10,000 Reasons for my Heart to Find: DAY 1

22 January 2018

1.              Privilege to write a Newsletter others will read

2.              Fan to keep us cool and provides white noise

3.              Sleep

4.              Thought of mowing lawns – help Mum and Dad

5.              Ideas I’ll get mowing lawn

6.              I can urinate and get rid of pain of a full bladder that way

7.              Fresh safe water to wash my hands with

8.              Facebook browsing… curiosity I experience

9.              Connecting with a friend’s world

10.          Being able to see statistics for my blogs

11.          Get feedback about how my article is going

12.          Thought of my son waking up in 31 minutes time

13.          The books are packed!

14.          I submit articles and they’re so quickly approved

15.          I sleep with my wife

16.          Message from a mate that gives clarity

17.          Grass underfoot

18.          Park across the road to walk around

19.          The ball I found and the skill I have to enjoy it

20.          The clothes I’m wearing

21.          The concept of time and creation – being about to create imaginatively

22.          My left knee cracks, but there is no pain

23.          Cuddling my wife in bed

24.          Wrestles with my son, the fun we have

25.          I am able to make breakfast for son and lunch for wife

26.          I was going to skip breakfast and my son got me a bowl and filled it

27.          Being thankful for our food

28.          A laugh whilst having breakfast

29.          A car and time to be able to run errands

30.          The barista smiled his joy my way

31.          I received and returned the smile

32.          Received a free coffee when I didn’t expect it

33.          The pleasure of giving my son a chocolate frog

34.          God reminded me to pray for one of my daughters

35.          The way my son says ‘trees’

36.          Watching him play

37.          Listening to him sing while he eats

38.          Him singing 10,000 Reasons with me in the car

39.          Overcoming the temptation to leer at another motorist

40.          Being able and willing to assist my parents with the household tasks they can’t do

41.          Experiencing the will that says I don’t want or need thanks for helping

42.          Realising the therapy in work

43.          The joy of establishing order

44.          Another revelation: everything is a process; i.e. tying rope; respecting the process

45.          Traffic delay reminds me I’m here at God’s pleasure

46.          Traffic delay makes me thankful I’m not the one involved in the collision

47.          Knowing that while I have a sore back I can still move and do many physical things

48.          Realising how important expectations are in the process of gratitude

49.          Realising how grief is helped by gratitude

50.          Realising gratitude is a process

51.          Realising gratitude sown reaps patience

52.          Smoke alarm and RCD maintenance done on home to keep it safe for us to live safe

53.          In preparing to shower, found myself looking at my naked body, and instead of saying ‘you need to lose weight’ I said to myself, ‘perfect, you are looking just like you’

