangs in bits on your shoulders and arms. The strong water dashes down beside you and you feel it along your calves and thighs rising roughly backup, up to the roiling surface, full of bubbles that slide up your skin or break on you at full speed. Can you breathe here? Here where the force is the greatest and only the strength of your neck holds the river out of your face. Yes, you can breathe even here. You could learn to live like this. And you can, if you concentrate, even look out at the peaceful far bank where you try to raise your arms. What a racket in your ears, what a scattershot pummeling!

"It is time pounding at you, time. Knowing you are alive is watching on every side your generation's short time falling away as fast as rivers drop through air, and feeling it hit.” 

~ Annie Dillard, An American Childhood

~~~~~

Christmas…

And now, Christmas is upon us. The hope of the Christ Child. The answer to all our fears about death. The solution to the wrecked results of our child's demise. The one and only way we can survive Grief.

~~~

“I am sorry I ran from You. I am still running, running from that knowledge, that eye, that love from which there is no refuge. For You meant only love, and love, and I felt only fear, and pain. So once in Israel Love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.” 

~ Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters

“I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along. I am aging and eaten and have done my share of eating too. I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wondering awed about on a splintered wreck I've come to care for, whose gnawed trees breathe a delicate air, whose bloodied and scarred creatures are my dearest companions, and whose beauty bats and shines not in its imperfections but overwhelmingly in spite of them...” 

~ Annie Dillard

(In the Annie Dillard quotes, some capitalizations, mine)









Picture, thanks to grieving mother, Faye Marie Miller
Quotes, Annie Dillard, thanks to Goodreads
Scripture, NASB = New American Standard Bible

Thursday's Therapy - A Call to Lament - Part Three ~Nicholas Wolterstorff ~Blessed Thanksgiving

Thursday's Therapy

A Call to Lament

Part Three

~Nicholas Wolterstorff

Have a Blessed Thanksgiving!

If God Is Good and Sovereign, Why Lament?

Praise and lament --- two components of the Christian life. There are more, of course, many more. Repentance, for example. But at least these two: praise and lament.

Or is that true? Are both of these really parts of the Christian life? No one doubts that praise of God is part of the Christian life. There may be times in our lives when we find it difficult to praise God, yet no believer doubts that praise is a component within the well-formed Christian life. But what about lament? 

No doubt most Christians, if asked, would say that lament is part of the well-formed Christian life. We all know that there are laments in the Psalms; we all sing them, or participate in their reading. So it would not feel right to say, flat out, that lament has no place in the Christian life. 

But it's open to question whether we all really believe it. The "victorious living" mentality currently sweeping through American Christianity has no place for lament. Likewise the megachurches have no place for it. Lament does not market well.

If one goes beyond the words and looks at contemporary American Christianity as it actually exists---looks at how it lives its life and expresses its faith---one comes to the conclusion that most of it does not believe that lament is part of the Christian life. This is in spite of what it may think is the catechetically correct answer to give if directly asked whether it is. 

What is lament?

We must start by considering what lament is. I shall take the biblical laments, particularly the laments of the psalms, as my paradigms. Psalm 22 is a particularly good example, since all the basic elements are there: some of the other lament psalms are truncated. 

The lament, at its heart, is giving voice to the suffering that accompanies deep loss, whatever that loss may be. Lament is not about suffering. Lament is not concerning suffering. Lament does not count the stages and try to identify the stage in which one finds oneself.  

Lament is the bringing to speech of suffering, the languaging of suffering, the voicing of suffering. Behind lament are tears over loss. Lament goes beyond the tears to voicing the suffering. To voice suffering, one must name it---identify it. 

Sometimes that is difficult, even impossible. The memories are repressed so that the suffering is screened from view. Or one is aware of it, in a way; but naming it, identifying it for what it is, would be too painful, too embarrassing. So, one resists. Then one cannot lament. One suffers without being able to lament. Lament is an achievement. 

One must not only name one's suffering if one is to voice it; one must also own it. Instead of disowning it one has to admit it as part of who one is---a part of one's narrative identity. If someone asks, "Tell me who you are," one says, maybe not immediately but eventually,

"I am someone who went through a painful divorce,"

"I am someone who suffered the loss of a child,"

"I am someone who was fired after twenty years of faithful work." 

To disown one's suffering is to try to delete it from one's narrative or prevent it from ever becoming a part---to try to forget it, put it behind one, get on with things. Lament, in requiring that one voice one's suffering, requires that one not only name it but own it. Owning one's suffering is often difficult: it is painful or embarrassing to incorporate one's suffering into one's life story. 

………Listen now to the psalmist:

………But I am a worm and no man;

………….scorned by men and despised by the people.

………All who see me mock at me, 

………….they make mouths at me, they wag their heads;

………He committed his cause to the Lord; let him deliver him,

………….let him rescue him, for he delights in him!"

(Psalm 22:6-8,  RSV)

………I am poured out like water, 

………….and all my bones are out of joint;

………my heart is like wax,

………….it is melted within my breast;

………my strength is dried up like a potsherd,

………….and my tongue cleaves to my jaw;

………….thou dost lay me in the dust of death.

