Children and Grief

“Unless you change and become like children,
you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Jesus in Matt. 18

Her name was Alyssa. I met her as the new minister of Noonday Baptist Church near Woodstock, GA She had been the poster child for Atlanta in a recent MD telethon. She was precious. She loved the BeGees. She had met them through Make a Wish Foundation. It was one of the highlights of her life.

She was about 10 when I became her minister. I met them in the hospital as Alyssa suffered a chronic lung infection which is part of the last stages of the disease. She went home in a few days. That was where I saw her home and all her memorabilia of a short life filled with important moments. Many people had gone to bat for her and her working class parents. They could not afford much, but love prevailed in that home.

Fast forward 2 years as the disease had weakened her to the critical point. She was in the hospital this time for her last hours of life on this earth. When I arrived the Physician was attending himself. He had fallen in love with this little patient along with all of us who met her. Her smile was contagious and it never left for long even in the most hurting things modern medicine can do. Nothing conquered Alyssa or put her down for long.

The Doctor had his stethoscope to her heart and was listening quietly. The parents were standing at her bedside with dread all over their faces, but tempered by faith. There was nothing for me to say except to be there standing quietly. We waited on God.

Suddenly there was a strange woman pushing the door open uninvited. She burst into the room and began her “Christian Cheerleader” routine. She began to tell the parents how they must have faith--they had plenty. It showed quietly for the last 2 years to me. She then began to speak in a loud voice to Alyssa as she lay comatose. You could hear her at least 2 doors down. “Alyssa, if you hear me nod your head!” Alyssa’s almost lifeless body did a slight convulsive motion. This set the lady on fire and she began her sermonet about being saved and going to heaven. Alyssa, and none of us, needed a last minute deathbed confession. Our spiritual roofs had been thatched a long time ago.

For about 5 minutes this lady carried on as insensitive “do gooders” do--more interested in what they are doing than helping the one in trouble. Words, no matter how spiritual, mean nothing when a beloved child is dying. My first thought was, “This lady needs to get a foot in her behind to get her the devil out of here.” Somehow God gave me a crisis word. We had another lady in the hospital with hysteria-induced ranting about her minor illness. She just had asthma. However the central circle was filled with my church folks tending to her because she was one of the families called “the click.” No one was there for Alyssa but me, her physician, nurses, and her parents.

I can’t believe the words which came out, but I quietly asked her to help my other church members pray down the hall. She quickly left--thank God. I was about to do the “money changers at the Temple” approach on this wacky “do gooder.”

As the door closed, Alyssa’s parents whispered a quiet “thank you” through tear-filled eyes. Again, our eyes focused on Alyssa and her quietly attending Doctor. In about 5 minutes tears filled his eyes and trickled down his cheek. Quietly he said, “She’s gone.”

We all did as Jesus: we wept!! Not a word was said. No words could get past the ball of grief in our throats anyway. Finally, her parents asked if I could say a prayer. I have never choked one out with any more anxiety. All I could say was, “Thank you God for this child who has brought so much joy to all of us. Thank you for the faith she had. Give us some of it today. Thank you for her caring Doctor. Thank you for the nurses who have attended her. Give us all a peace that passes understanding in these hard hours of loss. In the strong name of Jesus we pray. Amen.”
With that we hugged one another until we each had to leave. One nurse after another quietly came by as the word passed in whispered sorrow. We all cared more than words could say. No one thereafter came with any “do gooder sermonets”. They are a wasted effort in such time. People need to be loved through grief.

God gave us 2 ears and 1 mouth for a reason: listen more than you talk.

Some years ago John Drakeford wrote the insightful book, The Awesome Power of the Listening Ear. It tells of the importance of listening in times of hurt: losing a child, spouse, friend, house to foreclosure, etc. He was so right.

Dr. Richard Young taught for many years at Bowman Gray and Southeastern Seminary in my student days. He was a brilliant chaplain and mentor in the early days of clinical training with a psychological background to help with understanding. He told a story I shall never forget.

There was a male patient in Dr. Young’s student days who was the terror of the floor. He had a terminal illness and cared not how or when he focused that anger. Every Dr., nurse, or student chaplain was deathly afraid to enter his room. Dr. Young thought about it while he waited his turn to do the inevitable round with this man. He decided to try something different.

He went in the room and pulled a chair beside the door. He sat down and said NOTHING! After the required 30 minutes, he stood to leave. The patient spoke. He said, “Thanks for saying nothing and just being here. I needed that more than you can know. I am tired of the questions and “cheer up” bull from every one except you. Thanks for being here and DO come again! When I am ready to talk, I will. Until then, button it up, if you please.”