54.          Having clean clothes to wear, and a very generous selection to choose from

55.          Having the wisdom to negotiate with my son to model care for his needs

56.          The sight of a business card that reminds me of a time of insight and learning

57.          For the two-dozen eggs we’re given every fortnight

58.          The wonderful Lego creations my son comes up with

59.          For the phone call from a friend that I just received

60.          The idea I was given for a series on gratitude

61.          For the mess my house is in that reminds me that it’s a home

62.          The work my wife has that brings in much needed income

63.          Reminded that what God gives not the time for ought not be done

64.          Indecision is good when there are two equal options – just choose one

65.          Listening intently to my wife share her work day

66.          Learning about the work processes she tells me about so I have better context for her life

67.          Realising that making a list of 100 things per day means I am forced to look for items to be grateful about

68.          Listening to my wife read to my son; she is a beautifully expressive reader

69.          My opportunity to clean up the tea dishes

70.          My opportunity to pray for safe travels for my wife as she travels to and from worship practice

71.          The opportunity to write my wife a sneaky love note – okay, reminder note she will laugh at

72.          God has shown me over only the first day that gratitude is hard to maintain

73.          Realising that fear creeps in insidiously

74.          For the stake I have in others’ lives I minister with

75.          The sheer luxury I have in my life to do many things at any one time

76.          The story behind a piece of furniture

77.          Three pairs of glasses – that’s right, three!

78.          Engaging my son not going to sleep and his response to accept what I say

79.          The prayers I make for my wife while she’s out

80.          Anticipating time camping this weekend – time to be with wife’s family

81.          Challenges of tomorrow; at least a few jobs not sure how they’ll go, but they’re always a success

82.          The books are packed! Oh yeah, I said that already

83.          The thought that this challenge might beat me

84.          Blinds to close for privacy, blinds to open for light

85.          For the legacy of three daughters making their way in life

86.          The fact that God is dealing with the envy in my heart

87.          I can praise God that this is 950 words already and I don’t know how I’ll sustain this for another 99 days

88.          Paper – to write on

89.          Coffee at 7pm

90.          Pumpkin Patch button

91.          The number of times I’ve thought about graduating this year

92.          I got to see my Mum and Dad today

93.          I’m 50 and they are still alive!

94.          Thought of having 2 more Sundays to prepare for my next sermon

95.          The theme for it – Jesus is Always the Answer – has me excited

96.          Realising 10,000 Reasons is forcing me to look, to see, to discover, to find

97.          Admitting that passion for God wanes over time, but can be excited afresh

98.          I am nearly there for today

99.          For reminders… to put the bins out

100.       For substances that do their job – lens cleaner

101.       Feeling the time pressure, but an equivalent pressure to maintain this list, I overcome

102.       I am forced to stay positive

103.       Wife makes it home safe

104.       Finish PKS Perspective Newsletter

105.       Making good progress on Sermon

106.       Thinking about the role of gratitude and a series – this could be big

107.       Bickford’s cordial on a summer’s night

108.       Still lots of energy at 2117hrs

109.       Back is feeling okay

110.       Reminded by my wife about keeping good business hours etiquette

111.       Sprained ankle isn’t as bad as it could have been

112.       Son is sound asleep – beautiful to watch my children asleep

Gratitude is about process

Item 19 I am grateful for. A ball I found at the park.

SIMPLE things can also seem elusive. Gratitude is a good example of this enigma.

We never seek to be more grateful when we’re grateful — we engage in such a pursuit when we lack gratitude. And the trouble is we can be thwarted at the start of the process and become disillusioned well before we reap some of the fruit of the gratitude we’re sowing.

In sowing in gratitude, we reap in well-being, which is fully expressed in joy.

But how are we to just be grateful? Again, we come to the place where we crave gratitude because we know that that is what is missing. We crave what we don’t have. And we don’t really know the way to acquire it.

Here is what I have found.

Gratitude works in the minutia. It works when our mindset is open and observant enough to see the many things that we ought to be grateful for. As we work into the nodules of time’s moment in the crevices of our senses we see things we don’t normally see. God opens the eyes of our hearts.

Gratitude is a habit, and more than that; it’s a habit that initiates and supports other good and godly habits. The reason we find gratitude hard to sustain is we don’t engage in the process of change long enough. We enjoy the fruit of gratitude and then rest on our laurels. But even in a sustained campaign, our passion for gratitude wanes. It must become a lifetime commitment; something we keep coming back to, one day at a time. It must become a chief virtue with humility and compassion.

As a process, gratitude grows in accordance with our journey into it. As God multiplies blessings, gratitude grows like a tree the more we feed it and light we give it.

Gratitude is a journey into seeing the everyday wonders of life God cannot show us unless we seek them.

The Cup says to the Potter, ‘Make me a Bowl’

Photo by Jonatan Pie on Unsplash

IRONIES herald the enigma of life, that we as a people, routinely look the gift horse in the mouth.

The gift in present focus is the gift of life:

A vision was given to me: “Deprived of Breath”

I forgot how it feels not to be able to breathe.

The fact is breath can be taken anytime.

It can be taken from a loved one anytime.

Without warning, it is taken.

For so many years, decades, we are given it.

Live to 80 and we breath 673,000,000 times.

Every one of them we take for granted.

Until God shows us how tenuous life is.

Until we have a respiratory disorder.

God doesn’t want us to thank Him for every breath.

It would be too hard, too much for our minds.

He wants us to enjoy our lives.

God wants me to be grateful.

So many things I take for granted.

God doesn’t want us to fret unnecessarily.

The vision wasn’t just about breath.

It was about life and the Giver of life.

It was a reminder I needed.

Help me be more grateful, Lord of Life.

God knows that we take life for granted more than we should. Even those connected well with gratitude for what they possess in the moment take some aspects of their lives for granted.

Still, we have daily opportunities to give thanks for crucial elements of our lives.

By not being thankful we look the gift horse in the mouth. In effect, it’s like us being cups and saying to God, the Potter, make us into bowls. He has made us into a cup for a purpose. And who are we to question the Potter? Yet, we do, and God is gracious enough to allow us this insolence.

We breathe, and because we breath we live. We think nothing of taking that breath for granted. Yet, hundreds of millions of breaths are what keep us alive over our lifetime. If air were to be removed from our atmosphere, for even a few minutes, we would immediately begin to die. And still we find room for complaint that immediately overlooks the presence of the gift. (I know I do.)

Sometimes we need to be reminded of how fragile our lives are before we can truly grasp the privilege it is to live this life.

