The New Normal

 I listened to an interesting lady talking about the stepping stones through grief. I understood all that she said. I understand that everyone grieves differently and uniquely. But anyone who has lost someone that they loved will mourn and grieve that loss. Here are the 7 steps. There is an 8th step also but let me list the first 7 first. These are not a check list and they don't always happen in order as listed.  Grieving is a roller coaster of emotion. 

1. Shock. It is a shock to have a loved one die. Surviving spouses are in shock when their spouse dies.

2. Numbness. You feel numb. I did.

3. Disbelief. It is hard to come to grips with the fact that they are gone and they are never coming back.

4. Reality. This is the turning point when you grudgingly accept facts as they are.

5. Alienation.  Being ignored and left out by your married friends.

6. Reinvention. Finding answers to what now or what next. Finding what gives pleasure and satisfaction.

7. New Normal. This is when you fell normal though different. This is when you look forward again.

There they are. These are profound ideas and like I said I have lived through all of them. I am in the place this author calls Post Grief. This is the 8th step. I have discovered that grief is a permanent condition. It no longer hurts but it never leaves. I wonder how something so traumatic and painful did not end in death. One author suggested that surviving spouses are suffering from dopamine withdrawal. And for me, should have or ought to or could have are dirty words. You want to lose me as a friend tell me what I should have done or what I could have done or what I ought to have done. Lose the one who you can't live without and then come and talk to me.

Things That I Wonder About

 There are things that make me wonder. I used to wonder what is wrong with me. But as I get older I have changed my focus and now I wonder what is wrong with them? Why do people act the way that they do? Why do people do the things that they do? Why do people say what they say and feel what they feel?

I wonder how a person can be saved for many years and they still talk and act like they just got saved yesterday? They talk zealously. They always have God on their minds. They do not do what they talk about any more but that does not seem to change the way that they talk. Pastor Wayman Mitchell used to call this mental gymnastics; feeling good about ourselves even though we are not doing what we say we ought to do.

I wonder how can a person be married to another person for years and then show no signs of grief or mourning when that person dies? Grieving is proof that you loved someone. The depth of your grief is tied to the depth of your love. Christians are not exempt from grieving. But in our Fellowship you would think that mourning the death of your spouse was a sin. Show me someone who shows no signs of grief in death and I question whether they ever really loved in life.

I wonder about the eternal optimists among us. They always see the sunny side of life. They cannot process the possibility that life has trouble like the sparks that fly upward. They always believe that the terminally ill person will get better through prayer. They refuse to see life as it is and see life through rose colored glasses. As pastor Mitchell has said, God will not let you win all of the time. Life events are how God keeps us dependent on Christ.

I wonder about other things as well. But this is enough for now.

The Big Question

 Here is the big question that has been on my mind lately. We have young people, boys and girls, who when they talk seem to want to meet someone and get married. But they go through life not connecting in any meaningful way. They have friends and they interact with members of the opposite sex easily. But it never progresses to dating or romance or marriage. Why is this so? What can the church do?

I pray for my grandchildren often that the Lord would bring them together with the person He has picked out to be perfect for them.

The Loneliness Of Grieving

 There is a loneliness associated with the death of a spouse that is unlike any other kind of loneliness or aloneness. The loneliness of grief is real, it's confusing, it's chaotic, and it is unending. When God said that the two will become one flesh that actually happens. That is one reason why in death a part of the surviving spouse dies also. It is not just that someone is not there anymore. It's that part of you is missing also.

Someone has wisely said that loneliness is the absence of a needed relationship. It is the feeling inside that something is missing but we cannot seem to identify what that something is. We spend our days and nights searching for something but we are not sure what it is we are looking for. When we are with people we want to be alone. When we are alone we want to be with people. You think we are crazy for thinking like this. Can I tell you a secret? Grieving people begin to think that they have lost their minds before it is all over.

The hardest part of grieving is coming to grips with the reality that life has forever changed for us. They are never coming back. We may be alone until we die. There is no road map for how to survive the death of your spouse. I have had to work hard to get to the point where I am okay being alone. 

