Bursting with good quotes

I know many of you read Loving The Little Years when it was released a couple years ago, but have you had the blessing of reading Fit To Burst yet? Oh my. Good words. It may have been one of the last books I read in 2012 (along with God Rest Ye Merry and Future Men) but I think it may yet be one of the many I also read in 2013. It simply cries out for repetitive reading, and thanks to the busy life the author has as a diligent mother herself, it is written in short, concise, easy-to-fit-the-reading-into-real-life sections. It can be done by reading in ten minute spurts… and let’s be honest, a lot of times, that is just about the maximum number of minutes a busy mom can dedicate to reading in any one sitting. 🙂

Here are a few things that I underlined; I know they’re taken out of context, but I hope they bless you nonetheless (whether you’re a parent or not).

Sacrifice isn’t really sacrifice if it involves only doing what you want.

Motherhood is not just a job, it is an identity. More importantly, it is an identity that begins and ends with giving.

Prioritize [your children’s] needs. Think their needs are more important than yours.

Your thoughts alone will not play into the memories of your children.

If you could be the most accomplished mother in the world on your own strength, it wouldn’t matter in the end.

It is so easy as mothers to look at the work we do on behalf of our families and resent that it is free to them… When we imitate Christ, we want to give what costs us much, and we want to give it freely.

Thank God things to bake have nothing to do with your salvation.

We don’t all need to be making biscuits, but we should all be doing something. We should be getting our hands into stuff to give. We should be blessing others, thinking of others, giving to others. And we should be doing it so freely that we don’t remember it, because we are willing to wait to see what is done with it.

…Apparently my expectations were not aware of what my life is actually like. My expectations were ignoring–intentionally, too–that I had spent the day with a toddler. And that a mountain of laundry had been tamed. My expectations ignored the dinner that was served. They pretended not to  notice the clean children or all the dishes that had been done that day. They turned a blind eye to the baby that was (at that time) growing inside. My expectations were a seriously mean boss.

When you are a mother and a homemaker, you are your own boss. The days are what you make of them.

Making a list that you cannot accomplish does not make you a better housewife.

The real goal here should be to illustrate for our children the attributes of both great leadership and faithful following. They should see us setting realistic (but  maybe difficult) goals, and working hard toward them. They should see us being visionaries who are anchored firmly in reality. They should see us steadily plodding, faithfully working on things in a realistic way. They should see us laboring hard to make a beautiful life for them while not losing sight of them in it.

At the end of our children’s lives, we hope it is worth a fortune. But at any given moment it is the little things that contain the gold.

Our opportunities to bless our children are often most present when we least feel like it.

You could cheerfully sing with the kids the whole way to church–laying down that little piece of gold that worshipping fellowship with them matters more to you than showing up on time.

We should not be correcting our children in the interest of making our lives easier (although it most certainly will). Correct them in the interest of making their lives richer.

Repetition should not be discouraging to us, it should be challenging.

Having room to improve is not something to be sad about, it is something that should encourage and inspire us.

Some incredible fast years of my life were made up of the longest days in history.

We need to be now who we want to be then. The future is happening right now. It isn’t just bearing down on us faster, it is going past us, too. Some of that future I imagined has already come and gone.

Fruit is a vehicle for seeds… As we work to bear fruit, we are also bearing the seeds of a lot of future fruit.

Part of [our] duty is to help our husbands love our children… You are to help him convey his love to them. When your husband goes off to work, he is loving his family. When he brings home a paycheck, he is loving his family. But if there is no mother taking that paycheck and translating it into hot meals, into clothes for the children, into the comfort of home, then the children may very well not feel that love from their father. It is a mother’s job to communicate the love that the father has towards his children. It is our job to translate.

Having a right relationship to the father of your children is one of the greatest gifts that you can give your children.

Preparing and serving food isn’t just one of the most repetitive jobs that we have, it is also one of the most powerful.

There is more to saying grace than just a nod to God as the provider of food… It means that we are asking Jesus to join us.

Christianity was simply assumed in our house, but it was always alive. It was always being applied to our lives, and not from a distance. There was always the understanding that if the Word of God teaches something, that’s what we believe. There was no negotiating with it, ignoring it, or simply choosing to not apply it.

Our faith should be a shield to protect our children’s faith.

[Faithful parents] cannot provide the roots for their child’s tree, but they can lend the strength of their own roots.

Grace is action… Grace is not a facilitator of sins, it is a solution to them.

You might be embarrassed when your friend is harsh to their child, but were you embarrassed when you did the same thing in the privacy of your own home? See that kind of thing. Apply it to yourself.

I know that what people see isn’t the complete story. I know that some of the times when our parenting is most honoring to God it doesn’t look like we are doing very well.

Oftentimes I will know it’s true that nothing’s wrong, but I feel so “stressed” because there is so much to do, so much that isn’t done. This kind of stress is simply the ambient noise of faithfulness… Some kinds of “stress” are simply what happens when  you are being faithful.

If the first thing that doesn’t go smoothly sets you off in a chain of fussing and demanding, blaming everyone but yourself, you need to recognize how your children are simply following you… They aren’t motivated to obey you cheerfully because you aren’t motivated to cheerfully obey God. You are indulging yourself, and so are they.

Good leadership always starts with the leader. It always starts with what you expect of yourself. If you are engaged in disciplining yourself, your children will know. They will mimic that. They will want to follow.

We make a point to discipline only when we have a biblical name for the offense, because we want our children to know that what we are doing is enforcing God’s law.

Being seriously about dealing with sin is honoring to God, because it is being serious about forgiveness.

When we ask God for direction on each of the little things, not only is direction provided, but progress is made. Sometimes, you need to ask God to show you each little foothold. That is not a sign that you are failing. It is not a sign that you will never find your way out. It is a sign that you are still on the journey, still obeying, and that you know who to ask for help.

Gratitude enables us to do our daily work as unto the Lord. It makes the little things that we do every day an offering to God.

We lift our hands in a gesture of lifting our worship up to God, but also a gesture of lifting the work of our hands up to Him. Asking Him to use the things that we do in the course of the week for the kingdom. We lift up the hands that have been in the sink with the dishes, hands that have been fixing hair and buttoning pants, hands that have been wiping off the table and driving to school, hands that have been changing diapers and tickling tummies, hands that have been busy holding other hands. These hands, this work, Lord, take them… And I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there is nothing better or more powerful that I could be doing with my hands.

Excerpts from A Grace Disguised

I just read this book recently. And I typed up many things that stuck out to me as being nail-on-the-head for where I am in this journey. So if you choose to read this long collection of random quotes from this excellent book, keep in mind that I picked & chose what shouted from the page to me & my heart. Many of these things are things I could say myself — many of them are things I have experienced, still experience, have said, have wanted to say. Jerry Sittser is a professor at the university where I graduated, and although I never took one of his classes, I heard him speak a few times, spent countless hours in choir with his oldest son (we graduated together), and have cried buckets on the pages of this book. I highly suggest this book to anyone who is suffering immense grief, especially multiplied grief.

May God bless his words.

Excerpts from A Grace Disguised
by Jerry Sittser

I had learned early on that my definition of normality would have to change drastically. (p 13)

No one ever suffers loss in the abstract. Loss is not simply a concept; it is an experience, one we would all like to avoid. (p 14)

[My children] were my big “project.” As it turned out, they were also my redemption, though I did not know it at the time. (p 15)

Loss is as much a part of normal life as birth, for as surely as we are born into this world we suffer loss before we leave it. (p 17)

I believe that “recovery” from such loss is an unrealistic and even harmful expectation. (p 17)

I am not sure it is entirely possible to communicate the utterly devastating nature of one’s suffering. Some experiences are so terrible that they defy description. (p 19)

However inadequate my words… what has happened to me has pressed me to the limit. I have come face to face with the darker side of life and with the weakness of my own human nature. As vulnerable as I feel most of the time, I can hardly call myself a conqueror. (p 19)

For a time I think [my children] kept me alive; now they keep me going. (p 21)

Catastrophic loss wreaks destruction like a massive flood. It is unrelenting, unforgiving, and uncontrollable, brutally erosive to body, mind, and spirit. (p 24)

I remember the realization sweeping over me that I would soon plunge into a darkness from which I might never again emerge as a sane, normal, believing man. (p 26)

I felt dizzy with grief’s vertigo, cut off from family and friends, tormented by the loss, nauseous from the pain. (p 26)

All I wanted was to be dead. Only the sense of responsibility for my three surviving children and the habit of living for forty years kept me alive. (p 27)

