Choices and Consequences

Have you ever had a "why me?" moment? Have you ever raised your fist to God and decried the unfair way that you have been treated? And after that, have you been shown, in a gentle and loving way, that your trouble came about as consequences of the choices that you've made? Yeah, me too.

I have to admit, it was my self-neglect that led to my lung problems. I knew that there was something wrong with my knee, but I chose not to go to the doctor for help until over a year after it had started exhibiting signs. After the doctor diagnosed me, he wanted to do surgery immediately due to the serious nature of the tear, but I chose to make an 18-hour trip to see my children before that surgery. He told me to be sure and rest and exercise my leg every two hours to avoid blood clots, but i chose to save time by driving for hours on end instead. The list goes on and on--things I knew but chose not to think about, treatments that I was supposed to take and didn't, and all of it combined to keep me ill long after many people with this same disease.

But see, that's life. Choices and consequences. You always have a choice, and every choice leads to a consequence. There are good consequences and bad consequences. Childhood consequences can often be the result of choices made by others in life. So what can we do about this?

I think that there are three basic things we need to hold on to:

Most of our consequences result from choices we have made.

We really need to stop blaming God for things that we did. If you had a breakdown on a dark road late at night that resulted in inconvenience or worse for you, you have to be honest with yourself. Was God to blame, or could it possibly have been the fact that you haven't checked the water, gas, or what have you for such a long time that a breakdown was sure to occur? You are in immense credit card debt. Is that because God chooses not to take care of you, or is it because you choose to ignore impulse control and buy what you want the minute you decide that you want it. And so on. God has big shoulders, but we need to realize that sometimes our attitude of blame toward God can keep us from the benefits of repentance and the forgiveness that comes from that.

Consequences are results of our decisions, but we can sometimes correct a decision, which will lead to a better consequence.

In my case, my choices regarding my health led to its decline. I am now on oxygen and have kidney failure. But I recently decided that my choices were stupid and needed to be changed, even late in the day. To that end, I have begun once again to do my breathing treatments and my inhalation therapy. I also am taking water aerobics three times a week. I do this in the hopes that my renewed choices will bring me to a better outcome-an improved consequence. I have lost time, but I have lots of time left as well.

Others' choices in our youth have serious consequences, but we can deal with that through prayer and forgiveness.

I was bullied as a child. I was teased, abused, hurt. Were you? It left me ashamed and embarrassed to be seen, sure that what everyone said was true, what everyone did was deserved. These were consequences of what others said and did to me. But as an adult, I choose to understand that the words those people said, the actions they performed, had nothing to do with me. I didn't deserve the treatment I got. I choose to believe that I am a well-loved child of God, and I choose to live that way. I have forgiven many of the people that wounded me, and I continue to forgive as God brings them to my memory. I find that the consequence of the original abuse made me a sensitive person who feels deeply. While I am making the choice to forgive my past, I thank God for that particular outcome. I wouldn't change who I am for the world.

So if you are reading this and know that you are suffering due to your or someone else's choice, please take it to God. Ask him to reveal that choice to you. Understand what put you there, and ask where he was in it. Be available for his answer. Then do what you need to do in order to have an outcome that would fill you with hope rather than fear or despair.

Need help? Email me at meggiev7777@gmail.com.  I'm here for you.

All-Consuming Fear -- The Surprising Truth

     As I write this, I am waiting for events to unfold within my family.  I'm not in charge of these events, and I am concerned.  A few years ago, I would have to say that I would have been terrified.  Life is happening, a bad outcome is possible, and I can do nothing to stop it except pray.

    But I am not terrified.  Deep within my soul I know that God is in control, and so I wait for him to do what he's going to do.  Whatever he does, it's going to be exactly what is needed.

    Some people might call this fatalism.  It isn't.  It's trust:  deep-down, all-encompassing, totally dependent trust.  This trust did not come overnight; it came through a surge down through fear, out through to the other side.  It came through living and breathing God's mercy, and the result is that I know that God's ways are not my ways, but they're the best ways.

    I've spoken about fear--ways to stop it from destroying your life. But there are times in our lives when our fear seems very valid and threatens to overwhelm us for good reason. When your loved one is in the hospital and nothing is helping, that can be terrifying.  When you are facing layoffs and cutbacks and are not prepared, you can become frozen with fear.  When you are faced with something that you have been concerned about all your life, it can come over you like a tidal wave.

