A biblical answer to the conundrum of grief

As fact would have it, there is a biblical answer to the world’s search to reconcile the conundrum of grief.  It is heavily aligned to common psychological therapy concepts, but people only go there if there is no other way.  

To loss, there is no answer.  

Loss, by definition, is beyond reconciliation.

Humankind has tried many answers, including the concepts of closure and acceptance.  But, of course, these concepts are limited in their power; some people can’t access them, and for those who can, it still isn’t a perfect answer.

The best validation, for every person who cannot reconcile their loss, who continues to grieve, is to read the simple words with a metaphorical nod:

“Your experience of grief is real, it is true,
and it is beyond words and defies platitudes. 
The cause and depth of your grief in loss
is commensurate with your love.”

WE GRIEVE BECAUSE WE LOVE

The biblical answer to grief is lament: that common sense method of facing the pain, honouring the truth of it.  Pain begs to be noticed.  It hates being relegated.  

The more we relegate our pain, the more
it rises up insisting it be acknowledged.

If we accept that our pain must be seen, we open space for our pain to be valued, even cherished.  It isn’t too much of a stretch to say that we can “consider it pure joy” (James 1:2-4) because pain as it is faced has an eternal purpose.

But the world cannot and will not
reconcile such an understanding. 
And it thereby refuses the only thing
within its control to reconcile it.

When we lament, we allow the pain its place, and giving pain its place means we must do something with it.  When we cannot deny our pain, we’re forced to make meaning from it.

So, what can we do with our pain to extract meaning from it?

As we face our pain, we also face the inevitability that once it’s noticed, pain invites us on a journey of meaning-making.

PAIN AND REMEMBRANCE

One such meaning-making exercise is the cherished tradition of remembering or remembrance.  The Christian sacrament of holy communion is characterised in remembrance.

There is no clearer way of honouring pain than through remembrance because remembrance is facing.  Remembrance is intentionality of purpose.  

Remembrance says, “It happened and it matters, and indeed, by remembering, I draw strength from solemnity as I honour the truth, those who have gone before, and what has been lost.”

Remembrance in and of itself draws hope and purpose from not being able to reconcile.  It accepts what it cannot change, and indeed it celebrates what is lost.  

By remembering, what is lost is retained. 
By remembering, what is gone is accessible. 
By remembrance, what is no more is honoured.

There is a biblical answer to the conundrum of grief,
and that answer is closer than we think.  

Pain ought not be painful, but it can
be a direct invitation doorway to life.

It’s good to know, the world owes me nothing

Just reading the title ‘the world owes me nothing’ can be triggering for some people, and many people will have a problem with it.

If we want a mindset that works in life, we could do far worse than adopt the mindset that the world owes us nothing. Nobody owes us anything. From such a mindset, we accept what comes our way and we work to establish what we can, and we do not resent anything that supposedly comes against us. It is a powerful self-concept to nurture.

The fact is, life is unfair. 

You only have to ask the person who has worked diligently and has led an honest life who is dying of cancer. There are many who have been bankrupted through no fault of their own, yet they are blessed to accept that the world owes them nothing, because it causes them to rebound the best they can. 

We always need to ask, if we are living responsibly, if we have made a contribution to our misfortune. If we haven’t, we must remind ourselves the world owes us nothing. It is the common potential plight of all to suffer poor luck.

When we have expectations,
those expectations stand to be dashed. 

Not all expectations are realistic.

It’s the person who continues to walk
like a clock in a thunderstorm,
steadily and faithfully,
who leads a resilient life.

THE SCOURGE OF ENTITLEMENT 

From a position of expecting nothing from the world we negate all tyranny of entitlement. Entitlement is a spiritual, mental, and emotional cancer, and besides real cancer that kills the body, entitlement kills relationships and lives. 

Let us live free of entitlement, so we
are not a curse to ourselves and others.

But we live in a day where entitlement reigns in individual lives and in corporate systems. Nobody can be content living a life of entitlement, just as it brings anxiety to others’ lives.

