Saying Goodbye...

"Love's a deep wound and what is a mother without a child and why can't I hold on to now forever and her here and me here and why does time snatch away a heart I don't think mine can beat without?...Why do we have to keep saying goodbye?"  
                                                            from One Thousand Gifts  by Ann Voskamp

Saying goodbye to little ones I've never held yet loved with everything I have; throwing rice and blowing kisses; standing alone in the dusk, shocked and speechless, as she drives away...leavetakings both fair and painful: I've never been good with goodbyes.

Saturday night at my house...

End of the road...

nothing to do...

and no hope of things getting better.

Sounds like Saturday night at my house.

~Eeyore

God didn't call us to raise godly children

"Moms and dads, God didn't call us to raise godly children. He called us to be godly parents. Christian parenting is passing on to one's offspring the knowledge of Jesus Christ and the provision that a sovereign God has made for living victoriously in a world marked by trials, tribulations, distress and frustrations."

- Bill and Anabel Gillham

God, please help us to be a godly parent with the children that I still have at home and yes, with MG as much as she will let us.

"The Last of the Human Freedoms--to Choose One's Attitudes"

"It's not what people do to us that hurts us. In the most fundamental sense it is our chosen response to what they do to us that hurts us."~ Stephen R. Covey

What people do to us is what hurts only our feelings; our negative reaction to what they do hurts our inner self. Feelings are transitory but what we do with those feelings can do permanent damage to ourselves and those we love.

Oh, Self, please be slow to speak. Or let any words be noncommittal and nonjudgmental. I am not the one to judge-only the one to learn. If all I can learn at this moment is not to speak, please let me learn it well.

"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked throughout the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything an be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms--to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
~Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

Let me exercise my freedom to choose my attitude.

As we dwell in the prison camp of helplessness we find ourselves in just now, let me be the one giving away bits of bread and comforting others who grieve:

• the faithful older sister who feels betrayed because MG told her friend her "happy news" but not the sister who has been there with never a word of accusation, only grace and love


• the little brother who bitterly commented "I thought one of our family values was honesty"


• the little sister realizing that she "doesn't know" MG any more


• another sister whose tears mirror mine


• the older bother who says "you can't stop a train wreck" yet I am certain he is constantly in prayer for her


• the littlest brother who doesn't really know what is wrong but feels unsettled and insecure

I am praying that each of us will choose the "high road" and choose our attitudes wisely, at least in the cold, clear light of day. In the dark night, may God comfort my loved ones who struggle feelings of betrayal and loss.

Yes

Things will never be the same but for this, we have Jesus.

Receive Affliction with Courtesy

Count each affliction, whether light or grave,
God's messenger sent down to thee; do thou
With courtesy receive him; rise and bow;
And, ere his shadow pass thy threshold, crave
Permission first his heavenly feet to lave;
Then lay before him all thou hast; allow
No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow,
Or mar thy hospitality; no wave
Of mortal tumult to obliterate
Thy soul's marmoreal calmness. Grief should be
Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate;
Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free;
Strong to consume small troubles; to commend
Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end.

Aubrey Thomas de Vere, 1814-1902

Do Hearts Prove False...

Do hearts prove false when thine is true?
I know the bitter dart;
I was betrayed by one I loved--
I died of a broken heart.
I loved my own, they loved Me not,
My heart was lonely, too;
I'll never leave thee, child of Mine,
My loving heart is true.

Have courage, then, My faithful one,
I suffered all the way,
Thy sensitive and loving heart
I understand today;
Whate'er thy grief, whate'er thy care
Just bring it unto Me;
Yea, in thy day of trouble, call,
And I will answer thee.

--Susanne C. Unlauf