    I've faced many things in my life:  abuse, death of a child, both parents, and a spouse, job loss, and most lately solitude.  All of these things at some point horrified me.  But all of them no longer do so.  Why?  Because I have walked through them.  I wish I could say that I walked through them fearlessly, but I did not.  However, I have learned secrets that might possibly allow you to walk through them more easily than I did.

    First of all, we are talking about enormous things here.  These are not fears that can easily be put aside.  Nobody wants to think of loved ones dying. Nobody wants to imagine themselves alone.  But some things can and should be worked through before the fear comes.  For example, loss.  When my father died, he was 81.  I knew that the death was coming.  I had time to prepare.  Yes, I still grieved and it was still hard, but it wasn't as overwhelming as were the other losses.  If you and your spouse are blessed with good health, wonderful!  You should still go through end-of-life planning together.  The fact that you did will make the ending easier. Everything is easier if you have walked through it before it happens.

     Next, don't collapse in on yourself.  That's what I did and it is absolutely useless.  If someone offers help, TAKE IT.  If you know that you need it and nobody is offering, MAKE YOURSELF ASK.  A real problem with friends of the grieving is that they don't know what to do.

    I could go on in this fashion, but I want to continue with the major idea.  We are overwhelmed by fear because we don't trust God to know and complete his plan.  When we see ourselves in the process, we imagine that it will be like this forever, or we think that it will never get better, or we are afraid that we will never recover.  In other words, we trust God's word.  "I know the plans I have for you--plans for GOOD and not for EVIL, plans to give you a HOPE and a PURPOSE.

    I hear you thinking--surely you don't mean that God PLANNED these things?  Surely you don't believe that God allows evil--or worse, brings it himself!  I'll tell you what I believe.  I believe that we don't know the end from the beginning.  Only God does that.  We don't see the path in its entirety.  Only God does that.  Sometimes we can get a glimmer, and sometimes that glimmer can put things into perspective.

Example:
    My son was born at 24 weeks.  Because we were part of the Kaiser HMO, we were forced to transfer him to a Kaiser hospital as soon as he was considered "stable".  He died after 11 days of struggling, and he broke our hearts.  Our family shattered.  That was our reality.  But there was another part of our reality that we didn't know--only God knew.  The clock was ticking on my husband.  Up to the moment my son died, God was distant and unimportant to him.  But when Tommy died, Val spoke of needing to get right with God so that he could see his son again.  That was real and necessary, and I believe he took it seriously.  

    When Tommy died, I wondered over and over again why God didn't save him.  My question was answered in 1993, when he took my husband.  I had a 6-month-old baby and 3 older kids.  There was no doubt that had Tommy survived, he would have been severely mentally disabled.  I simply could not have managed.

    I know--these examples raise every bit as many questions as they answer.  But at some point you have to stop blasting heaven's doors with "Why" and begin to realize that He knows what is best and you don't.

    The other thing I've learned about fear is that the very thing you're afraid of is that very thing that you need the most.  More on that next time.

Nothing to fear...

As a Christian, I've heard the verses.  I've memorized them, kept them in my heart for such a time as this.  "Be anxious for nothing...fear not...be not afraid...and maybe the best of all--God gave us not a spirit of fear but of power and love and self control.

I hope you will forgive me, but in this case, I get more insight from Franklin D. Roosevelt.  He said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."  This is very very true, and for no one more than for me.  I've lived my life fighting fear, and I've lost more often than I've won.  Fear has immobilized me, kept me from achieving my dreams and goals, deprived me of joy and peace, and just basically ruined my life.  I used to live each day in fear. I was anxious about everything.  I worried about my kids and their decisions.  I was afraid that someone would commit suicide when they were having a bad day.  I would check my bank account several times a day, afraid that I had made some sort of mistake and had no money (of course, sometimes I was right to be afraid about that, but still...)--in short, there was really nothing in my life that didn't fill me with fear or anxiety.

