Category: Prayer

How to Grieve Well: Successful Steps to Completing Your Grief Healing—Part 9

FOR THE LAST SEVERAL MONTHS we’ve searched, dug, uncovered, remembered and relived, all for the sake of grieving well and achieving what we call grieving completion. But does discovery mean we’ve successfully arrived at completion?

No. Awareness and discovery are not grief completion. We still have some work to do.

 

Why discovery doesn’t equal grief completion?

Let’s imagine the following scenario: If you learned that you had hurt a friend’s feelings, would just knowing you hurt them rectify the problem? Surely not. You would, hopefully, want to go to that friend and apologize to them, to have the relationship restored, if possible.

If you didn’t apologize, both you—and your friend—would remain incomplete, with that offense likely hanging over both of your heads and hearts for years.

Your realization of your offense does not naturally complete what was left emotionally unfinished.

You need to take action.

 

Keep sounding (and feeling) like a broken record, or enjoy freedom—

Maybe you know someone who keeps repeating the same story over and over and over again. Or maybe you know you’re guilty of doing that. You know they—or you—sound stuck in the past, and you don’t know how to get them, or you, unstuck.

When you carry the repetitive accounts around inside your heart and head, never able to let them go or bring a satisfactory end to them, you’re actually limiting and restricting your life from possibilities, freedom, peace and joy. And each time the story is repeated the resentments—or regrets—pile up.

You don’t need to relive the pain, frustration or anger the rest of your life; you can put a period on those emotions. You can apologize. You can forgive. You can state what you always wanted to say or what you know you should have said out loud and free your heart and mind from the burdens they’ve been carrying around for far too long.

 

What about exaggerated memories and embellished stories?

When a person is grieving, they often embellish their stories or create fairytale characters out of their deceased loved ones—both good and evil characters.

Unfortunately, doing this can put a serious barrier on the road to grief completion. The goodness of the deceased person is embellished; the person’s sins get expanded like hot air balloons. We can deify people just as easily as we can demonize them.

Be careful to not create or write a story that’s more untruthful than realistic. Believe it or not, these extremes can be covers for unfinished relationships, words and actions.

Tell the important positive things. Divulge the uglier, more hurtful events. Tell of wonderful promises kept and promises broken. In the end, your story and its ending will be realistic, and it can be a powerful witness to forgiveness, transformation and peace to someone aching to find those things.

For both positive and negative events, the freedom you gain from going through this sometimes difficult relationship review and grief completion allows you to acknowledge and let go of unrealized hopes, dreams and expectations about what transpired in the past and what could or should have occurred in the future. Or what you hoped would have occurred.

What we’re aiming for is freedom.

And exactly what does that mean for the grieving person? This statement from the Grief Recovery Institute drives the point home:

 

“Freedom does not mean the end of sadness, but it can mean the end of pain. Freedom allows fond memories to stay fond and not turn painful. Freedom allows [you] to remember loved ones the way [you] knew them in life rather than to be fixated on the images of the loved one in death.”

 

You can also be freed from haunting memories of a not-so-loved one. Terrible things that happened will take up less mental and heart real estate. The pain and hurt of broken promises will fade away and consume you less.

 

Next step: Completion—

Let’s return to the sample question list I introduced last week. How did you answer those?

Were you able to uncover times where apologies were warranted? Forgiveness needed to be given?

Did you remember significant events, both good and bad? Did you note what you wished could have been better, different, or you would have had more of?

Were you able to uncover events in the four critical areas that help you communicate those undelivered emotional thoughts and feelings?

  • Apologies
  • Forgiveness
  • Significant emotional statements that aren’t apologies or forgiveness. You know, really important stuff.
  • Fond memories—things you want to thank the person for, things you appreciated about them.

 

If you really dug deeply and answered them forthrightly, you’re ready to compile the necessary statements into a form where you are delivering, completing and saying goodbye.

Let’s see what that looks like.

 

Delivering your relationship review statements, completing grief, and saying goodbye—

So what, exactly, does a relationship review letter look like? How long is it? With whom do you share it?

The letter looks like any other letter you might write to someone, about the significant parts of your shared relationship, your joys, your hurts, your apologies, your forgiveness. The length will usually depend upon the relationship and the depth of it, how much life passed between you and the other person.

While you don’t have to include everything you noted on the emotional energy checklist, you’ll want to make sure you include the significant emotional comments.

The important things to remember about this letter are what it’s not, and what it is.

 

First, it’s not a journal or diary entry, and it’s not really a full story.

It’s a story that communicates the apologies, forgiveness, significant emotions and fond memories contained in a special or significant relationship. It’s a way to un-trap those bottled up emotions and release the energy surrounding a death or loss.

It also gives you a conduit to say a formal goodbye to the physical relationship that no longer exists. The letter makes it possible to say goodbye to the emotional aspects of the relationship when the physical relationship is over.

 

Let’s take the example of a young man (say, in his early twenties) whose father suffered from mental illness and committed suicide.

The young man might start his letter with stating just how difficult life has been since his father’s death. The pain, the shock, the way his dad was found. How he still feels numb. How much he hurts over what happened.

