Monday, June 30, 2014

Monday's Mourning Ministry - O Love that Wilt Not Let Me Go ~David Phelps / Grief Writings from ~Megan Devine






I have feared grief,
I have hated it, 
I have looked into its eyes, 
and I have cursed it. 
And, 
after many years in the darkness, 
I've made peace with grief. 

Now I know, 
with certainty, 
that 
what is contained in my heart 
is 
bigger than grief.



Death is not the victor.

Love is.



Monday's Mourning Ministry

O Love that Wilt Not Let Me Go

~David Phelps

and

Grief Writings from ~Megan Devine














O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go  

~David Phelps



O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in Thee;
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O Light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine's blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to Thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That Morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life's glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

O Love that wilt not let me go



~~~~


Bound By... Pain and Love




My heart is where
Joy and Sorrow
Dance
Forever bound
By the music 
Of pain

And love


~Tanya Lord











Grief Video:
http://youtu.be/kfigyNAmRx8

Graphics:

Death is not the victor
~Pinterest


Bound by Pain and Love
~Pinterest


Sunday, June 29, 2014

Sunday's Soothing Scriptures - He is There to Lead Us Home






I said, God I hurt
And God said, I know
I said, I cry a lot
And God said, That's why I gave you tears
I said, Life is so hard
And God said, That's why I gave you loved ones
I said, But my loved one died!
And God said, So did mine!
I said, It's such a great loss!!
And God said, I saw mine nailed to a cross!!
I said, But Your loved one lives!!
And God said, So does yours!!
I said, Where is he now??
And God said, My Son is by My side and
your son is in My arms!!

~author unknown



Sunday's Soothing Scriptures

He is There to Lead Us Home














He is There to Lead Us Home


Matthew 18:10-14 NIV

The Parable of the Wandering Sheep


10 “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of My Father in heaven. [11] For the Son of man came to save that which was lost. 

12 “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? 

13 And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. 

14 "In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish."


~~~


As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after My sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. 


~~~



"Indeed, the Son of man has come to seek and to save people who are lost."


~~~



9God showed how much he loved us by sending His one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through Him.  



10This is real love—not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.



~~~


John 3:17 NIV

"For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him." 



~~~





Over Slippery Stones
and through
Swirling Streams
He is There to Lead Us Home.










NIV = New International Version
GWT = GOD'S WORD Translation
NLT = New Living Translation

Graphics, thanks to

~Pinterest
...your son is in My arms!!



~Pinterest
Over slippery stones and through swirling streams HE is there to lead us Home.

Friday, June 27, 2014

Friday's Faith - "Not in What I Understand"








Friday's Faith

"Not in What I Understand"











Messenger of God


Oh, Little Butterfly,
Messenger of God,
When I see you in the sky
I cannot help but nod.

You bring me respite
From grief and despair
Every time I see you
Sailing through the air.

You renew my faith
In all God's wondrous plan,
And I know it's all in FAITH,
Not in what I understand.

~ Kathryn Poland


Butterfly painting by Abbie Blackwell

Post, thanks to
on ~Facebook










Poem, thanks to Kathryn Poland, via

https://www.facebook.com/farsideoftherainbow 

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Thursday's Therapy - "Breaking Bad" Grief Therapy ~Dr. Joanne Cacciatore alerts...








Thursday's Therapy

"Breaking Bad" 

Grief Therapy


~Dr. Joanne Cacciatore alerts...















Thursday, June 26, 2014






(massman: noun,  an average, typical, or ordinary man :  a prototype of the mass society especially when regarded as lacking individuality or social responsibility, as drawing his stereotyped ideas from the mass media, and as easily manipulated by economic, social, or cultural elites)


Every week, I have the privilege to hold a discussion about grief with colleagues Dr. Geoff Warburton & therapist Megan Devine, two dear friends who simply 'get it.'

Both have experienced grief from the inside during the course of their lives and have now devoted themselves to the practice of grief counseling.

We share a sentiment about grief in Western culture. That is, in general, grief is widely misunderstood, castigated, affronted, and bypassed in practice, theory, the media, and even in some spirituality.  Most recently, we discussed the spiritual bypass, and a more thorough triadic diatribe about this topic is forthcoming. I digress (as usual)...

