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"Good and Perfect Gifts" 

3/25/2014

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“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17).

Randy Alcorn
"God’s first commandment is to put no created thing before Him. We know we should never make what He has created into a substitute for Him, but sometimes we wrongly conclude that people and things and pleasures are therefore bad, forgetting that it was God Himself who made them. "


Sometimes, well-meaning people may try to persuade those who grieve to  "get over"  or "get passed" the sorrow. In my experience, it is usually because they are uncomfortable with sorrow and tears or they may be concerend that we might be focusing on our child too much, making our child a "substitute" for God somehow. Randy Alcorn's words spoke specifically to me today, as I remembered a time soon after my son, Kevin's passing, when someone who knew little about me or grief made a very wrong conclusion that grieving as a Christian is somehow "bad" and skews our perceptions and relationship with God.

About 5 months after the loss of my son, I decided to fulfill a prior committment that I had made as a staff member for a week-long Royal Family Kids Camp for abused children at Point Loma, California. Everyone on the RFKC staff knew that I was a grieving mom, and I was assured that I would be emotionally "safe" and everyone would be sensitive to and understanding of my grief.

The setting for the camp was on the Point Loma University campus, which overlooked the ocean. At one of our staff meetings that was set outside, I spotted several surfers in the water and was emotionally overcome with the thought and memories of my son, who was a surfer and had left this earth while surfing. In those few moments, my heart and attention was turned toward Kevin and tears poured down my cheek faster than I could wipe them away.

One team leader saw me crying and asked me to take a walk with him. As we 
began to walk down the pathway toward the beach, he began to give me a spiritual pep talk, quoting scripture, insuring me that "God is in control" and including his exhortation that "you must guard your heart not to judge God inappropriately" . . . this last statement really set me off emotionally.

"Judge God inappropriately?" I responded. "Whatever you think I need to hear from you surely is not from the Lord and that statement is absolutely inappropriate."  I then asked him, "Have you ever lost someone you love deeply? Do you have children?"  To which he answered, "I do have a son and and a daughter, and I can't imagine losing either of them."  


The last thing I needed just 5 months after suffering the loss of my son, as is true for anyone who is grieving, was to be preached to be someone who had no firsthand understanding or knowledge of what I was going through. The more this well-meaning brother in Christ and I talked, the more he realized how misguided he was in his attempt to exhort me to "keep the faith."  He also admitted that my tears made him uncomfortable, and his first thought was to remove me from the group.

Well-meaning people can make well-meaning mistakes in how they perceive and relate to someone who is grieving. The longer we talked, the more obvious it became to me that this man's concern about my relationship with God was really more about his personal spiritual journey. For some reason known only to him, he mis-read my tears, as a threat to my faith and trust in God, and he wanted to point me toward God and away from Kevin. 

From the beginning of my journey through grief, my heart settled on drawing closer and relying soley on my Heavenly Father and grieving with the hope of Eternity. Though I have never put Kevin before the Lord, I love him deeply and eternally, and I have given myself permission to miss him and express my sorrow, which I have learned is not only natural, but necessary for for healing.  

Randy Alcorn's words encourage me to constantly remind myself that nothing and no one should be a "substitute" for God, and that every "good and perfect gift" is from Him; everything and everyone in my life is a gift from Him, and Kevin is certainly one of His "good and perfect giifts" to me and to my family. 

With Love, Blessings and Hugs, 
Angie
amotherlikeme@gmail.com
Befriend me (Angie Green) and be a part of this facebook page for "moms like me." 

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"Grieving With Hope" By Christy Weeks

3/5/2014

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January 15, 2014 marked the 5th anniversary of my son Ryan's step into heaven. To this day I am not comfortable saying Ryan's "death," because Jesus promises that "to be absent from the body is to be present with The Lord". (2 Cor. 5:8) The very moment that we receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, Eternity with Him begins. A good friend gave us a beautiful picture of a dark haired young man falling into the embrace of Jesus as he enters Heaven...this is how I see Ryan.