That initial deluge of loss slowly gave way over the next months to the steady seepage of pain that comes when grief, like floodwaters refusing to subside, finds every crack and crevice of the human spirit to enter and erode. I thought that I was going to lose my mind. I was overwhelmed with depression. The foundation of my life was close to caving in. (p 27)

I felt punished by simply being alive and thought death would bring welcomed relief. (p 28)

I marveled at the genius of the ancient Hebrews, who set aside forty days for mourning, as if forty days were enough. I learned later how foolish I was. It was only after those forty days that my mourning became too deep for tears. So my tears turned to brine, to a bitter and burning sensation of loss that tears could no longer express. In the months that followed I actually longed for the time when the sorrow had been fresh and tears came easily. That emotional release would have lifted the burden, if only for a while. (p 28)

The results are permanent, the impact incalculable, the consequences cumulative. Each new day forces one to face some new and devastating dimension of the loss. (p 32)

No two losses are ever the same. Each loss stands on its own and inflicts a unique kind of pain. What makes each loss so catastrophic is its devastating, cumulative, and irreversible nature. (p 33)

At times I feel almost desperate to find just one part of my life that was not affected by her presence and does not therefore suffer from her absence. (p 36)

I am more sensitive to the pain now, not as oblivious and selfish as I used to be. (p 37)

Each experience of loss is unique, each painful in its own way, each as bad as everyone else’s but also different. (p 38)

Never have I experienced such anguish and emptiness. It was my first encounter with existential darkness, though it would not be my last. (p 41)

The quickest way for anyone to reach the sun and the light of day is not to run west, chasing after the setting sun, but to head east, plunging into the darkness until one comes to the sunrise. (p 42)

Giving myself to grief proved to be hard as well as necessary. It happened in both spontaneous and intentional ways. I could not always determine the proper time and setting for tears, which occasionally came at unexpected and inconvenient moments… the expression of sorrow [became] a normal and natural occurrence in daily life. (p 42)

I felt anguish in my soul and cried bitter tears. (p 43)

I wanted to pray but had no idea what to say, as if struck dumb by my own pain. Groans became the only language I could use, if even that, but I believed it was language enough for God to understand. (p 43)

I struggled with exhaustion, as I do now. (p 43)

My world was as fragile as the lives of the loved ones whom I had lost. (p 44)

I learned early on that I did not even have the luxury or convenience of mourning the loss of my loved ones as a group. Instead, I had to mourn them as separate individuals. As my grief over one loss would subside, grief over another would emerge. (p 44)

Darkness, it is true, had invaded my soul. But then again, so did light. Both contributed to my personal transformation. (p 45)

I did not go through pain and come out on the other side; instead, I lived in it and found within that pain the grace to survive and eventually grow. (p 45)

I did not get over the loss of my loved ones; rather, I absorbed the loss into my life, like soil receives decaying matter, until it became a part of who I am. (p 46)

The soul is elastic, like a balloon. It can grow larger through suffering. Loss can enlarge its capacity for anger, depression, despair, and anguish, all natural and legitimate emotions whenever we experience loss. Once enlarged, the soul is also capable of experiencing greater joy, strength, peace, and love. What we consider opposites—east and water, night and light, sorrow and joy, weakness and strength, anger and love, despair and hope, death and life—are no more mutually exclusive than winter and sunlight. The soul has the capacity to experience these opposites, even at the same time. (p 48)

When we plunge into darkness, it is darkness we experience. (p 49)

Loss requires that we live in a delicate tension. We must mourn, but we must also go on living. (p 50)

I learned to live and mourn simultaneously. (p 51)

The sorrow I feel has not disappeared, but it has been integrated into my life as a painful part of a healthy whole. (p 51)

I was angry at God, too. At times I scoffed at the vain notion of praying to God or, conversely, of cursing God, as if one or the other would make any difference. At other times I cried out to God in utter anguish of soul. “How could you do this to innocent people? To my children? To me?” Sometimes I turned that anger toward my children, lashing out at them when they disobeyed. Or I turned it toward myself, feeling the guilt of having survived the accident while others, whom I considered more worthy of life than me, had died. (p 58)

I found comfort in many of the Psalms that express anguish and anger before God. I see now that my faith was becoming an ally rather than an enemy because I could vent anger freely, even toward God, without fearing retribution. (p 59)

The pain of loss is unrelenting. It stalks and chases until it catches us. It is as persistent as wind on the prairies, as constant as cold in the Antarctic, as erosive as a spring flood. It will not be denied and there is no escape from it. In the end denial, bargaining, binges, and anger are mere attempts to deflect what will eventually conquer us all. Pain will have its day because loss is undeniably, devastatingly real. (p 59)

I have more perspective now; I have more confidence in my ability to endure. (p 60)

Willing an end to depression is as difficult as healing a broken heart. Human strength alone is insufficient for the task. (p 61)

It took Herculean strength for me to get out of bed in the morning. I was fatigued all day long, yet at night I was sleepless. (p 61)

Friends and colleagues marveled at how well I was doing. But inside I was a living dead man. (p 61)

The accident set off a silent scream of pain inside my soul. That scream was so loud that I could hardly hear another sound, not for a long time, and I could not imagine that I would hear any sound but that scream of pain for the rest of my life. (p 64)

Loss creates a barren present, as if one were sailing on a vast sea of nothingness. (p 66)

These memories were, and are, beautiful to me. I cling to them as a man clings to a plank of wood while lost in the middle of the sea. But they are also troubling… I cannot live with the memories, and I cannot live without them. (p 70)

Much of what I had imagined for my future became impossible after the accident. (p 71)

Recovery is a misleading and empty expectation. We recover from broken limbs, not amputations. Catastrophic loss by definition precludes recovery. It will transform or destroy us, but it will never leave us the same. (p 73)

Whatever that future is, it will, and must, include the pain of the past with it. Sorrow never entirely leaves the soul of those who have suffered a severe loss. If anything, it may keep going deeper. (p 73)

This depth of sorrow is the sign of a healthy soul, not a sick soul. It does not have to be morbid and fatalistic. It is not something to escape but something to embrace. (p 73)

Deep sorrow often has the effect of stripping life of pretense, vanity, and waste. (p 74)

Gifts of grace come to all of us. But we must be ready to see and willing to receive these gifts. It will require a kind of sacrifice, the sacrifice of believing that, however painful our losses, life can still be good—good in a different way than  before, but nevertheless good. (p 79)

I will always want the ones I lost back again. I long for them with all my soul. (p 79)

I lost the world I loved, but I gained a deeper awareness of grace. That grace has enabled me to clarify my purpose in life and rediscover the wonder of the present moment. (p 79)

I sometimes feel like I am a stranger to myself. I am not quite sure what to do with me. (p 81)

“I’m not the same person I used to be,” [a friend] confided in me. She wonders if she will ever be happy and energetic again. She knows she has lost her former identity, but she is unsure of how to find a new identity on the other side of her loss. (p 83)

Catastrophic loss cannot be mitigated by replacements. (p 83)

I have tried to help my children grieve—to make room for their anger, welcome their tears, listen to their complaints, create order out of chaos, and do this work of comfort in a way that is sensitive to timing and to the unique personality of each child. Yet this important task has not mitigated the demands of managing a normal household, which requires attention to an endless list of details. (p 84)

I have discovered that busyness and exhaustion can sabotage healing. (p 84)

Do I really want the kind of life I now have? Do I really want another life in the future? Is this the kind of life I will have to live forever? (p 85)

Loss creates a new set of circumstances in which we must live. (p 85)

Loss establishes a new context for life. (p 86)

With the background already sketched in by circumstances beyond my control, I picked up a paintbrush and began, with great hesitation and distress, to pain a new portrait of our lives. At first I was tempted to pain on a small canvas because I assumed that from that point on I would be living a small life. I wondered how I could keep the same expectations of having the good life I had before, considering the death of three people who had made it so good. Many people who suffer loss are tempted to do the same, lowering their expectations of what they will get out of life. Can any person look forward to a life that falls so far short of what he or she had planned, wanted, and expected? (p 87)

The scenery of my life is different now, as different as the desert is from the mountains. But it can still be beautiful, as beautiful as the desert at dusk. (p 88)

I prefer the way my life was before… and have therefore hesitated to believe my life can be good now. I have tried to embrace my circumstances, but more often than not I have been stopped short by the limitations of my own flawed nature. (p 89)

Loss forces us to see the dominant role our environment plays in determining our happiness. Loss strips us of the props we rely on for our well-being. It knocks us off our feet and puts us on our backs. In the experience of loss, we come to the end of ourselves. (p 89)