Then he might talk about all the wonderful things he remembered about his dad when he was younger, and talk about significant trips or events they shared. Say how much he enjoyed those. And he can talk about the significant disappointments.

Then he might move into talking about his dad’s mental illness and how it affected him and how he saw it affecting his dad. How it damaged their relationship. And then make a forgiving statement to his father about how he knows it wasn’t his dad’s fault that he suffered from something he had no control over.

And the young man might feel it was necessary to apologize for his behavior toward his father at certain times, when the mental illness came between them or had a negative effect on their relationship or the family. How he was impatient and treated his father in an unloving or even mean way because of it.

He might talk about how he blamed his mom for the problems, because she was the most available and easiest person to blame.

Toward the end of the letter, the young man might say how upset he was at his dad’s selfishness, for the time and events his dad had and his actions had robbed them of—like college graduation, birthdays, marriage and grandchildren. Maybe the young man is sorry that he’s feeling so angry with his father and needs to make a forgiveness statement about that and the future.

Finally, he could tell his dad just how much he misses him, loves him, and forgives him and is glad he is no longer suffering. How grateful he is for the time they did have together. But how he still doesn’t understand why his father would do something so extreme and unloving as to take himself away from all of them. Maybe he might ask his father in the letter if he didn’t feel loved enough. Maybe he feels as though his dad didn’t fight hard enough to get well, or stay alive for his family.

But at the end of the letter, he can tell him again how much he loves and misses him, and say “goodbye.”

It’s always important to say goodbye.

Then he can read this letter, which is likely to be lengthy, to a friend, a grief group member, or a trust family member. Someone who will just listen to his heart being poured out.

 

For this kind of tragic event, it’s not unusual for the surviving children (or spouse) to feel deep anger, deep regret, and deep guilt over what they think they could have done or should have done or wished they’d done differently. Or maybe what the doctors could have or should have done. These things need to be expressed.

Let’s look at another letter that might be written by a ten-year child at the events surrounding the death of her father to a terminal illness. Yes, even children should go through this relationship review exercise.

 

“Dear Dad,

Why did you have to die? The last time I saw you you promised you would see me soon, but you broke your promise. I know you love me and wanted to see me, and you didn’t die on purpose, so I forgive you. But I miss you so much, and I didn’t like it when Aunt Amy came to school to get me instead of Mom. But I forgive Mom, too, because she was with you.

I miss skipping to school with you, and visiting you in the hospital, even though you looked strange. I’m sorry I was rude to you that day when I told you I was fed up with you feeling so poorly and that it wasn’t fair I didn’t get to visit my cousins. I’m sorry you were sick so much. I was sad a lot because you were so sick. And I was worried.

I wish I could have been allowed to visit you that last week in the hospital. And I felt so confused when Aunt Mary came to pick me up at school.

I miss you, Dad. I don’t understand why you had to die. I’m still angry. I wish you were still here to look after me and Jack, and make my meals, and take me to school and pick me up. I just wanted you to know that.

I love you, Dad.

Goodbye,

Ann

 

This letter is very short, probably because of the writer’s age. But don’t put a specified length on your letter. Just make sure you say what you need to say, and then say goodbye.

Always say goodbye.

 

And when you’re satisfied that you’re finished, you must read your relationship review letter to someone.

As the experts at the Grief Recovery Institute note:

 

“The key to completion is that the thoughts, feelings, and ideas must be verbalized and be heard by another living human being to be a ‘completed’ communication.”

 

Undelivered communications of an emotional nature must always be verbalized.

And if you’re listening to someone deliver this kind of letter, think of yourself as a heart with ears.

So always, always, always listen with your heart!

 

What about other significant losses?

There are other significant losses besides death.

There is moving and leaving cherished friends, maybe nearby family, a job you enjoy.

There’s divorce.

There’s physical and emotional or psychological trauma.

There are a number of ugly and shocking things that can happen and that may deeply affect you in life.

 

These tools we’ve covered the last several months can be used for all of them. Hopefully, you’ll be able to put them to good use for yourself and perhaps others.

They’re game and life-changers.

 

Invitation—
  1. This is your opportunity to put your hard work together. Take the time you need to compose a letter you’re satisfied with and then find a heart with ears to listen to your heart.

NEXT WEEK we’ll do a grief recovery wrap-up by talking a little bit about drugs used in battling grief and telling the truth when you’re grieving.

Until then,

Find a heart with ears, or be one.

Blessings,

Andrea

“Beloved, I pray that you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers” (3 John).

Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a fitness pro, speaker, award-winning inspirational writer, memoirist, and senior-ordained chaplain (IFOC). She helps people thrive physically, emotionally, and spiritually, and recover from grief, loss and trauma.

How to Grieve Well: Successful Steps to Completing Your Grief Healing—Part 8

FOR SEVERAL MONTHS we’ve been exploring and working our way through grief—the importance of grief recovery and completion; leaning into and embracing our volatile (and sometimes scary, overwhelming) emotions; learning the basics and language of loss and grief; what emotional energy is and how it contributes to the grieving process; the importance of apologies and forgiveness; basic relationship reviews; the individual uniqueness of grief; the dangers of harboring resentment in grief; everything you need to know about grieving well.