I am involved in conversations every single day trying to help those who have fallen into the trap of entitlement. What do I say when I’m helping people stuck in this cursed thinking? 

I would prefer not to have to say anything. And then I am reminded of how quickly I fall into the trap. It is a trap common to all. And if you don’t think you are ever entitled, I would invite you to read the book The Entitlement Cure by Dr John Townsend (2015). This book describes the concept of a pocket entitlement, because we all have pockets of entitlement in our life, even if we are not characterised as entitled.

THE BEST THING WE CAN DO

The best way to live for ourselves and others
is to live as if the world owes us absolutely nothing. 

If we want power, the only power available,

it’s right there, in the acceptance of what is!

Remembering that this is a theory, and accepting that we will still battle when we don’t get what we want, we can keep coming back to this concept of living that helps us in every way.

When we acknowledge that the world owes us nothing, and we can live accepting this harsh truth, we take responsibility for what is ours, and we take less responsibility for what is somebody else’s to deal with.

The most direct path to joy is the gratitude
that comes from being thankful for what we have
because we are not focused on what we don’t have.

Focusing on what is good in our lives negates focus for what isn’t so good. It’s paradoxically ironic that some of our worst times deliver space for reflections in gratitude. 

Grief, for instance, opens our eyes to the suffering in the world, and God builds within us powerful capacities of empathy because of what we’ve suffered.

We are broadened and deepened emotionally and
spiritually through the life experiences of hardship.

Hardship is (or can be) an antidote to entitlement.

Trials remind us that we cannot control anything more than our own thoughts and actions in this world. 

Why would we resent such a fact when everybody else exists in the same reality?

Resenting what we cannot change is a form of insanity.

Shaking our fist at anyone or at God for that matter over these issues is folly.

But there is great wisdom and accepting what we cannot change.

The epitome of humanity is accepting the status quo
with joy, whatever the status quo is.

It’s a goal worth striving for.

20 years later, I thank God for Mum

Tonight 20 years ago was one of my loneliest nights.  It is actually difficult to comprehend from 20 years later just how much pain I was enduring and how much courage I showed in that season emerging from a life shattered by marriage rejection and failure.

Somehow, even though it did happen, and it WAS the worst, here’s the evidence of my healing: there are only good memories of a time when I actively did everything I could to recover from grief, despair, betrayal, depression, panic attacks, and alcoholism.  Even though month after month many days were punctuated by horrific moments.  Now, there are no signs of the pain of it all, even though I’ll never forget the pain of it.  I hope that makes sense.

Back then, my mother was a rock of support.  As was Dad.  But since we lost Mum last year, I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on the incredible woman she was.  Mum didn’t take sides or play favourites, and this is why she was the best mother.  She was fair, knew what was right, and her and Dad were strands made of the same cord of integrity.

The pain I went through in that period of my life, and the burden that my parents (and particularly Mum) bore, cannot be put into words.  Day after day, for months, and in reality, the flux lasted years.  Nobody ever tells you when you become a parent what it will cost you.  I saw the labour of love my Mum invested in those tremulous days, each of them fraught with the nagging worry that one day I might lose all hope—the pain of divorce is too much for many people.

As I consider the many words in cards and other memorabilia that my Mum left me, I read her poignant words with a piqued insight, astonished at what she went through because of what I went through.

20 years to the day when I went to the Royal Show with my family and left alone, Mum remarks how the happiness she saw in me to be with my family earlier in the day had morphed into a life-questioning morbid depression by evening when I returned.  No doubt at the time I was so heavily in my own fearful grief that I may not have discerned Mum’s, but I can only imagine the vicarious pain she was enduring—her and Dad—each and every day through that hellish season.

My initial recovery took nine months, and then I entered another transition that, from my parents’ viewpoint, provided concerns of a different kind.  I was over the initial grief, but I was still so off balance.  I got so heavily involved in the church that I began to lose sight of my daughters’ needs, but yet again, my parents filled that gap, until another whole year (or more) had passed, and I realised the mistake I was making.  But I acknowledge now, reflecting on what my Mum wrote me at the time, just how much Mum did to be a mother to my daughters, and all she and Dad did to hold us all together.