In coming to the end of ourselves, we have come to the beginning of our true and deepest selves. We have found the One whose love gives shape to our being. (p 90)

The tragedy pushed me toward God, even when I did not want Him. And in God I found grace, even when I was not looking for it. (p 90)

One of Jesus’ early and great followers, the apostle Paul, wrote once that it is not what we have achieved but what we are striving for that counts. (p 91)

We live life as if it were a motion picture. Loss turns life into a snapshot. The movement stops; everything freezes. (p 93)

Their death has forced me to grow; I wish now that they could benefit from the growth that has resulted from their death. (p 99)

It is natural, of course, for those who suffer catastrophic loss to feel destructive emotions like hatred, bitterness, despair, and cynicism. These emotions may threaten to dominate anyone who suffers tragedy and lives with regret. We may have to struggle against them for a long time, and that will not be easy. Few people who suffer loss are spared the temptation of taking revenge, wallowing in self-pity, or scoffing at life. (p 100)

I once performed as a parent; now I am a parent. (p 103)

The gift of divine forgiveness will help us to forgive ourselves. (p 104)

God’s forgiveness will show us that he wants to take our losses and somehow bring them back upon us in the form of a blessing. This work of grace will not erase the loss or alter its consequences. Grace cannot change the moral order. What is bad will always be bad. But grace will bring good out of a bad situation; it will take an evil and somehow turn it into something that results in good. (p 105)

God loved me in my misery; God loved me because I was miserable. (p 105)

I wondered if I could trust a God who allowed, or caused, suffering in the first place. My loss made God seem distant and unfriendly, as if He lacked the power or the desire to prevent or deliver me from suffering. (p 106)

Loss makes the universe seem like a cold and unfriendly place. (p 110)

Suffering may be at its fiercest when it is random, for we are then stripped of even the cold comfort that comes when events, however cruel, occur for a reason. (p 111)

Better to give up my quest for control and live in hope. (p 113)

It is a wonder, considering the suffering that awaits us all, how few of us live in constant dread, utterly immobilized by what may happen to us. (p 113)

We are remarkably resilient creatures. When knocked down, most of us get up, like weeds bouncing back after being trampled. We love again, work again, and hope again. We think it is worth the risk and trouble to live in the world, though terrors surely await us, and we take our chances that, all things considered, life is still worth living. (p 113)

Job’s story became more understandable and meaningful to me when I tried to stand inside his experience, which is possible for anyone who has suffered severe loss. (p 116)

I simply do not see the bigger picture, but I choose to believe that there is a bigger picture and that my loss is part of some wonderful story authored by God Himself. (p 118)

Loss has little to do with our notions of fairness. Some people live long and happily, though they deserve to suffer. Others endure one loss after another, though they deserve to be blessed. (p 121)

To many people I am even heroic, which is ironic to me, since I have only done what people around the world have been doing for centuries—make the most of a bad situation. (p 124)

I had to work to fight off cynicism. (p 126)

Perhaps I did not deserve their deaths; but I did not deserve their presence in my life either. (p 126)

In the face of life, living in a perfectly fair world appeals to me. But deeper reflection makes me wonder. In such a world I might never experience tragedy; but neither would I experience grace, especially the grace God gave me in the form of the three wonderful people whom I lost. (p 126)

If I had anyone to turn to for help, it was God. Then again, if I had anyone to blame, it was also God. My belief in His sovereignty was not always a comfort to me. (p 147)

I held God responsible for my circumstances. I placed my confidence in Him; I also argued with Him. In any case, God played the key role. (p 147)

If God really was God, where was He when the tragedy occurred? Why did He do nothing? How could God allow such a terrible thing to happen? My suffering, in short, forced me to address the problem of God’s sovereignty. (p 147)

God’s sovereignty may follow logically from who God is by definition. It may even reflect our experience of God as the One who spares and blesses us. But this positive inclination toward God’s sovereignty may come to a sudden stop in the face of severe loss. How, in such circumstances, can we reconcile God’s sovereignty with human suffering, or God’s control with our pain, especially if we believe that God is both good and powerful? (p 150)

My loss made God seem terrifying and inscrutable. For a long time I saw His sovereignty as a towering cliff in winter—icy, cold, and windswept. I stood in my misery at the base of this cliff and looked up at its forbidding, unscalable wall. I felt overwhelmed, intimidated, and crushed by its hugeness. There was nothing inviting or comforting about it. It loomed over me, completely oblivious to my presence and pain. It defied climbing; it mocked my puniness. I yelled at God to acknowledge my suffering and to take responsibility for it, but all I heard was the lonely echo of my own voice. (p 151)

Suffering forces us to think about God’s essential nature. Is God sovereign? Is God good? Can we trust Him? (p 152)

“My earthly father would never do such a thing to me, but my heavenly Father has.” (p 153)

Sorrow itself needs the existence of God to validate it as a healthy and legitimate emotion. (p 154)

There is too much mystery to make God’s ways easy to explain. (p 156)

God’s sovereignty allows us to believe that He is bigger than our circumstances and will make our lives better through those circumstances. (p 157)

The Incarnation means that God cares so much that He chose to become human and suffer loss, though He never had to. I have grieved long and hard and intensely. But I have found comfort knowing that the sovereign God, who is in control of everything, is the same God who has experienced the pain I live with very day. (p 158)

God understands suffering because God suffered. (p 159)

I learned the painful truth that I could not protect my children from suffering but could only go through it with them. (p 163)

Loss leads to unrelenting pain, the kind of pain that forces us to acknowledge our moral fate. (p 165)

Shock wears over time. Then comes denial, bargaining, binges, and anger, which emerge and recede with various degrees of intensity. These methods of fighting pain may work for a time, but in the end they too, like shock, must yield to the greater power of death. Finally only deep sorrow and depression remain. The loss becomes what it really is, a reminder that death of some kind has conquered again. Death is always the victor. (p 165)

Death does not have the final word; life does. Jesus’ death and resurrection made it possible. (p 167)

Suffering engenders a certain degree of ambivalence in those of us who believe in the resurrection. We feel the pain of our present circumstances, which reminds us of what we have lost; yet we hope for future release and victory. We doubt, yet try to believe; we suffer, yet long for real healing; we inch hesitantly toward death, yet see death as the door to resurrection. (p 168)

My despondent mood casts a shadow over everything, even over my faith. On those occasions I find it hard to believe anything at all. (p 169)

I find reason and courage to keep going and to continue believing. Once again my soul increases its capacity for hope as well as for sadness. I end up believing with greater depth and joy than I had before, even in my sorrow. (p 169)

Loss is a universal experience. Like physical pain, we know it is real because sooner or later all of us experience it. But loss is also a solitary experience. Again, like physical pain, we know it is real only because we experience it uniquely within ourselves. When a person says, “You just don’t know what I have gone through and how much I have suffered,” we must acknowledge that he or she is entirely correct. We do not know and cannot know. (p 171)

Though suffering itself is universal, each experience of suffering is unique because each person who goes through it is unique. (p 171)

We must enter the darkness of loss alone, but once there we will find others with whom we can share life together. (p 171)

Questions confused them; answers eluded them. They decided in that moment simply to be present with me in spite of their helplessness and brokenness. Throwing caution to the wind, they walked into the house and embraced me in tears, though they had no idea what to say to comfort me and the children. They chose to make themselves available, vulnerable, and present to our suffering. They became a part of our community of brokenness. (p 172)

We should not necessarily fault friends for the brevity or superficiality of their support. I have been prone to do the same myself. On many occasions I have sent a note to someone who suffered loss, visited that person once or twice, prayed sporadically over the course of a few weeks or months, and then have largely forgotten about it. I wanted to express concern, which I did. But I did not choose to embrace the suffering and did not allow it to change my life. In most cases I lacked the time and energy; in a few cases I also lacked the willingness and heart. (p 173)

Trite answers were a poor replacement for compassion. (p 174)

They made noise, but silence would have been more helpful and wise. (p 174)

Community does not simply happen spontaneously, except in rare occurrences when conditions are right. Not even the unique circumstances of catastrophic loss are sufficient to create community. When people suffering loss do find community, it comes as a result of conscious choices they and other people make. (p 176)

It requires a choice on the part of those who want to provide community for suffering friends. They must be willing to be changed by someone else’s loss, though they might not have been directly affected by it. (p 176)

Comforters must be prepared to let the pain of another become their own and so let is transform them. (p 176)

Since they knew life would not be the same for me, they decided that it would not be the same for them either. (p 177)

I grieved with these friends. I grieved because of these friends, for their presence in my life reminded me of the past I had lost. (p 179)

Sometimes I could hardly breathe, I felt so oppressed by the sadness. (p 180)

