The incredible inside information none of us can ignore

We hardly recognise it, but our world is full of lies in what it tells us.  It’s not people inherently, nor is it about conspiracy theories, but the information we get about ourselves most often is not just unhelpful, it’s highly subjective and so often just plain untrue.

Think about the things that you were told, that you get from another person, who has developed their view.  Contrast those things with what you know to be true from your knowledge of the Word that came from God.

Or consider the things we tell ourselves, when we miss a job opportunity, or we are assessed, or that our bank balance tells us, or our history for that matter.  Maybe there are reprehensible and regrettable things we cannot undo.  Maybe there’s something better than just me our acceptance, which seems impossible in some cases anyway.

We need to come back to the inside information that none of us can ignore, which are the true and undeniable and irrefutable facts that pertain to us.

How often are we not told this?  How often, as we even live in our Christian communities, are we not told this?  How pervasive is it that we live pretty much all our lives within a thinking system that consigns us to misery?

The fact is we are all children of God, and there’s only one condition about this: it’s self-imposed.  We only need to nod at the right times, and we are in.  Nobody can read Psalm 139 or Isaiah 43 or the words, “I will never leave you nor forsake you,” which echo right through biblical scripture, and be under any false apprehension.

The facts of the matter that are buried deep inside us, and these can never change, is we are the beloved of God.

LOVE IS EVIDENCE OF GOD

“We love because God first loved us.”  (1 John 4:19)  Think of this fact for a moment.  Nobody, no matter who they are, is beyond the reach of love.  Even those who do the worst atrocities imaginable do these atrocities because they have not been loved.  They did the violence because of a lack of love.  Love reaches everyone, all the time.

The reason any of us can be hurt or traumatised from abuse is because we need love and where that has been absent, or worse, the opposite has been done to us, we bear the signs and marks of what was needed and required, yet has not been received.

Our human need of love is incontestable.

No matter what our religion is, what we think of God, what country we come from, what ideology we espouse.

Love is evidence of God.  Because there is love, because of its constancy, and because love is everywhere, whether by its absence or its presence, we can know that God is unquestionably present everywhere, all the time.

AGREEING ‘WHO’ (AND ‘WHOSE’) WE ARE

The simple matter of belief upon God is of acceptance.  All we need to do is accept the fact that we need love, and that need is met only truly and fully in God.

We can be duped into thinking that our needs of love can be met in other ways.  But what I’ve shown here proves this isn’t the case.  All other love is a conditional love, including human love, because we only need to see that human love always holds out the potential to betray us.  Yet God’s love never does.  God’s love never dies.

God’s love for us, as much as it is perfect, as much as it is unchangeable, as much as it is trustworthy, is all for us, and it can never be disputed.

This is the incredible inside information that never goes away, and remains an eternal truth, all through our lives, that none of us can ignore.

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The tearful shall not be condemned, only cherished, by God

So many times, as I scan the laments — Psalms 6, 13, 22, 31, 39, etc. — we know that God knows us when we read the words that have survived millennia.

We may pour out our tears in the bitterest of anguish at times, and yes, for myriads of reasons, so many of which we cannot fully comprehend, and still there is God, pushing the pages of the psalms, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Job, Ecclesiastes toward us.

Paul wept bitter tears.  And Jesus wept.  So are we to feel condemned when we’re broken for the circumstances of life as they wash over us?  No, we will be broken by far more than self-pity, and even if that’s part of our lot, we find ourselves in some stellar biblical company!

Whether our eyes are swollen with grief (Ps. 31:9) or we feel God has abandoned us (Ps. 39:12) or we feel we’re swimming in our tears (Ps. 6:6), we know that God identifies intimately with our brokenness.

God reminds us that there is eventual joy out of the investment of grief (Ps. 30:5 and Ps. 126:6), just as we’re reminded that one day, one day sooner than we realise perhaps, there will be no more mourning, where all our tears will be wiped away by God (Rev. 7:17; 21:4).

And though some of our grief is irreconcilable this side of eternity, we know God sees us in our brokenness, and hears us not just audibly but the groans of our souls, and cares enough to attend by the coming of Divine Presence we feel in our grief, as we pray our complaints knowing that God despises none of our prayers.