20 years to the particular night, with Mum now deceased nearly 14 months, I pay respect to what she did for me, one of her three children.

If you are a parent of an adult child grieving and you relate to holding that insurmountable burden, please know that no matter how painful it is, it IS worth it, for you would give anything to support your kin.

If you are the one amid the pain of the deepest imaginable grief, hold on, for it will be worth it in the end.  Endure one day, one hour, one minute, at a time, and try as much as you can to connect with what you can still be grateful for.  I don’t say that to make you feel bad, but when you are enduring grief you NEED gratitude to cling to, for in gratitude is at least the mirage of hope.

20 years on I am so thankful for the life I have now.

IMAGE: Happier times.  Mum with my eldest daughter, her eldest grandchild in 1993.

20 years today, brokenness and redemption overlap

20 years ago, today, September 21, 2003, was a resurrection day, not that I knew it at the time. I literally had no idea. It would take me months to even see it. It would take me years to believe it. 20 years later I am living the life I didn’t dare dream (but always hoped) was possible.

The paradox of the beginning of a fresh new life 
at the dawn of loss that cataclysmically broke me.

17 years ago, today, September 21, 2006, was also a resurrection day; a day I had long hoped for. It had finally arrived. Three years of hoping, and a miracle of new life hoped for. Three years of long days and many agonising hours, three years exactly, two entirely different days and seasons, yet a consistent hope joining them both.

Both resurrection days were entirely different.

Precisely 3 years apart, I think, is no coincidence.

Let me explain more about the details:

The first one was the day before my first marriage ended, which happened to be the very first day of 20 years of sobriety thus far. If you had have asked me on that day if I knew what the next 20 years would entail, you would have discovered that I simply had no idea. If I went back to that day, and only knew what was about to occur, there is no way I could ever see it as a resurrection day. 

Within 24 hours my life would unravel; I would lose my wife, free access to my children, and my home that I had invested so much of myself in. Everything of that life disappeared in a matter of seconds at 8pm the following day, 22 September 2003. It all changed in the blink of an eye. And yet, as I look back to this date 20 years ago, the very essence of the new life was germinating. And yet, so much loss...

Not that I knew it,
but I was about to be reformed.

Even as I endured a kind of revenant experience,
(a death-of-self experience)
a door was being prepared for me
to be opened as an eventual resurrection experience.

Even as I watched my eldest daughter 
commence the bravest of journeys.

Even as my relationship with my three daughters 
was being re-engineered through loss.

Read in my mother’s Facebook comment five years ago how mortally afraid my parents were for my life.  Oh how faithful my mother and father have been in my life, and in the lives of my family!

Wind the clock forward three years to the second resurrection day, Sarah and I held each other for the very first time. We count September 22, the day I asked Sarah’s father permission, as the commencement of our courtship. Three years I had spent as a single father, having grieved nearly half that time. I had ventured into the loneliness of a life that couldn’t pick and choose when I could see my children. And yet I was embraced by a community called the local church, and they showed me that God had a bigger vision for my life.

The first resurrection day was coincidently the day before a death, where one life died, where the door to that life slammed shut, and threatened my very existence. The second resurrection day was the completion of a barebones construction work; a man rebuilt for marriage, even if I still had so much to learn.

Doors slam shut in life, and it
always happens without warning.

50 years ago TODAY my parents 
suffered the loss of my sister to stillbirth.

TODAY I spend with my Dad and 
we remember not only Debbie but Mum, too.

We never see doors slamming shut as a favour done for us. We always resent the fact that we have lost control. But a door slammed shut isn’t the end of the story. And this is something we must hold onto amid the resonance of an impending and enduring hell.

There is no better example of a living hell than loss, but just picture Jesus descending to hell before He was resurrected. God becomes real in our lived experience when we continue to hope beyond the experience of a form of death.

A form of death, a door slammed shut, isn’t the end of the story... the story continues to unfold.

Even as a door slams shut in our face,
with the hope of resurrection, we ultimately rise.

