Afraid.

I am being faced with death all around me nowadays.

I always considered myself unafraid of death. Well, not always, but for the past several years. It's inevitable; I have faith in my savior; it is what it is. Now, however, I am facing feelings I did not know I had on the subject.

I know I have considered before my fear of getting close to others for fear of losing them. I have never handled loss very well. I always want to love, but I don't want to lose. Unfortunately, that's a part of life. Death is partly loss. Loss is part of life. Death is part of life. It all sounds reasonable on paper. In practice, I'm unsure of my strength.

A friend of mine -- though I was not close to him, I certainly considered him a friend and was happy to have him a part of my life -- recently died. I spent a day or two in various levels of shock and crying. On April 6th, it is the anniversary of a close friend's suicide. Just over a year ago I dealt with a very close friend attempting suicide. This semester, I'm taking a class about death and dying, therefore reading several books left and right looking at the up close and personal aspects of dying people in their final days. I have dealt with a lot of loss and have been faced with it a lot in a short period of time. I have found that the hardest part of about grasping death for me is that when I lose someone, there is always hope I will see them again. I will walk down the street one day, years and years later, and see them. We will catch up; things will work out. When a person dies, it's forever. No chance. No hope. Just death. Just a gap between two people where love and connection once was. Now we are stuck with the emptiness, sometimes regret, but a lot of hurt.

I get so tired of the pain and the hurting, the feelings of loneliness and emptiness. Death leaves an insatiable place that was once filled, now empty. That person will never return, will never reclaim that part of your life and heart. I know this is all very grim and blunt, and controversial in a way (many people would love to say they're always part of your heart, you can never forget them; I find that to be true, but I also always find a hole along side).

Anyway, the point of all this rambling is that I just finished Tuesdays with Morrie. If you have never read the book, I recommend it very highly. By the end, I was considering how to live my life in a way that loves and connects with others with everything. I was wondering how to walk away having learned something through reading that book about breaking free from the world and living a good life. I considered why the death of someone you know causes such pain.

I realized that I am afraid of embracing life and people and love because there is a chance that one day they will be ripped from my grasp, like the other things and people who have been there and no longer are. I don't want anymore holes. I don't want to miss people, especially because I feel like they don't miss me (in the case of death, this argument is rather invalidated). I dread the day more than anything that my parents die. Although, on the same level, if my sister or the children die, I'll be exceptionally devastated.

Another thing I have noticed is that it is so much easier to consider someone dying of old age rather than any other causes. When a person reaches the end of their life, are contented and tired, it's easier to accept than when someone dies in an accident or a suicide or a murder or of disease. It seems so much less fair and heartbreaking. You aren't braced for the impact.

On a somewhat off-topic, side note, I would like to say it's very difficult to read a book knowing that there is no happy ending. The book is about the death of someone; they definitely die. No miracle to save them. It's rather sad, but at least you are prepared. Still, lack of hope is a little saddening. It seems a lot like life, really. You go into it knowing that it will end. It's inevitable. It's all about how you get to that ending, how you read, how you enjoy it because eventually it will certainly end. Hope isn't really necessary.


I'm not sure what to do with all this, but it definitely makes me cry. I'm hoping to feel my way through this in the next few months and become the wiser.

To be more prepared.
To be less afraid.

Busyness.

Work today was, well... a lot of work. Usually my job is pretty laid back. However, some things went wrong today and things started going really fast to try to catch up. I made about 3,000 copies and was running around for hours. Making telephone calls, running errands, making copies, putting things together... It was a very fast-pace, high-strung kind of day.
And I really liked it.

I had forgotten how busy I used to be. See, I am busy now most of the time. However, it's not fast pace kind of stuff. I have long, extended periods of stress. I work great under stress. When I have a ton to do, where I can see progress, see the boxes of copies I am making and running around talking and being in control... it feels wonderful!