Not only must people who want to comfort someone in pain make a decision to do so, but people who need the comfort must also decide to receive it. (p 180)

Friends wanted to listen and empathize; but they also wanted to learn, to reflect on the universal nature of suffering, and to make meaning for their own lives. (p 182)

My experience taught me that loss reduces people to a state of almost total brokenness and vulnerability. I did not simply feel raw pain; I was raw pain. (p 182)

Who in his or her right mind would ever want to feel such pain more than once? Is love worth it if it is that risky? Is it even possible to love after loss, knowing that other losses will follow? I have thought many times how devastating it would be for me if I lost another of my children, especially now that I have invested so much of myself into them. I am terrified by that possibility. Yet I cannot imagine not loving them either, which is even more abhorrent to me than losing them. (p 183)

It takes tremendous courage to love when we are broken. (p 185)

My appreciation for people has grown immeasurably since the accident, though I have never felt more fragile and inadequate. (p 185)

Whenever Bach finished a composition, he signed it, “To the glory of God.” (p 187)

These biblical characters [in the great cloud of witnesses] obviously play the key role in showing us who God is and how God can be trusted, even in suffering. (p 188)

In one paragraph [Thomas] Shepherd stated what his faith required him to believe—that life on earth is transitory and full of sorrow and that true life awaits the faithful in heaven. He recognized that sometimes saints suffer because they need God’s discipline and grace. In the end, however, he concluded, “I am the Lord’s, and He may do with me what He will. He did teach me to prize a little grace gained by a cross as a sufficient recompense for all outward losses.” (p 190)

“Now life will be a little less sweet, death a little less bitter.” (p 191)

It is not surprising that loss often inspires people to sacrifice themselves for some greater purpose. They know how painful loss is. When they see other people suffer, they act out of compassion to alleviate their pain and work for change. (p 191)

Often the most helpful people have endured suffering themselves and turned their pain into a motivation to serve others. (p 192)

They remind us that life is bigger than loss because God is bigger than loss. They bear witness to the truth that pain and death do not have the final word; God does. That final word involves more than life on earth; it involves life in heaven as well. The final destination of this great cloud of witnesses. (p 193)

But life here is not the end. Reality is more than we think it to be. There is another and greater reality that envelops this earthly one. Earth is not outside heaven, as the philosopher Peter Kreeft wrote; it is heaven’s workshop, heaven’s womb. (p 193)

My story is part of a much larger story that I did not choose. I was assigned a role for which I did not audition. (p 195)

These expressions of sadness surface regularly in our home. They are as natural as noise, fun, and fights. Loss is a part of who we are as a family. (p 196)

The consequences of tragedy never really end, not after two years or ten years or a hundred years. (p 197)

I will bear the mark of the tragedy for the rest of my life, though it will fade over time. (p 197)

I will be forever discovering and experiencing new dimensions of the tragedy. The loss will continue to influence my life. I can only hope it will be for the better. (p 197)

The passage of time has mitigated the feeling of pain, panic, and chaos. But it has also increased my awareness of how complex and far-reaching the loss has been. I am still not “over” it; I have still not “recovered.” I still wish my life were different and they were alive. (p 198)

Much good has come from it, but all the good in the world will never make the accident itself good. It remains a horrible, tragic, and evil event to me. (p 198)

The badness of the event and the goodness of the results are related, to be sure, but they are not the same. The latter is a consequence of the former, but the latter does not make the former legitimate or right or good. (p 199)

My soul has been stretched. (p 199)

God is growing my soul, making it bigger, and filling it with Himself. My life is being transformed. Though I have endured pain, I believe that the outcome is going to be wonderful. (p 199)

The supreme challenge to anyone facing catastrophic loss involves facing the darkness of the loss on the one hand, and learning to live with renewed vitality and gratitude on the other. (p 200)

Sometimes loss leaves permanent damage in its wake, which forever blocks the way back to the good life we once had hoped for. (p 202)

Somewhere along the line I realized I would have to change my idea of what the “good life” meant and promised. (p 204)

I have this sense that the story God has begun to write He will finish. That story will be good. The accident remains now, as it always has been, a horrible experience that did great damage to us and to so many others. It was and will remain a very bad chapter. But the whole of my life is becoming what appears to be a very good book. (p 212)

One Year Later, Same Place

A year ago (plus a few days) I began reading Nancy Guthrie’s book, The One Year Book Of Hope. I started crying before I even got through the introduction, and declared that it was my new lifeline. And it really was. I gleaned so much blessing and encouragement from that book!

I read it off & on, sometimes doing just one page a day, and sometimes cramming five pages (which is considered a week’s worth, in its layout) into just one day.

And then suddenly, I was done with it. Finished.
That was three weeks ago.

I hadn’t realized that it had taken me just about exactly a year (slightly less) to read it. To chew on it. To swallow it. To digest it.

And now it’s done.

But here I am, feeling like I am still standing in the same place I was standing a year ago. I am not done.

I think a large part of it has to do with the fact that many people (I was going to say most, but don’t want to go that far) experience one event of grief, and then get to work on healing and eventually do find hope and even move onward & forward. That just isn’t part of my story. My story isn’t one event of grief. It is recurrent. It keeps coming. It keeps happening. And the next event happens before I have been able to heal and find hope and move onward or forward.

When I began reading the One Year Book Of Hope, I think I assumed that after a year of plowing through these pages, I would be different. That I would find my grief balmed. That my heart would actually be more hopeful.
And while I do feel like some things are different, I have grown and changed and matured some… many things (this is a place where I probably could get away with saying most) are still the same. And some things are worse.

But I still love this book. I still give it away when I can. And I always recommend it.

The last section of the book was the hardest to read. I am still chewing it, unsure how I will swallow it, and wondering if I can ever actually digest it properly. Here are some glimpses from that section:

[Written to her daughter, in heaven] I want to wake up and find you here. But you are so far away and becoming even more distant in my memory, and it is so painful… Forgive me for going on with life without you… It just keeps moving farther and farther away.

Some days I wonder if the letting go will ever stop. After Hope’s death, I had to let go of her physical body, my dreams for her, and so many of her things. I let go of her room and turned it back into a guest room. Then came Gabe, and I had to let go of him along with my hopes for Matt to have a sibling… Every ripping away takes a piece of us with it, leaving us raw and stinging with pain.

They say you find out who your friends are when the chips are down… My expectations of those around us were high, and I was often disappointed… I learned that some people are called by God to minister grace in the hard places. Some people aren’t… But don’t think I’m naive. I know that some people are just too self-centered to share your pain. But I’ve come to realize that so much we label as uncaring is simply an inability to overcome the awkwardness and fear of doing or saying the wrong thing.

Those of us connected to the body of Christ experience the tangible love of Jesus through the care and concern of others. Our needs become their concerns… Don’t be afraid they’ll forget. Don’t be afraid they’ll think you’re fine when you are still hurting deeply.

It takes a conscious choice to turn conversations away from my pain, to stop trying to make sure everyone understands my hurt and has considered my feelings. But it is a step toward normalization, and a step closer to Christ.

There is a tyranny in grief. We realize at some point that we have to figure out how to keep on living, how to incorporate the loss into our lives. We want to feel normal again, to feel joy again. But the energy and emotion of grief keep us feeling close to the one we love or connected to what we’ve lost. Letting go of our grief feels like letting go of the one we love… The very idea of it is unbearable.

As I continue to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and as I mourn the death of my youngest son, I realize that the steps I had taken forward after losing Mercy (I was pregnant with her when I began this book) were lost as I went backwards when I then lost Victory. And while I took some steps forward again after that, I have now again moved backwards in my grieving journey as I grieve my Hosanna-boy.

So while I just finished reading The One Year Book Of Hope, I am kind of thinking it’s time to start all over again. From scratch. Because that’s what my grief has done.

Started all over again.

From scratch.

exerpt from “Streams In The Desert”

The summer showers are falling. The poet stands by the window watching them. They are beating and buffeting the earth with their fierce downpour. But the poet sees in his imaginings more than the showers which are falling before his eyes. He sees myriads of lovely flowers which shall be soon breaking forth from the watered earth, filling it with matchless beauty and fragrance. And so he sings:

It isn’t raining rain for me, it’s raining daffodils;
In every dimpling drop I see wild flowers upon the hills.
A cloud of gray engulfs the day, and overwhelms the town;
It isn’t raining rain for me: it’s raining roses down.