Fast forward to today.

Another dear friend, a medical doctor and researcher in Canada working in refugee health (note: plenty of grief and trauma in this population), recently attended a conference in the U.S.  One of the days in this conference was devoted to "bereavement care".

She was so upset by what she'd heard that she abruptly exited two workshops that were intended to help grieving parents.

She sent me some of the materials to review and I shared her deep concerns. Actually, I was mystified and astonished.

Two clinicians who were presented posited "therapies" which were not only (less than) pseudo-science but more than that: They are potentially harmful to the bereaved.  Their suggested "interventions" may even further disenfranchise, stigmatize, and pathologize normal, albeit painful, traumatic grief.   Their strategies promoted the "unfeeling" and "unseeing"and even medicating of grief... precisely the opposite of what research in traumatic grief suggests as most efficacious, and it was some of the most 'unmindful' and experientially avoidant propaganda I have ever seen.

Experiential avoidance (that is the chronic turning away from or distracting of painful emotions/memories unconsciously), in fact, in the SCIENTIFIC literature is closely linked with substance abuse, physical illness, and other maladaptive behaviors and affect. 

Look, I get it.

Clinicians are not often researchers so they may or may not be able to discern the rigor of a study's outcomes. Many of them don't even have time to read the research and may not understand methodology.

So, herein lies the dilemma: Bad therapy happens. And bad therapy isn't just bad therapy- it's not like a bad haircut. These are people's lives. And not just any people. The most vulnerable population on earth.  Very, very dangerous, indeed.

So here is a rare offering of advice - maybe an invitation - for bereaved persons: caveat emptor.

Be careful with whom you share your grief.

Be careful with whom you share your grief.

Be careful with whom you share your grief.

And be wary of advice wielding, arrogant "clinicians" who think they know it all.

The clinicians who know best are the ones who admit they know nothing. The best therapists are the ones who admit their impotence in the face of such trauma and suffering. They are the ones who say, "There aren't words... I have no cure... And I will join you in the abyss..."

They are some duplicitous charlatans who are out to exploit. But there are also many well-intended who can harm you and me and us all. They often don't read or understand the research, they believe what others in positions of authority tell them without question, they may not be prone to dialectical thinking, and they often pretend to know the unknowable. Even if unwittingly, they end up preying on those who are desperate for any help, presenting themselves as the experts.

They are on the internet, on Facebook, at conferences, in clinical interactions, and in the grocery store.

Western culture, by its nature, promotes the use of nearly any strategy to bypass grief. Drugs, sex, alcohol, shopping, food, gambling, exercise, work, any distraction you can name. Even therapy.  But the sages knew what we seem to have forgotten in contemporary society: No 'intervention' and no interventionist can 'cure' your grief.  There is no panacea. You are not broken, you are broken hearted. And as Rabbi Mendel of Kotzk said 'there is no more whole heart than a broken heart.' 

You are not in need of repair. No alphabet soup intervention (ABC therapy, XYZ medication) and, certainly, no drug can assuage your grief.  The only way is through, and the only way through is with loving, nonjudgmental support, good self care and self compassion, and some other things demonstrated in the literature to be helpful in coping with, not eradicating, grief. And frankly, the source of many concerns about the prolongation of grief resides within our own social groups- others pressuring mourners to 'get over it,' 'move on', 'feel better.' Others who do not remember with us. Others who ostracize us and treat us as lepers. This kind of social reaction is not helpful, and actually is quite isolating and harmful for grievers. So let's focus on an intervention for a sick and intolerant culture that coerces us into believing we are entitled to happiness and comfort and immortality at all times and at all costs.

So if you need some extra support because you are feeling lonely, withdrawn, and confused, that help can come from those who are innate helpers from within your circle of friends/family/faith community and/or from those trained to help you to integrate your grief..., not push it away, decry, avoid, repress, or otherwise deflect it.  Surround yourself with others who have a "PhD" or "MD" or advance degree in common-sense and loving kindness.

Hell, I've seen animals give better 'therapy' than plenty of 'therapists.'