For many years, I really didn't know how to fight this fear.  Then came the year that I felt I had to leave my job.  I knew that I couldn't stay there because of the way that they were doing business, so I followed what I believed was God's leading and quit.  As a teacher, of course, I was committed to stay through the year, but I had no idea what would happen after that.  For a widow with a son who would be starting high school, that's a scary place to be.  I tried to find jobs in Bakersfield, but it was too late.  People look for work in teaching in January, and this was April.  The jobs had been filled.  I started casting my net, first outside Bakersfield, then outside California.  There were interested replies, but nobody had offered me a job yet, and I was scheduled to go with my son to the Dominican Republic for a mission trip.

In the DR, I learned many things, some good and some bad.  In looking for answers to my dilemma, I thought that maybe God had something for me there.  Nope.  I tried to put myself into my work, but the fear was overwhelming.  Then I got a voice mail from my daughter.  They had promised to care for my dog, but they were moving to northern California!  They promised me that their friend would take care of him, but the fear quickly became overwhelming.

Luckily for me, the Bible study that was an ongoing part of the mission trip was on Philippians.   "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, in prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make your request be known before God.  And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will fill your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Phil 4: 6-7).

Now, as a rule, I don't memorize scripture.  Not sure why--I just don't.  But this verse, I memorized.  Not only did I memorize it, but I learned a few things that I applied to it.  First of all, I realized that the verses really should be read backwards.  The part "be anxious for nothing" is the RESULT of making your request known with prayer and supplication to Jesus.  Doing it WITH THANKSGIVING is important.  If you don't thank him for the situation, you aren't really and truly turning it over to him.  This situation, as stressful and horrible as it might seem, is another opportunity for him to show his strength and his love for you. And as a result, you will have-not necessarily the solution-but PEACE.  And peace is so important.  The peace of God allows you to continue walking when weaker men would fall.  It allows you contentment in the midst of trouble.  It gives you comfort so that you can walk away from fear and anxiety in the knowledge that God loves you and still has a plan for your life.

Next:  how to deal with fear in your life--a plan to conquer and subdue.

God Vs God

I read the most interesting article yesterday in Christianity Today.  It spoke to the seeming difference between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New.  Many people say that there is too much difference--that they can't trust God because of his bloodthirsty nature.  Sure, Jesus was all mercy, but he had his moments, too.  Think about his attitude toward the moneylenders in the temple--not all sweetness and light there, was he?

The problem is that we tend to focus on God's vengeful nature in the Old Testament and his mercy in the New.  In fact, both are in both.  The punishment that comes in the Old Testament comes because people rebel against their God.  In the NT, there are many pointed references to the religious leaders of the day.  These are men who have turned away from the true God and are leading their people harshly, all the while rebelling against God in their own lives.  In the OT, the prophets spoke the words of God; in the NT, John the Baptist and Jesus spoke for him.  Prophets were despised; John was beheaded; Jesus was crucified.

But the OT doesn't just speak of punishment.  "If my people who are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray, then I will hear from heaven...and I will heal their land."  Rahab was spared from the Canaanite massacre and is called a woman of faith.  Jonah was angry at God because he went to Ninevah and warned them of God's wrath--and they listened and were spared!

The thing is, God desires fellowship with his people.  His people are called to righteousness.  If they heed the call, they are spared and chosen.  If they ignore him, they are turned away.  The results of being turned away are not pleasant.  However, God sent his Son Jesus to redeem us and make us righteousness.  As the article says, "The cross is God's defiance of himself....At the cross, God made a way for his mercy and love to triumph over his justice and judgement." (from the article "Can We Trust the God of Genocide" by Mark Buchanon, Christianity Today, July/Aug 2013)  In Christ, "Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other (Psalm 85:10).  We can trust in God to be safe against God.

But remember, nothing has changed as far as God's wrath is concerned.  It is spelled out for us:  we are the called; we are the chosen.  We are given the call--the gift of salvation.  We can accept that call and live.  If we don't accept that call, well...

Many years ago, I spoke with a colleague, a westerner who was married to a Muslim.  (Remember that the culture of the Middle East was the culture of Jesus, the culture to whom the Bible was addressed,   When they heard the words, they understood instantly what was meant and there was no question.  It would be as easily understood as saying to an American "the groom carried his bride over the threshold at the start of their new life together".  It would be understood that the couple had been married and were entering their new home.)  She was a teacher, as am I, and it was grading time.  Anyone who taught in the days before computers knows what her coffee table must have looked like.  Her gradebook was in the middle, report cards beside it,  papers strewn about, a red pen in one hand and a blue pen in the other, and her mind totally on what she was doing.  Into all of this came her husband, a cup of tea in his hand.  "My darling, I've made you a cup of tea."  Without looking up, she said, "That's fine.  Just put it on the end table.  I'll get to it."  Without another word, the man left.