Perchance some one of God’s chastened children is even now saying, “O God, it is raining hard for me tonight. Testings are raining upon me which seem beyond my power to endure. Disappointments are raining fast, to the utter defeat of all my chosen plans. Bereavements are raining into my life which are making my shrinking heart quiver in its intensity of suffering. The rain of affliction is surely beating down upon my soul these days.”

Withal, friend, you are mistaken. It isn’t raining rain for you. It’s raining blessing. For, if you will but believe your Father’s Word, under that b eating rain are springing up spiritual flowers of such fragrance and beauty as never before grew in that stormless, unchastened life of yours.

You indeed see the rain. But do you see also the flowers? You are pained by the testings. But God sees the sweet flower of faith which is upspringing in your life under those very trials.

You shrink from the suffering. But God sees the tender compassion for other sufferers which is finding birth in your soul.

Your heart winces under the sore bereavement. But God sees the deepening and enriching which that sorrow has brought to you.

It isn’t raining afflictions for you. It is raining tenderness, love, compassion, patience, and a thousand other flowers and fruits of the blessed Spirit, which are bringing into your life such a spiritual enrichment as all the fullness of worldly prosperity and ease as never able to beget in your innermost soul.

Sunday May 30, 2010


Excerpts from

I Will Carry You

By Angie Smith (& husband Todd)

Our biggest problem in life during the girls’ younger years were things like finding the sixth shoe. I miss those days. We made plans for forever, like you’re supposed to do when you’re a family. (p. 7)

I stared in the mirror as I got ready to go out that day, looking at my reflection and imagining what it was going to look like in the coming days. I never got the chance to see that. (p. 7)

I would stay awake at night and wonder if I would ever have children… I couldn’t help but wonder if motherhood wasn’t going to happen the way I had always dreamed it would. (p. 8)

Faith is to believe what we do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what we believe. –Saint Augustine (p. 17)

It really didn’t feel like this could be happening to us; after all, we were such a normal family. Things like this just don’t happen to people like us, right? (p. 17)

I feel into Todd’s lap and begged him to tell me it wasn’t happening. Not again. (p. 17)

It is the look a doctor has when he is about to tell a tearful mommy that her baby is going to die and nothing can be done about it. (p. 17)

My mind is a little fuzzy on the next few minutes because I was making a conscious effort not to pass out. It was too much to process, too much to try and incorporate into reality. (p. 18)

The room was silent in a way I have never experienced silence. (p. 18)

We spoke a thousand words that were never heard in this world as we both started to come to terms with what was happening. He put my head on his chest, and as much as I’m sure he wanted to tell me everything was going to be OK, there was really no point. (p. 18)

I looked out the window at the people below and thought it was so strange that life looked normal. (p. 18)

Even in that desperate place, I felt the Lord urging me not to succumb to my fears. (p. 19)

I burst into tears—sobbing, shaking, screaming, unintelligibly crying. (p. 19)

We collapsed into each other’s arms and wailed, thinking of all we didn’t know on the night we had said those precious words: For better or for worse… in sickness and in health… (p. 21)

I am pretty comfortable saying He is in complete control until the ground grows weak beneath me. At that point I tell Him what He should do to fix it. (p. 23)

People shuffled past us, lost in their normal lives. (p. 24)

He may give us today with her, or He may give us the rest of our lives. Either way, we are going to be purposeful, and we are going to live it to the fullest.” (p. 24)

She needed permission to hope. We all did actually. (p. 26)

I would wake up in the morning, and it would hit me over and over again that it was real. It seemed that every encounter with other people was so weighed down by the reality of my hurt that I could barely stand it. (p. 27)

I simply couldn’t talk about it anymore. (p. 27)

I decided to start writing a blog… It was good therapy… I didn’t have to see the look in people’s eyes or watch them uncomfortably search for the right words when we both knew there just weren’t any. (p. 27)

I sat, fully humbled, as many I love spoke wisdom over me, and I admitted to myself that I was going to need help to get through this season of life. (p. 27)

I just buried my head in her shoulder and let it out, grasping for sanity in the chaos. (p. 28)

As I drove, I began to pound the steering wheel and scream. I literally beat it with my fists and wailed as I begged the Lord… (p. 28)

What I needed to learn about myself was clear in that moment. I did believe in Him enough to call out. I trusted Him enough to share the brokenness, even though He already knew it all. (p. 29)

It is hard to accept that anyone, even the God of the universe, could love your child the way that you do. (p. 30)

There was no room to consider the cost of investing my heart; I was already head over heels in love with her. (p. 30)

At the end of every day, regardless of what it had held, we knew that she had been given to us for a purpose, and we were seeking wisdom as we embraced that. (p. 30)

Sharing my story opened so many doors to conversation that would never have taken place. (p. 32)

They were the tears of a mother who was just beginning to understand how much she had taken for granted in this life. (p. 36)

We saw each other for what we were—women who were often just going through the motions of normalcy, partly for our children and partly for ourselves. I began to realize that this was going to be a part of my new life because the world has a way of going on all around you even when you are in the depths of sorrow that belie its pace and fervor. (p. 40)

Here is a woman [Mary] who watched her beloved brother [Lazarus] die. Yet, as soon as she hears that Jesus is near, she cannot help but gather up her dress around her and run to Him. Do you? I am speaking from experience when I say it doesn’t always come naturally. But I also know that every time her feet hit the ground and people turned to see her scurrying past them, her Father was glorified. (p. 47)

I was not present to care for the girls because I hurt so much in so many ways. This is the hardest part to bear. (p. 51)

We can’t begin to imagine the road that lies ahead of us, but I know that I will remember today as being a day that I trusted Him despite the hurt. (p. 58)

All the months, all the dreams, all the hopes for a miracle. Gone. (p. 60)

Joy is not the absence of trouble but the presence of Christ. (p. 62)

I closed my eyes and prayed for the Lord to sustain me. For the strength to accept that the cup had not passed. For trust in Him despite that I felt horribly, maddeningly betrayed. (p. 63)

I knew she wasn’t there anymore, but the mother’s heart doesn’t know how to stop loving, even in the wake of death. (p. 65)

I caught myself moving gently as if I was rocking my own daughter, but my arms were empty. My body couldn’t accept it any more than my heart could. (p. 68)

“I thought that prattling boys and girls would fill this empty room. That my rich heart would gather flowers from childhood’s opening bloom. One child and two graves are mine, this is God’s gift to me; a bleeding, fainting, broken heart, this if my gift to Thee.” –Elizabeth Prentiss, 101 More Hymn Stories by Kenneth W. Osbeck, 185 (p. 71)

People constantly ask how it is that I am not angry with the Lord. My honest answer is that I have been angry, and I have been disappointed. What I have not been, and what I refuse to be, is disbelieving. (p. 72)

Do you believe that the Lord is who He says He is and that He has accomplished what He says He has accomplished? If you do, then know that you are walking a road that leads to Him and to your precious lost children. No, they will not return to us. But one day, not so far from now, we will go to them. (p. 75)

I know she isn’t really in there; it’s just that her knees are, and I would have loved to kiss them after she fell. I need to mourn the loss of the arms that cannot wrap around me here. Braided hair, a wedding dress, her first wiggly tooth. They are deep within the ground, never to be mine. I needed to feel that loss, and I did. I do. (p. 79)

We have done very bit of what we felt we could. We trusted Him. We called on Him. We awaited His appearance and even fought doubt as the days passed because above all else, He is good… right? (p. 80)

His power is never too small for everyone else, it seems; but when it’s me, it feels intangible and unlikely. (p. 81)

Instead of spending your days focusing on your sense of hurt or loss, allow the Lord to bless you with the grace to believe that what lies ahead will glorify Him. It is the closest thing to true worship that we have in this life, and so often we miss it. (p. 81)

As a Christian, I know that I am called to glorify the Lord no matter the circumstance, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to make sense. (p. 84)

I just felt like the wind had whipped through and knocked me down, deep down into a place I didn’t want to be. A place where the answers are fewer than the questions. A place where God seems hidden, just slightly, by the shadows of this broken life. It is an easy place to get comfortable because all of your hurts are justified and the tears give way to doubt while you meant to pick yourself right back up. (p. 90)

I don’t know where you are tonight, or what hurts you are holding up to God, but I will promise you this. If you can just trust Him enough to bring it to Him, He will rejoice in your masterpiece. And if you need to scream a little, know that you have a God who can take that too, as long as your face is tilted (even slightly) toward Him. (p. 92)

The process of healing has been winding and unpredictable to me. One day I’m starting to feel like myself again, and even that can make me feel guilty sometimes. I feel like I don’t have a right to be normal. (p. 92)

Life in pieces, never to be put back together. (p. 96)

This marked the beginning of a season of questioning for me… I couldn’t help but feel like we were being targeted. (p. 96)