As much as we can, we must diligently trust for a better day to eventually arrive. If we can do that, and trust in the eventual resurrection day arriving, it will eventually arrive. Hope is pivotal. And such hope is a mirage without faith.

See how faith in God, faith in redemption, is important 
when you find your life smashed against the rocks?

You may choose to trust in something other than God, and I would say good luck with that, because it is only in diligently following God that we are able to trust in a force that is entirely good and trustworthy; it may take years, but redemption is the destiny of those who have faith enough to step out each step of life’s journey the best they can.

I could not have planned the coherence of these two resurrection dates. Only as I looked back could I see that God was communicating His faithfulness through such a ‘coincidence’.

20 years ago today, brokenness was mine for an extended time.  But brokenness was the catalyst for the redemption that was coming.  “If you’re going through hell,” as Sir Winston Churchill said, “keep going!”

“Do not grow weary in doing good, 
for at the proper time you will reap a harvest 
of goodness if you don’t give up.”
—Galatians 6:9

Image: my daughters and I in December 2004.

It’s not about you!

The Purpose Driven Life (2002) is a book by American pastor, Rick Warren.  There are over 50 million copies in print and audio.  One of the most fascinating facts about this book is its first line.  Warren’s first sentence is, “It’s not about you!”

It’s an astounding way to start a book that is essentially a 40-day journey in learning the purpose of life.

That four-worded sentence that starts page one, we could say, is the beginning of wisdom.  If only we lived this truth out, we would live lives full of purpose and meaning.  

Let me explain in the only way I can, through some illustrations from the real days of my own life.

On the flight that I took yesterday and the one I’ll fly home on today, I selected an aisle seat and not a window seat.  I would very much love the view out of the window seat, but I pick the aisle seat every time I can for a simple reason.  I would rather be the person inconvenienced than inconvenience another, and it’s not because I’m a so-called “people-pleaser.”  There is deeper motive.  I exist to serve others, and in the serving of others, and making others feel special, God does something inside ME to remind me of the power there is in being a blessing.  

Doing things for others is good for me!
In actual fact, there’s no better investment 
in my own happiness than existing for others.  
Do this and you’ll discover it’s true for you, too.

It's the same with a cuddle I received from my 10-year-old son yesterday morning when he “mistakenly” woke me up at four in the morning before I left for the airport.  I needed to be wake at 5:10AM.  He woke me up for that brief cuddle because he NEEDED a quick cuddle.  I’m not sure he mistook the time at all, and if I had have been more focused on my sleep than on his love, I could have chastised him, sent him back to bed, complained of having been woken up, and I would have missed the opportunity to love him with the hug that he needed.  It’s not about me.  As parents, we are living sacrifices for our children.  How do we love other than being a living sacrifice? 

Being a little more tired in the morning 
is WORTH the sacrifice of affirming my son’s love.

I compensated by making the choice 
to get a nap on the plane.

The last example is a common one.  It is all too easy to say that my job (or anyone’s for that matter) and my workload (or anyone’s for that matter) has an insane and unsustainable pace about it.  A lot of the time I feel I’m doing three, four or six things at once.  Many people have warned me not to burn out (because people have), and their motivation is often correct and therefore, with empathy, beautiful.  But think of this.  A high and “unsustainable” workload is only one way to look at it.  There are degrees of perception.  

One day I will be gone.  What am I sowing?  What legacy am I leaving?  What am I even doing all this for?  To be remembered?  No!!  I’m doing this to build into OTHERS’ lives.  Period.  The legacy I’m leaving is I’m showing others how THEY can build into OTHERS’ lives.  It’s not about me.  When others realise it, it’s not about them either.

Going the extra mile, and turning the other cheek, both biblical phrases, invite us into the service of sacrifice.  Sacrifice requires faith, and faith engages hope, which we need anyway.  

Can you see that sacrifice actually engages 
what we all desperately need in this life?

Faith is vindicated in our seeing hope rise in others, 
THEN our hope is bolstered.