So I started wondering why it is that I feel so fantastic after such a long, intense day. I think it's because I feel accomplished, but more importantly I feel important. I feel like what I am doing is making a difference, and I'm doing a lot. I'm productive and active doing stuff that is necessary. My role in the situation is vital to a system. And, the best part, I get to help people! I could do things haphazardly and just finish a job, put it in the professor's mailbox, and move on. Instead, I run the copies, take it to their office so they don't have to walk over, and even get their paperwork done in less than half the time they request. I am proficient.

Maybe that's what God wants. Maybe, despite how much stuff I do, I need to do more. Maybe it's because that stuff I am busy with now isn't enough... I need to see the difference it is making, at least in some part of my life. Volunteering at a homeless shelter or a food kitchen, or even working in a place that takes the stress off someone else's life. Something. I want to make a difference, and I can't just watch these years of my life go by while I just write papers. I need to start making that change in the world now, even before I have my degree. There are always ways.

I need to work for God.
Not because he requires it, but because I want to and because my soul is not satisfied until I do.

A Comfortable Death.

Last night's reading was on an unfailing love. Tonight's focused on perfect love. I guess I was ahead.

So, instead of responding to my devotional reading, I am going to write what is on my heart and has been building the past few classes.

In my death and dying class, we are talking about bereavement, grief, and mourning. We also discussed a "comfortable companion" (which I'll define shortly) and I recently read the assigned book The Death of Ivan Ilyich. When a person is dying, they often face a loss of bodily control and disorientation which leads to others being uncomfortable and avoiding him/her. The top most common fear among dying individuals is fear of abandonment! I can see why. It's so common for people to die socially long before dying physically. A "comfortable companion" is a person who is comfortable with death and cares about the dying individual. They are the people who will hold a dying person's hand and tell him/her "it's ok" and listen, to ignore the smell and the slow speech, to have patience, to help the person move from one piece of furniture to another. It is the person who understands you are dying and just wants to be there for you in the end.

It is hard to find a comfortable companion. Why? Because death makes us terribly uncomfortable. We aren't sure how to respond when a person is partially lost within their thoughts because they're disoriented. We are taken back by the smell of a person who has lost control of bowels or simply smells of dying (c'mon, most of us know the smell). We don't know what to do, so we just avoid the situation. We assume somebody else will take care of their needs, and we can just look the other way.

I was considering... I am not afraid of death. I am, however, afraid of dying alone. My mother and I agree that everybody is afraid of this on some level. Statistics, as I already said earlier, show the top fear is of abandonment. Dying is the most intense, innate fear in us. Seriously, nature desires to live. Nobody wants to face the biggest thing in life alone.

So... if nobody wants to die alone, but dying people make us uncomfortable and we avoid them, what happens?
People die scared and abandoned, alone.


Gerasim tells Ivan Ilyich, why shouldn't he help a dying man, what truly is he losing? I agree.

Why aren't we willing to sacrifice a few months of our lives being inconvenienced in whatever way in order to hold a dying person's hand through the process? Put aside our discomfort and our own fear so that we can help someone else through their fears. That's love!


[[Might I insert, Jesus overcame death. In our death, we are with him and therefore never truly die alone. However, why can't he be holding a person's hand through us? Maybe we are meant to be that person embodying Christ's loving caress through the transition.]]

So this brings me to the fact that I don't believe my heart has ever broken for a population more than for these dying individuals whose families have basically looked away or gotten lost in their own discomfort and frustrations.

It's funny because less than a year ago I was so uncomfortable around elderly individuals and had to force myself to engage in an opportunity to spend several days out of a week with them. And now, I'm wondering if perhaps God is calling me to hold tender elderly hands while they pass into the next life.

God, what are you doing?

I don't know, but I'm really excited to find out.

Break my heart. Do what it takes. Bring Your love to life inside of me.

I'm ready.

Love.

I don't even know where to begin.

