Finding Hope in times of Grief

*The funeral is over....the people who temporarily turned aside to grieve with you, to honor your deceased love one...they are all gone.  The flowers have faded, and perhaps pots of dried up stems and leaves sit beside your trash can...

The meals that friends brought have stopped and now even the phone doesn't ring quite so much anymore.

The cards don't fill the mailbox the way they once did either-just the usual bills and junk mail, and maybe, painfully, a piece of mail now and then addressed to the one whose absence saps your strength virtually every moment of every day....and no matter how you feel about it, mornings still come and night still falls over and over and over again, with everyone and everything around you saying, "You'll just have to move on," While everything within you undeniably groans, "But nothing is the same."   What are you supposed to do with this massive load of experience and emotion that has landed on you an now weiths on every aspect of your being?

Are you just supposed to "get over  it"?
Are you just supposed to "move on"?
Are you just supposed to resign yourself to the idea, expressed in the words of the Bibles' book of Job:
Man is born for trouble, as sparks fly upward (Job 5:7)
Simply put, can you ever begin to feel better and to see this event that has befallen you assume a place of purpose and value in your life and in the lives of others?
The answer, according to God's Word, the Bible, is a resounding, Yes!!!! there is hope.
Hope is not wishful thinking, or whatever pleasant illusion we may conjure up.  It isn't some fantasy on which we fixate, in order to mystically influence events or, at least, to make ourselves feel better.
True hope is settled confidence based on objective fact and enduring truth. True hope does not give in to despair. It is based on expected and needed grace from God.  It patiently waits and confidently expects good from God-here and now, and for eternity-regarless of the severity of one's personal storm.
God based hope goes hand in hand with joy because it depends on the constancy of the One who holds us in his hand rather than on our own tired, tethered and fickled emotions. In God's word we have a promise we can embrace and draw strength from the promise that God Himself spoke to His people through the prophet Jeremiah: "For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope'" (Jer 29:11)
God is telling us that if we turn to Him We can count on the risen, living Christ to make blessing and not grief the ultimate summation of our lives.
This article is taken from the book, FINDING HOPE IN TIMES OF GRIEF, by Preston and Glenda Parrish Authors,

God Questions

Many people ask me how to daily follow the Lord or how to live for Christ on a daily basis. 
I've heard a lot of interesting responses. I've also heard a lot of hard and difficult answers. And...a lot of the books some of the authors write to help us in a general sense, don't necessarily make it easier either!
 All of us hear God speak to us in very manifest ways at times in our lives...but it's the normal times that makes it tough to hear God.
Some people say you should fast, or go to a quiet place and wait to hear God.  Yes, sometimes you do hear God that way, but how do you hear God on a regular basis? It really isn't as difficult as people try to make it...sometimes it's right in your head.  
Here are some things "I" do to hear God......I just try to keep my eyes on Jesus at all times....I always ask a lot of questions when I am doing regular life.  I will ask the Lord, ?'Is this what You want Lord?'  I will ask the Lord, ?'Is this your will Lord.'  If it is something I am going to do I really do ask in my mind, ?'Can you bless this Lord.' I don't want to sound paranoid but I really try to keep a 'God consciousness,' a sense that God is where I am, right beside me in the midst of my real life experiences.
 For me, I believe that that most of the distresses, messes and goof's in life come after little decisions have gone bad.  My calamities are rarely the result of a disasterous "big time" decision failure.  My stuff is usually cumulative, low-tier, obscure decisions that somehow blow up into "really bad scrums".
So I have learned to ask God some of the questions that I wrote above.  I continually ask questions.  I do not usually hear some kind of voice or anything like that.  What I usually hear is something on the line of a virtue go through my head.  Like, is that honest? Or, is that kind? Or, would you like that to happen to you?  Many times a Bible story or a character will come to my mind as an answer to the question I asked in my thoughts.  A lot of times I will hear the Ten Commandments as an answer.  And lastly, I have learned that doubt plays a big role in my decisions.  Sometimes I don't hear the above but I WILL have a doubt about certain decisions. I understand doubt and I know doubt when it happens to me, so I rarely if ever miss doubt when that signal goes off.
When this happens I always practice one rule that has served me well: 'When in doubt throw it out.' Yeah, if one of the above takes place in my questioning system, if there is a shadow cast over something I am trying to dicipher, if I doubt something, I discard it.  I do not ever try to talk myself into something.  It is too easy for my 'I wants' to override the 'I wouldn'ts'.  Generally if I do the questions, listen for virtue or one of the Ten Commandments and discard the doubts and don't try to talk myself into something, I usually get it right....