Step-by-step we’ve explored the process, taken concrete actions to achieve a satisfactory grief completion.

With all of that work in hand, we’ll move onto asking the hard questions to expose all the emotional energy factors needed to write our relationship review letters.

 

Remembering and addressing the details of a relationship review in grief—

As we’ve discussed before, each relationship is individual and unique, so the answers we give to our emotional energy checklist for our relationship review letter will be individual and unique.

You are human and undoubtedly have emotions you want to honestly share or get out in the open. I don’t know too many people that enjoy bottling up emotions, although they may have been taught that’s what they should do following a loss or death. That teaching just isn’t true, or healthy.

Now’s the time to get it all out. Feel. Unload. Vent. Remember.

And complete what the death or loss started, unleashed or exposed.

Although not an exhaustive list, here are some of the things you’ll want to ask yourself or remember and make note of for your letter. They pertain to the relationship you had with the person you’ve lost or the friendship that’s been severed:

  • When did you first meet the person?
  • What events surrounded that first introduction?
  • Did you have a special name for the person?
  • What kind of personality did the person have?
  • What kinds of gifts did you share or receive from them or give to them?
  • What kinds of gatherings did you enjoy, at their house? Yours? Trips together?
  • What kinds of perfumes or aftershave did they wear, if any?
  • Did you ever have any arguments with them, and about what? How often?
  • Were they kind and loving or teases?
  • What kind of unique, personal mannerisms or quirks did they have?
  • Did you see each other frequently? Chat often on the phone? Worship together?
  • What personal events did you share?
  • What personal stories did you share?
  • How much did you trust this person, and why?
  • Did you love seeing and visiting with this person, or not?
  • Was there something about them that made communicating or living with them difficult? (Alcoholism, mental illness, attitudes, etc.)
  • Were you happy about the amount of contact you had with this person, or not?
  • If you lived a long physical distance from them, were you happy or unhappy about not seeing them more often than you did?
  • Were you together for major events?
  • If they died because of an illness, how often did you get to see them?
  • How did you learn about the person’s illness?
  • How did their illness affect them/you?
  • Were you able to talk about your feelings with them, or someone else close to them?
  • Are you willing to talk about the person’s illness now? Were you then?
  • How did the end of their life progress? How did you handle it?
  • What do you remember about the last days or end of your relationship with the person?
  • What kind of emotional response did you and they have to this illness, impending death, and your relationship?
  • Were you included in the end of life process, goodbye, funeral or memorial?
  • Did you get to say goodbye, or was there an abrupt end to the relationship?
  • Did your friend or the family leave you left out of the end-of-life or memorial process? How do you feel about that?
  • Is there anyone you feel safe talking to about your feelings and hurts or fears about this person and the loss?
  • Are you trying to take care of others’ emotional needs and disregarding yours in the process?
  • How did their death impact you emotionally as soon as you learned of it?
  • How did the severing of the relationship impact you? (Anger, shock, fear, frustration?)
  • What kinds of emotions did others express at the death?
  • Did you attend the memorial service? Why or why not?
  • What kinds of memories, regrets, dreams, or emotions have you experienced in the days, weeks, months or years since the death of relationship loss?
  • How have you recognized birthdays, special occasions, or holidays following the loss?
  • Did the person miss any significant events you wish they could have attended or you would have liked them to attend?
  • What kind of relationship do you now have with the survivors, or other, mutual friends?

 

Talking about the good, the bad, and the sometimes ugly parts of a relationship—

I know it can seem or feel wrong to talk about the bad parts of a relationship after the person has died, but it’s important to acknowledge and voice the whole truth. It’s a critical step in making us emotionally complete and completing the grieving.

Grief is often confusing, complicated, long and exhausting. And scary. This is what we’re walking through, in the best way we can do it. To continue with life and thrive.

That’s what we’re doing with the questions and the relationship review, which we’ll get closer to completing next week.

Until then, I invite you to work on these questions, answer them honestly and completely. Doing so will likely trigger more feelings, emotions and memories—both good and bad. You may cry again. Laugh again. Regret again. Rejoice over a loved one’s life and her impact on yours, again.

 

It’s worth the effort.

 

Invitation—
  1. I invite you to take some time this week to answer all of the above questions to the best of your ability. Write complete sentences or thoughts and feelings. Don’t worry about chronology right now. We’ll be able to write and tidy up our letters later.

 

If you need to catch up on our discussion, see the following posts for this life-changing information:

 

Grief Struggles and Short-Term Energy-Relieving Behaviors

Understanding and Dealing with Undelivered or Unaddressed Emotions and the Important of Grief Completion

The importance of grief completion.

The basics of a relationship review in grief.

Importance of apologies in grief, for loss or death grief

The importance of forgiveness in loss and grief and dangers of harboring resentment.

Understanding and incorporating significant emotional statements.

Reviewing the good, the bad, and what you wish had been different.

What you need to know about grieving well, what contributes to the nervous energy you experience in grief, and the basics of loss and grief.

 

Until next week, may God give you wisdom and grace as you relive your life with the person lost to you.

Blessings,

Andrea

“Beloved, I pray that you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers” (3 John).

Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a fitness pro, speaker, award-winning inspirational writer, memoirist, and senior-ordained chaplain (IFOC). She helps people thrive physically, emotionally, and spiritually, and recover from grief, loss and trauma.

Incomplete Grief: Part II

HAS ANYONE ever said to you that you don’t seem as though you’ve finished grieving yet? Have you ever felt that way years after a loss?

Perhaps what they really mean to say is that you’re experiencing incomplete grief.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is the real goal of grieving?

Many of us think the goal of grieving is to experience deep, painful emotions and finally arrive at the point where they aren’t as noticeable or don’t bother us as much as they did when the loss was fresh. A point where we feel as though we can get back to some kind of normal life.

But is that really the point of grieving?

It is. And it isn’t.

 

The point and task of grieving are to first grieve, feel all those emotions, and then complete the relationship with all the unfinished emotions you had when the relationship ended or the loss occurred.

You can think of it as unfinished business that niggles your brain and causes frustration or regret.

While grieving occurs automatically, completing the grief—or grief completion—results from specific actions you take to make that happen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well-meaning but bad grief advice—

You’ve probably heard someone say, “It’s best not to dwell on the past.” Or “Better let bygones be bygones.”

They sound like good practices, but in the long run they can be dangerous.

Why?

Because the human mind functions in a very different and specific way than the human heart. And vice versa.

The human mind tends to hang onto and replay what ifs—what could or should have been different, better or more. And those different, better and more thoughts can devour us emotionally, year after year after year.

It’s natural for us to do this. And where grief is concerned, it’s better to go along with that persistent brain, answer those questions, and take some steps to complete the thought and the revelations that come with it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Incomplete grief can be about good things too—

As the experts at The Grief Recovery Institute note:

“Incomplete grief exists when there are any undelivered communications of an emotional nature.”

With that definition, you can easily see how incomplete grief can come from both good and bad events. They can be positive or negative.

For example: Let’s say you received a gift from a special friend and written and mailed a thank you note. But the morning after mailing the card, you learn your friend has died of a stroke. Besides the pain of losing a good friend, what feelings would you have about the loss?

One thought probably replaying over and over in your mind is that you wish your friend had known just how much you appreciated her gift. And now she’ll never know. Something has been left unfinished. And it hurts.

What if the last thing your spouse heard before driving off to work and getting killed in an auto accident was your snippy comment about something he did that morning that irked you? You would likely chastise yourself repeatedly over your unloving last words. Replay what you should have said to him; wish you could have apologized.

As Grief Recovery Institute experts point out:

“As a generality, undelivered emotional communications are going to be about things that we wish we had said or done, or about things we wish we had not said or done.”

 

And they’re also about something else, like the things we wish the other person had said or done, or not said or done.

 

But they can be about good things too. And it’s important to replay those.

Consider the happy scenario, where you share a kiss and a long hug with your spouse before you both depart for work. Later that day you learn he’s been killed in a freak work accident. Along with your heartache, you replay in your mind your last embrace, your loving goodbye, his joyful wave to you as he drives down the driveway. Those thoughts make you smile and bring gladness to your broken heart.

The reality of life is that we never know when our last encounters with someone will occur, and it’s more than likely that every loss brings with it unfinished details—words you wanted or planned to say, discussions you wanted to have, plans you were in the midst of making. Not procrastination but planned for events and get-togethers.

These types of things can leave you with a feeling of incompleteness in a relationship loss.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When others hinder your grief completion journey—

You may experience incomplete grieving when others cause or exaggerate your incompleteness.

Ever know someone who won’t allow you to express meaningful things to them? Your communication with them remains shallow or frustrating. We can’t force anyone to listen to us, and their refusal to hear or listen can leave us with incomplete feelings about them and the relationship.

Sometimes we’re fearful of being honest and saying things we know are emotionally loaded. We fear another person’s reaction, or their misunderstanding of your intentions.

We want to wait for the right time, but it never comes. And death ends the possibility of it ever coming.

We lose our nerve and never say what we need to say to the other person.

These events can leave us with incomplete emotions.

 

I can give you a personal example in my life that I still find frustrating. An event that left me with incomplete emotions.

For a reason I don’t understand, someone I considered a precious friend and loved like a sister decided “the season of our friendship had come to an end.”

That’s how she put it in the email she sent me. Not in person. Not in a phone call. She wouldn’t talk to me about why, explain her reasons, or tell me what I might have done to hurt her to cause that decision. I even asked her so I could apologize for how I might have hurt her.

She did tell me that we hadn’t communicated that much since she moved across the country, so I did get an inkling that she felt that, to remain good friends, I didn’t meet her frequent communication expectations.

It’s been a year since that happened, and I still experience incomplete grieving over it. My heart still cries about it. I miss her. But I feel as though she tied my hands and made my grieving difficult. I don’t think she acted loving or fair toward me.

And that makes me angry.

I feel as though her actions robbed me of the opportunity to be complete.

But her actions do not need to become the final say in this friendship ending. I need to heal, completely. So I’m going through the actions I need to take to complete that grieving, the actions I’m going to teach you in this incomplete grieving series. Actions I’ve taken before that helped me complete the grieving process and close open, festering wounds that took their toll on not only my mind but my body.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Goal of complete grieving—

Your goal is to discover those undelivered emotional communications occurring in both minor and major life events.

