When God Hurts Your Feelings

            

            Many of us have had those moments when our feelings have been hurt. I mean really hurt. Stripped to the bone to expose the underlying nerves hurt.

           

            When that happens, our immediate reaction is usually to find someone or something to jab our finger at in anger. And—lacking a concrete object of wrath—that someone is often God. He hurts our feelings, and we are incensed by the hurt. And then we start asking that “Why?” question, demanding an answer. And even if there is a concrete explanation, we still turn to God and scream, “Why!?”

           

           

            As I explored in last week’s post, there may be other, better questions to ask; or better conclusions at which to arrive.

           

            This post by Lysa KerKeurst, an excerpt from her book Becoming More: Than a Good Bible Study Girl, explores some better questions. She knows that in order to heal completely, she needs to be honest in her conversations with God, and with herself. She doesn’t pretend—as so many of us do because we think having a stiff upper lip makes us more holy or properly stoic—that everything is fine. The passage of time has allowed her the luxury of such painful, deep self-assessment; she has gone where it is often difficult for acute grievers to venture.

           

            KerKeurst knows grief. Read her piece and understand how “Why?” can be turned into “What?” And how asking that question can change your perspective and life.

           

http://www.faithgateway.com/when-god-hurts-my-feelings/?utm_source=fgwomen&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fgwomen20150629&spMailingID=48987498&spUserID=NjQ4Mzc0OTMxMDMS1&spJobID=703848473&spReportId=NzAzODQ4NDczS0#.VbJ1yWRVik

            Please note that this link contains advertisements and items for sale. I am not advocating that you make any purchase or sign up on their email. I am simply directing you to Lysa’s June 29 blog post on faithgateway.

(photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/69031678@N00/15189303264">Question everything</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">(license)</a>)

So, until next week,

Thanks for joining me!

Blessings,

Andrea

Deep Grief: Asking the Right Questions

            

            Deep grief knocks the wind out of you, makes you feel numb and paralyzed, intensely frightened or helpless. When experiencing deep grief, the only question we usually ask, over and over and over again is: “Why! Why? Why!?”

           

            And that’s understandable. When we’re in deep grief, we’re usually not thinking clearly. Our mind goes numb right along with our body. With the passage of time, however, we are often capable of asking the right questions. And that’s when we really comprehend how profoundly a loss affects our lives. In the analysis, we often find that the loss changes us in good ways. It deepens our love and appreciation for others; it causes us to live life less selfishly. We are matured.

           

            I don’t usually interject stories of up-to-date happenings in my life into this blog, but I think the experience my husband Chris and I had Saturday night and into the dark hours of Sunday morning bear telling. While it certainly doesn’t compare to the loss of a child, a kind of deep grief occurred in plain sight.

           

            Our seven-year-old Shetland sheepdog, Dolly, needed to go to the emergency vet. We packed her up and drove to the vet, (after calling ahead to notify them of our arrival). Another patient and the animal’s owner and her son were already in another room. The young (probably eight years old) boy occasionally traipsed back and forth from the room to the restroom and candy bar plate, more to keep himself occupied, I think, than anything else. He certainly didn’t look concerned about what was transpiring in his pet’s exam room. After Dolly got weighed and ushered into her exam room, and we paid the initial exam fee, we were asked to park ourselves in the waiting room until the doctor or assistant came for us. Not long after, the boy’s mom exited the exam room to make a tearful call to someone. Soon after that, another couple whisked in the front door with a disheveled looking dog wrapped gently and protectively in a towel. We could hear the woman who was holding “Charlie” breathlessly explain his serious symptoms. “He’s sixteen, and we were worried…” Her voice trailed off as the assistant quickly ushered them to another exam room. I stopped pacing the floor with the book I was reading, and Chris stopped pecking away at his computer to look up at me over his glasses. He shook his head sadly as we shared knowing glances. We’d gone through this scenario only ten months ago. Tears filled my eyes. I could feel this woman’s pain of impending loss, the fear helpless and fear of the truth, and I knew it would only worsen.

           

            “Charlie didn’t look so good,” I said quietly.

           

            “I don’t think Charlie’s going home,” Chris replied. I could only shake my head in agreement as my eyes filled with more tears. I wanted to wrap my arms around her, tell her to bawl her eyes out. I knew it would get easier as time stretched the days between loss and more life lived, but those words wouldn’t have helped her. At that moment, her heart was undoubtedly screaming, “Why? Why this night? Why this way? Why not one more day, one more month, one more year?”

           

            Those questions don’t usually come with answers, but they help us refocus our grieving energies someplace. We want answers; we want to understand, because understanding often gives us some semblance of control.