Anyone who has experienced such an unexpected loss knows that the lives of those around us resume their normalcy and "we" feel as though time...if it is moving at all...is in slow motion. The Lord has shown me that even this is His sovereign intention.  It is His way of insulating us as well as allowing so many of His gifts to permeate our being...yes our being, because we are still here on this side of Heaven until we too are called home.

When my husband Jeff and I received the phone call that would forever change our lives we were in an airport in Miami. The first gift He gave us were lifelong friends that we were traveling with to hold us up as we absorbed the news in disbelief and despair. He then provided gracious people we'd never met to arrange and escort us back home. When we arrived at the airport He provided a Greeley police officer who "happened to be in Denver" to meet us at our gate and not only see us to our waiting family but get our luggage and take it to our home so that we wouldn't have to wait for it. His love for us and His gifts have not ceased.

Five years later I don't miss Ryan less, but I long for Heaven more. I am more thankful for the "gift" of life because I know it can change in the blink of an eye. I am bolder in sharing my faith because I know that in the depth of my sorrow I wanted to know "where is Ryan now?" and I knew. I'm thankful for God's word and that I was familiar with His promises because I cling to them like never before as I too "press on toward the goal..." (Phil. 3:14)

Hope because of Him,
Christy "a mom like you"
Greeley, Colorado



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"We Can Make it Through the Storm!"

3/1/2014

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We are in the final months of winter here in Northern Colorado, and I wonder how many more winter storms will be coming our way before Spring.

Though, I so enjoy "God's treasury of snow," and the thunderstorms that we experience in this part of the Country, the storms can be extreme and I often refer to the weather here as "bi-polar, unpredictable and radical."  





A few years ago, we had a very dramatic July hailstorm that damaged hundreds of roofs (including our's), trees and fences, etc. Our oldest grandson was here visiting us from California at the time, and he was really frightened, because he had never been through anything like that before.
 
Though I was raised and lived in Southern California, where the weather is moderate, for more than 50 years, I have often reflected on the years I spent with my family in Arkansas, Connecticut and up-state New York, as some of the best years of my life . . . mostly because of the happy memories that are connected with good times, but also the weather, which was anything but moderate.

I can recall a specific time (I believe I was in the 2nd grade), when my mom, dad and little brother and I sat around the kitchen table holding hands listening to weather alerts on our transitor radio, the kitchen lit by the light of a kerosene lamp, because the electricity had gone out, as howling winds and heavy rain slammed against our house during hurricane "Irene." There were many fore-warnings of the pending hurricane and our family was prepared and hunkered down, waiting out the raging hurricane that threatened our lovely little town, and our neighborhood and friends.

During the greatest intensity of the storm, I remember that I wasn't afraid, because I believed my Dad when he told us that "God is in the storm and we have nothing to fear." He told us the story of a time when Jesus calmed the storm and walked on water, calling Peter to "come" to Him, assuring him that he had nothing to fear, as long as he kept his eyes on Him. We made it through hurricane Irene with no damage to our house and when I was 8 years old, it was that storm and the accounting of Jesus calling Peter out of the boat to come to Him that called me to put my trust in Him as My Lord and Savior, and I have never taken my eyes off of Him since.

When I have experienced fear, pain, loss, disappointments and something of the "storms of life," I always think of that night in Connecticut, when my Dad opened the eyes of my heart to the truth that I have nothing to fear, because God is "in the storm."


Do you sense that God is with you in a storm you may be going through, "tenderly comforting you . . . and giving you the strength to endure"  - II. Co. 1:7   If not, I want to encourage you to step out and away from a place of doubt and fear, trusting that God is in the storm, keeping your eyes on Jesus and expecting the blessings of God's comfort and strength for the journey through the storm.

With Love, Blessings and Hope,
Angie "a mom like you"
amotherlikeme@gmail.com








 





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    These blog pages are written by and for moms who have suffered the loss of a child.

    May the reflections and expressions of mothers' hearts be a source of comfort, help and encouragement and may you, like these moms, accept God's great exchange as "He gives beauty for ashes, joy for mourning, praise for the spirit of heaviness . . " Isaiah 61:3

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