It’s the uncovering of all the undelivered communications, both large and small, that have emotional consequences for you. And it’s likely there is a heap of these undelivered communications that need unearthing and examination.

 

Where my former friend is concerned, I’m going to be exploring all of the unfinished communications and feelings I had when the relationship ended. I’m going to detail how the way she ended it makes me feel.

In the process I’m going to take into account the numerous overwhelming burdens in her life: the recent and unexpected death of a loved one; the illness of a beloved relative; the serious accident she incurred a year earlier that seemed to leave her mentally foggy and fearful of life.

In this specific instance, it’s a combination of juggling truth with love and mercy.

And in the process, I can’t tell myself I shouldn’t feel the way I feel. I already feel a certain way, have experienced certain feelings. Telling myself I shouldn’t feel them isn’t going to make them go away. Examining them, figuring out what to do with them, and then doing it will ease the burden and complete my grief.

 

And that’s the end goal.

 

Invitation—

Can you identify any relationships that ended by separation or death that still feel incomplete? If so, start jotting down those happy, sad, or unfinished events you wanted to continue, wanted to fix, or wanted to finish. You’ll use those in a future post to be able to complete your grieving.

 

NEXT WEEK we’ll dig deeper into incomplete grieving: how holding onto feelings may be stifling the grief completion process, and learning to express the feelings that will help us heal.

Until then, don’t be afraid to feel those feelings, and don’t let anyone tell you that you shouldn’t have them.

Blessings,

Andrea

Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a fitness pro, award-winning inspirational writer and senior-ordained chaplain. She works and writes to help people recover from trauma, grief and loss and to live their best lives — physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Finding Peace In Chaos: 10 Tips

I know you already know this, but 2020 has been an unbelievable, and rough year. Pent-up emotions unleashed, brutality on display over and over and over again in living color, anger and resentment driving people to vengeful behavior.

Within and amidst all this chaos, how can and does one find peace?

Not temporary peace that ebbs and flows with beautiful or ugly reality, but the kind of peace that comes and stays and quiets your heart in the midst of pain, injustice, and grief.

 

Perfect peace.

 

Dr. Don Colbert recently had a great blog post about finding peace and purpose in these unsettling times, and I’d like to use some of his post highlight concrete ways to find peace right now. Some of them we’ve recently discussed that I’d like to re-emphasize.

Read on to discover 10 tips to finding peace in the chaos.

 

  1. Name the source of your anger, fear, anxiety, pain—

It’s okay to be angry about something, or with someone. But often we feel angry about “something” without really knowing what that “something” is.

A big part of being able to find peace is naming the source of your anger, fear, anxiety or pain. Naming it gives you opportunity to confront it and understand it.

This is where journaling comes in, which we’ve talked a lot of about in the last several posts. Not only is it okay to journal, it’s healing to do so.

Thankfully, our Heavenly Father isn’t put off by our anger. He even demonstrated His own righteous anger when He cleared the temple of what He called “a den of thieves.” Thieves that made it impossible for people to reach and worship Him.

And the Bible is full of verbalized complaints, anger, frustration, pain and questions. Just read the Psalms, and Job.

Name the source to gain control over it. Just ranting and crying out to God about it helps unload it and qualify it. While He may not agree with your limited assessment about the cause, He will listen and guide you in your thinking and healing.

 

  1. Remember who is ultimately in control—

Although we certainly are surprised, God isn’t surprised by any of this. And that’s good for us, because He alone knows why it’s happening, (He sees what’s really going on behind the scenes and reads hearts), and He alone is the One who can give direction for leading us into greener pastures everyone can enjoy, rest in and feast upon.

It does a turmoil-filled heart good to remind itself of that.

If you want answers, go to the source of the right questions. The One who can give you the results you seek. And talk and listen to Him in prayer and meditation.

As a friend of ours likes to say, “Pray and pray often.”

He loves you and wants to hear from you. Often.

 

  1. Focus on God’s power and promises—

The Bible is loaded with reminders and proofs of God’s power, promises and provisions, and it’s important to pick out a few verses to remind yourself of that.

Some of the passages Dr. Colbert presented are good ones to keep in mind.

 

“…be anxious about nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7).

 

“Jesus said unto him, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets’” (Matt 22:34-40).

 

“The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:8-12).

 

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him” (John 3:16-17).

 

Another passage I’ve used as a foundation for my life is Joshua 1:9:

 

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”

 

But the passage before it sets up this command, and it’s worth noting:

 

“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”

 

Do you see it?

 

There is an if-so-then-that set up. If you read God’s word, meditate in it and try to commit your life to it, then you’ll be more able to prosper and find success in life.

Does hard work always guarantee success? No, because evil works all around us, seeking our failure. And our fallen human condition makes us broken and weak.

We are big sinners in need of a big savior. And we have one in Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah.

One last passage I’ll note that is particularly pertinent right now:

 

“He has shown you, O man, what is good;

And what does the LORD require of you

But to do justly,

To love mercy,

And to walk humbly with your God” Micah 6:8)?