Again my unsolicited advice: Do not believe everything a so-called professional tells you. If it offends your soul, follow Whitman's advice and "dismiss" it.  Rather, trust the wisdom of your own grief. Get help if and when you need it from others who will embrace and uphold you and who understand what SCIENCE says about trauma, grief, and love. Yes, love.

Little in this conference's literature I read as it related to grief was based in science. And, nothing in any of the literature I read from this "conference" felt like love. And this saddens me beyond words.

Because in the end, grief is not a medical issue. Grief is not an issue to be solved or cured. Grief is an issue of the heart. 


Heed Goethe's harbinger: Beware the massman, the troubled guest on the dark earth.


~~~




Thank you to Dr. Joanne Cacciatore for her heartfelt words or warning to us so that we may protect our grief-torn hearts and souls as best we can in choosing wisely to whom we open our hearts.










Dr. Cacciatore's article:
http://drjoanne.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-holy-longing-is-yours-caveat-emptor.html

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Wednesday's Woe - Child-Loss Grief Compounds with Unresolved Childhood Pain ~Tommy Prince










Wednesday's Woe

Child-Loss Grief Compounds 

with 

Unresolved Childhood Pain

~Tommy Prince











Now that the double doors have been thrown wide open with my Child-Loss Grief, childhood pain spots a weakness in the surface through which it can gush, screaming, 

"Me, too! Me, too!"

All my pain ~ every bit of it ~ now screams for relief...



~Tommy






Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Tuesday's Trust - Heart Scars in The Lepers' Colony








Tuesday's Trust

Heart Scars

in

The Lepers' Colony














Heart Scars in The Lepers' Colony


We of the lepers' colony know who we are;
We limp, we falter, we need to hide…
We notice: our friends, too, retreat afar…
So to tend our wounds, in our Lord we abide ~
He is our safety: He accepts where we are;
He embraces our honesty; He comes alongside.

We of the lepers' colony know who we are;
Our wounds, too deep, others run far and wide
Yet we know deep love must bleed out, though it creates scar after scar,
So our own wounds we tend, and to other lepers confide.
As we groan and we limp and cannot run far,
We narrow our world, and make time to abide
In the deep Spirit of God who comes alongside.

He too knows deep grief as His Son left His side
To go and love others, and suffer Love's scars
Even to death, so He could bring us alongside
To come to His Father, and in His love abide.

(He suffers when each of us lambs, running afar,
Afraid of our own needs, in fear we hide,
Not letting Him come near to see who we are,
And yet, we need a Savior both to rescue and chide
To draw us to Him, and to face who we are.)

Without facing our pain, and our own hurt denied,
We cheat ourselves, allowing Him to bear all our scars,
Till with Love He o'ercomes us and opens our eyes
To know we need Him to help us face ourselves, and carry Love's scars.

So now too we cherish our pain gushing from inside,
Though it torments and wounds, healing over into each scar,
For each scar represents the Love we still have for our child
And reminds us of our mothering and fathering, for that's who we are.

With all the joys and the pains, we come to our child's side;
In embracing all the emotions, we feel our pierced side,
Yet we know it's all worth it, for that's who we are,
Mothers and Fathers who love, rendered lepers with scars…

We of the lepers' colony know who we are,
But we rejoice despite pain, knowing the love treasured within each scar!

Jesus, despite His perfection in Heaven, today still retains Love's scars!
So when we see them in Heaven, we'll be reminded each time
Of such love poured out for us, surpassing any other love by far…

So perhaps, when sprung into Heav'n from our lepers' colony, we too will still bear Love's scars…

Perhaps our children will be overjoyed to see the depths of our love poured out for them within each of our Love-filled scars.




Poem - Heart Scars in The Lepers' Colony - Angie Bennett Prince - June 24, 2014


















Top Graphic, thanks to


~Pinterest

Graphic #2, thanks to 

~Pinterest


Monday, June 23, 2014

Monday's Mourning Ministry - Broken Hallelujah ~The Afters







Why Jesus came…

To grant those who mourn in Zion, 
Giving them a garland instead of ashes, 
The oil of gladness instead of mourning, 
The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. 
So they will be called oaks of righteousness, 
The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified. 

~Isaiah 61:3


Monday's Mourning Ministry

Broken Hallelujah

~The Afters













Broken Hallelujah

The Afters



I can barely stand right now.
Everything is crashing down,
And I wonder where You are.

I try to find the words to pray.
I don't always know what to say,
But You're the one that can hear my heart.

And even though I don't know what Your plan is,
I know You make beauty from these ashes.

I've seen joy and I've seen pain.
And on my knees, I call Your name.
"Here's my broken hallelujah."

With nothing left to hold onto,
I raise these empty hands to You.
Here's my broken 
Here's my broken
Hallelujah,
Hallelujah,
Hallelujah,
Here's my broken
Hallelujah.

You know the things that have brought me here.
You know the story of every tear.
‘Cause You've been here from the very start.

And even though I don't know what your plan is,
I know You make beauty from these ashes.

I've seen joy and I've seen pain.
And on my knees, I call Your name.
Here's my broken Hallelujah.

With nothing left to hold onto,
I raise these empty hands to You.
Here's my broken 
Here's my broken
Hallelujah,
Hallelujah,
Hallelujah,
Here's my broken
Hallelujah.

When all is taken away, 
don't let my heart be changed.
Let me always sing, 
Hallelujah.

And when I feel afraid, 
don't let my hope be erased
Let me always sing 
(Let me always sing)
Let me always sing, 
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah,
Hallelujah,
I will always sing
Hallelujah,
I will always always sing
Hallelujah.
(Here's my broken)
Here's my broken
Hallelujah"


Hallelujah,
I will always sing
Hallelujah,
I will always sing
Hallelujah,
Here's my broken
Here's my broken
Hallelujah.

Hallelujah,
Hallelujah,
Hallelujah.