           

            One of Charlie’s owners came out of the exam room to stand at the counter. The technician quickly joined him there. He shook his head as she quoted the $600.00 fee to him, and he paid it. Then he quickly retreated into the exam room. About fifteen minutes later, soft crying leaked underneath the door from the room in which the boy and mom were saying goodbye. Then that door opened, and they left, without the pet they’d brought. The little boy didn’t seem to comprehend what had just taken place. He patted his mother's thigh, looked up at her face, and shot rapid-fire questions to un-responding, tearful mother as they rushed out the door.

           

            Soon after that, deeper crying filtered out to us from beneath the other exam door. The weeping continued for ten minutes, and then Charlie’s owners bolted from the room and through the front door. The woman cried loudly as she clutched the vacant towel to her breast. Chris and I looked at one another again. “Charlie didn’t get to go home,” Chris said.

           

            “No,” I responded. “I hope our dog doesn’t make number three tonight.” He peered at me over his glasses again as he raised his eyebrows, shook his head and gave me a: no-guarantees, it-just-might-be-us-too look. My heart ached for Charlie’s owners as I tried to strengthen my heart for any verdict we’d soon receive.

           

           

            Our story had a happy ending. After setting us back a significant chunk of money, Dolly sprang through the waiting room and out the front door to sprinkle the landscape rocks with some of the water the doctor had just injected into her dehydrated system. She leapt happily into my lap and pointed herself, her nose, and her alert, searching eyes forward— like a rigid bowsprit—as we drove home at 4:15 in the morning. 

We’re not out of the woods, yet, though. An elevated liver enzyme count they found means something is going on in her fifteen-pound body, and we are awaiting more blood and tissue testing results. We’re praying the liver enzymes, which need to be re-evaluated in ten days, will recede to normal ranges, and that God will grant us many more enjoyable years with our precious pet.

           

            But we know there are no guarantees. Every day, every moment is precious. And I breathed deep thanks that I would have another moment, another day with her. I might ask, “Why me? Why us? Why did we get a happy ending while the other two didn’t?”

           

            Those are possible questions, too, but I’m not sure they’re the right ones either.

           

            So what are the right questions, the “right” conclusions when you suffer loss?

           

            In my next post, we’ll look at this deep grief and some of the right questions to ask when God hurts our feelings.           

So, until next week,

Thanks for joining me!

May you find much to utter thanks for.

Blessings,

Andrea

Do You Really Know How to Listen?

“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”                                                                                   ~ Stephen R. Covey

“Friends are those rare people who ask how we are, and then wait to hear the answer.”                                                                                                   ~ Ed Cunningham

“You can’t truly listen to someone and do anything else at the same time.”

                                                                                                            ~ M. Scott Peck

“We have two ears and one mouth so that we would listen more and talk less.”

                                                                                                            ~ Diogenes

“There’s a big difference between listening and hearing.”

                                                                                                ~ G.K. Chesterton

“The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.

                                                                                                ~ Ralph G. Nichols

“Listening is an attitude of the heart, a genuine desire to be with another which both attracts and heals.”

                                                                                                            ~ J. Isham

           

           

            Listening. It’s one of the most difficult things for people to do. Just…listening. Not interjecting a point. Not countering. Not adding your opinion. Letting someone speak all of the way to the end of their thought without butting in, making a poorly timed comment, or shouting over the top of them. Or giving them an example of our own to add to their expressed point, which we sometimes do just to make ourselves look smart or in-the-know.

           

            Yet, listening—being slow to speak—is one of the most important things we can do, especially when we’re sitting with a grieving person, listening to them pour out her heart. We can start with a question—maybe about how they’re doing—and then take the time to really listen to them tell us how they’re doing. Sometimes all it takes is a simple, loving, concerned question to get them to open up, to let their pain pour out, to give them an opportunity to release the agony bound within.

            
            The person you’re listening to may run through a wide variety of emotions, like sadness, fear, anger, during the “conversation.” They may sit a while and not say anything. They may weep buckets of tears that make you feel uneasy. For some reason, when people cry the listener often feels as though they need to make all of those tears disappear, forgetting that tears cleanse and heal.

           

            What we need to remember is that we don’t need to have all of the answers. It’s okay if you don’t know what to say. Sometimes admitting that to your grieving friend is the best thing you can say. One of the best condolences I ever received after Victoria’s death was from my father-in-law. During a phone conversation, he said, “I’m so sorry. I really don’t know what to say.” His response was honest (he’d never experienced that kind of loss); and it was heartfelt. It takes a really big (and wise) person to admit they don’t have the answer, the formula for making everything better, for making your hurt miraculously disappear.