Seeing someone you love suffer so desperately with no relief in sight is a dreadful feeling. We tried everything we could, always aware that the break would be momentary, and then we would dig into the hurt again. (p. 98)

I cannot seem to find my way these past few days. I have bruises on my legs from bumping into furniture that has not moved in years. I got lost driving home the other night from a familiar place and didn’t even realize I was lost until I had been driving in the wrong direction for almost fifteen minutes. All day long I forget the most simple words, the most familiar faces, the words to a song I know by heart. Sometimes I just stand in the shower with the water scalding my skin so that I can feel something that registers. My brain just doesn’t know its way around the sorrow. (p. 100)

I know the steps of grief. They look great on paper along with all the other multiple-choice questions, but in reality they aren’t that simple. They jump back and forth at a pace that is completely unpredictable. (p. 102)

It’s really a delicate balance between letting yourself grieve the way you need to and functioning in a world that keeps reminding you of what you have lost. (p. 102)

The truth is that to some degree, every day I have here is another day without her. I don’t know when I will be able to see life any differently. (p. 102)

None of us grieves the same way, and one of the best things we can do is to give ourselves permission to live that out. (p. 103)

You may need to reprioritize your relationships in order to grieve in an authentic way. This can be a challenge, but it is worth it. (p. 105)

Part of trying to cultivate a grateful heart is looking for opportunities to share the gospel through my loss and seeking ways to bring God glory through the loss. (p. 105)

One of the things that meant the world to me was that people acknowledged that we had lost her. (p. 111)

There is no normal. There is the loss, and there is the Lord. That balance dictates the season, not the changing leaves or the anniversaries of death. (p. 112)

People are uncomfortable swimming in another’s grief. The way they respond to it is, naturally, to try and fix the situation. Of course, they can’t…Yet sometimes the right thing is to say nothing at all. It’s just to be there, available, willing, authentic. (p. 114)

People’s natural instincts are to rush us through our grieving because they love us so much. A time will come when we are ready to take the next step, but that is between the Lord and ourselves. In the meantime, please be sensitive to those who are grieving, aware that they may not be able to do “normal” things for a while. (p. 114)

We had friends come over and play with the girls, do laundry, sweep the floors, mow the lawn, and drop off thoughtful gifts. I felt more gratitude than I knew how to express because grief made me not want to do anything other than survive. (p. 116)

Be on your knees for your friends and commit to seeing it through, however long that takes. Believe that the Lord can use you, because He can. (p. 117)

We aren’t going to feel whole in this life, and we will long for something we don’t have. Something that will fill the nagging void that intermittently stings and knocks us to our knees. And all the while, Satan taunts us, telling us our faith is small. To hurt so deeply is a sign that we live in a fallen world, not that we serve a small God. (p. 118)

Daily I must remind myself that He is not threatened by my doubt nearly as much as He is glorified by my faith. (p. 118)

I didn’t feel like I lost a baby; I felt like I said goodbye to someone I had always known, who had been my daughter for years and years. (p. 123)

I have learned that grief is a dance. I do it rather clumsily much of the time, but as it turns out, I am in good company. Others who have lost children have shared the inability to separate the sorrow from the joy in life. (p. 126)

Our Lord is bigger than any of the trials He asks us to walk through, yet I also recognize the hurt that threatens to steal our joy at any moment. It is a decision we must make, many times even in a day, to choose to believe that our Father is good. (p. 127)

We miss them, Lord. We trust You to love them well, every day strengthening us to press on without them. (p. 127)

Angie and I grieved differently. For Angie it was a constant process… for me it comes in cycles. Angie was constantly reminded of Audrey and was so connected with her because she was carrying her. She was always mourning for her… It hurt her because I didn’t grieve as intensely as she did. I think sometimes she felt alone… I was frustrated and angry with myself because I didn’t grieve like she did. I felt guilty and in turn angry… Whereas so many nights Angie was heartbroken, I would be OK and was able to move forward. I went into survival mode… Part of me didn’t want to deal with the whole thing. It is so overwhelming. (p. 132)

Your family is hurting, and you are bearing burdens you don’t know how you’re going to overcome. (p. 133)

Don’t try to be tough, or have all the answers, or act like it’s not affecting you. Please don’t harden your heart to safeguard yourself from the child you are losing. I continue to grieve in my own way. It may come several times a week, or it may be several times a month; but when it hits, it hits hard. (p. 133)

If He is good, then we need to praise Him no matter what comes our way, even when it doesn’t make sense. Even when we come away not having answers. As a man it is so important that as you lead, you have one foot on Earth and one in heaven… Lean on other men. Don’t run away from God… Pray for God’s help, for His wisdom, for Him to give you faith and hope, even when it feels pointless and hollow. (p. 135)

If you are running from God, run to Him. Stay close to Him as you lead your family. You can be angry with Him the whole time, but go to Him. I believe God would prefer we yell and scream at Him but be in constant communication with Him than be silent and turn our backs on Him. (p. 135)

It’s horrible. It’s devastating. We will never be the same. It will never be fixed in this life. We are completely powerless to do anything. There are no answers… Death is awful. It hurts you to your core. Don’t sugarcoat death. It is what it is. (p. 137)

The shift if our home’s atmosphere was palpable, and children even younger than Kate can sense that. Infants who are living in the wake of loss do not understand death, but they understand that Mommy is sad or that Daddy seems to be distant. They need to be held and comforted, reassured that you aren’t abandoning them to your grief. (p. 140)

The one thing I will say about grieving in the presence of your children is that you should. Don’t hide away and wear a perfect smile, pretending that everything is OK; because whether or not you say it, they know it isn’t. Your children know the way you make their beds, the way you cut their sandwiches, the way you kiss them goodnight. (p. 141)

Monday May 10, 2010


I found so much Truth in the pages penned in this book.

So without further ado, here are my favored

excerpts & quotes from

A Grief Observed

by C. S. Lewis

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. (p. 1)

There are moments, most unexpectedly, when something inside me tries to assure me that I don’t really mind so much, not so very much, after all… Then comes a sudden jab of red-hot memory and all this “commonsense” vanishes like an ant in the mouth of a furnace. (p. 2)

And no one ever told me about the laziness of grief. Except at my job—where the machine seems to run on much as usual—I loathe the slightest effort. Not only writing but even reading a letter is too much. (p. 3)

Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery’s shadow or reflection: the fact that you don’t merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief. (p. 9)

I must have some drug, and reading isn’t a strong enough drug now. By writing it all down (all?—no: one thought in a hundred) I believe I get a little outside it [grief]. (p. 10)

Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything. (p. 11)

One never meets just Cancer, or War, or Unhappiness (or Happiness). One only meets each hour or moment that comes. All manner of ups and downs. Many bad spots in our best times, many good ones in our worst. (p. 13)

What pitiable cant to say, “She will live forever in my memory!” Live? That is exactly what she won’t do. (p. 22)

You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. (p. 25)

Talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t understand. (p. 28)

And poor C. quotes to me, “Do not mourn like those that have no hope.” It astonished me, the way we are invited to apply to ourselves words so obviously addressed to our betters. What St. Paul says can comfort only those who love God better than the dead, and the dead better than themselves. 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 great 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. (p. 30)

Aren’t all these notes the senseless writhings of a man who won’t accept the fact that there is nothing we can do with suffering except to suffer it? Who still thinks there is some device (if only he could find it) which will make pain not to be pain. It’s doesn’t really matter whether you grip the arms of the dentist’s chair or let your hands lie in your lap. The drill drills on. (p. 38)

And grief still feels like fear. Perhaps, more strictly, like suspense. Or like waiting; just hanging about waiting for something to happen. It gives life a permanently provisional feeling. It doesn’t seem worth starting anything. (p. 38)

I hear a clock strike and some quality it always had before has gone out of the sound. What’s wrong with the world to make it so flat, shabby, worn-out looking? Then I remember. (p. 40)

This is one of the things I’m afraid of. The agonies, the mad midnight moments, must, in the course of nature, die away. But what will follow? Just this apathy, this dead flatness? Will there come a time when I no longer ask why the world is like a mean street, because I shall take the squalor as normal? Does grief finally subside into boredom tinged by faint nausea? (p. 41)

What do people mean when they say, “I am not afraid of God because I know He is good”? Have they never even been to the dentist? (p. 51)

The time when there is nothing at all in your soul except a cry for help may be just the time when God can’t give it: you are like the drowning man who can’t be helped because he clutches and grabs. Perhaps your own reiterated cries deafen you to the voice you hoped to hear. (p. 53)