~~~~~




Context

1The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, Because the LORD has anointed me 
To bring good news to the afflicted; 
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, 
To proclaim liberty to captives 
And freedom to prisoners; 
2To proclaim the favorable year of the LORD 
And the day of vengeance of our God; 
To comfort all who mourn, 
3To grant those who mourn in Zion, 
Giving them a garland instead of ashes, 
The oil of gladness instead of mourning, 
The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. 
So they will be called oaks of righteousness, 
The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified. 
4Then they will rebuild the ancient ruins, 
They will raise up the former devastations; 
And they will repair the ruined cities, 
The desolations of many generations.

~Isaiah 61:1-4



~~~



17And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the book and found the place where it was written, 

18"THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND, TO SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED, 19TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD."

20And He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. 21And He began to say to them, 

"Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

~Luke 4:17-21 NASB











Graphic, thanks to

~Pinterest 

Friday, June 20, 2014

Friday's Faith - In Traumas, He Makes Me to Lie Down…





 photo 2013-08-15204057.jpg


Friday's Faith

In Traumas, He Makes Me to Lie Down…












Tommy and I have been plagued with nightmares this week. Mine started last Friday night and Saturday morning just before Father's Day, so I was in a "real good" place to be supportive of Tommy on the always-difficult holiday, as you might imagine. The first nightmare put me particularly under and its haunting nature still remains with me, and the second nightmare just picked up where the first one left off. As they always say, "When it rains, it pours…." So then, we proceeded from there to have a particularly difficult weekend...

Ever since, sleep has not come easy for me. And during the day, coping hasn't been going so well either. The questions raised in my nightmares about Merry Katherine's situation before she was killed were opened up again, and some of them haunted me. I found that I was so traumatized that I became greatly agitated, so that any other thing, little or big, greatly got under my skin and made me miserable. What is it? Does Trauma breed Trauma? It was like I went from one difficult thing to another, and then was accosted by events that really hurt me by the very people who I otherwise had thought were extremely "safe" in my life. It was a horrible time, and I couldn't seem to shake the hurts, nor my baby's situation plaguing me...

Tommy was very sweet and tried to reach out to me as best he could. And he was very helpful. Sometimes I get so incredibly tense that there is no way I could ever get back to sleep at night without one of his gentle back rubs, and several times, he would help me get back to sleep. But we were both struggling, and sometimes that backfires, and we even find ourselves struggling "against" one another. We're doing okay now, but it wasn't easy getting to this place.




After one particularly difficult night of sleep, and facing a day with some challenging situations ahead with some of my clients, I lay there in bed after Tommy had gotten up, and just cried out to my God to please help me. There were so many toxins I just couldn't seem to let go of, and I knew my mind needed to be clear, at least for the sake of my clients. God came to me and was so incredibly tender… 

It was like His Holy Spirit took over and took me on a gentle path of Spirit-guided imagery onto God's Living Waters...

I envisioned and imagined floating in the very clear, warm, and comforting waters of His River of Life, and as I floated along, with God by my side, I felt my tensions melting away. But then a memory of some of the weekend's miseries would infiltrate its way into my head all at once and would immediately throw me back into my turmoil.

  
Time after time these violations would ply their way into my mind and heart. 


At each of those times, God gently spoke to me and said, 

"Let it go; just let it float off of you." 



No sooner would He say that than I would see the incident almost as a rectangular weight lodging upon me that would begin to lose its weightiness, become light enough to float, and then simply slither off of me and float away, tormenting me no more. It continued until several of the torments were lifted from me in a similar way, as I let them go and watched them slither off of me and just float away. 