We imagine our God being the perfect bedsit.  The companion who knows our hearts through and through.  Though we might occasionally condemn ourselves, God never does.  Never, ever.

So, don’t come here to be condemned.  Nor will you find anything but acceptance in the arms of God, the God who cherishes you all the more when you feel windswept with grief.

He and she in human form, who know the bitter gall of tears will certainly be the incarnation of Jesus with you and for you.  And every step of the way they will intercede for you and make you never to feel you’re a burden.  They bear your burdens as the Lord Jesus, for they themselves tasted another’s incarnational care.

Don’t be condemned.  Feel the sweet breeze of acceptance rising over and through you as you weep those howling tears.

Your God and mine redeems us both; for both of us our God says, “You are mine.” (Isaiah 43:1)

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Manage, do not attempt to master, your mental health

It is always more realistic to manage our mental health than aspire to master it.

To err is to be human, they say.

It seems so simple, I know.  One thing I’ve come to realise about myself is that managing my mental health is more a task of mastery than mastering my mental health ever could be.

It’s such a pity that we focus on needing to see people healthy of mind, when it would be better to look at the resilience of a person who has battled to overcome their mind.

Think of the respect they acquire in owning their lot and acknowledging their frailties.

The person who is overcoming their mind, and is learning to manage their mental health, is a person both tenacious and wise, and they are humble, too, because they know just how much work has been involved, and they respect everyone on that journey.

The person who manages their mental health, including the ups and downs, and accepts their lot, is a person that God has taught to be humble.  They know their limits of control and they accept what they cannot change.  And see again how they have the courage to change the things that they can.

They have experienced the temptation of the enemy trying to entice them to master what only God can master.  They have learned by bitter experience that perfection is the enemy of the good, and that progress is all we can have a hope to attain to.

Have you noticed that those people who have settled for managing their mental health rather than insisting they master it seem much more patient with others?

But those who insist on mastering their mental health either blur into denial or tempt madness.

There is a grace that resilience teaches us, and we do well to celebrate the acquisition of such teaching.

It is always more realistic to manage
our mental health than aspire to master it.

There are no words for the little moments that can only be lived

As the day approached when we knew we would lose Nathanael, some anonymous saint left us a card with the words,

“Dear Steve, Sarah and family,

We know that there are no words that can be said to ease your pain.  But cherish these weeks.  You are this baby’s mother and father.  As you stroke your tummy, you stroke him or her as only a mother can.  When you read to Ethan at night you read to this baby.  As you sing and pray you do it with this baby.  And when you hold each other, you cuddle this baby as only a mother and father can.  These are cherished moments...”

This card was such a gift to us at the time, because we had not conceived the thought that we could be so present with our baby, Nathanael.

Those little moments came and went, and we certainly had no regrets with how we spent our time, even if the weeks and the days that lead up to Nathanael being stillborn were an absolute frenetic blur.

I still like to write about those days.  I never want to lose connection with that time.  In many ways, time is frozen from that time, even though I cannot understand it, and would prefer it a different way.  Still, it is a possession; something we have not lost amid all the loss.

Little moments can only be lived, and words don’t add much at all, though we are forgiven for adding them on, whilst hoping they are not given as platitudes carelessly.

Grief is a portal into eternity where the time of loss is frozen like a capsule forever etched someplace gone.

It isn’t supposed to be returned to us, not in this lifetime, yet if we are brave enough to believe, perhaps it will be returned to us when we have arrived ultimately on eternity’s celestial shore.

When life is all a little too much

I just sat down this morning, with a job to do, but with little motivation.  I had missed a family Zoom call, I was watching my wife sweep and my son play outside, I was pondering a very tragic set of events close to me and its effects on our community, and just for a moment I was a little overwhelmed; probably not in a felt state but in my mind.

I wanted to be part of the Zoom call, but just couldn’t, as I’d committed myself to something else.  That was okay.  I wanted to engage with the work that my wife was doing, but just couldn’t.  All I could do was watch.  I wanted to play with my son, but just couldn’t.  I just sat there and watched.

There was no need to get angry.

There was no need to toy with ideas of giving up.

There was no need to judge myself as being ‘less than’ I ought to be.