After a while, she came to a stopping point and remembered the tea.  She looked at the end table.  No tea.  She looked around the room--no tea anywhere.  Confused, she came into the kitchen.  There she saw the teacup, washed and put in the dish drainer.  Even more confused, she found her husband in the bedroom reading a magazine.  "Sweetheart, why didn't you put the tea down like I asked you to?"

"My love, you don't understand. You did not ask for that tea.  I knew you were busy and thought you would enjoy the gift of a cup of tea.  It was a gift, given out of love.  And you didn't even look at me.  You rejected it.  Therefore, it was taken away."  This was a valuable lesson.  If you are offered a gift, you must accept it.  If not, it is seen as rejection, not only of the gift but of the giver.  That rejection results in the gift being taken away and possibly even being given to someone else (the story of the wedding feast that nobody attended comes to mind).

Think of the gift we have been given.  God offers himself to us.  He gives us prophets to speak his words and call us to himself.  More than that, he gives his only Son.  He sends his Son to die for us, and to live with us and for us.  He has given us the most amazing gift.  However, that gift will not be available forever.  If we hear, it is up to us to respond.  Yes, it seems that the offer is going to be there forever.  But one day it will be taken away if we do not accept it.  God is love, but God is also righteousness.  How amazing that he sent his Son so that we can clothe ourselves in His righteousness and thereby be made acceptable to our father.

Child of the desert

I was born in the desert.
Sand, clay, bare mountains
These were the playgrounds of my youth.

I grew up in the desert
and all my life I dreamed of green.

I longed for green trees, emerald mountains, lush grass
and hated the barren land around me--
land that refused to yield a single lilac--
so much as a petunia.

I lived for years in the desert
Until, at least, I was able to move

I asked God for wisdom,
I asked him to guide me.

And so, following God's lead,
I obediently moved

To another desert.

I was devastated,
Yet somewhere, I knew
There was a lesson to be learned.

I looked at the cactus,
Squat, bulging,
Bare and spiny.

I asked it--
Wouldn't you rather be a pine tree?
Wouldn't you rather be tall, beautiful

and green?

I saw the jagged brown mountains--
Majestic, yes,
I had to agree to that

But so bare.
So brown.

Wouldn't you rather be ablaze with the beauty of the Spring?
I demanded.
Wouldn't you rather go from green grass to a rainbow of flowers?
Wouldn't you love to be covered in snow?
Wouldn't you rather be anything
Besides what you are?

That night, I dreamt of the desert.

I saw the cactus,
squat and bulging
Bare and spiny

But green!

I saw it through the lens of years
Saw it bloom
Saw it grow
Saw it reach arms to the heavens
Praising God in the midst of its barrenness.

I saw the bare mountains--
Rugged and jutting
Blazing forth the truth of God--
Unadorned, unornamented,
But there for all to see--

A testament to God's majesty.

In my dream,
I heard them speak to me.

The cactus wondered why I judged--
The mountain was quizzical.
Why didn't I appreciate what I saw?

I knew in a moment that they spoke not of themselves--
They gloried in what they had been given,
What God had seen fit for them to be.

They wondered why I was unappreciative
of what God had planted
within me.

They wondered why I chose to judge myself--
my form, my shape, my very being--
and find myself wanting.

I heard them chuckle.

"Here she is, made in the very image of God
and yet she wants more!"

I woke from my dream with a new understanding.

I am a child of the desert.
I have been chosen to walk in sand
and to learn to admire the handiwork of God in all things,

Not just those things that come easily for me.

In the same way,
I must learn to accept this truth:
God made me who I am.

He made me with a form,
a figure,
a design that was carefully crafted
and beautifully blessed.

All of us were.

It is only when we stop trying to change ourselves--
be who we are not--
That we can finally learn to appreciate God's handiwork
In ourselves.

I am a child of the desert,
and I love the mountains' breathtaking glory.
I love the glimpses of green that come for brief moments
and then are gone once again.

I know that it is because I live here,
In a land that has little water
That I am so grateful for the smell of salt air,
The scent of pine in the dewy breeze.