God has been slowly working this up in me, I believe. The reading tonight had a the story about Princess Alice whose son was deathly ill. He was quarantined and the princess was told to stay away. However, she overheard him ask a nurse why his mother never kissed him anymore. She smothered the child with love and kisses, then died days later.
That mother loved her son.


I read a book this weekend, The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Ivan Ilyich was dying (obviously) and nobody wanted to be around him. He lost control over his body and he became rather bitter about abandonment and the agonizing pain from the illness. However, this boy Gerasim walked into his life for the first time during his illness. The boy saw the man dying, though nobody would admit that he was, and spent a great deal of time with Ivan, holding up his feet to ease the pain, just talking with the man, bringing him food, helping him use the bathroom, and move him from bed to sofa repeatedly. He accepted the man on his death bed, asking not why he did these things, but rather why wouldn't I?
That boy loved that man.


A father was finally dying of disease when he called his youngest daughter to visit him. She decided she would not leave his side until he passed or got better. After a week, he booked her flight home and had arrangements to get her to the airport. He said he was tired and couldn't help but hold on when she was there. The next day while the middle daughter (who could not handle death and was in denial of her father's condition) was still in school, his oldest daughter came home to tend to him. He looked at her and said, "honey, I'm tired. I'm ready to go. Please hold me." She laid in bed with him, holding him. He passed a few minutes later.
That daughter loved her father. That father loved his daughters.


Sometimes, I feel defeated and terribly lonely. In fact, I feel lonely so often. Even with a bunch of friends, having fun, I still get tired. I feel let down. I feel forgotten. I feel unloved.

I do understand that I am loved. I have good friends and I have a wonderful family. I just feel so let down and forgotten and deceived so often. It's not that people don't love me, it's that they aren't good at it. Their love is imperfect, and because I know what love is supposed to be (thanks to Jesus), I have trouble accepting that what other people feel is actually love at all. But I guess they do.

What it comes down to is that how they love me really doesn't matter that much. What matters is that God loves me. He loves me dearly. He would kiss me when I'm ill. He would hold sit by my bedside if I abandoned hope of recovery. He would hold me while I die. He loves me. Perfectly. He is patient and kind and forgiving. He doesn't keep a record of my wrongs. He always loves. I often forget that. Not that He loves me, but that He loves me perfectly. That no matter how crummy I feel when people ditch me or treat me unfairly or throw me under the bus... he wouldn't do that. He wants to pick me up from those heartaches, dust me off, and hold my hand through the next one.

People are so imperfect. But why should it matter to me enough to hold onto anger and resentment? Why should I brood about a friend cancelling plans because they found something better to do? Why does it affect my self-esteem and my feelings of self-worth just because others and myself are both imperfect?
I have the creator of the universe totally in love with me, loving me with a devoted and unfailing love.

Any spec of doubt or moment of faithlessness is because I don't trust his love. I think that's what it comes down to. If I truly believed that God loved me with a perfect and unfailing love, I would never wonder why I'm going through difficult times; I would never think twice about a sudden change of events in my life; I would never doubt my self-worth; I would be excited, not fearful, to face every new day.

My revelation tonight:
Because people are imperfect, we forget God's perfection.


In case Derrick Scott ever reads this... Yes, this is the first time I have felt God speak to me in quite some time. And I love it.

Consistently Inconsistent

People.
Amazing.


Christ tells us if the world hates us, keep in mind that it hated him first (John 15:18) and that we will be hated by all nations because of him (Matthew 24:9).

People are surprisingly consistent in their inconsistency.

I was reading in the book of Luke. In one chapter, the people went from listening to him read scriptures, proclaiming the fulfillment of promises in Isaiah and they worshiped him to being angry and driving him from town to throw him off a cliff (Luke 4:22, 28-29).

I had never read that story before. I knew of the many persecutions with which Jesus was faced, but never that the people drove him to a cliff. Even more amazing was that they had just verses before been "speaking well of him and were amazed at his gracious words (v 22)! 