 

How much different would our world and lives look if we:

  • Loved the Lord our God with all our hearts, minds, and souls?
  • Loved our neighbors as we love ourselves?
  • Didn’t melt down in anxiety about anything, but, instead, took all of our anxieties to the Lord and prayed continually—with thanksgiving—about it?
  • Remember that God loves the WHOLE WORLD (that He created), and everyone in it and made the ultimate sacrifice to have a relationship with us?
  • Remember the Lord is compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in love toward us?
  • Act toward others the same way He acts toward us?

 

  1. Use these truths to pray through and out of your anxiety—

As the famous Nazi concentration campus survivor, Corrie Ten Boom, said,

 

“Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength.”

Prayer fills out hearts and minds with strength. It can restore our joy.

 

  1. Take your thoughts captive—

You can talk yourself into almost anything, including fear and anxiety. So it’s important to be able to talk yourself out of them, into gratitude, contentment and joy.

Again, prayer can do that, as you take every time and energy-wasting thought to God and ask Him to do something about it. Ask Him to remove it. Give it away to Him to deal with.

He’ll know what to do with it. You can trust Him on this.

 

  1. Take action in your own life and on behalf of others—

Nothing stops you from spending too much time thinking about yourself and wallowing in your own problems or negativity than to re-focus on others and their needs.

Put your energies into positive actions.

There are a lot of injustices in this world. Look around and identify one you want to pour your energies into and rectify.

What can you write about? What can you volunteer to do to help alleviate suffering and pain?

If you’re unsure, pray about that too. God will open your eyes to needs in your community. He’ll use your gifts to work to right wrongs, to stand up against prejudice and greed and all manner of evil.

And while you’re going about it, make sure you pray for the people you’re standing against. It will calm and open your heart toward them. Help diffuse tensions and open up lines of communication.

It’s very difficult to be angry with someone you’re praying for.

 

  1. Keep a gratitude journal—

Every day write down 3 things you’re grateful for; or at least thank God for them in prayer. Doing that opens your heart to receive joy and peace for the good things in your life.

And not stress so much on the things you don’t have and wish you did.

 

  1. Make sure you do your deep breathing exercises—

As part of your daily meditation, make sure you do your breathing exercises that I highlight in this post

Coping with COVID: Emotions and Grief Relief

 

People who do these breathing exercises and meditate experience more peace and gratitude, have less anxiety, and live longer.

 

  1. Make sure you nourish your body—

Keep your body nourished with good, natural food, the right amount of sleep, fresh air, and exercise.

All these ingredients are critical to good brain function and emotional, physical and spiritual health.

 

  1. Spend quality (and quantity) time with loved ones—

Even though it’s more difficult right now, make sure you carve out time for loved ones. Doing so releases the hormone oxytocin, a natural stress-relieving chemical.

Petting your cat or dog does the same thing, as does looking into someone’s eyes, (even your dog or cat’s eyes), receiving or giving a hug, laughing with someone. Sitting close to them. Touching one another.

Even though it’s difficult to do right now, make good, strong eye contact with people. Even with a mask on, you can usually tell when their eyes sparkle from a smile, a kind word, a joyful encounter.

And I’ve gotten braver, as I’ve hugged several friends I hadn’t seen in months or over a year. Mask on, I’ve put my whole strength into my brief hug, and I’ve enjoyed a enveloping hug in return. Just giving and receiving one makes you laugh with joy and relief.

 

Am I foolish and reckless for doing it? Perhaps. But I’ve decided that life really isn’t worth living without a hug or two; and—especially because one of my love languages is touch, and I grew up in the land of hugs (Hawaii)—my mental and emotional health require it.

So I hug, while praying that God will protect me from deadly viruses and germs.

 

 

As you go forward this week, I want to leave you with two things that have lifted my spirit and given me more joy and peace.

 

Lockdown

Yes there is fear.

Yes there is isolation.

Yes there is panic buying.

Yes there is sickness.

Yes there is even death.

But,

They say that in Wuhan, after so many years of noise,

You can hear the birds again.

They say that after just a few weeks of quiet,

The sky is no longer thick with fumes

But blue and grey and clear.

They say that in the streets of Assisi

People are singing to each other

across the empty squares,

keeping their windows open

so that those who are alone

may hear the sounds of family around them.

They say that a hotel in the West of Ireland

is offering free meals and delivery to the

housebound.

Today a young woman I know

is busy spreading fliers with her number

through the neighbourhood

So that the elders may have someone to call

on.

Today Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and

Temples

are preparing to welcome

and shelter the homeless, the sick, the weary.

All over the world people are looking at their

neighbours in a new way.

All over the world people are waking up to a

new reality.

To how big we really are.

To how little control we really have.

To what really matters.

Love.

So we pray and we remember that

Yes there is fear.

But there does not have to be hate.

Yes there is isolation.

But there does not have to be loneliness.

Yes there is panic buying.

But there does not have to be meanness.

Yes there is sickness.

But there does not have to be disease of the

soul.

Yes there is even death.

But there can always be a rebirth of love.

Wake to the choices you make as to how to

live now.

Today, breathe.

Listen, behind the factory noises of your

panic

The birds are singing again.

The sky is clearing,

Spring is coming,

And we are always encompassed by Love.