And so, God,
although I know it is long in coming,
I thank you for making me not only who I am,

But where I am.

Chronos and Kairos

Time is funny.  It didn't always exist, and it exists differently depending on where you are.  On Sunday, most of you will be gaining an hour, which means that you will be losing an hour of sleep.  Not me--I live in Arizona, where we don't buy in to such foolishness.  We always stay at the same time.  When I was in Bakersfield, I looked forward to October--standard time--and dreaded March--daylight savings time.

This is chronos.  Time is charted, scheduled, and expected to behave.  It is so dependable  that you can use it to take a pulse, beat music, and be the chart that runs your overscheduled life.

But have you noticed that our understanding of time and experience of time aren't the same?  Remember when you were young?  There was a year between December 1 and Christmas, and yet Christmas was done in 5 minutes.  It took years to finish being grounded, yet your favorite tv show was over almost before it began.  You started reading a good book at 8pm, and it seemed like just a few minutes later you looked at the clock and realized that it was 2am!  Time doesn't behave!

That's because we don't understand time.  That marking of the hours is chronos.  We mark hours and measure our day because we are creatures that love to measure.  God doesn't live in chronos.  God lives in kairos--his own time.  Kairos is time-out-of-time, that special moment that is measured qualitatively, not quantitatively.  We live our lives in both.

We wake up at 8:00 and know that we have to be at church at 10:00.  Chronos.  We begin to pray, and as we do, we enter into a conversation with God that seems to take hours.  You leave prayer certain that you will be late for church, go to the kitchen, look at the clock--it's 8:15.  You've been in kairos.  I

God loves to play, and he does his best playing in kairos.  I've been in a praise team where we had a set time--20 minutes--to play.  Everything was rigidly set in chronos.  Announcements take x minutes, worship x minutes and sermon x minutes, and so on.  We start our set, and the Holy Spirit moves.  We've learned to let it.  We play, praise God, are given words, spend time in prayer, and finish a set that should have run well over time in exactly 20 minutes.  Kairos.

On the other hand, I've seen God play with chronos, too.  One day, I was on the opposite side of town from work and was running late.  I knew that I didn't have enough time to arrive, and I asked God to please give me extra time.  He didn't.  Instead, every light was green, including a light that turned red about 5 seconds before I got there then immediately green again (that's when I knew He was playing).  When I got to the freeway, there was absolutely no traffic--unheard of during rush hour.  I got to work with minutes to spare.

Whether you're in chronos or kairos, you're in God's time.  Take a moment this weekend to relax and enjoy being in God's time--and then try and see how often you end up in kairos!

God's love to you!

the land of the living

What if I had not believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living?

My heart responds to those words from Ps 27.  It is spoken (rather, sung, since these are songs) in the midst of a plea for physical and spiritual protection from enemies that are fierce and out for blood.

The psalm begins
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid?

It then goes on to explain exactly who, and how the Lord protects from these enemies.

It goes on to state the desire of his life:  to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life; to behold the fair beauty of the Lord, and to seek him in his temple.

We shouldn't go to war and pray to an unknown God for peace and protection.
No, we should live our lives in His service and spend our days in his temple
(under the shadow of His wings)
Then when trouble comes, we know the corners where we can hide.
We know the Father to whom we pray,
and we understand the surety of salvation in the evil day,
For we have spoken to him about it in the days, weeks, and months before.

So many of us go about our daily lives without any thought to our Lord God.
Then, when the hour comes in which we cry for comfort and peace,
we are surprised when we are left comfortless.

We don't understand.

It isn't that we are left comfortless,
It is that we don't recognize the Comforter.

So go to your secret place,
Call out to your Father now,
Don't wait for the day of trial to get to know him better.

He is here today, waiting in that still place--
That place that you know instinctively exists--
Go and meet him there.

He will teach you trust,
And hope,
And he will build your faith
From mustard seed to mountain.

Then when the evildoers come to your door
When death, darkness and despair come to call,
You will know where to turn.

He is truly a friend in the darkness,
But it's so much easier to see him in the darkness
If you have first walked with him when it was light.