It still happens today, really. It reminds me of particular events in high school. I had been saved for not quite a year when a friend approached me to help him find scriptures and help him get life on track and have faith. I did, of course. I helped him be accountable and remember his Bible and whatnot. Then only a month later, he spread word to everybody I had previously known in middle school (they went to a different high school) that I became a pushy hypocritical Christian who forced religion down others' throat. I was rather shocked to say the least, considering he had come to me. I lost many friendships. There was another incident where a friend basically did the same thing, coming up to me and asking for an accountability partner and someone to take him to church and whatnot. I did. I continued to be there as a sister in Christ, but for whatever reason, he walked away, returning years later to tell me he thought I was a judgmental... unkind noun. 

One day, people want to Christ and his grace and love and mercy. Sadly, once they begin receiving it and life "looks up" a little, suddenly religion becomes taboo. 

To some extent, even we Christians do that. Perhaps not deny Christ all together. Not outright. Not exactly. However, in our actions and in our sin, we set him aside and do what we know is wrong. We are guilty. And when we face those consequences (unfortunately, this is the only time many of us come to him) we will turn back and confess our oopsies, begging for forgiveness again. 

I am so guilty of this. I so often just want to look the other way because it's easier, because it's like God is telling me something I just don't want to hear so I say, "no way!" Then, of course, realize I need him and should have listened in the first place.

I guess it's just our nature.

This is just a profound revelation to me. To see the consistencies. There has to be something inside us guiding us. It has to be our nature. It couldn't be anything else. Sin does not stand alone, but comes as part of us. 

Thank you, God. Thank you that you forgive us for that which is innate.

The love of most will grow cold...

There is so much wickedness in the world. All around the world our Christian brothers and sisters are being prosecuted and murdered for their faith. There is so much rape, murder, war, hatred, vengeance, anger, slander, gossip, lies... So much evil in so many forms. It's so disheartening sometimes.

Sometimes it is hard to love people when you see them engage in these ungodly acts over,
and over,
and over,
and over again.


I have tried to trust people and been terribly betrayed. I have seen people hurt other people in absolutely insane ways. I have met people who genuinely act to hurt someone. I always want to give people the benefit of the doubt, so to speak.

I honestly have thought many times, nobody can be that mean; nobody could actually want to hurt another person like that. If I just explain to them why they are hurting me, they'll at least try to stop acting that way. It's all a miscommunication, a misunderstanding. 
Then they prove me wrong. I tell them it really hurts when they _____. And guess what? They do it more! People have surprised me (negatively) in so many ways.

Despite the ugly insanity of the heart of so many people, I do still love them. My love has not grown cold, though innumerable opportunities to do so have I faced. Sometimes I wander from it and my anger toward humanity is strong, I'll admit. Fortunately, at the end of the day, I still have faith and I still have hope that God is all powerful and in control. He will work all things for the good. In those times, greatness can be born. Either way, we are all sinners; we are all lost; we all need forgiveness and love and mercy and kindness. Who am I to withhold any of those things when I myself need them every moment of my life?

I just pray I stay this way, and grow in that path even further than I stand today.

I pray to stand firm to the end.


"Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved." -Matthew 24:12-13

Trust Issues

The Hebrews were awful about trusting God. He sent plagues and parted seas and freed them from slavery, yet they built calves and idols to worship and lead them. Today we do not look to golden calves for salvation. No, we find other outlets. Alcohol, shopping, television, long work weeks, overly school focused (at least, that's mine).

God has earned my trust through the great things he has done for me. Even without considering the cross (although without a doubt that's the greatest grace ever to be received), I can just look at my life and see from what I've been saved.

