In Memory of Adam

For an Angel on His Birthday

Happy Birthday to an Angel

May you know how much you’re missed

By all of those whose lives you touched

Which are more than I could list.

May you enjoy this day

With your Father above,

In the light of His glory,

And wrapped in His love.

My prayers are with your family and friends

Who all are missing you so.

The ones who stood beside you

Through the years, and watched you grow

From a small boy full of mischief,

To a grown man proud and tall,

To a warrior filled with courage,

A fallen soldier who gave all.

Thank you, dear angel, for selflessly living

The life that you so freely gave

For love of your brothers, for love of your country,

The land of the free and the brave.

I’m sure of the words of our Father above

As into Heaven He welcomed you.

“Well done, my son, you’re finally home

My good servant, faithful and true.”

Happy Birthday Adam.

Thoughts on Grieving

Sorry this first one is not all that cheerful. But I found this one in my "In Progress" folder and it was actually already complete! :)


Thoughts on grieving…

When we grieve, we grieve not only for the one we lost. We grieve for every single possibility that may have awaited us in our future. All the questions of “what if” and “if only”, which begin to creep into our heads the very second that person is taken from us.

“What if he hadn’t been at the wrong place at the wrong time?”
“What if he had somehow lived through it?”
“What if I had said more often how I felt?”
“What if he had made it back home safely?”
“What if we were meant for each other?”

We can’t run from the questions. Well, we can run from them, but not forever, and not with good results. Not only must we turn around and face these nagging, unanswerable questions... We must take each one in turn, walk with it down the road of the mind’s eye, accompany it to the dead-end that awaits, and watch helplessly as it dies a slow, agonizing death. Then we must trek back to the starting point, only to pick up another unanswerable question and begin the same journey once more.

To me, there is a very fine line between working through grief and torturing yourself. Honestly, the process is the same, the questions are the same. But the factors which determine which result you’ll get (healing or torment) are your attitude, your faith, and your determination not to become completely overcome by the grief.

It’s important to understand that it’s okay to have a bad day. Grieving is not supposed to be some neat, orderly process, where each day is always better than the ones before. Some days you just can’t face the grief, and that’s okay. Don’t push yourself to. Heaven knows it will still be there waiting for you when you’re ready to pick it back up again and face it. But don’t hide out too long, either. The anger and grief will fester and eat at you until the day comes when you must either release the grief or let it destroy you.

I think one thing that makes grieving so hard is being overly concerned with whether or not you’re doing it right, or fast enough, or slowly enough. I know for me, I was terrified of not going through the grieving process correctly and at an acceptable pace, for fear that I would have to retrace my steps, or end up emotionally scarred for a lifetime. So after reading up a bit on the topic of grieving, I picked up several tips. Some were from educated professionals who study the mind, and some from caring souls who have walked the road already and want to help out those who come behind them. So, here is my advice… my one all-encompassing tip on grieving.

Gather together every piece of advice on grieving and loss, whether you consider it to be good or bad. Print it out and put it all together in a notebook. Got it? Now throw that notebook as far away from you as possible. Or set the thing on fire. Feel better? Didn’t think so. Feel alone and vulnerable and petrified and directionless? Good. You have to work through your grief in your own way, and in your own time. You cannot borrow someone else’s notes and cheat on this test. Doesn’t work that way. Suppose someone tells you to go through five stages, in this specific order, and allow 3-5 weeks for each. But you really needed only 3 stages, and you needed 6 months in each. You may very well end up at least temporarily, if not irreversibly, screwed up. That grieving plan, though it may have worked for someone else, is not your own individual plan, and it will not work for you.

All notebook-burning joking aside… Here is what I would suggest, and what I will hopefully do the first time around whenever I have cause to grieve again. Pray. Ask God to make you sensitive to what you need, when you need it. Trust. You have to know that you can depend on God completely during this entire process. Give yourself freedom. When you feel like crying, cry. When you feel like looking through old letters and pictures, do it. When you feel like writing, write. When you feel like dying, fight. When you don’t think you can think about it for one more second, don’t. Think about something else. Or someone else. One of the best ways to get your mind off yourself and your problems is to reach out and do something for someone else.

Just know that God will get you through it. Lean on Him and trust Him with all your heart.


Psalm 23

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not be in want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my
cup overflows.
Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of
the LORD forever.

More Than a Conqueror

I lost a dear friend recently. I lost him so quickly I didn't even know what had happened. One day he was alive, the next he was not. But I also lost something else - something even more important - my faith. This loss was not nearly as quick or as obvious, and perhaps not as complete, but for all intents and purposes, until a few weeks ago, my faith was gone. Adam's death shook me to my core, snatching out from under me anything not firmly rooted. I could tell myself that I'd be okay, and that with time it would get easier, but I was not seeing any evidence of that, and without faith, we rely on what we see. What I saw was myself becoming a whirlwind of emotions, not knowing what to expect from my own self. All I knew was that I did not want a life like that. I came to a breaking point one day, and literally could barely function. I could not think a rational thought, and I could sense myself sinking and sinking into a place I had never been. It terrified me.

Then two very special people in my life came along and grabbed me by the hand, and started trying to pull me back out. At first, their efforts did little more than keep me from sinking further, but at least that was progress. One of these people made me stop and take a step back. She told me to look at my life and decide what needed to give - because something had to. She told me I needed to get away. Any excuse I offered up she was not willing to accept. She offered to let me use her car, said she would pay for the gas, and she even called some friends to see if I could stay with them. She basically did all but drive me there.

The second person was my rock - my shoulder to cry on, and my listening ear. As hard as it was for me to reach out for help, she knew when I needed it. And as many other things as she probably needed to be doing with her time, she was more than willing to give me all the time I needed. She was ready to talk when I needed her to, and ready to sit in silence with me when I needed that. And she never lost faith in me. Though I had lost most of mine, she kept her's strong. She told me that even if I didn't have faith, she did, and she had enough for both of us.

After only the first day of my trip, I knew that I would be okay. So now, a few weeks later, I'm sitting here wondering exactly what happened to me. Did I lose my faith? Or was it my faith that kept me from going under? What I find ironic is that everything I've learned, and everything I needed to hear, all along was right there in black and white and red, in the Bible. I just couldn't accept it, mostly because I was angry. But now, whenever I think about what I've learned from all of this, I realize that it's a Bible verse I've read somewhere along the way. And now I just crave more of it.

The truths I was not accepting I'm now seeking out and wanting to find. The faith I thought was dead is suddenly unprecedentedly strong. And the God I was so angry with is the one I want to be close to more than anything. So, ultimately, what I've learned through this experience, and what I've known my whole life, are one in the same:

In all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. And I am more than a conqueror through Him who loves me. For neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Thoughts

I think that tragedies,

As horrible and painful as they are,

Can ultimately bring some good with the bad.

I think the deciding factor is us -

whether we choose to accept it.

God gives and He takes away.

He took you away from me.

What choice am I faced with?

I can be angry at God,

And grow bitter and resentful.

I can choose to keep the void

you left open and painfully empty.

Or I can accept it as God's will,

And choose to fill that void

with His goodness and love.

Obviously, I'll choose the latter -

Because who wants a life of bitterness and pain?

Of course, if it were up to me,

If I were allowed to pick,

I'd choose to have you and my God.

But evidently I wasn't meant to have both.

So every empty place you've left behind,

I will let God fill.

He can be our mutual friend.

You're hanging out with Him in Glory,

And I'm clinging to Him to get through each day.