Saturday, December 24, 2011

Merry Christmas Dear Grieving Mother and Father - A Prayer and a Poem for You: May you have a blessed Christmas...




Merry Christmas Dear

Grieving Mother and Father


A Prayer and a Poem for You:


May you have a blessed Christmas...



May you have a blessed Christmas

as He holds you in His arms.

May you cling to His love coming

and not this world's vain charms.


May you hear the angels singing

into your own child's ears.

May you feel peace the Christ Child's bringing

As it rules out all death's fears,


For the Enemy is conquered

By the Love the Christ Child gives;

The Father gave His Child for yours,

Reassuring your child ever lives.


May we join with the angels' singing

As we welcome the Christ Child in;

May we bow our knees in adoring

The One who welcomed our child in.


Merry Christmas precious Mother;

Merry Christmas dear Daddy too;

May you know there is no other

Who loves as God loves you.









Poem - A Prayer and a Poem for Grieving Parents: May you have a blessed Christmas... - Angie Bennett Prince - 12/24/2011

Friday, December 23, 2011

Christmas Eve - When Merry Left Christmas




Christmas Eve

When Merry Left Christmas



How can I be "happy" at Christmas when everywhere

I look, I see the "Merry" with Christmas, yet her bed is bare?

We still get cards that put the "Merry" with Christmas, but

When her stocking remains untouched, I feel punched in my gut.

I look and I look with jingle bells ringing roun' ~

Yet you, my Merry… you're nowhere to be found!

For my Merry left Christmas 5 years ago--

Have people not heard; do they really not know?!

They hustle and bustle, and to the mall they do clammer;

When they see my tears, startled, they ask "What is the matter?!"


When my Merry left Christmas, the sparkle fell off;

Santa crashed his sleigh; the reindeers fell off;

The mistle- was kicked right off the -toe;

The candles lost their light, their bright, cheery glow;

The parents can't nestle all snug in their bed;

The tree is not up; the holly's lost its red.

The night before Christmas never stopped being dark;

Santa and his wife are depressed, so his sleigh he did park.

There are no reminders we have nothing to dread...

For our child is not here; she's not snuggled in her bed.

I call and I call her; I call her by name;

But each time I call her the answer's the same:

As dry leaves that on the silent ground do lie,

The quiet astounds me until I must cry.

I speak not a word; I pour myself into my work,

But still there's no Merry, so I cry with a jerk.


My Merry's not here, or at least she's not in sight;

So it's not a Merry Christmas, and it's not a good night!


But then I remember, on Christmas Day, her Savior came down,

He spread all His love, and even gave her a crown;

And though He was killed on that old rugged cross,

He saved my poor Merry from being forever lost!

For though He was spitefully killed with hate,

Up from the grave He arose, never too late

To save my dear child from death's worst fate.

So He reminds me she IS now by His side,

That she's really alive though indeed she had died!

So as much as I despaired that my Merry was gone,

He put Merry back in Christmas, for she's in the Christ Child's Home!


So now I exclaim, although my Merry's not in sight,

After my God graciously revealed to me His Light,


"Keep the Christ Child in Christmas; He came to fight our child's fight!

He conquered the Enemy; He saved our child's Life!

She is with Him forever ~ Christ has ended Death's Blight…


"So Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night!!!"



In Loving Memory

Merry Katherine Prince

3/29/1987 - 8/2/2006








Poem - A Christmas Eve Poem - When Merry Left Christmas - Angie Bennett Prince - 12/16/2011

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Friday's Faith - Refined By Fire - Really???!





Friday's Faith


Refined By Fire - Really???!




My brother (handicapped since birth, and the sibling closest to me in my family), sent me a precious Christmas present this week, a new book by Randy Alcorn,


90 Days of God's Goodness: Daily Devotions that Shine Light on Personal Darkness.


The quotes (other than mine) in today's post are from this wonderful little book. Thank you Rick!!!




*****




I pray every day, first thing in the morning, and many times throughout the day,


"Lord... I can't make it through this day... without You."


~me




*****



"The Master Artist chose us, the flawed and unusable, to be crafted into the image of Christ to fulfill our destiny in displaying Jesus to the watching universe."


~Randy Alcorn



*****




This morning as I woke up, I looked around my bedroom in my sleepy stupor and saw the abject messiness everywhere, and I said to my God,


"Lord, I just don't 'fit' into this world."