There was only the need to accept the overwhelming presence of the moment.

I could certainly have given in to the presence of sadness for how it made me feel.

Sadness can seem so useless, because there doesn’t seem to be anything positive about it, but sadness, as we regale with its truth, is an investment.

Sorrow, against everything that we are otherwise feel, takes us to a place where we can start afresh from the beginning, from the right place, from an appreciative perspective.

But we avoid such a place, because it doesn’t feel like the right direction to face or to go in at all.  It feels foreign and alien and like something of no good and of no worth at all.

It’s only when we come to the end of ourselves that we truly appreciate WHO is the beginning.

Sorrow is (unfortunately due to the pain it involves) a normal and natural emotion we cannot escape from; well, it makes little sense to try to escape from it.

The fact is right now, more than ever, we will have these feelings of inexplicable sorrow.  We shouldn’t mourn such feelings, even if it feels like all our hope is vanquished.

This, in the very heart of it, is where the heart of God resides; in our nothingness where we cannot help but face our brokenness.  This is where God has our attention.  This is where we make the greater gain spiritually.

But we must expect that it won’t feel right, and we must stay in that moment that seems beyond us and find the gentlest response that rallies with our sorrowful truth.

We reach out and connect with someone who will listen and not judge and just let us be.

This is the priceless quality of helpful community.

Or, if practising the presence of God is something of a gift you have, prayer and contemplation in the silence of the solemnity of your soul is your imminent opportunity.

And if neither of these is available to us, we can reach out to a pastor or counsellor we know and simply ask that they pray for us.  It is their honour to walk with you.

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Dealing with a senseless tragedy that strikes out of nowhere

Take the scenario of hearing of a tragedy that leaves you reeling in response.  It’s close and it’s personal.  How you feel and how you deal with it will be as unique as you are.

This is what I’d want to say if I were having a conversation with you, but I would actually be focusing on listening to you, so I would hope to communicate these things subtly through the conversation.

In any event, these are the things I’d want you to know.

I would want to say some things about what you might be feeling.  You will probably feel shocked, and because of that, you might actually feel nothing.

You might be feeling guilty for not feeling much at all.  I can’t tell you that you shouldn’t, but what you feel or don’t feel isn’t your fault.

You could be overwhelmed with the news and not be able to get it out of your mind.  A preoccupied mind is a very common thing within the early stages of grief, and anytime really where concerns are too intense to manage.

You might also be feeling bad perhaps for a range of other reasons that we can discuss here — but if you feel they are too personal I would want to say that my interest is to keep you safe.  That you shouldn’t feel under pressure to communicate anything.  Say and do what comes naturally.  And try not to judge yourself as being right or wrong.

I would want to say to you that anything you’re feeling, whilst it may be yucky, all-consuming of you, horrendous or downright confusing; whatever you’re feeling, it is normal.  I wish there was a better or different way.  Unfortunately, there isn’t.

What you’re experiencing is a grief process, which you may not be acquainted with, and even if you know grief, this particular tragedy may trigger unexpected responses.

What one person feels will be completely different to what another person feels.

If you’re not directly affected in the tragedy, it will still impact you quite a bit at this time.  If the tragedy affects you directly, your losses will involve you in an extended period of grief.  Know that while the grief process is arduous, you will get through it.  Take comfort if you can in that thought.

One thing I don’t think is a good idea at this time is to get distracted on the details of the incident, unless you’re directly involved in reconciling them.  It is much more helpful to deploy your energies on your mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing.

With that I would want you to open up and share if you can.  It doesn’t need to be about anything particularly; I wouldn’t want you to feel under any pressure.  If you would prefer to stay silent that is okay.  If you would want to speak about what you’ve been up to, that too is okay.  I’d be happy to sit with you in the silence, but only if that was okay for you.

You might want to know how you can pray.  You might want to discuss how to experience God’s comforting presence at this time.  You might have questions about what you’re feeling; please, I would want you to trust this space if you can and to ask them.  If you feel awkward about anything, I would be happy to chat with you later about it if need be, but no pressure.  I would want you to feel that I am there for you.

The one thing I would want you to know is keep safe.  Do what you can to be gentle with yourself, and to be patient with your feelings.  Take life one day and one moment at a time.