Open the windows of your soul

And though you may not be able

to touch across the empty square,

Sing.

 

Fr. Richard Hendrick, OFM

March 13, 2020

 

 

Until next week, when we’ll continue our grief myth discussion,

may you be filled to overflowing with joy, peace, and abundant blessings!

Andrea


Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a fitness pro, senior-ordained chaplain, and award-winning inspirational writer. She works and writes to help people recover from trauma, grief and loss and to live their best lives — physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

After Coronavirus: Fear, Lockdowns, Hope and Rebuilding Lives

Has life changed for you during this coronavirus pandemic and the lockdowns?

Will your life ever return to normal?

Should it?

 

All our lives have changed since this coronavirus pandemic started sweeping across the globe. Some of our lives have changed a little; some have changed dramatically. And some have been upended.

And the question on everyone’s mind is: where do we go from here?

 

Unanswered questions—

Although we’ve been bombarded with opinions, I’m not sure there’s a person alive—including scientists, business owners, or politicians—that know the answer to the question: where do we go from here?

The scientists have their hammer that bangs us on the head with curve flattening mandates, finding therapies, developing vaccines, and not returning to normal until all of that has been accomplished.

The economists’ hammer bangs on the stock market and fears of investors, businesses and nations and signs that economies are collapsing and might never be able to recover.

Fear. Fear. Fear.

When you instill fear, you control the masses.

When you’re afraid, you make decisions based on fear. And fear-driven decisions usually carry poor, or even catastrophic consequences.

We need to take a deep breath, stop watching and listening to media that thrive on villains and catastrophes, and do some serious thinking, praying, and planning.

 

What does the future hold?

There was a moment for many when they wondered if they’d experienced their all-is-lost moment. That point they knew without a shadow of a doubt that life was never going to be the same for them, or anyone else. They looked into the black hole of life’s future and saw, well, a black hole.

And today I’m going to ask a hard question. A question I’ve asked myself, and one my husband and I have been pondering.

Should our lives return to normal?

 

Your personal future—

I think we’re all thinking about our futures. What they hold and what they’ll look like. What we’ve lost. What we had and will have to give up.

And some of us are scared by the vision.

 

My husband’s company is already running the algorithms to discern whether the curve-flattening calculations lined up (I’ll let you know that answer later); and figuring out the best way to return the employees to a safe work environment.

They’re incorporating things like rolling starts, with some employees returning soon and others later. Right now my husband might not return to the physical plant for another 18 months.

And they’re looking at mandatory workplace practices like wearing masks, making sure employees can maintain safe (social) distances during work. Some people working on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; others might work longer hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

They’ve been contact tracing—figuring out who a sick person has come in contact with during their work day, and testing his contacts—since the beginning, and that practice will likely continue.

While my husband is thrilled at the prospect of working from home for another 18 months, a lot of his co-workers are not. They’ve had enough of it, with their kids and spouses in the same house all day. They’re bored. They don’t know what to do with themselves.

 

My husband and I can, and can’t, understand that.

It seemed like a great time to connect with family. Of course, as a former home schooling family, we’re well aware of the obstacles, frustrations, and deep learning curve you transcend in the initial home school transition, being both teacher and parent, and keeping kids challenged, focused, entertained, learning, and reasonably happy.

So we empathize with everyone that got dropkicked into the paradigm.

As for me, I’ve been doing what I was doing prior to the stay-at-home orders: writing in isolation in my study, staring through my French doors and picture windows at the backyard wildlife and budding flowers for inspiration, and meeting with writing and Bible study groups on ZOOM.

Of course ZOOMing with your groups isn’t the same as meeting in person and sharing the energy of writing and critiquing, and hugging and listening, but there have been benefits to it.

For introverts, this lockdown thing has been a boon.

For extroverts whose spirits are shriveling from lack of personal and group contact, not so much.

But none of us want to be stuck in a life of failed dreams, regrets and fears.

 

Moving from fear to peace—

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by scary, all-over-the-map emotions, I want to help you move from fear to peace. From insecurity to security. From doubt to trust. From despair to fear.

When looking at your future, what do you see?

If we rephrase that, we can ask: what do I want and hope to see?

 

Because it really is about hope. Hope in our future. And while our futures may not look like we thought they were going to look at the beginning of the year, we can make sure they’re still full of hope and purpose.

When we take the current paradigm that in some ways looks like that big black yawning hole, or misty fog, we can re-work it to paint a picture. A lovely one that allows us to make the best of the days and times we have.

That allows us to look at these times as a gift to be enjoyed and treasured.

A time to ask the Lord what He’s preparing us for, and what we can learn while navigating the valleys.

 

 

An ancient story that gives tips for our present one—

Several thousand years ago, a little nation faced a similar, gargantuan challenge. More than a challenge, really. A devastating destruction of their homeland and their dreams and hopes for their future, businesses, and families.

It was the nation Israel, and God had decided to use an evil neighboring nation to discipline them. (Israel had fallen away from the promises they’d make to God about living the way He wanted them to. They were overrun with immoral behavior and unfair, deceitful business practices and had grown fat, arrogant hearts.)