Race Car Introductions

It may surprise some sports fans to learn that successful race car drivers are among the world's highest income-earning athletes. Yes, baseball and basketball superstars earn millions, but their incomes do not eclipse those of big-name race car drivers.  Formula One race car drivers Kimi-Matias Raikkonen and Michael Schumacher have both made the list of the top ten highest income-earning athletes.  Nascar drivers Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon, and Jimmie Johnson are just a few of the drivers who've compiled millions of dollars in the motorsport BIG MONEY fields.

But think of this.  All those guys in the high income race car driving sport would have to be extremely grateful to the person who introduced them to race car driving.  Somebody took them by the side and pumped them up with the idea that they could be a successful Motor Sport Champion.  That they could win a trophy, survive over 200 mile an hour laps around an oval, or successfully negotiate an Indy car track and not only live to do it again but that they could actually make a buck at it!  Someone was willing to take the risk and help them get started. After all, that introduction started them on the road to fame and fortune.

In the first century, four fishermen - Simon (Peter), Andrew, James, and John were introduced to an exciting life of following Jesus.  They became His full-time disciples.  Unlike high-income race car drivers, they did not become rich, nor were they surrounded by millions of adoring fans.  But they helped change countless lives and also the course of history. Someone took the time to tell them the story  - the plan - and they jumped on board. 

Today, some of the people we will encounter along our life of influence, will be people who don't know the story.....introduce them to it....to Jesus!  Who knows what will happen after that!  But it sure may be interesting to watch them on the track!!

Tomato transplants

A couple weeks ago Karen and I were transplanting our newly growing tomato plants.  We were overdue to get those plants from the seed peat pods into clay pots which would allow them room to shoot up to the size that we need to put in the gound.  K and I got all the pots out, got some really great bio-dirt, miracle grow, tools and we had a great sunny morning.  We could get these things done in about 40 minutes and then get on to the next project for the day.  As we approached the morning project one of our kids needed us to watch their two little darlings and of course being in love with those two little people we agreed, figuring they could help us do the tomatoes and other work around the house.

Have you ever noticed that nothing makes a project move more slowly than having little people "help" you perform it?  Our project turned from something simple into two million heart-stopping, hose running on the floor, spilled dirt, squeezed to death, broken plant occurances.  One of the kids even tried to eat one of the peppers to see if the plant itself tasted like a pepper.

On one of those two million heart stopping moments, we had a fatality when the little one successfuly placed a very strong plant in the clay pot. While showing "Nanny" the good job that she had done, she lifted it up only to have it drop out upside down, crushed on the table.  The life of a hardy vigorous tomato plant can be short lived in the hands of  an excited youngster. It wasn't too long before things got out of control and we had to come up with something else to do quick or risk losing our entire tomato crop.

 

Then I remembered  how I was taught to work when I was little. I always loved to work with my dad. He would always give me a single task to do.  I didn't have to cut the wood and sand the wood and measure the wood. Maybe all he would have me do was to pull the nails, or hand him the tools he needed.  I didn't do much but I did my part and felt like I was helping my dad. This built my confidence and encouraged me to learn how to work and be attentive. I could honestly claim to have helped make that project work because of this.

When we put our hands to God's plow, we certainly can make a mess of some of the things He wants us to do for Him when we "try" to help.  Yet, when we are willing to perform small specific duties according to our abilities, our Father can bring about great results.

Centuries ago, when the members of the church in Antioch heard of a coming famine, they wanted to help those affected by it.  Luke records in Acts 11:29 that , "the disciples, each according to his ability, decided to provide for the brothers in Judea."  They helped the Lord by doing their part with their specific abilities and gift mix.  Every day we have the opportunity to "help" our Father with His work throughout our own world of influence.  Cooperatively, as we each give of ourselves according to our abilities, and according to the need at the time, we have the satisfaction of sharing in a job well done.