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Lonely? Angry? Overwhelmed? Tired? Scared? Anxious? Depressed?

Not everyone is lonely, angry, overwhelmed, tired, scared, anxious or depressed, but too many than were before are.  Knowing this helps you not feel so alone.

Because the overall level of mental health need has risen, and because individual needs can so easily be lost in the noise, many more than normal don’t get the attention they deserve, whether it be family or from mental health care workers.

This article is for someone in crisis, and it may just be for today or tonight. Sometimes crises emerge and stay for a while and sometimes they just crop up every now and then.  Then there is that horrible beast of spiritual attack.

If you are lonely, angry, overwhelmed, tired, scared, anxious or depressed right now, or even if one or some of these describes you in your present season, I want you to know that I’m interceding for you; praying you will feel some connection of compassion through these words.

I have experienced all of these things, and enough of each of them regularly enough to know how perilous one can feel. It may seem bizarre when I say this, but I am actually of the strong belief that suffering these things is a gift, just not the kind of gift we would want.  But afterwards, after the season of suffering has passed, we discover we have grown.

The gift of these things piques our spiritual awareness, creates depth of character, and refines our empathy of compassion. 

If you are lonely, and especially if there are practical reasons for your loneliness, my heart goes out to you, because there is hardly a worse feeling than feeling alone in this world.

If you are angry, chances are your anger masks the pain of sorrow or fear.  Or perhaps you are simply frustrated. Whatever the cause, I pray that you would be gentle with yourself and others, and that you would experience a peace that surpasses all understanding.

If you are overwhelmed and really don’t know where to turn, my prayer for you is for clarity, and for the ability of your mind to reconcile what is being required of you. If you simply do not know what to do, and that is a source of panic for you, I pray that the way would be made plain, the path for you to tread.

If you are tired, whether physically for lack of sleep, or mentally, emotionally, or spiritually because of burnout, I pray you would get the rest you need.  It is normal to feel like you’ve got nothing left to give, so please do not judge yourself.

If you feel scared, because you sense you are out of control, or there are elements of your life that are controlling you, my prayer is for you to arrive at your necessary need of safety. I do pray for a physical sense of intercession, that the situation might change so you feel more in control over these scary elements of life.  It is not your fault you feel this way.

If you feel anxious, and there’s nothing you can do about the physical symptoms you feel, I pray that cognitively you can think your way into moments of mindful peace.  Granted that this is a practice that must honed, I pray that your anxiety would cause you to enter a spiritual search for strategies to manage it the best you can.

If you feel depressed, and most of your life feels out of your control, and you have no energy even for those things you’re passionate about, I pray most of all that you would be able to experience a moment’s hope.  I pray that you don’t feel self-judged or judged by anyone.  I pray that you feel that you are doing your best, because you are, and that you know that is good enough.

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When regression strikes hard, it’s a sign of traumatic grief

Many individuals and families are under tremendous stress right now, as we all wrestle with not only the grief of this time, but also with the momentousness of change that continues to sweep through all our lives every single day.

We are all doing our best to adapt to this ever-and-rapidly-changing environment.

Every single day, and often many times per day, there is the constancy of News stories, government announcements, and new developments, and all of this within a context of the unknown.  Worse than ever, our culture that elevates and virilises outrage is creating daily sensations which simply magnify the noise.

Let’s look to the actual impact of the grief we are experiencing.

This is a predictable pattern: experiencing grief is traumatic, and trauma causes us to regress.  It’s not just with children that this occurs, but we very well need to understand children are integrally affected.

But if we take the case of an adult who is plunged into grief because of the losses they bear, we can see how an adult will feel traumatised, and we can understand that this trauma will cause the adult to redress mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.  At least for the short term; until they adjust.

How much more important is it then to empathise with children, who in their raw child state, will bear the features of this pattern of trauma and regression so much more poignantly?

The backward steps we are taking right now that we may be ashamed of, or feel guilty about, are normal, and these backward steps are actually the precursor to the process of adjustment we’re all making.

Indeed, backward steps of regression and adjustment are evidence of beautifully sensitive souls impacted at present by a world infected with unprecedented uncertainty and constant change.