Our Brother and the evil one in the wilderness

Luke 4:1-13

It happened after our Brother was filled with the Holy Spirit.  He told us that he needed to go to the wilderness to fast.  He walked out, and as soon as he began his journey, the evil one took a place at his side.  Every step he walked, the old trickster whispered in his ear.  At first, of course, our Brother paid no heed.  He had decided to neither eat nor  drink for forty days!  He spent the same amount of time  in the wilderness that our Grandfather Noah spent on the water, fasting, praying, and waiting for the will of God to be revealed.  It seemed to him that every day the voice of the old tempter became more seductive, more enticing.  Finally the forty days were over.  The end of his journey was at hand--this would be the end of his first steps and the beginning of the longer Journey that would lead to our blessed Brother's death.  He knew exactly what was in store, and he hungered and thirsted.

On that day, our Brother was famished.  Of course, the tempter chose that moment to sidle beside Him and whisper seductively into his ear.  "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread." As soon as he said it, our Brother's eyes saw the tempting loaf.  He smelled the yeast and grain, and the aroma was overwhelming.  But at the same time, the Holy Spirit within him brought to mind His Father's words:  Man does not live by bread alone. No sooner was the thought made apparent than the lips caused them to come into being. "It is written…"  Instantly the tantalizing aroma vanished, to be replaced by the stench of death.

Having failed in the first test, the evil one took our Brother up an incline.  He swept out his hand and our Brother saw a myriad of kingdoms--shining and glorious with people and riches too vast to count.  The people seemed to see them and immediately fell to their faces in awe and respect--not for our Brother, but for the evil one.  They surrounded their leader and fawned attention on him.  From their midst he looked at our Brother and said, "See how they adore me? See how they worship me?  See how they lay their tributes at my feet?  Simply worship me, and all this authority, power and glory will be yours!  The people at the evil king's feet looked up at our Brother, and the light of love was in their eyes.  They began to stand as our Brother moved in front of the evil one.  But then they all fell back as he proclaimed, "It is written, 'Worship the Lord your God and serve only Him'".  Was it only a trick of the light?  All semblance of humanity disappeared and the two were once again surrounded only by rocks and desert sands.

But the evil one was not finished.  Not yet.  Our Brother was taken to the holy city, Jerusalem.  The evil one took him to the temple, a building made to honor our God and Father.  He stood before him, staring at him with a mixture of defiance and malice.  "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'"  The sneer in his voice made it apparent that he doubted the holy words.  It was nothing more nor less than a dare.

As he spoke the words, the very air around him was filled with the rush of angels' wings:  black and white and shining in the brilliance of the desert sun.  Starving, thirsty, with fatigue straining his being, our Brother looked at this being, this once-beloved, and he answered him.  "It is said, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"  It was not said vindictively, not with malice, and yet the very words caused the fallen angel to remember the time that he himself decided in his vanity to do just that.  The tableau vanished, Jerusalem once again became desert sky, and the prince of darkness skulked off to wait for the more opportune time.

It was finished.  For now.

write what you know

I went to a day-long (if you consider 8:30-2:00 day long!!) training for Stephen Ministries today.  It was cloudy and rainy, grey skies, and inside the training was on grief, suicide, and depression.  I was fascinated by what I heard.  The women who led the training sessions had all experienced the things that they were talking about, and they spoke from the heart.  I was especially struck by the second woman, who spoke on suicide.

Her name was Vicki, and she was preceded by another very knowledgable woman who told us about mental health issues.  She was very interesting--at a professional level.  I was interested but not absorbed.  Then Vicki spoke.  This brave woman lost her 21-year-old son to suicide four years ago, and her story was riveting.  She very forthrightly spoke about the mistakes that she made, the signs that she missed, and the grief that she was still experiencing.  One thing that she said struck me to my very core.  It was by no means the meat of the lecture, but it was life-changing for me. Forgive the paraphrase--it didn't occur to me to write it down.  But it's fairly accurate.

"There are others around now who can also speak, and at first I thought I would pass the responsibility on to her,  (but) I have assimilated the experience within myself.  This is what I know.  This is what I do."