Such a blessed comparison

Photo by Carli Jeen on Unsplash

THERE is one comparison with others we should be making, for our gratitude, to grow in compassion, to train ourselves to see more like God, for our own good. And ultimately for others’ good too.

Have you noticed what happens when you compare yourself with those doing better than you? It has likely made you feel empty and envious. It has probably challenged your self-confidence and self-concept. It has made you less grateful for your life and what you have than you ought to feel.

Have you ever tried comparing with others in the opposite direction? — to compare with those down on their luck compared with you; those less fortunate; those who were born in and live in less materially rich regions of the world; those who have suffered disease and loss and addiction in their families.

When we compare with others we see doing better than us, we end up disappointed. When we compare ourselves with more favourable seasons of past, we end up gloomy. But when we compare with others who aren’t doing so well, we begin to feel two things: grateful for what we have, and we feel empathy for what they don’t have. We certainly shouldn’t feel superior, for the fortunes of life are fickle.

Two opportunities present for us as our awareness of our comparative blessedness increases:

1.     Our gratitude blossoms into joy, because the more we engage in this way of seeing, the more we see the little things we have that others don’t. We enjoy these things more, and we even consider how we might spread the enjoyment we experience to others.

2.     With empathy our character grows in compassion. We feel genuine sadness for what others don’t have, and we may begin to pray for them, and even provide for them, which we understand we need to do in dignifying ways.

Compare not with those who seem better off, but with those who are worse off.

Compare with those doing better and we feel envious, but compare with those undergoing hardship and we feel empathy.

The 3-minute test you spend your whole life preparing for

2226hrs

NEVER do we go through our formative years thinking any of it’s a preparation, but there does come a time when it’s all tested.

One of those pivotal tests for me was between 2300hrs and 2303hrs on October 30, 2014 — meeting my stillborn son. I’ve written about it before, and the reason I write again seems obvious to me. I’m still so amazed that it happened. So real it seems surreal. The scariest moment of my life that I’d have again in a heartbeat if only I could just have him in my arms one final time.

As I looked again through the precious images we have of his birth, I note the time it took for me to meet him, to look at him, to kiss, to touch, to marvel, to grimace, to smell him. It took three whole minutes before I took him over for my wife to meet him. Moments frozen in time. Barely believable if not for the photographic evidence.

The build-up to the emergency caesarean section delivery all seemed in slow motion. It took so much time that several times I wondered, fleetingly, if I really had the grit to do what I was about to do. To do what God and others expected me to do.

What would I feel? Would it overwhelm me? Did I have the courage that the moment would require of me? We were exhausted after a long day of induction for delivery that had gone wrong — did I have the stamina?

Even though I felt some confidence about my answer to these questions, there was no prior experience to draw from. Absolutely uncharted territory. And I could not know how I would handle it until the appointed time came. Between meeting the banter of surgical staff, and reconciling my own private fears alone and with my wife, having had a live birth only the previous year, those minutes ticking up to 2300hrs were tantalisingly alarming.

As it look back there have been several of these kinds of moments over my life. Times when I seriously doubted I could do what I needed to do to succeed. It is common to the human experience to ultimately be taken completely out of our comfort zone.

That moment when the years of preparation come down to holding steady the seconds. Don’t worry. Have faith. You’ll be ready.

Those heaviest of moments, as we look back, required no more courage than many more normal moments, but for simply the decision to stay steady and quell the internal tremor.

How on earth did I arrive here?

Photo by John Noonan on Unsplash

NEARLY fourteen years ago it happened for the first time I recall. Sitting in an AA meeting in Safety Bay, south of Perth, with a bunch of people I barely knew but was trying to get to know.

I was on my own, trying to make a new way, my world turned upside down.

The feeling itself as I recall was fleeting, but it was the lonely realisation that I was on a journey I could have easily resented, and in fact sometimes did.

In that instant, being that the meeting had not quite started, the moment lacked the structure newbies appreciate.

The moment required courage to stand and not run. Yet, because in those situations we cannot run — for social reasons — we stay in the loneliness of the moment, and pray that we will feel better soon.

In that season of life, I experienced the feeling ‘how on earth did I arrive here’ dozens of times — so many times that I got somewhat used to the sort of feeling we never truly get used to. But it’s the kind of alienated loneliness that none of us ever wants to feel. Yet, it truly does us no long-term harm.

And what of those characteristic lowly lonely moments that are typical of the everyday human experience? Not many of us don’t have them. Doesn’t it cause us to have a newfound respect for everyone we encounter? This life calls us to endure so much.

What if we could see the suffering of life in everyone we met. To encounter with compassion and give kindness, all who share this journey of life with us.