But the tricky thing for most of us is we see ourselves taking backward steps of regression and we’re harsh with ourselves.  This is very much a human default.

We criticise and condemn ourselves, which in some ways is a self-protection strategy, for we may fear others stepping in to criticise and condemn us, and because that’s more painful than our own self-judgement, we pile onto ourselves with blame-talk.

Backward steps quickly take the shape of self-loathing.  What we actually need to do is talk to ourselves and reassure ourselves that what we are facing is grief, and that we WILL feel traumatised, and that we WILL respond by regressing.

The thing we need to do most of all is be gentle with ourselves at these times, and particularly help children understand when they face this, that what they are experiencing is normal.

We and they may want to escape it or fix it, but because we can only accept it, these situations beyond our control WILL traumatise us, and we will then face the prospect of adjusting.

The last thing we need is to judge ourselves for regressing.

In the world that worships performance and success, now is the time more than ever that we need to back off the pressure.  Now is the time to be still.

Now is the time to look at what is most unsavoury and just simply say, this is unpleasant, but this too shall pass.  That is not easy, but it is doable.

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3 useful lenses through which to view our present grief

Everyone is grieving at present.  Proof of this is our need of humour.  As a world, we are still in a state of numbness and disbelief.

Whether you are:

·      a child who is confused by what is going on, 

·      a parent overwhelmed with home-schooling, 

·      a teacher struggling to set syllabus, 

·      a health worker trying to keep up and not become infected, 

·      a worker who has lost their job, 

·      an athlete who is no more events to compete in and is losing shape,

·      a person whose skills have been made redundant,

·      a person with the illness itself,

·      stuck in self-isolation or quarantine

·      etc

... or any combination of these, these issues are only part of our problem; they’re only part of the grief burden we are carrying at any time.

There is a threefold lens I want to share with you. This will help us frame our reality, which will help each of us understand why we are feeling the way we are feeling. It will also help us accept that what we’re feeling is normal. Correspondingly we won’t judge ourselves as harshly as we otherwise might.

The threefold lens is simply this.  There is:

·      a grief that is common to all of us

·      a grief that some of us share

·      a grief that is unique to us alone

Let’s take each one of these lenses through which to view grief and peer through each one.

GRIEF THAT IS COMMON TO ALL

The ambience of anxiety is increased overall, as society wrestles with the truly incredible and unprecedented reality that the world faces; a health, financial and social burden.

Everyone is affected in some way.  The present circumstances bring change into everyone’s life.  It’s unavoidable.

People may respond in denial, as if this is no big deal, but that is still a grief response, because the reality is too big to contemplate or take seriously for these.

People may respond the other way.  They may buy up all the toilet paper.  And observable grief — fear, anger, etc — may be a constant pattern.

The majority of us are affected, perhaps in less observable ways, neither by denial nor preoccupation, because we’re all impacted.  The grief is common to us all.  We are in this together.

GRIEF THAT SOME OF US SHARE

Having all experienced general feelings of loss and anxiety — some very little, some very much — there is a common thread through it all, but not everything that the next person experiences do we experience.

Some of us have lost jobs, but some of us are busier than ever, and whilst some of us don’t understand the boredom that some feel, others would pay a handsome price for a purpose at this time.

Both types of experience involve change, and because change involves loss, grief is experienced by people on both sides of the fence.

Few people accept change as an opportunity, and there are varying types of change, so there are different sets of loss experienced.

The variety of the grief that we personally experience is similar but not the same to that which others experience.

Some of us have experienced significant loss in the past, and this can both be a disadvantage or an advantage in dealing with the present grief.

GRIEF THAT IS UNIQUE TO US ALONE

Each of us respond to crises in different ways.  There is no set way to grieve.  The present crisis affects us all very individually.  And although the general ambience of anxiety has increased, this affects us all so differently.

We all have multiple different factors going on at any one time, which makes our experience of the trauma we’re all facing different; different perceptions, life situations, social factors affecting us, among many more.

The fact is we’re not only going to grieve differently, we’re allowed to, and we’re best to accept that this will be the case in any event.

Our grief is common, shared and unique.  We’re in this together, though not everyone will understand, and at times it will only be God who will understand.

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