What  a soothing, comforting experience. It was literally a playing out of Psalm 23 that I often meditate to as I do my deep breathing to try to go to sleep, for He, my Shepherd, was "leading me beside the still waters," helping me to "lie down in green pastures," yet here, they were His living waters; He was even leading me down the path of righteousness as He led me one by one to lay my grievances down and let them go, so that time after time, 

He was effectually restoring my soul. 
It was God's transformative grace at work.

It was a beautiful meditation that He inspired and then entered into, bringing me healing manifestations that I could never have accomplished on my own. By the time I saw my clients, I was fine and was able to attend to their very pressing needs.

What a tender, empathic Savior we serve. His gentle grace overcame the raucous battle that I had allowed into my heart and soul, and He did it all so lovingly, no judgments against me, just gentleness. 

I even cried out in the middle of it regarding what my child may have gone through before she was killed, 
and He gently reminded me, 
"But it got her to where she needed to be," 
which I knew was true. 

Her heart indeed was made ready to see her God, and she had responded to Him just two days before she ultimately was to go and be with Him. The particular manifestations of our suffering don't really matter once we enter into the Savior's arms where He turns our mourning into joy, and so despite this angst, I settled down and knew she was okay ~ He was taking care of her just as He was taking care of me. And so even that pain and agony melted away and released from me. 

Our loving Savior enters into our pain, bringing His presence and His comfort, ever nurturing our broken hearts, both mine here on earth, and my precious child's, up in Heaven. Anything else on this earth pales in comparison!









Picture of Living Waters, thanks to
photobucket.com :
 photo 2013-08-15204057.jpg

Graphic 2, thanks to
Nativity Pageant of Knoxville


Thursday, June 19, 2014

Thursday's Therapy - Trauma and the Hourglass of Time ~Dr. Robert Stolorow







Thursday's Therapy

Trauma and the Hourglass of Time

Dr. Robert D. Stolorow









Trauma and the Hourglass of Time


Dr. Robert D. Stolorow, Psychoanalyst


When my book, "Contexts of Being," was released in October of 1992, an initial batch of copies was sent "hot off the press" to the display table at a conference where I was a panelist. I picked up a copy and looked around excitedly for my late wife, Dede, who would be so pleased and happy to see it. She was, of course, nowhere to be found, having died 20 months earlier. I had awakened the morning of Feb. 23, 1991 to find her lying dead across our bed, four weeks after her metastatic cancer had been diagnosed. Spinning around to show her my newly published book and finding her gone instantly transported me back to that devastating moment in which I found her dead, and I was once again consumed with horror and sorrow. 

... I was once again consumed with horror and sorrow.

 
Throughout the 20 years since the morning when my world was shattered, I have relived that devastating moment again and again in all its terrible emotional intensity. 


If you, or someone you care about, ever experience a traumatic loss, never think or utter the words, "You have to let it go and move on."

Time does not heal the wounds of trauma. 

Let me explain.
I use the term "portkey," which I borrowed from Harry Potter, to capture the profound impact of emotional trauma on our experience of time. Harry was a severely traumatized little boy, nearly killed by his parents' murderer and left in the care of a family that mistreated him cruelly. He arose from the ashes of devastating trauma as a wizard in possession of wondrous magical powers, and yet he is never free from the original trauma, always under threat by his parents' murderer. As a wizard, he encounters portkeys -- objects that transport him instantly to other places, obliterating the duration ordinarily required for travel from one location to another. Portkeys to trauma return us again and again to an experience of traumatization. The experience of such portkeys fractures, and can even obliterate, our sense of unitary selfhood, of being continuous in time.

Trauma devastatingly disrupts the ordinary linearity and unity of our experience of time, our sense of stretching-along from the past to an open future.

Experiences of emotional trauma become freeze-framed into an eternal present in which we remain forever trapped...