I think I am beginning to understand why grief feels like suspense. It comes from the frustration of so many impulses that had become habitual. Thought after thought, feeling after feeling, action after action, had H. for their object. Now their target is gone. I keep on through habit fitting an arrow to the string; then I remember and have to lay the bow down. So many roads lead thought to H. I set out on one of them. But now there’s an impassable frontier-post across it. So many roads once; now to many culs de sac. (p. 55)

When you have learned to do quadratics and enjoy doing them you will not be set them much longer. The teacher moves you on. (p. 57)

God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn’t. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down. (p. 61)

Getting over it so soon? But the words are ambiguous. To say the patient is getting over it after an operation for appendicitis is one thing; after he’s had his leg off it is quite another. After that operation either the wounded stump heals or the man dies. If it heals, the fierce, continuous pain will stop. Presently he’ll get back his strength and be able to stump about on his wooden leg. He has “got over it.” But he will probably have recurrent pains in the stump all his life, and perhaps pretty bad ones; and he will always be a one-legged man. There will be hardly any moment when he forgets it. Bathing, dressing, sitting down and getting up again, even lying in bed, will all be different. His whole way of life will be changed. All sorts of pleasures and activities that he once took for granted will have to be simply written off. Duties too. At present I am learning to get about on crutches. Perhaps I shall presently be given a wooden leg. But I shall never be a biped again. (p. 61)

Still, there’s no denying that in some sense I “feel better,” and with that comes at once a sort of shame, and a feeling that one is under a sort of obligation to cherish and foment and prolong one’s unhappiness. (p. 62)

Tonight all the hells of young grief have opened again; the mad words, the bitter resentment, the fluttering in the stomach, the nightmare unreality, the wallowed-in tears. 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? (p. 66)

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. The first plunge of the knife into the flesh is felt again and again. (p. 67)

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, and if I don’t stop writing that history at some quite arbitrary point, there’s no reason why I should ever stop. There is something new to be chronicled every day. Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape. As I’ve already noted, not every bend does. Sometimes the surprise is the opposite one; you are presented with exactly the same sort of country you thought you had left behind miles ago. That is when you wonder whether the valley isn’t a circular trench. But it isn’t. There are partial recurrences, but the sequence doesn’t repeat. (p. 68)

I was wrong to say the stump was recovering from the pain of the amputation. I was deceived because it has so many ways to hurt me that I discover them only one by one. (p. 71)

Turned to God, my mind no longer meets that locked door; turned to H., it no longer meets that vacuum—nor all that fuss about my mental image of her. My jottings show something of the [grieving] process, but not so much as I’d hoped. Perhaps both changes were really not observable. There was no sudden, striking, and emotional transition. Like the warming of a room or the coming of daylight. When you first notice them they have already been going on for some time. (p. 71)

Am I, for instance, just sidling back to God because I know that if there’s any road to H., it runs through Him? But then of course I know perfectly well that He can’t be used as a road. If you’re approaching Him not as the goal but as a road, not as the end but as a means, you’re not really approaching Him at all. (p. 79)

When I lay these questions before God I get no answers. But a rather special sort of “No answer.” It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, “Peace, child; you don’t understand.” (p. 81)

There is also, whatever it means, the resurrection of the body. We cannot understand. The best is perhaps what we understand least. (p. 89)

How wicked it would be, if we could, to call the dead back! She said not to me but to the chaplain, “I am at peace with God.” She smiled, but not at me. (p. 89)

Tuesday May 4, 2010

I finished reading Womanly Dominion during my infusion today, and wanted to share some bits with you all.

The Lord bless you!

Excerpts from Womanly Dominion: More Than a Gentle and Quiet Spirit

By Mark Chanski

The false stereotype of a Christian woman being a helpless and frail mouse, who passively shades herself under the parasol of her soft femininity, and adoringly waits for her husband to do all the heavy lifting, is shattered by the Scriptures. (p 13)

[H]er jewelry is not only the necklace of “a gentle and quiet spirit,” but also the bracelets of “strength and dignity.” (p 13)

“Men and women alike” are both called to subdue and rule in the various spheres of their lives. (p 15)

It’s absolutely and wonderfully true that women are rightly designated in the Bible the “weaker vessel” (1 Peter 3:7) who are to display a “gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God” (1 Peter 3:4). But such soft and tender qualities do not tell the whole story. There’s much more to the challenging mission assigned to the godly woman by her Maker, Redeemer, and Lord. (p 15)

Womanly dominion is a blessed virtue, as urgently needed in our day as manly dominion. (p 21)

Godly women, made in the image of God, must repeatedly remind themselves, “Play your position!” They must loyally resolve to stay at their God-assigned posts, to the glory of God, despite the shouts from the misguided cultural sidelines. (p 22)

[E]very image-bearing man and woman is obligated to imitate his/her Maker in his own miniature world. Each is assigned a lifelong plot of wild earth that he/she is to stake out, cut down, plow up, plant, and harvest. We must aggressively subdue, and not passively loiter. (p 29)

[A] woman is to dominate aggressively her environment, rather than allow her environment to dominate her. (p 31)

Children are introduced not merely as a preferential option but as a holy obligation. (p 32)

Fruitfulness varies in its manifestation among different plants. A fruitful grape-vine will sport many, many clusters of grapes. On the other hand, a productive pumpkin vine may only generate four or five pumpkins. A farmer is very thankful if a single cornstalk produces two ears! Fruitfulness will vary from womb to womb, family to family. Revelation, providence, liberty and wisdom must be conscientiously blended. (p 32)

God’s procreation mandate assigns to man and woman the sacred obligation to make the earth swarm and teem with image-bearing creatures. (p 33)

God’s fetching glory for Himself is the chief purpose for mankind and womankind. (p 33)

What is the mightiest strategy for influencing the world unto God-glorifying good? It was unveiled in the Garden of Eden. “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it.” Women of dominion who give their lives to the bearing and nurturing of God-fearing offspring are the power brokers of the earth. The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world! (p 37)

Procreation summons a woman to an extraordinarily God-glorifying enterprise; and godly women of dominion have a peculiar eye toward it. How can she effectively subdue and rule the earth? She can best accomplish it by taking seriously her creation mandate. (p 38)

For a woman who rejects the mind of the world and puts on the mind of Christ, it is counted a great honor to follow in the submissive footsteps of the servant-hearted Son of God. (p 40)

Sure, [women of dominion] will encounter pain and thorns and thistles in the process. Sure, they’ll need to exercise Herculean discipline and self-denial. But the wonderful final-day revelation will leave them with no regrets. (p 47)

[L]adies, consider yourselves warned. The Liar takes a special pleasure in whispering into your pretty ears. You are darling targets for his dart-like wiles. (p 48)

[The enemy] detests a woman on a mission, subduing and ruling her life to the glory of god with a dominion mindset. Such mighty women are a great threat to his dark kingdom. So he continuously slithers across your path, and with subtlety, persuades you to reject your positional loyalty and your win-it tenacity. (p 49)

Women of dominion trample serpents under their feet (Psalm 91:13). (p 52)

Consider the excellent wife of Proverbs 31. Her most striking trait is the fact that she is so utterly selfless. (Proverbs 31:12, 13, 14, 15, 27)… And what does such selfless, servant-hearted, help-meeting get her? Is she oppressed and abused? To the contrary, her husband is crazy about her! He’s convinced she’s one in a million, “…worth is far above jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her.” And he tells her so: “Her husband…praises her…” (31:28). He brags about her to his friends… His children honor and praise her… (p 55)

Stay-at-home mothers may be underpaid, but they’re certainly not underchallenged! (p 59)

Peter does highlight a specific strength in Sarah, namely, her subduing and ruling over her fears. This is a fundamental battle for any woman. Panic attacks are a common affliction in stressful times. Sarah is a heroine worthy of imitation, for instead of fretting and surrendering, she managed to “hope in God” and “do what is right without being frightened by fear.” (p 64)

What fearful heart piercings loving mothers must endure! They pour their hearts into their children. Then they must helplessly watch, sometimes from tear-drenched pillows, their darlings run the gauntlet of a wicked and cruel world. Godly mothering isn’t for cowards! The same is true for godly wifing. (p 65)

Fear is the most strangling emotion known to man or woman. (p 73)

We must be men and women of dominion, boldly making decisions on the basis of our duty, obligation, and opportunity, not on the basis of our fears and insecurities. (p 74)

There’s a time for a woman to resignedly sit back and wait for the Lord to change her husband’s mind. And there’s a time for a woman to assertively rise up and take matters into her own hands. Abigail knew how to tell time. (p 77)