………Yea, dogs are round about me;

………….a company of evil doers encircle me;

………….they have pierced my hands and feet---

………I can count all my bones---

………….they stare and gloat over me;

………they divide my garments among them,

………….and for my raiment they cast lots.

(Psalm 22:14-18 , RSV)

Lament is more, though, than the voicing of suffering. The mere voicing of one's suffering is complaint, not lament. Lament is a cry to God. This presupposes, of course, that lament is the action of a believer. 

This cry to God has two main components, interconnected, with sometimes the one more prominent, sometimes the other. First, lament is the cry to God for deliverance: "Deliver me O God, from this suffering." Listen again to the psalmist:

………But thou, O LORD, be not far off!

………….O my help, hasten to my aid!

………Deliver my soul from the sword,

………….my life from the power of the dog!

………Save me from the mouth of the lion.

(Psalm 22:19-21a, RSV)

Second, lament is the cry to God of "Why?" "Why, O God, is this happening? I don't understand it. Where are you, O God? I cannot discern your hand in this darkness." 

………My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

………….Why are you so far from helping me, from the words

………….of my groaning?

………O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;

………….and by night, but find no rest.

(Psalm 22:1-2, NRSV)

………Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O LORD? 

………….Awake! Do not cast us off forever!

………Why do you hide your face?

………….Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?

………For we sink down to the dust;

………….our bodies cling to the ground.

………Rise up, come to our help.

………….Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love.

(Psalm 44:23-26, NRSV)

Loss, deep loss, is the shattering of meaning. The shattering of meaning at one point in one's life has rippling consequences throughout one's life; one's life as a whole threatens to lose its sense.  

For the believer, the meaning of life is tied up with her experience and understanding of God. Now, suddenly, there is a rip in her whole fabric of meaning. So the believer cries to God---who else to cry to?---not only for deliverance from suffering but also deliverance from the threat of meaninglessness.  

"Why, O God? Why is this happening? What sense does this make? We thought you were good, powerful, and knowledgeable. We thought we understood your ways. But of this, we can make no sense. Why is this happening? Where are you, O God? Why are you absent?"

………In the full-fledged lament there is one more component: a yet. The yet is an expression of the endurance of faith, or somewhat more precisely, the yet is a praise-full accounting of God's actions in the past---an accounting, thus, of the grounds of faith. Yet I will praise You. Sometimes the yet is not only retrospective but prospective. Not only have I praised you for what have been  the signs of your goodness; I will again praise you again for the goodness you will again show. 

………Yet you are holy, 

………….enthroned on the praises of Israel.

………In you our ancestors trusted; 

………….they trusted, and you delivered them.

………To you they cried, and were saved;

………….in you they trusted, and were not put to shame.

………Yet it was you who took me from the womb;

………….you kept me safe on my mother's breast.

………On you was I cast from my birth,

………….and since my mother bore me you have been my God.

………Do not be far from me,

………….for trouble is near

………….and there is no one to help.

(Psalm 22:3-5, 9-11 NRSV)

Thursday's Therapy A Call to Lament - Part One ~Angie and Tommy Prince

A grief stricken American infantryman whose buddy has been killed in action is comforted by another soldier. ~War in Korea, August 28, 1950

Thursday's Therapy

A Call to Lament

Part One

~Angie and Tommy Prince

In reviewing some Facebook opinions last night, I am appalled at some of the misconstrued views of God that can be summarized by 

"Well, if such-and-such happened, then it must have been God's will!"

Oh my! What a desolation of God's true character. Do these commenters not realize there is MUCH that happens on this earth that is OBVIOUSLY NOT God's will??? Consider, what would I say to my clients whose fathers and mothers decimated them from within the womb to their first day on earth, throughout their toddlerhood, and on into their teens? That just because such horror happened in their lives, that THIS was God's will for them? GOD FORBID! ABSOLUTELY NOT! 

What has happened to our theology that it has become so cheapened as to falsely characterize the very TRUE nature of God so as to explain away grave happenings for the truly mistreated? God is JUST. God is HOLY. God is LOVE. God hates injustice. He hates unholiness. He hates when His beloved creatures are being so grossly abused. 

To seemingly satisfy a simplistic need for a sense of "control," the modernized believer insanely declares, "Well if 'x' happened, then it must have been God's will." NO! 

Tommy and I trained not only to be psychological therapists, but psychotherapists grounded in the Word of God, not just knowledgeable about our manmade ideas of psychology. Therefore, we want to dedicate the next few weeks to a rededication to A Call to Lament that (we think) correctly aligns with God's true, loving nature that is truly appalled with the things that happen that are not according to His divine ordering. He Himself has declared that SATAN is the prince of this world; therefore there will be many things transpiring that are NOT of God's intended design. We are called to have discernment of what those things are, and DECRY those things, not blindly accept them as if they were of God's true will.

We live in a FALLEN world. To not recognize that is a gross injustice to the very CHARACTER AND TRUE NATURE of our God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

We start tonight with words from grieving father Nicholas Wolterstorff, a philosopher at Yale Divinity School by trade, 12 years after the loss of his 25-year-old son Eric who died in a mountain-climbing accident in Austria.

