We have been blessed over the past few weeks.
Blessed to have family and friends reach out and risk awkward conversations.
(Because talking to someone who's grieving is kind of like using the native language in another country....you're probably going to say something wrong, but the effort will be appreciated.)
To those who called, wrote, took us out for coffee and offered moments of grace in some dark and lonely days...thanks.
I give to you, as an antidote to yesterday's post, practical ways to bless someone who's hurting:
(from personal experience...not everyone will agree...see foreign language reference again)
- Use the phone. In an age where electronic blips on a screen fill our days, to actually hear someone's voice with the context of emotion...it means a lot.
- Get us out of the house. Offers to go to a movie, a walk in the park, coffee, free pie day at Perkins...felt like freedom. Got the endorphins flowing and reminded us that there is life outside our four walls. And the not-so-subtle reminders that we are remembered.
- True reminders of who God is. Like, from scripture, not refrigerator magnets. I have been blessed with a few friends who have built their life on a biblical worldview and can sing His Truth back to me, when I forgot the tune.
- "straight cash homie" Okay, so it might be tacky to mention, but for reals...when someone showed up on our step with a fat envelope of Benjamins...that ministered to my soul in a way no e-mailed condolence ever could. I looked down and thought, "that's our food and power bill this month." Personal tragedy usually comes with a side order of financial stress in our culture. Poor health...how about some six-figure medical bills? Loss of a child...accompanied with funeral and burial expenses that hardly any young couple is prepared to shoulder. Infertility...parenthood just got 10x more expensive. So I wonder why we only seem to throw showers for the happy occasions of birth and marriage? Our deepest needs are often in our saddest hours.
- ice cream. seriously. DQ soft serve ice cream delivered to our door step. I'd call that a stroke of divine inspiration.
- Prayer. People have asked for specifics and I have offered them. Since you asked: jobs, a new church, a fixed house, a smooth adoption, and physical health. There were moments where I felt the grace of Christ and the prayers of others were the only things holding me up and if you have never felt utter dependence on God then man, you are missing out.
- Follow up. It's been almost six months and I often feel like someone gaining my footing after an explosion. (or what T.V. tells me the epicenter of a bomb blast looks like...you know, all muffled and swirly.) Our little life crisis is still going on and its nice to not be forgotten.
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