And all of a sudden a peace came over me, along with goose bumps pervading my system,


"I'm not supposed to feel that I belong in this world as I am to long for Heaven, my true Home!!!"
~me

*****



Jesus knew, from a tender young age, the angst of living in this world, with its animosities directed right at Him, even as a helpless newborn baby in a manger. No wonder His heart goes out to all of us who are down-and-out, feeling like misfits in this upwardly-mobile and often hostile world. He has been there, many times over Himself. (Read Matthew 2 below where King Herod was trying to find the Babe who was prophesied to be the newborn King so that he could... kill Him... As a newborn baby, Jesus had to flee along with His parents to another country, into Egypt out of Israel, to wait out King Herod, until Herod died, before they could return to safety!)




At a time when I am suffering the worst loss ever, the loss of my 19-year-old baby girl, God takes me even deeper into the angst of the world, into the lives of innocents molested at tiny ages by the villainous of the world. You would think a human's heart could only go so deep into the despair and agony of this world's pain, but with God, it seems the deeper He takes us, the deeper we can go... when He leads the way.


So many therapists have turned these blessed ones away, these blessed among men, women, and children for they have the attention of their Savior's presence, the ear of their Savior's attentive love and compassion, and the tears of their Savior's breaking heart. He invites me to join into His pain, into His heart breaking over the devastations wreaked by the hands of the heartless, merciless Enemy. He invites me to cry with Him, to love with Him, to reach out and be present to His hurting children along with Him. What a blessing. What a sacred trust. What a sweet use of a mother's broken heart...



*****



C. S. Lewis said,


"God whispers to us in our pleasures,

speaks in our conscience,

but shouts in our pain;

it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."



*****



David Livingstone, Protestant missionary to Africa who died a martyr, once declared,


"Without Christ not one step, with Him anywhere.


"Suffering can help us know God and prepare us to trade a shallow life not worth keeping for a deeper life we'll never lose."




A father who lost his three little girls in an airplane accident uttered,


"After suffering this loss, we know that the only important things now are the ones that will last for eternity."



*****



Matthew 2

Today's New International Version (TNIV)


The Magi Visit the Messiah

1 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:

6 “‘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 shepherd my people Israel.’”

7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 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.”

9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 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, frankincense and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.




The Escape to Egypt

13 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.”

14 So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, 15 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.”

16 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. 17 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:


18 “A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.”




The Return to Nazareth

19 After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20 and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.”

21 So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, 23 and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: “He will be called a Nazarene.”











Photo of blacksmith at work in the refining fire, thanks to FotoSearch

Scripture from the TNIV, Today's New International Version of The Holy Bible


Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Thursday's Therapy - Learning to "Let Go" to "Get Through" the Sacred Holidays ~by Tommy and Angie Prince





Thursday's Therapy


Learning to


"Let Go" to "Get Through"


the Sacred Holidays


~by Tommy and Angie Prince





"Letting Go" of our traditions amidst the sacred holidays has saved us.


It seems the way to "get through" the sacred holidays is to "let go"!


For example, we tried to do our regular traditions during the sacred Christmas holidays of that first year of having just lost Merry Katherine just 4 1/2 months before. We wanted to keep things as "normal" as we could for both our grieving sons (and for us as well). We did change rooms, from the living room to our more informal den, from where we had celebrated consistently over these many years of our children's lives, celebrating around the Christmas tree, opening presents from "Santa" and from one another, etc., but we continued with a fairly big Christmas celebration along with our usual focus on the nativity story from the Bible, singing Christmas hymns around the piano (or pee-nan-nee-o as Merry Katherine had always called it as a young child), and sharing our lives with one another as we shared our hearts, etc. So, for that first year, we continued with our normal traditions of putting up the Christmas tree, adding all the lights, and all the ornaments, and spreading presents around underneath the tree.


Tommy:


"But when I pulled out the stockings, I ran across Merry Katherine's stocking first, and cried for two hours. Then I ran across her "spinning ballerina" ornament that she just loved, and that was another good hour of crying... So just putting up and decorating a Christmas tree was traumatic."


Last year (4 years later), in contrast, we put up our usual manger scene and candles, but put up only a simple artificial tree with lights (just the twinkling lights alone are such a comfort for Angie), and then used only our hand-made Biblical "scarlet-thread-through-the-Bible"* ornaments that we had made together with our children when they were small, and that was all the decorations we had. So sweet.