Life has the capacity to render our normal a matter of history. Lord, help us be empathetic with those who are asking, right now, or who are about to ask, ‘how on earth did I arrive here?’

How long does grief last?

THIS quote on grief I’ll never forget: “I believe it takes a full three years to get through loss.” (Pastor Craig Vernall, April 2017)

The quote astounded me because it seemingly broke with traditional grief wisdom that pegs it as a two-to-twelve-month acute phase process, and something we never truly overcome, but learn to accept.

But there was something about this quote, and the pastor’s testimony, along with my own, that caused me to become curious. At that point it had been less than three years since we had lost Nathanael. It had been an extraordinary experience of loss where we coped so well, but something still didn’t sit well. It was in reflecting over this philosophy, that grief takes a full three years to find its way out of us, that I found hope.

You see, the overall passage of grief we experienced didn’t involve disabling sorrow, but a sorrow that we could visit or that would visit us just briefly — painfully, but briefly. Nathanael’s memory never left us, and we could always talk about him, without duress, in ways that also helped others. Our grief didn’t bear many of the features of typical grief, probably because we grieved for four months before we ultimately lost him. Yet, I think grief did affect me by accentuating parts of my character — some good, some not so good. I was open and approachable in the way I would write about our experience, and how I interacted with others. But I was also susceptible. What surfaced for me in certain situations was an attitude of entitlement; pocket entitlement to be exact. My vulnerability was exposed whenever I perceived a lack of compassion, because I sensed that compassion was the appropriate response to a person’s pain.

We all have vulnerabilities. Grief is something that draws it to the surface, because in a time of loss, when defences are down, we’re at our weakest. In the final analysis, it was a cruel lesson, but sometimes God allows what seems cruel so He can be kind, and teach us something gently over time by His grace. I learned what I needed to learn, the pain is in the past. That’s what counts.

These reflections can only come with time — years of time. In the pre-three-year period we really haven’t received the benefit of a fuller perspective yet. The time hasn’t been worked through. And if grief is anything it’s the negotiation of time within a reality of radically forced change. We cannot say we’re there yet, because the journey always takes longer than we would wish it would take.

I would be the last person to say that grief has a definitive time period, but for me, for us, given our experience at the time, and given Vernall’s testimony, I was convinced it takes a full three years to more fully recover from grief. This is not to say all of us will fully recover within that timeframe.

It begs the question, though, how long does it take to adjust to loss? It varies from person to person, and, given that grief changes not only our lives, but us ourselves as persons, we can be assured, life is never the same again.

Grief takes longer than we would like to recover from, and it is best that there is no pressure to recover within a timeframe, either from ourselves or others.

There are many reasons why people can expect us to be ‘over’ the grief of our loss before we are. But none of these reasons suggest compassion as an appropriate response to the reality of the grief journey.

How Grief improves Belief

Image by Benedicto de Jesus on Unsplash

MAKE disciples. That was Jesus’ final command. Our first task, however, is to allow the Holy Spirit to make a disciple of us. Grief is pivotal along that journey.

Grief often brings people to belief. A crisis causes us to reflect on the important things in life, besides, when we fall vulnerable to that which we simply cannot reconcile, all that’s left is God. Loss shrouds us in that place where nothing else works. See how the worst can elicit the best?

Grief makes belief better. It forces us to test everything. Whatever belief we had will need to endure the flame of deep pain to survive and continue being held as our belief. In this way, for belief to survive it must help us thrive through our darkest day. Belief that survives is full of real hope.

Grief makes responding in faith better. Having done wrong, the only way we please God is by experiencing godly sorrow. Through confession and repentance, we have applied grieving. And only through such processes of going deeply into God do we and others see the fruit of our repentance — a true faith that obeys and honours God through loving people. Grief refines honesty and humility.

Grief is an example to follow. Making disciples is our aim, and we can use words, but far more powerful and sustainable is the salience of example. Iron sharpens iron, as Proverbs 27:17 puts it, and this is not about word as much as it is about the witness of deed, the impression of action. When we prove our faith by grieving well, those who are following behind, even those who are perhaps ahead, stop and take notice. Example is not easy to ignore, but words go in one ear and out the other.

Grief is a teacher and loss is the curriculum. The school is one that educates in what is eternally valuable. It is a hard school with many who fail to run the course. The school of brokenness, however, will improve us more than any other institution or program. Now we can see how becoming a follower of Jesus is all-encompassing of life, where life is the learning ground.

Loss either pulls us close to God or pushes us away, but God uses grief to bring us closer to Him.

The secret to happiness is to give happiness away

Photo by MI PHAM on Unsplash

SEPTEMBER 25, 2003, a Thursday, was the day, even in the pain of a loss I could not yet contemplate, that God gave me a gift.