My father was an alcoholic and drug addict. My mother was a jealous and accusatory person. My sister developed an insanely emotional complex. The first memory I have of my life is my father trying to murder my mother in an alcoholic rage, then my mother packing our bags to leave him. He came back the next morning while my grandmother was on her way to pick us up. He was clean, and has never touched an alcoholic beverage or drug since that night. God stepped in and revealed himself just in time to save my father and give me an amazing life. I grew up with a supportive, stable family that loved me beyond words. I can't imagine having a better life, all things considered. My dad turned into the most influential, encouraging, Godly, and spiritually directive person in my life. Yes, there are rough patches and things that have hurt me and led me to develop weirdities. That's everyone though.

The point is... God has earned my trust throughout my life, revealing himself in insane ways. He has told me that he has wonderful and beautiful plans for me. That I truly have a purpose, though I haven't a clue what it is. I don't know how to get there, yet for some reason I forget to look to the one who has made those plans for me. I matter somehow, and only He can tell me how; only He can give me purpose and meaning.

My grades aren't everything. A job isn't everything. Getting married isn't everything. Nothing can give me meaning but Christ alone.

I am missing the journey.

But Lord, what can I do?

There is so much power in the name of Jesus. So much that the cripple may walk and the blind see. That in one moment, in one sentence said in the name of Christ, the fabrics of reality as we see are torn and the impossible becomes possible.

We have been given so much strength and power because of his sacrifice. With Christ in us, we can do anything! We can be a part of making a miracle happen! I can be a part of the story.

So why am I not?

I don't know how. If I could hurt with the hurting, if I could heal them, if I could only feed those who need it or reach out a hand to lift a lame man from the ground... I guess I can in Christ's name. It sounds beautiful. But really... how?

The world is crazy. Seriously. You don't know who is really broken and poor on the street. Who is really hurting? Who is taking advantage of kindness? How can you tell? Maybe it doesn't matter. But I want to love them. I want to offer them something.

God, I can! I am able to. I don't need money or resources or connections. The apostles saw a man and said, "Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk."

They didn't have anything more to give but Christ himself and his power.
And it was enough! It was more than enough! 


So why am I still scared? Why do I still feel like I have nothing to offer when the power of the universe lives in my heart?

What am I going to do about it?

Lord, give me strength.

Lent. Day 1.

My personal goal for lent, I have decided, is to read my daily scriptures and devotional then to write in response, to speak to God and let words flow. I figured that to make myself more accountable I should publicly display my thoughts. Or if they become too personal, I will at least post that I did in fact write. So here is day 1.


Trust God, not stuff.

There are so many things I turn away to follow, things into which I put my trust. They are not God, but I treat them as if they were the god of my life.
 I make time for everybody and everything else, but not the maker of the universe, the master of my heart, the tamer of seas, the giver of life.
 I talk to friends and family and all these things, yet so rarely sit down to greet my savior.
 I work for grades and for status; to make people smile and laugh; to make my parents proud; to be worthy of human affection; to assure success in my future career goals; but not to enhance my relationship with the only One who really loves me.


Many people worship money or a variety of other things. While money is nice and I wouldn't mind having more of it, that is less my goal. I seek to validate myself in the approval and affection of man, not through monetary wealth but through emotional wealth. I truly desire to make a positive difference in the world of those around me. However, I seek the glory to be my own. I sometimes forget to do good for the glory of God. Any strength I have to "do the right thing" or to show love to others is by Grace alone. I am selfish and messed up; God perfects the imperfect. In my weakness, He is strong.

I trust other things, things that fade and don't fill my soul. I trust in myself. I need to redirect my eyes to the Lord and not forget that I am nothing without his love. His love is enough.


"Let it all out; get it all out; rip it out; remove it. Don't be alarmed when the wound begins to bleed. We're so scared to find out what this life's all about; so scared we're gonna lose it and knowing all along that's exactly what we need... Today I will trust You with the confidence of a man whose never known defeat and try my best to just forget that that man isn't me... Reach out to me; make my heart brand new. Every beat will be for You." -Let It All Out by Relient K