 Experiences of emotional trauma become freeze-framed into an eternal present in which we remain forever trapped, or to which we are condemned to be perpetually returned through the portkeys supplied by life's slings and arrows. In the region of trauma, all duration or stretching-along collapses, past becomes present and future loses all meaning other than endless repetition. 

In the region of trauma... past becomes present and future loses all meaning other than endless repetition.

Trauma, in other words, is timeless. Further, because trauma so profoundly modifies our ordinary experience of time, the traumatized person quite literally lives in another kind of reality, completely different from the one that others inhabit.

 This felt differentness, in turn, contributes to the sense of alienation and estrangement from other human beings that typically haunts the traumatized person.


As a four-year-old boy, Friedrich Nietzsche was massively traumatized by the death of his beloved father. It was a crushing loss that haunted him for the rest of his life, eventuating in his madness. As a philosopher, he metaphorically captured the impact of trauma on our experience of time in "The Gay Science," where he introduced his famous doctrine of "the eternal return of the same":
What would happen if one day or night a demon were to steal upon you in your loneliest loneliness and say to you, "You will have to live this life -- as you are living it now and have lived it in the past -- once again and countless times more; and there will be nothing new to it, but every pain and every pleasure, every thought and sigh, and everything unutterably petty or grand in your life will have to come back to you, all in the same sequence and order... The eternal hourglass of existence turning over and over -- and you with it, speck of dust!"... If that thought ever came to prevail in you, it would transform you, such as you are, and perhaps it would mangle you.
The eternal return of emotional trauma is ensured by the finiteness of our existence and the finiteness of all those whom we love. Trauma looms for all of us as an ever-present possibility. 

I have long contended that the mangling and the darkness can be enduringly borne, not in solitude, but in relationships of deep emotional understanding.

In such relationships, we do not encourage the traumatized person to "get over it and move on."

Instead, we dwell with him or her in his or her endlessly recurring emotional pain, so that he or she is not left unbearably alone in it. 

As Bob Dylan sang it mournfully in his album, "Modern Times," "I'll be with you when the deal goes down."
This blog is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Daphne (Dede) Socarides Stolorow, who died 20 years ago today at the age of 34.


{Highlights, mine}










article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-d-stolorow/coping-with-trauma_b_826995.html






Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Wednesday's Woe - Why Look for the Living Among the Dead?








Wednesday's Woe

Why Look for the Living Among the Dead?

















I heard myself bemoaning aloud to Tommy, 

"I don't know why it is that I've been unable to visit Merry Katherine's grave for quite some time now."

Thankfully, Tommy is very aware of my grief process which includes much focus on having an ongoing relationship with my baby girl in Heaven despite her physical presence not being available to me on this earth. He knows that I keep my focus on her living spirit that is currently present with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, along with all the beloved ones who have gone on before us.

To me, my baby is still very much alive; I simply cannot see her.








Knowing all this about me, Tommy kindly looked at me and stated what should have been obvious to me…

"I guess it's because you know not to look for the living among the dead."



What an astute observer of my heart, and therefore also an understander of my resultant actions or inactions.

Though her body is still there in the grave, I know she is not there; her living spirit is now in Heaven. My focus therefore is on where she is, not on where she is not!


So, of course, why indeed would we look for the living among the dead?!














Graphic 1:

~Pinterest



Graphic 2:

~Pinterest



Graphic 3:

~Grieving Mothers
~Facebook




Graphic 4:


Note: Although the graphic indicates this is a quote from ~Emily Dickinson, I am not sure that that is accurate as I have never seen it among all the poems of hers that I have read. ~Angie
~Pinterest