I can imagine they thought their 70 years of captivity (3 generations) spelled a death knell for their nation, and for each of them personally. They were likely horrified, and terrified. Prospects for any kind of fruitful, enjoyable living looked bleak.

But God wasn’t blind or deaf to their pain, and He instructed His prophet Jeremiah to give some encouragement to these exiled people:

 

“Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons; and give your daughters in marriage; that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jer. 29:5-7).

 

I believe we can use this instruction as encouragement right now. Lift out the important directives and you have a list of positive, action-oriented words.

A to-do list for living, and multiplying, and prospering. Things you can build hope and a future on.

  • Build
  • Live
  • Plant
  • Eat
  • Get married
  • Encourage your kids to marry
  • Have babies
  • Encourage your kids to marry and have babies, to produce another generation
  • Multiply
  • DO NOT decrease.
  • Seek the welfare of the city in which you’re living, (no matter what the circumstances).
  • Pray to God on the city’s behalf, so
  • You can enjoy the welfare the city enjoys.

 

God didn’t want His people to shrink back, stagnate, wallow in despair over what they lost and didn’t have, and disappear.

He wanted them to THRIVE.

And I think He’s calling us to do the very same right now, in the midst of the dire warnings, the fears, the hammer slinging and smashing.

He doesn’t want us to shrink back, stagnate, or wallow in despair over what we’ve lost and might not regain.

 

So whom will you heed?

The fear-mongers?

Or the God who loves and gives and guides and directs?

 

No matter how long this pandemic goes on, I’m fairly certain God wants you to settle in, raise your family, be fruitful, be a valuable member of your community, and prosper!

 

Confronting realities—

I know many of us will have tremendous difficulties regrouping and planning futures. They may take some time to re-establish.

For others, we feel as though we were living the good life, minding our business and then abruptly flattened on the sidewalk of life. Unable to peel ourselves off the pavement and keep going. We’ve lost our jobs, our paychecks, our resources.

Or we’ve had to say goodbye to family members through remote funerals.

Some of it seems too overwhelming to confront or think about.

In order to emerge from the mess, right our family’s life and us, and build, multiply and prosper, it may take time.

But what better time than now to take stock of our time and our talents, pray for guidance, and formulate new plans? To build and architect hopes for a new future.

As author Dr. Jeff Meyers says in his new book Unanswered Questions, we are “no more than one heartbeat away from eternity.”

And that’s true for all of us.

And because of that, each day—each moment—should be regarded and treated as a gift. As Dr. Meyers emphasizes, it will “change the way we think about God, other people, and, well, everything.”

With Christ in your heart and at the helm of your life and thoughts, meaning will emerge out of fear, hopelessness and emptiness.

 

The future—

A recent ministry newsletter I received pointed out that in the best-case scenario, there will likely be genuine and serious challenges for many of us as a result of what happened.

And even in the worst-case scenario, our God and King is still in control, and our hope has ever been in Him, not in the situations and circumstances of this world.*

And they highlighted one of my favorite Bible verses; one I’ve leaned on innumerable times in scary situations:

“Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9

 

Those algorithm results—

So what did data experts in my husband’s company discover from examining the infamous modeling we’ve heard and seen in numerous news reports?

That the curve flattening data and numbers didn’t weren’t lining up. The results weren’t validating the projections.

But does that really matter now that businesses and jobs are lost, that lives are in shambles, and life has been drastically altered?

 

We can’t rewind the clock three months and request a do-over. We need to take what we’ve been given today and make the most of it.

We need to ask: Where do we go from here? What do we need? What do our family, city, state and nation need? And how can we contribute to those needs?

The sooner we ask and answer these questions, the better off we’ll be, and the better headed in the right direction to rebuild our futures. And to prosper in them.

 

 

Invitation—

I invite you to ask yourself some of the same questions my family and I are exploring.

  1. What does my life look like now, and what would I want it to look like next month, by year’s end? Next year?
  2. Given my circumstances right now, how can I achieve that vision? (And how could I change my circumstances to make the achievement more likely?)
  3. What research do I need to do, what counselors do I need to seek out to help me achieve those goals and make that vision vivid and real?
  4. How can we build, plant, eat, multiply, bless, pray and contribute to prosperity so we can all prosper? (Have a brainstorming session and write down ideas. Don’t be afraid to dream, like you did when you were a kid. And don’t knock any ideas you write down. You can evaluate them in a few days or weeks to decide which ones are most important to you and doable.)
  5. If I have the time (and health), whom can I help or volunteer with? If I have the financial resources, whom can I support or lift up with my resources?
  6. Is there anything good I experienced during the lockdown that I would like to continue in the future?

 

NEXT WEEK: We’ve all had some dreams fritter away, abruptly evaporate, or be put on hold due to COVID-19 and the lockdowns. Rather than ignore them, it’s important to identify and validate the emotions this life-altering pandemic has unleashed. And grieve losses of all types.

I’ll be giving you tips for accepting and being comfortable with those emotions and grieving those losses.

You won’t want to miss this valuable post!

Until then,

pray, plan, build, multiply, bless, and prosper.

Andrea

Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a fitness pro, chaplain, and award-winning inspirational writer. She works and writes to help people recover from grief and loss and to live their best lives — physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

*Jews for Jesus April newsletter