*"Scarlet-thread-through-the-Bible" ornaments are the ornaments we made which represent the genealogy of Jesus through which God worked to show His salvation plan through "signs" and "shadows" of what was to come, all of which were to be fulfilled through the coming birth, life, death, resurrection, and second coming of His Son Jesus Christ. (We will have to share more about this later. It is a really sweet tradition that we have so many fond memories of as our children would read aloud what each ornament represented in pointing toward Jesus, and their antics were such humorous memory-makers for us, as well as the ways the gospel penetrated their souls through these repetitive reminders of God's loving grace toward us through the centuries before us are so touching in retrospect.)



So in other words, our "salvation" in staying "sane" through the sacred holidays has been in more and more "letting go" of the more pagan traditions of Santa Claus, elaborately decorated Christmas trees (Angie loved to have one in almost every room of our house if she could!), and all the other "hoopla" that surrounds such magical thinking, and returning to the MAIN reason for a true celebration ~ and that is


For unto you today is born a Savior which is "Jesus Christ our Lord," ~ the Christ-Child who is "Emmanuel," "God-with-us."



Note: While writing this post, we each were majorly triggered in different ways. Our faith in God and our feelings of comfort from God are such basic foundations to help us endure our loss of Merry Katherine, and in learning to function again after her loss. Such major triggering is evidence that God our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, as well as the Holy Spirit who fills our hearts today are the CORE to who we are, who our children are, where our child Merry Katherine IS right now, and so, any tampering or even talking about such sacred subjects can easily bring us to our knees in pain and angst as well as reach through to soothe and comfort our broken hearts in a way that no other force in this world can even begin to touch...




So far this year, we have up only a tiny little artificial tree with lights and trinkets scattered through it, but a massive Advent wreath with candles and beautiful angels surrounding it (along with a beautiful paper mache angel Merry Katherine had made in Girl Scouts), surrounding the nativity scene, which is also surrounded with miniature palm trees and all the pertinent worshipping shepherds, animals, and wise men. So far, so good, but we've four days to go! Holding on, hoping we can continue to "let go"!









Picture, thanks to Google Images

Wednesday's Woe - The Shock of "Merry" Christmas




Just one of the many greetings which has my baby's name in it...


Wednesday's Woe


The Shock of "Merry" Christmas






Holidays are bad enough. Christmas is hard enough after having lost our child. But for us, with our child's first name being "Merry," it seems almost impossible. Her siblings and friends always called her "Merry." The first Christmas or two after Merry Katherine was gone, I had some interesting experiences with text messaging. On my phone, all I would see by a text message until I clicked it would be one word... I saw by the phone number that popped up on my phone that I had received a text message from my hairdresser of many years. I was shocked at what she might have to tell me as the only word that I saw was, "MERRY" (my daughter also had been her hairdresser customer) ~ and my first thought was "HAS MERRY BEEN FOUND?!!!" and was greatly shocked and even disappointed to just read a Christmas greeting from her of "MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!" because however sweet it really was intended, it was a let down because my hopes had been driven up so high by just one precious word... I knew of course she would have no way of knowing that all I would see at first was my child's name, so I accepted the gracious reaching out that she had intended.


But later in the afternoon, I received a text from my oldest child, my son Rollin. We had all been to the beach together that second Christmas holiday, but he had to return home early before Christmas to close the deal on a new house he and his fiancee would be purchasing as their wedding was coming up soon thereafter. So, back at home before we were, he was texting me a message. I saw his name, and then I saw right beside his name was, "MERRY" and my heart leaped once again to the excitement that she must be here(!) only once again to be disappointed by the excited Christmas greeting inside: "MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!" So, even my son had stepped into that texting trap accidentally, wanting to send a loving greeting to his mother that instead melted her to tears... (thankfully, he didn't know that however!)


My younger son called me from down in Georgia last week, having been greatly triggered by some sweet Christian songs on his radio that he and Merry had loved. Then he added, "All these billboards down here with "Merry" on them are driving me crazy as they wish us a "Merry Christmas"! I see them everywhere! Living away from home now after his having lived with us these past three years since college ended for him, he was anticipating coming to visit us for the holidays and was thrown into the deep grief of knowing that unlike most of the Christmases of his life, his baby sister (just two years younger than he, and like a best-friend to him) would not be here awaiting his arrival to enjoy the laid-back days of the holidays together. It also didn't help that he had received the devastating news from here that two of his very good friends from middle school and high school had just died last week, one from "natural" causes and one murdered... They were just 25 and 26 years old, one 8 1/2 months pregnant, and the other had a 4-year-old baby girl. And of course we all know the devastation ahead for these parents...