I want to finish on what we were born for.  We were born for resilience.  We were born to overcome.  Jesus, as the lamb who saves the world, is the archetypal saviour.  His three years of ministry before he was nailed to a Roman cross symbolised the life we are called to follow and live.  The resurrection is a symbol of overcoming against the odds.

We actually NEED to access this life 
to not only survive but to thrive.

What I want to impress upon everyone reading this article is BELIEF is supremely important in this life because it requires and invigorates HOPE.  

We are nothing on any quest without hope.

We were born for resilience, 
we were born to overcome, 
not to be defeated, 
and I can qualify this 
by the very fact that life is hard, 
life it is full of hardships.
FOR EVERYONE.

Overcoming is a quest for everyone.

~

But there is a way to succeed in life, 
and it is common to every life.

Thoughts and words and beliefs of defeat kill hope, and whilst we need to be realistic, we can also be grateful that we had what it took to keep going!  We got through.  Even when it seemed impossibly hard.  Just think of all the thousands and millions of heroes that got through their impossible challenges—we stand on the shoulders of those giants and we too, with the right supports, will get through, too.  

But we must believe.  We must access hope.  
For it is hopeless without hope.  
We are defeated before we begin without hope.

It’s not about you.  It’s not about me.  When we understand this, we are on the cusp of the right motivation that positions us for victory, because we will always win when humility is our way.

When we get it wrong, it isn’t the end, but merely the beginning, because trust builds when we have the humility to own our error, and to set it right.  Relationships don’t crumble because of conflict, they crumble when people don’t have the humility to own their wrongs.  When it’s not about me, when it’s not about you, we begin to live with a heart of empathy, and that gives us the power to right the wrongs that we do.  

Such empathy delivered through humility is leadership.

It’s not about you.  When we discover this, we discover the purpose of our lives, and life has meaning all of a sudden, and we become leaders overnight, because our heart has been set right.

Let me finish in this vein.  Recently, I heard Justin Langer the former Australian cricketer and coach speak.  He finished his presentation with an astounding statement.  

He said, 
“leadership is about making people feel special.”

My mother, whose soul rests now from this life, epitomised this.  She made every person who came into her orbit feel special.  She was such a wonderful example.  Think of an example in your own life, watch and adopt.

When we live such a life that we are compelled to make everyone around us feel special, we begin to live the life we were called into from the beginning.  We are not simply expressing leadership, we are expressing the very heart of life.  

We are here to TOUCH lives.

In a world that is often narcissistic, 
we become the antithesis 
through making people feel special.  

We show narcissism the opposite spirit, 
and we prove the power of humility.  

Wise persons will observe and adopt it.

Life’s not about you.  
Live this and watch your life expand in service.

~

A final word on motivation, because life can crush our spirit.

Allow good things to come and learn to let go.
Good things will come of their own accord as we sow good. 
Have faith to let it be so.
And be wise, diligent and prudent about your self-care.

This above is the heart of wisdom.

Blessing, the Power of God in Empathy

Everything that is good in life 
emanates from the purpose of life 
that is Blessing: the power of empathy.

We are nothing, and we have nothing, if we are not connected to our fellow human beings.  Through feeling, seeing, hearing, touching, and tasting life through another person’s life.  Without any creepy sense where they would feel transgressed.  On the contrary, to every sense that they feel blessed from our presence in their lives.  Life is connection to others in safety and care.

Empathy is our capacity to experience 
life through another’s experience.

Empathy is the power to connect to another 
as if we were them: a Blessing.

If we don’t achieve this through our presence in others’ lives, our Christian faith means nothing.  It achieves nothing, and it is in fact a forgery, given that others seeing us as ‘Christian’ don’t associate us with Christ, and potentially worse, associate Christ as something other than love and betterment for them.

CALLING IT LOVE WHEN IT ISN’T LOVE

Let’s not fool ourselves, to the point of abusing another or of corrupting the gift given to us, that our blessing is a blessing when it isn’t a blessing.

The default way of blessing is that we corrupt what is meant for another as blessing, thinking it is a blessing when it isn’t a blessing.

If we call our blessing a blessing 
and it isn’t felt as a blessing to another 
it isn’t a blessing.