Dealing with Grief

Most people who have written about grief have discovered a natural process unique to each individual. Time required to grieve is different for each person--also the intensity. The most important thing is to recognize when you are grieving. Some people who always feel bad are grieving and don’t even know it!

Big griefs like loosing a beloved spouse, child, relative, or friend knock us over with their appearance. No one can miss them. There are also “little griefs” like a child losing a favorite toy or having your beautiful car dented. Enough little griefs add up to equal big grief. Today, with bad economic news everywhere, it is multiplying rather than adding. Grief and suffering are everywhere from mansion to shack.

Some people with negative attitudes spend their days looking for things to generate grief. These people are usually miserable and desire to make everyone around them miserable--not the kind of person you want around when you are hurting.

Step 1: Shock and Denial
It is like bashing your thumb with a hammer: no instant hurt--soon nerves kick in.
It is like a dream--you want to wake up and find it not true.
Isolation and feeling you are the only one being hurt so badly

Step 2: Anger
You are mad this awful thing happened to you--Why ME???
You want to curse God and Die--recommendation of Job’s counselors
You want to get that Doctor / Hospital / driver / etc. for letting someone die

Step 3: Bargaining
If God will just spare (fill in the blank), you will be more faithful, give more, become a missionary, etc.
Take me, the parent, rather than my child
Just give me one more chance to do this over

Step 4: Depression
Leave me alone in this dark house--I just want to die
No one knows how I feel--leave me alone
I just want to take pills/alcohol/drugs and go to sleep

Step 5: Acceptance
God is in this after all
Now I understand what the plan was for me
It is just one of those awful things in life and I must go on

The above steps were discovered by Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in her famous book, On Death and Dying. Other writers like Grainger Westberg--Good Grief, Edgar N. Jackson--You and Your Grief and Telling a Child about Death all form the basis of my “books to share with hurting people.” If you are hurting and cannot seem to move through your grief, I encourage the reading of such books to enhance understanding and compassion. Anything simply promoting “positive thinking” likely will not address the more serious and deep grief situations. If grief is not moving behind naturally in 6 months, seek professional help.

Remember the shortest verse in the Bible: “Jesus wept?” Remember the beautiful description: “He was a Man of Sorrows acquainted with grief?” These few words tell us God knows of our sorrow. His own Son experienced the depths of sorrow, yet moved on to face life again. Anyone who experiences grief is now uniquely prepared by life and God’s help to undergird those just being hit by the hard bricks thrown at us by life.

Is Professional help necessary along with heavy medication like Valium/Lithium? The answer might be “yes” in very serious cases lingering for years. A quick “pill pop” will not help anyone work through real grief. Instead, it will prolong or cover up steps necessary to go on with life resuming the smiling and singing a song. I am just as suspicious of the “quick fix” as I am the “counselor dependent” approach to grief. Both cost great sums of money and neither gets at the core of grief. It is a journey enabled by Faith in God.

Maybe we need more good old Country Stores! As a child I went with Granddaddy Williams to Cousin Leonard Williams’ store just outside Greenville, SC. I listened as they talked and joked, cursed weather, government, price for crops, and considered which tractor was best. Finally, after about 30-45 minutes, they decided without saying it: “We are all in the same boat so we might as well get to the field and start plowing. This is just talk which won’t solve anything. Weeds need hoes and plows rather than lazy people praying for God to do it for them.”

What if we started helping one another rather than depending on “professionals” and “miracles” to do it for us?

What if our SS classes dealt with sharing our hurts in light of the Scripture lesson rather than parsing Greek verbs?

What if we all realized with 1 mouth and 2 ears God might be telling us to listen twice as much as we talk?

Let’s help one another. Sometimes it is better to go as a group from 1 field to another rather than separate, each to his own field. “By this shall they know you are my disciples: If you love one another,” said Jesus.

Talk is cheap---we need action in these tough, grief-filled days.

Grief and the National Economy

“I walked a mile with pleasure
She chattered all the way,
But left me none the wiser
For all she had to say.
I walked a mile with sorrow
And Ne’er a word said she,
But, oh, the things I learned from her
When sorrow walked with me.”
Robert B. Hamilton
　
It takes a griever to help a griever. The above was penned by someone who had been there. I can write this article on grief because I have been there. I highlight a few of my griefs:
Two forced terminations--God led me to bivocational ministry
Career change to insurance--Company bought out / lost the intimacy of small company teamwork.
Hurricane Floyd destroyed my territory of Eastern NC--no insurance money
Turned hobby of tree cutting into highly successful A / P Tree Surgeons
Failed national and local economy made my phone stop ringing.
Our beautiful $250,000 dream house got foreclosed. We moved to our “retirement” cottage classified as a “fisherman’s cottage,” which means no insulation, cold water, no A-C, plenty of windows. No insulation meant 50 degree mornings inside the house. Diesel fuel was almost $5 a gallon! They pulled the electric meter three times because I had no work. My wife drives 1.5 hours twice a day to keep her old job. A deer totals the car we should pay off in April ‘09. Nothing is trickling down to us but sorrow and grief. Being Job on the dung heap is no fun.
I suspect many of you can relate similar stories. Every one is suffering from high grocery / fuel / utility prices.