Picture, thanks to Google Image

Monday, December 19, 2011

Tuesday's Trust - Deep Calls to Deep...





Tuesday's Trust


Deep Calls to Deep...





Could it be that your death

Brought me to life in some ways,

Breathing in me a vitalizing breath,

Yielding new focus for my latter days?

Knowing what's important is a great simplifier,

Giving compassion for the lost, the dying, the half-dead,

God's voice coming through clearer as if by Death's amplifier,

Where the noises of the world's din are shut down to a whisper

Such that I can hear the still small voice of the Sweet Spirit,

Drawing my heart to the voiceless wounded's whisper

Though it is drowned out to others who are "deaf," though they are near it.


"Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies,"

So our Master said, "it remains only a single seed.

Yet if it falls down to the ground and dies,

It then finds the life to produce many seeds."


So, too, your death ~ though it has half-killed me,

Leaving me a shadow of myself, as one half-dead,

Has, in other ways, quickened the heart and the soul of The Deep

To find new life to go and find healing, and even reach out to others who find themselves half-dead,

Also afraid they will drown in the rapacious riptide of their Grief.


How can God rescue life out of death?

How can He find this grieving mother suffocated, and lend her breath?

How can He resurrect a therapist who thought she was finished,

And tune her heart better to hear the soul-cries of the diminished?

How can I hear so clearly those voices others dismiss

Yet my Savior draws my heart to them as a mother tends her crying child with Love's kiss.


It is indeed a remarkable resurrection,

But it is, too, an "insurrection" --

The "healers"...

are too often hurting (us),

So God calls the hurting...

to be the "healers"!

The so-called "healers" are blind because it is too painful to really "see,"

While those of us who already are "half-dead," can all too plainly see.

We know the pain because we have lived it.

We're not afraid to see the pain because we know the One who lifts it.

We cannot deny the pain because we know what it's like to feel abandoned,

And we know we can rely on the One who walks with us through the Valley of Death's Shadow

because He has walked with us through our own Valley.

He will use His rod to guide us, and the crook of His staff to pull us back as needed for our protection. ~ Such intimacy

comforts our souls and walks along with us,

guiding and working through us to comfort others.


Those who walk in The Shallows

are afraid of The Deep.

Those thrown into The Deep have learned to swim, or if not to swim, to tread, or if not to tread, to float.

So when others are thrown into The Deep,

The Deep calls to The Deep,

And they are attended, and they too are filled with hope...



*****


~Psalm 42, NIV~



As the deer pants for streams of water,

so my soul pants for You, O God.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

When can I go and meet with God?

My tears have been my food day and night,

while men say to me all day long,

"Where is your God?"

These things I remember as I pour out my soul:

how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God,

with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng.


Why are you downcast, O my soul?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.

My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember You...

Deep calls to deep in the roar of Your waterfalls;

all Your waves and breakers have swept over me.


By day the LORD directs His love,

at night His song is with me-- a prayer to the God of my life.


I say to God my Rock,

"Why have You forgotten me?

Why must I go about mourning,

oppressed by the enemy?"

My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me,

saying to me all day long,

"Where is your God?"


Why are you downcast, O my soul?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.










Picture, thanks to ingimage.com:

NIV - New International Version of The Holy Bible


Sunday, December 18, 2011

Monday's Mourning Ministry - When Love Was Born ~Mark Schultz



Monday's Mourning Ministry


When Love Was Born


~Mark Schultz



Starlight shines

the night is still

shepherds watch

from a hill

I close my eyes

and see the night

when Love was born


A perfect Child

gently waits

A mother bends

To kiss God's face

I close my eyes

and see the night

when Love was born


Angels fill the midnight sky,

they sing

Hallelujah, He is Christ

our King


Emmanuel,

Prince of Peace,

Love come down

for you and me


Heaven's gift,

the Holy spark

to light the way

inside our hearts


Bethlehem

through your small door

came the hope

we've waited for

The world was changed

forevermore

When Love was born


I close my eyes

and see the night

when Love was born








http://youtu.be/1REetGgdWmE