Blessing as it pertains to our deeds 
is in the hands of the other.

~

EMPATHY AS A WAY OF FELT BLESSING

Empathy is the only way to the execution 
of a blessing that cannot miss.

Such is empathy that it gets INSIDE the other person and completely understands where they are at.  

Empathy feels as they feel.

Empathy is that power of being able to completely understand another person, and the only assessment that matters is the assessment of the other person.  We cannot say that our empathy is in fact empathy if the other person doesn’t feel empathised with. 

See how empathy and blessing 
are all about what the OTHER person feels, 
and NOT what we feel.

The test of empathy is the 
other feeling empathised with.

Empathy, the power of blessing, is the power given to true Christian people, who, inhabited by God’s Holy Spirit, do not miss meeting symbiotically with the other person. 

The connection that is felt between human beings when one is compelled to be an instrument of blessing through the power of empathy is a supernaturally felt experience where the person being blessed is touched by the very presence of God. 

This is how Christian people are to evangelise, not through the use of common words, but in the use of uncommon actions of empathy, where a person being blessed by the power of empathy absolutely feels touched by the living God.

So many Christian evangelists get the whole point of evangelism the wrong way around when they expect that their words will have some mysterious and magical power to ‘convert’ other people to the love of God when the love of God isn’t in them. 

This form of evangelism which is quite common in the latter days of Christendom, is rife in the western world, and without deeds of love to back these words up, the words themselves are abhorrent to the Spirit of God and wreak havoc for the mission of God. 

The fact is every single person is wired, hardwired, to be met by other human beings through a cogent empathy, that speaks the powers of the living God in and through them, in much the same way as a person will know that there is a God.

This empathy is a deep-seated mode of care that takes all focus off the self and puts all that focus on another human being, that they be served, that the giver of empathy would not in any way seek to be served. 

As soon as we try this, inspired by the Spirit within us, to give the gift without any seeking or desire or craving for return on the blessing, this service itself bears the touch of God. 

God therein dwells amid the empathy, 
and as we give our empathy, 
we receive from God what cannot 
be given to us in any other way.

Can we see how this empathy, this way of being very deeply met, is the very power of God that few ever experience?  The fact is, and I know this is sure, the reason I am a pastor and a counsellor these days, is because I EXPERIENCED the empathy that I speak of in this article, and having experienced it first hand from others, was convicted and converted to it, that I would be an instrument of such empathy in others’ lives.

This empathy is the common salvation that is 
very uncommonly experienced in this world.

We are much more apt to experience a salvation that comes through words that isn’t felt in the deeper being.  The more common experience of salvation is a shallow and superficial version of the truth of salvation, and no doubt can become the catalyst to the deeper empathy of God that we need to feel in coming to the true salvation.

We, as human beings that can know God, and can experience the power of God, have been predestined to experience this empathy from others, this touch of God, in order that we may FEEL it and experience it and see it with our own eyes and touch it with our own hands, in order that we would be compelled to issue it to others, simply because it is blessed to pass that blessing forward.

I hope that you in reading this will not miss the point: 
IT IS AS WE GIVE AWAY THAT WE RECEIVE...

It is as we give away the deeper connection of our empathy 
that we give others access to the power of God.

Simply seeing this blessing run as it extrapolates from us in many tentacles of blessing unto miracles of transformation is the compound effect of the blessing, unto many experiences of baptism in the Holy Spirit.

What needs to be seen by each of us in our living days 
is that we are here for a solitary purpose.

The vast majority of us will miss this purpose.  We will grab at a life that insists that others empathise with us without us contemplating the truer understanding that life is an upside-down reality. 

Life’s purpose is in empathising with others, and experiencing what happens as a direct result, which is the blessing of God that is input into our lives through another person or people being blessed.

The more we give our lives away, the more God gives back to us, if only we can resist the resentment the creeps up when our blessings are unrequited.  We do not bless others to receive their blessings in return.  We bless others because it is our purpose.

We bless others because it is 
the power of empathy that blesses us. 

That is, God’s blessing of us.  
It is an “inside” job.