           

            But too often we want to utter something psychologically clever, to make ourselves sound like authorities. Too often Christians, in particular, are way too quick to let Bible verses roll of their tongues, to remind the receiver of their position in Christ, their eternal hope. In the process, they sound pious and end up severing the listening relationship. They shut down the griever and make them feel as though their emotions are frivolous and unwarranted.

           

            Listening validates a person and their feelings. And when they are suffering in grieving pain, they need to feel validated. They need to feel like life, especially theirs, still matters. They need to know they are not alone, especially when they feel the void of their loss so acutely.

           

            Read the Book of Job. Job’s friends were way ahead in their helpfulness when they sat in silence with him in the garbage heap. It’s when they opened their mouths and uttered foolish, pious words that they ruined it and made fools out of themselves. They made him feel worse. I doubt that he ever asked their advice again or even considered them friends after that lousy encounter. And it turns out that they were all way off in their know-it-all assessments of why he ended up in the heap in the first place.

           

            As a wise young friend of mine recently said, “You don’t need to have all the answers. Sometimes all a person needs in order to come to understand truth is for someone to listen as he uncovers it for himself.”

           

            Listening to uncover truth is much like listening to uncover grief. When the conversation ends, the receiver of your listening feels as though you have spoken volumes to them about your love and concern. Yes, you can “speak” volumes even when you sit in silence.

            Be that rare person your grieving friend needs. Make listening an attitude of your heart.

           

            Really listen with the intent to hear and not just respond. It may be the most helpful thing you will ever do for someone.

Until next week,

Thanks for joining me!

Blessings,

Andrea

Thankfulness: More Thoughts

            Continuing from my last post pondering thankfulness, I wanted to add a couple additional thoughts.

           

            When I define thankfulness, I am not defining it as that “Gosh-I’m-feeling-giddy-because-everything’s-going-my-way” feeling. I’m defining thankfulness as when deep down in your gut you are truly thankful—giving thanks—for something. Your heart overflows with gratefulness.

           

            In order for that to happen, there must be an object, usually a person, who is the recipient of your thankfulness.

           

            When you are given a gift that you really “love” you have a thankful heart toward the giver. You usually come right out and utter the words “Thank you!” Or you write a sincere Thank You note and send it to them. (I know, old fashioned, but highly UNDERrated in today’s world of abbreviate text messages and sloppily written, perfunctory emails.)

           

           

            You can’t really be truly thankful to nothing or to no one. If you stand outside in a cloud burst, enjoying the rain pelting you, (I live in the desert, and we go downright goo-goo when it rains around here), and you don’t think about the One who created rain and set the heavens and Earth on a course to produce it, then you aren’t really exhibiting thanks, you are simply happy that it’s raining. Maybe deliriously happy, but just happy.

           

            I encourage you to examine your heart the next time you say, “I am so thankful for....” The obvious question would be: “Who are you thanking for it?” Yourself? The gift-giver? Someone needs to receive your thanks. I want you to be mindful and think about who you’re thanking.

           

            When you believe in God, most of the time He is the recipient of your thankfulness. When He resides in your heart, His eyes become your eyes, and He becomes your vision. You see everything through His eyes, and His Holy Spirit residing within you interprets what you’re seeing. Your vision becomes clearer. The view becomes sweeter. The thankfulness comes from your gut and your heart overflows with it. You don’t really know the feeling of giddy unless you’ve felt giddy as a believer. Like my precious cousin, Jan, said to me soon after being diagnosed with Stage 4 ovarian cancer, and right after she’d become a Christian, “Even the air smells, different, Andie! It’s sweeter. I can’t really describe it.”

           

            She didn’t have to describe it. She thought I’d think she was nuts, but I knew exactly what she meant. And my heart poured out thankfulness to the God who brought her heart to that point. And she was thankful to Him, too, in spite of the physical and emotional hell she’d have to endure the next two years. I could hear the thankfulness in her voice 466.7 miles away through an old telephone. She had new life, had been miraculously reborn, and she knew it, could feel it, and was giddy and grateful even though her physical life on Earth was coming to an end. She was also thankful because she discovered it all didn’t have to end right here. There was a sweet hope for her eternal future.

           

            That’s what I mean by real thankfulness. When you can—because of, or in spite of everything going on around you—turn your face up and open your eyes and arms to heaven, and say, “THANK YOU!”

           

            It’s a thankfulness you breathe in and breathe out, a thankfulness that gives and sustains life.

           

            A grace-filled thankfulness that deepens the relationship between the receiver and the Giver.

           

            For what are you thankful, and who are you thanking for it today?

Until next week,

Thanks for joining me!

Blessings,

Andrea