Abigail also knew how to remain sweet. A besetting sin of many women is sharp-tongued argumentativeness. (p 77)

Furthermore, understand that it’s not only Nabals who need Abigails. Davids need them, too. Men “after God’s own heart” often need their women to step in front of them when they’re charging down a mountainside to do something they may later regret. (p 78)

Faithful and loving counsel is a stock element of a God-honoring marriage. An Abigail-like wife is woman enough to deliver it. A David-like husband is man enough to receive it. (p 79)

What mission could be more meaningful than being an excellent wife alongside a mighty man of God? (p 82)

Practical womanly dominion without devotional womanly dominion can easily deteriorate into atheistic enterprising. (88)

Such atheistic enterprising is the very thing we do if we put our hands to the daily plow without taking time to pray and plead for the help of God to establish the work of our hands. (p 88)

Devotional consistency requires practical creativity. (p 88)

Be definition, motherhood is that dignified and strenuous life vocation taken up by a woman who has resolved to give herself fully to the task of nurturing godly children from a godly home environment. (p 98)

[S]tay-at-home mothering did not culturally evolve from the influence of heavy-handed men; it was sovereignly ordained by the decree of our good heavenly Father. (p 99)

Mothering is a profoundly sanctifying vocation which cultivates the graces of love, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, self control, selflessness, humility, dependence, prayerfulness, and joy as none other. (p 101)

Motherhood is an honorable and sacred vocation. The King of Heaven has specially appointed the mother to accomplish a noble and lofty mission. Though some shrill voices in our dimwitted society may belittle her occupation, she should press on in her duties with her head held high. She’s about the King’s business. (p 101)

How does a married woman with children forge a noble reputation in God’s eyes? She hammers it out on the anvil of sacrificial mothering. She gives herself wholly to the sacred mission of nurturing God-fearing children, from a spiritually healthy home environment. (p 102)

The cream, and not the dregs, of her energies and time are to be poured into her loving her husband and children from her household headquarters. (p 103)

A homemaking mother is not merely a conservative and anachronistic option, but a God-ordained and sacredly instituted vocation. (p 105)

Homemaking motherhood is no refuge for the inept woman who can’t cut it in the real world. Rather, stay-at-home mothering is the ultimate profession for the elite of her gender. (p 108)

Those motherly hands are molding characters which will become men and women who will turn the world upside down either for good or for evil. Now that’s a job that counts. (p 108)

What could bring more joy to an aging woman than to have her children rise up and call her blessed by their walking in the faith? What could bring more joy to a glorified woman than seeing around the heavenly throne a multigenerational crowd of her maternal influence? (p 122)

It requires great courage, strength, resourcefulness, savvy, wisdom, and heroism to rear up children to the glory of God. (p 123)

Not only is the unborn child the most unprotected and endangered species on earth, but our born children are suffering gross neglect upon their arrival into the world. (p 124)

Because of a dedicated mother’s exceeding value to the good of society and the kingdom of God, the forces of darkness have aimed their big guns against her. (p 124)

Your mission, dear mother, is not to make your children happy, but to prepare them for eternity. (p 127)

A woman of dominion will strive to maintain an orderly household. An overgrown yard, ransacked rooms, and a sink stacked high with dirty dishes do not glorify the God who loves things being “done properly and in an orderly manner” (1 Corinthians 14:40; also numerous Proverbs). (p 139)

Let go of your right to personal leisure. (p 140)

I’ve not be commissioned at this stage in my life to enjoy leisure, but to be a father. My goal is not to raise low-maintenance children, but lion-hearted ones. (p 141)

Motherhood is much like Savior-hood. The Lord Jesus needed rest and a vacation but was compelled to do otherwise. (p 141)

Resolve to raise your boys to be men. (p 144)

Train your sons to face obstacles head on, work hard through thorns and thistles, and “find a way” to get jobs done. They need to become bread-winning providers in a cursed world. (p 144)

Mothers must lionize their sons by dignifying them with their respect. (p 145)

Cloak your son with a big jacket of respect in his childhood, and he’ll seek to grow into it in his manhood. (p 145)

Are we directing and equipping our daughters to be godly helpmeets and mothers or independent career women who loathe wifehood and mother hood? It’s very possible to unwittingly do the latter by haphazardly sending them into the heavy current of today’s educational system and youth culture. (p 147)

I desperately need a wife who is well-educated, well-read, precise thinking, culturally aware, financially shrewd, and theologically mature. Such a wife is a potent force of inestimable value in the lives of her husband and children. (p 149)

A college education can go a long way in training a young woman to be an excellent helpmeet and mother. But she needs her mother continuously at her elbow. (p 149)

Ultimately, it’s God’s sovereign grace, and not a mother’s faithful diligence, that saves and sanctifies her children. (p 150)

Hannah’s wonderful experience inspires ladies to believe that the Lord peculiarly cups His ear to motherly women who cry out to Him with wet eyes and distressed hearts (1 Samuel 1:9-11, 27). God remarkably responds to such pleading women. (p 152)

Biblical love isn’t primarily a feeling or an emotion. It’s fundamentally not a noun, but a verb. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7) Love is not a sentiment, but an action. It’s not something you feel, but something you do. (p 163)

Men love to be perceived as heroes and dragon slayers. We love to rescue damsels and be admired for our chivalrous feats. (p 169)

Yes, we men are easily captivated by our brides’ looking beautifully feminine and acting flirtatiously sweet. Did I say flirtatious? That is an important variable, too. (p 174)

[David the psalmist] was emboldened like a lion, not by convincing himself that his fears would probably never materialize. They might! Rather he calmed his soul by meditating on the covenant love of his God. (p 184)

When put to shaking by the hobgoblins, dragons, and dreads of the black valley, the Psalmist doesn’t flee into the fantasy of denial, but boldly ventures down to confront them. “I fear no evil.” (p 185)

Experience with God’s faithful shepherding in dark valleys makes the most delicate of women, as bold as lions. (p 191)

[An empty nester] remains a mother to her grown children who are slugging-it-out in the trenches of young family life and a grandmother to a newly hatching generation. An available and servant-hearted mom and grandma is an incalculable windfall. Furthermore, the church of Christ can be mightily empowered by older women who pour their time, energies, and wisdom into the ministries of their local congregations. (p 225)

Monday May 3, 2010

I read a few Samuel Rutherford quotes today, and this one particularly blessed me:

I dare not say but my Lord Jesus hath fully recompensed my sadness with His joys,
my losses with His own presence.
I find it a sweet and rich thing to exchange my sorrows with Christ’s joys,
my afflictions with that sweet peace I have with Himself.

And a couple of Amy Carmichael poems, including this sweet gem:

And shall I pray Thee change Thy will, my Father,
Until it be according unto mine?
But no, Lord, no, that never shall be; rather,
I pray Thee, blend my human will with Thine.
I pray Thee, hush the hurrying, eager longing;
I pray Thee, soothe the pangs of keen desire;
See in my quiet places wishes thronging;
Forbid them, Lord; purge, though it be with fire.
And work in me to will and do Thy pleasure;
Let all within me, peaceful, reconciled,
Tarry, content my Well-beloved’s leisure–
At last, at last, even as a weaned child.

I am continuing through “The One Year Book of Hope” — I am just beginning a section on Angels, and am looking forward to that.
I have also started “A Grief Observed,” and will soon share some of my favorite quotes/excerpts.
Lastly, I am about to finish reading “Womanly Dominion” — always good to be reminded of my beautiful role as wife, mother, sister, princess, and homekeeper for God.

Friday April 23, 2010

from Sketches of Home, by Suzanne Clark

“Mourning Into Dancing,” p 125

This is the third spring that mourning doves have nested in the ivy on the sill of my pantry window. Each time I reach for soup I see a dark, wet eye regarding me. Her mate the woodwind keeps watch in the nearby holly tree, his throat rolling the same glum notes over and over as she sits on her somber eggs. I sing to her, too, my old standby for doves, “The Indian Lullaby.”

The dining room window gives an even better view of the nest. After a couple of weeks the female will start picking away, and then there will be these two extra heads and a lot of shifting around and the father on whistling wings coming to spell her. It isn’t much of an exaggeration to say that a day or so later the young will be nearly grown and crowding with their pear-shaped mother into the saucer. Shortly afterward comes the moment I see the nest is empty, and there on a holly branch sit the four, docile as cows.

Drab as they are, the mourning doves do something extraordinary. The young perform a sort of dance with their wings, draping them over their parents who in turn give them regurgitated food. It seems sacramental, this adoring and feeding that overwhelms native sorrow and arrests me in the act of dusting chairs.