The difference between a Depression and a Recession is simple:
A Recession is when your neighbor lost his job--
A Depression is when you lost yours!

If you are not experiencing the Depression, it is coming your way as companies downsize, states and counties trim budgets, and church income falls. Some people must choose food and electricity over church giving.

In the last year I have not talked with any small businessman who is happy.
God created us to cope with grief, but it is a process. It is not done by a snap of the finger or with a “perfect” sermon. Job is the classic example. It was almost deleted from the Torah because it is so honest about the hurting, blaming, struggling process of grief.
Worse, in the eyes of Jewish religious leaders, it violates the simple formula of “Serving God = Success.” Just like today, the simple minded want to focus on the reverse: “Failure = God has left you.”

They believed, like my simple minded Baptist mother, that all you have to do is go to church and give your tithe. God is obligated to bless and save you. She has told me many times my troubles are because I stopped being a full-time Baptist minister. God is getting me.
She thinks I am a bad boy because my wife and I spend Sundays right now insulating the house and renovating it into something where we can walk five steps without stumbling over boxes.
My wife deserves a decent home.

Right now our worship is renovating our lives and residence so we can live like humans. The ox is in the ditch. We do not work on Sunday morning. I listen to the worship of New Bern First on TV. Sadly, a worshipful traditional service with robed clergy pales in showy comparison to a Charles Stanley / Joel Osteen / Rick Warren show. I prefer quality over glitter. Attend a local church filled with real people who are trying to help you in your daily struggle. Or, like me, trust God and get the ox out of the ditch.

We all know the story: Job was a booming success, God allowed Satan to test him through losing it all. Mind you: God “allowed” -- God didn’t do it to Job. As Job sits on a dung heap scraping sores and boils with a pot shard, the wife and friends come by to comfort and advise him. Like most of us “quick fix” artists they utter pious and empty phrases which never answer the deep questions of Job,

Put simply, it is “Why, God, WHY? I have served you faithfully. I have paid my tithe, I have been blessed by you with success which proves further you approve of me. Why the heck are you treating me like this? I don’t deserve it.”

Now, let me ask the practical question: How many adult SS classes considered how the national economy and foreclosures are a source of grief---and allowed their class members to discuss their hurts and griefs together? Shakespeare once said, “A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved.” Perhaps we should spend more time sharing together than discussing historical details of the Scripture passage. Despite my story appearing in the local paper, only one person from my “caring” church has called to express sympathy and understanding.

Are we scared to address the realities of GRIEF today???

Magic money making -- NOT

It has been several weeks since I FAXed my interest in highway projects / tree clearing to Barnhill Contracting in Tarboro. I have worked for him personally at his historic church, but have nothing to report.

I keep hoping and praying, but this economy has me by the private parts. Still at about 30% of 3 years ago hanging on with my toenails and fingernails. They are all bleeding badly!

I did have a sales contact from an internet advertising agency promising 40-60 contacts off an ad with them. This time I made him put it clearly in the contract that these would be actual invites to bid jobs rather than just "hits" on the ad. We will see!

So I shall move on to more important issues: Grief and the National Economy.

A lead on Economic Recovery work -- MAYBE!

Yesterday was rainy and I was home all day. About 3:00 p.m. my phone rang. It was John McHugh in Raleigh.



He said my Representative to the House, Angela Bryant, had forwarded my last email sent to all my representatives. In it I asked help in finding any economic recovery places to work.



Thank you Angela Bryant for caring!!!!!



John is dealing on NC projects and referred me to http://www.ncrecovery.gov/ for the listing. In it I found Highway Contracts recently let and several are to my Tarboro friends at Barnhill Contracting. They are doing some road widening projects which require tree removal. I am faxing them today to request they place me on the sub-contractor list. I hope it works.



This proves if you yell and scream long enough, you just might get noticed.



I will keep you posted on the results!



This has been a 3-almost 4 year time of Grief for Lonya and me. The Biblical Recorder is addressing the suicide of a middle age conservative mega-church Pastor in the middle part of the state. You can find the articles with a google to Biblical Recorder Pastor suicide.

I have written several articles for consideration by the BR and several other publications. I think they give insight into this terrible state so many people are visiting these days.

I am just one of thousands loosing businesses, homes, marriages, friendships over a failed economy.