"The wound is no longer raw. But it has not disappeared. That is as it should be. If he was worth loving, he is worth grieving over. Grief is existential testimony to the worth of the one loved. That worth abides. 

"So I own my grief. I do not try to put it behind me, to get over it, to forget it. I do not try to dis-own it. If someone asks, 'Who are you, tell me about yourself," I say, not immediately, but shortly, 'I am one who lost a son.' That loss determines my identity; not all of my identity, but much of it. It belongs within my story. I struggle indeed to go beyond merely owning my grief toward owning it redemptively. But I will not and cannot disown it. I shall remember Eric. Lament is part of life. 

"A friend told me that he had given copies of Lament to all of his children. 'Why did you do that?' I asked. 'Because it is a love-song,' he said. That took me aback. But Yes, it is a love-song. Every lament is a love-song. 

"Will love-songs one day no longer be laments?"

~Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son 

(1987, William E. Eerdmans Publishing Co.)

Next week, we will continue to hear from Nicholas Wolterstorff on the topic,

If God is Good and Sovereign, Why Lament?

an essay by Nicholas Wolterstorff, found in Hearing the Call: Liturgy, Justice, Church and the World (Collection, 2011 Nicholas Wolterstorff, published in 2011 by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company). Stay tuned!

Picture, thanks to http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/vintage

Friday's Faith - "My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?"

Friday's Faith 

"My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?"

Fortunately for us, The Compassionate Friends website allows us to go back and hear webinars that we have had to miss due to conflicting schedules. So Tommy and I went back yesterday to hear Dennis Apple's webinar (You too can hear Dennis by clicking http://www.compassionatefriends.org/News_Events/Special-Events/Webinars.aspx

and scroll down to the video at the bottom of the page.).

Dennis, himself a Congregational pastor, felt like many of us child-loss grievers after the death of his son when he cried out,

"My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?" 

After hearing Dennis's poignant presentation, I ran across a quote from another Child-Loss father who captures the same essence of the cry in these words:

“How is faith to endure, O God, when you allow all this scraping and tearing on us? You have allowed rivers of blood to flow, mountains of suffering to pile up, sobs to become humanity's song--all without lifting a finger that we could see. You have allowed bonds of love beyond number to be painfully snapped. If you have not abandoned us, explain Yourself. 

"We strain to hear. But instead of hearing an answer we catch sight of God himself scraped and torn. Through our tears we see the tears of God.”

~ Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son

Picture, from Dennis L. Apple's TCF power point presentation

Friday's Faith - Finally Free

Finally Free

Our child went into the far country

Seeking to follow the will of her own.

And I? I had to let her go

Knowing her life was only ours by loan.

Powerless. Helpless.

Trusting the Hound of Heaven to redress.

Praying for safety for her body, spirit, and soul:

God swiftly intervened and made her whole...

It was not in the way that I had willed,

As my precious little one was brutally killed.

But I know this is not all of the story,

For the Hound of Heaven did rescue, and took her to Glory.

And I?

Grief-stricken. Weak. Wounded.

Life disrupted. Death-consumed.

Assumptions shattered

Of all that mattered.

Heart splattered.

Mind battered.

Insomniac.

Anxiety attack.

And yet…

Comforted. Soothed. God-met.

Held, Accompanied,

Challenged, Restored daily, Renovated. 

Daily before God standing in need,

He faithfully meets me there, I will concede.

Scarred, limping, heart-broken,

But O so thankful to God for yielding 

His Own Child for mine, to be broken.

Now it is mine to faithful be

Until I too reach the shores of Eternity

Where God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost will be

Setting souls once captive to Satan, Sin, and Death…

Finally Free.

Pictures: Top picture, thanks to Jill's photos, Bottom picture thanks to 365Promises.com

Friday's Faith - Bible Emergency Numbers

Friday's Faith

Bible Emergency Numbers

Many people write me asking for Bible verses to help them in their grief. Someone recently shared this list of verses that help them in a number of situations; I wanted to pass it along to you. One correction I might make, in the theme, "For idea of Christianity, call..." the poster states "1 Corinthians 5:15-19," but the actual scripture to which they refer is found in "2 Corinthians 5:15-19."

A word of warning: Because of what each of us has been through in losing our child, we each may be triggered in different ways according to our circumstances by certain scriptures that may seem to fall in line with some of the shattered assumptions we once easily held but are shaky on in the present. We are all a work in progress still working through our beliefs and assumptions in light of the severe loss and trauma we have endured. As we have stated many times, it is like we are having to completely rework the fabric of the very foundation of our being in many aspects of our lives; the spiritual is no exception. We must always hold our assumptions and beliefs up to the light of God's truth and revelation as we ask and cry out and sometimes even argue out our confusion with Him. Many outsiders do not understand the grueling work that such struggles require as we are grappling with the severest hurts that are closest and dearest to our broken hearts.

Remember, God's Word is living and active ~ May He minister to you as you read His Word.

May God's Word bless you all.










Poster, thanks to ~Godly Woman Daily's Photos