Yes.  Finally I understand my own calling.  For years I have hesitated to write overly much about grief, death, suffering, but they are who I am.  I have dealt with loss from before I can remember.  I am 55, and in that time I have experienced the hospitalization of my mother numerous times, her stroke, heart failure and eventual death.  I have dealt with depression and mental health issues in my own life and in the life of my family.  I lost my mother at 15, lost one child through miscarriage and another through premature birth and eventual death, lost all my uncles and aunts and some cousins.  My father died when I was 34 (not out of time for him--he was 81).  My niece died when she was 20 and I was around 26.  On and on it goes.  But the most powerful loss that I experienced was the death of my husband when I was 35.  I did not recover from that for many many years.  You might say that I never will recover--you don't "get well" from grief.  You learn to live with it and move on, but it never entirely goes away.  Nor would I want it to.  He was my husband, and I loved him.

So what does all this mean?  Well, what it does not mean is that I go around with a cloud over my head all day every day.  Most days, especially now, are pretty good.  I can live from day to day with joy, because I understand that God is on the throne and I will see my loved ones again.  But it also means that I am different than many of you.  I come from a different place.  And I would not trade places.

When I lost little Tommy, I started going to a support group, "Sharing Parents".  This group was a godsend, not just for me, but for my entire family.  We all went, starting with Tommy's death and going through Val's.  One meeting in particular stood out for me.  We spoke of infant loss in general, with the speaker talking about doing funeral services for babies that were so young--miscarriages, really--that there was nothing to put in the coffin.  The speaker went on to say that the parents have been forever changed, but they would never go back.  It's the difference between being a virgin and getting married--you will never have the innocence again, but you would never want to go back to that naivete.

That's me.  I have learned many lessons in my life, and I don't regret a single one.  Not a single one.  If it were possible, yes, I would prefer to have my husband and son with me, but I don't regret the experience.  God became real to me in the pain.  I felt this from an early age, and it has just increased over time.  It was especially true in times of greatest need. For example, one day I was admitted to the hospital and it was determined that I needed to go in for gall bladder surgery.  Nobody was able to come and be with me, and I was very alone and very scared.  I keenly felt the loss of my husband.  As the gurney came to carry me to surgery, I called out for God to be with me, and I felt his presence beside me, holding my hand as I went down the hallway.  As I waited, it turned out that there was a complicating factor and I didn't get the surgery after all, but that sensation didn't go away.  It stayed with me as long as I needed a friend, and then it eventually dissipated.  Years later, my sister and my daughter were both at my side for my corneal transplant.  I was happy because they were with me, but of course, they can't go with me into surgery.  I was expecting God's hand to be there as I went down the hallway, and I was disappointed that I didn't feel it.  I questioned it as I went, and I heard God's voice, "I will be there for you when you need it."  Down we went to the operating room.  I saw the door open, the blinding lights of the room--and there was God's hand, right at the moment of my need.

When I moved from Bakersfield to Tucson, this relationship suffered.  For the first time since my youth, I was hurt and angry with God.  I moved because I knew it was the right thing to do, but there was no human companionship, either at church, at school, or in my community.  I realize now that I was very depressed and unable to reach out, but that was not something I could have helped at the time.  I'm grateful for my son, David's, presence.  But I've never felt so alone.

Slowly, gently, God took my hand once again.  As the years passed, I realized that there was one person that I needed to get reacquainted with--myself.  Through trial and error, with many steps backward and even more steps forward, I have been brought back to myself.  I'm thankful for that.  And as I've become more driven to write, I keep thinking, 'You have to write what you know.'  And what I know is pain and loss.  So I will not be afraid to write about pain and loss.

That doesn't mean that I will stop writing about other things.  God has given me a brain, and quite an analytical one at that.  I enjoy dissecting things.  I enjoy the idea of lectio divina, reading through scripture many times, with different intent each time.  I love exploring ideas.  All these things are fun for me, and I will definitely blog about them.

But I do believe that my first published works will probably deal with loss, with pain, with grief, with emotional trauma.  Write what you know.  But why write about this doom-and-gloom stuff?  Not to be maudlin, not to sink into the pit of despair.  No, to paraphrase the verse, I suffered and I was comforted.  And now I hope to write (and minister) to those who are suffering so that they can receive that same comfort that God gave me.

Going back to my training, when we finished and were preparing to go outside, one of the trainees remarked that the sun had come out.  We walked out of the building into the still-wet street, and the sun was breaking through the clouds.  I see both my writing and my ministry as that:  staying with others and sharing the walk through the rain and darkness until the sun finally comes out and it is once again possible for them to walk alone.  That's my goal. And I think it's a good one.