I was attending my eldest daughter’s school sports carnival. It was only three days after my first marriage had collapsed. I was in deep pain, yet I still had responsibilities to fulfil as a father.

But something else was also working within me that had been dormant for thirteen years; something that I had not experienced before. It was the power of the risen Christ in me. Suddenly, almost as if it were overnight, I began to live a reality that I hadn’t yet even conceived.

I recall feeling moved to return home briefly to pick up some items to give away. I was being moved by the Holy Spirit. In the act of giving these things away — and not looking one bit for approval or appreciation or thanks — I knew that I knew that I knew I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing.

Finally I was giving away what I could not keep in order to gain what I could never lose.

I had been Christian for all those thirteen years and had never even conceived that that was the true Christ-life. In no time at all, at the worst time in my life, I was given the precious gift I could not have otherwise received. I had to be plunged into the abyss without hope for rescue to ultimately understand the premise of the Christ-life. If that isn’t good news I don’t know what is.

That precious gift I refer to is the gift of understanding this: the more we give away with a heart that seeks nothing in return, the happier God gives us to be.

We can understand this in another way. Imagine materialism and spiritualism as opposites. The more life we give to one, the more death is in the other. The more we crave to retain the things of this world, the less content we’ll truly be. But the more we give away in this life, the more God gives us in this world of His to come. And that world truly enters our world through peace, hope and joy when we give our lives away for others.

Two things that need to be necessarily stated are that the practice of giving my life away was sustained throughout that early season, but in truth, there have been aspects of my life since where I’ve found it hard and possibly impossible to give away. Thankfully God is gracious to remind us that it’s okay that we have not yet ascended to perfection — and that that standard is not required of us. But we’re still blessed to aspire to it.

How will I get through even one day of this Grief, let alone endure the eternity in this Loss?

Photo by Blair Fraser on Unsplash

THIS is a realistic self-assessment of early loss: I had no idea pain could be this hard, this deep, or how my life could be taken from me so suddenly. I simply have no way of knowing if I will make it through this pain. God, where are you?

I recall one hour of debilitating derangement that left me unable to do anything but be a wet mess; a paralysis that bad I needed immediate medical attention. All that was left was the soul, bare as if all protection had been eroded away.

That encapsulates early grief for me; eighteen days after the seismic event that started it all. Within one hour my emotional reality faced a sharp U-turn. I had no idea what hit me.

Early grief exposes us to the unpredictability of emotions that cannot reconcile reality. Yet, even after six months a day comes that takes us by complete surprise. It’s as if we were back in that treacherous early time.

The early experience of loss leaves us vulnerable to breakdown, bereft of response, ravaged of energy, shell-shocked by pain.

How do we get through it? We would like to think, one day at a time it gets better. All time proves though is that we can bear the weight of it, one day at a time. And that’s about as important a realisation as anything. We keep thinking there is some magical solution, and, though there isn’t, that belief sustains us.

If you are in the immediacy of early grief and you are reading this, know you are not alone. I know you may feel alone, as if nobody could have ever felt the way you are feeling. It feels impossibly abnormal, surreal in the worst of ways. It is, of course. Be gentle with yourself. Go deep into God.

The main thing is to believe you will get through this. Because if you keep going you will.

Has God got a purpose for me in my grief?

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

ACCEPTING that everyone grieves differently, we can still agree that the pain is the same awful reality for everyone. Why does grief hurt so much?

There is a purpose to it, but it is easy to miss it.

This is something that can only be learned the hard way and the long way. Yet, it can be tasted in an instant. It’s only something that comes to us when we find there is no other way.

How I wish more people came to be crushed by their life circumstances and, with repetitiveness, found nothing in or outside themselves that would help — then they might more readily find God. The trouble is, when people are crushed by their life circumstances they do find an inappropriate reaction or response within themselves or they find something external to themselves.

The quote that follows reminds me of the blessing in being confronted by a cruel twist of life:

“When we are no longer able to change a situation,
we are challenged to change ourselves.”

— Viktor Frankl

There is something far beyond the life we take for granted and complain about. As soon as taking life for granted and complaint become luxury — because the darkness we’re plunged into bears no comparison to the light we enjoyed at ease — we sense we have always missed the depth to life.

There was always this reality, yet we really knew nothing of it, until this reality of lived pain became who we are.

So, we can see how it is a blessing to be forced to adapt. Suffering makes us humbler, more compassionate. It makes us more pliable, more mature.

If you find there is no escape for you from the sorrow and tears and pain, take heart. God is in the process of proving to you your purpose that you could find no other way.