The loneliness of grief is not so much physical as it is just missing that person being there. The communication, the conversation, the routines, the news, the common history. I miss not having someone here right now.

Unfortunately many around us use what they call the Little Bo Peep method of dealing with grieving friends. Leave them alone and they will come home... Bad advice for little Bo, worse advice for my family and friends.

Grieving people do not want you to fix them, they want you to call them, They want you to think of them and visit them even if you do nothing but listen.

Are We Unprepared?

 As Christians we seem to be better prepared for Heaven than we are for coping with the death of our spouse. We fast and pray for their healing but when they die we are cast upon the sea of grief totally unprepared for that tumultuous experience.

Almost every marriage that lasts for years will in time end with one spouse grieving the death of the other one. The question then becomes, what to do now? Why is never the right question. You are not God and only God knows the why of life. We need to figure out what now or what next.

The funny thing is that although this situation is coming and we know it will happen we are still so unprepared for this inevitability.

I survived the experience of grieving the death of my wife and I could not tell you how that happened. I moved here to alleviate the oppressive loneliness that was suffocating me. I did not plan to grieve but I did indeed go through all that grief entails.  And now I spend my life trying to discover what is next for me and to discover what I need to do now that I am on the other side.

Our Fellowship is unprepared to help grieving spouses. This might be something that we need to take more seriously. We know how to evangelize and how to plant churches and how to disciple young men. What do we know about the grieving spouse who is left to process a life that they did not want and that they wish was not so?

I chose to be married in 1974. I did not choose to have that wife die in 2014. Both events changed my life. It took me years to learn how to be a husband. I do not have years left to learn how to live without her.

Some Thoughts On Grieving

 Most of the people here never knew my wife. They never knew me as a married man. And they were not around as I went through the hardest time of my life after Kathy died. I want to from time to time share some thoughts on grieving. Grieving is simply the proof of your love. If you loved that person you will grieve their death. Here are some thoughts on grieving the death of your spouse that I have gleaned from listening to other people's stories.

The death of a spouse leaves us suspended between a past that is longed for and a future that is unclear.

Grieving leaves us feeling numb. We function like dazed and confused people barely able to think straight and baffled by our own emotions. We find it hard to remember what happened or what we did in those chaotic early days after their death. We cry until we have no more tears left to shed. 

Death turns us from couples with plans and dreams to a single person who has become plan-less and dreamless. We go from having a reason to live to what one person described as a monotonous emptiness.

Death requires us to make decisions that we have no idea what to do or how to do it.

Time moves differently for the grieving survivor. To you it may be 6 months. To them it is the first Christmas without their spouse.

Death forces us to adjust to being reluctantly single. We look single but we still feel married.

Not all help is helpful. Most cliché or scripture based words are hurtful. Remember Job's comforters.

Grieving people do not want you to fix them. They want you to love them, to visit them, to call them.

The burden to minister to a surviving spouse is not on the grieving spouse, it is on the rest of us.

That is all I have today. I will not write on this often. But you will find that this is an area that I know a lot about. And I am willing to share what I know with you. 

Grateful.

 I am grateful to be here. I am grateful to be saved. I am grateful for my new church and my new pastors. I am grateful for good health. I am grateful for new friends. I am grateful that I will be joining with family for the holidays. I am grateful that my needs are met. And I am grateful for this blog where I can express my thoughts and my experiences and my opinions.

Wo Are You Going To Call?

 In theory we believe in an hierarchical structure in church. God the Father then Christ then on down to local pastors and so on. We say that this is how God set things in order. And that only under this chain of command will we find true satisfaction.

But I have lived long enough to have learned a few things. Like, who to talk to when you need certain things done. Like who is the person responsible for making sure things get done. And who to ask when you need help. What kind of help and what kind of job will tell us who to bring our request to.

What do you do when you are sick? You ask for prayer. You ask pastor to pray. You ask a parent or a friend to pray. If the Lord heals you then that's that. If He does not heal you you get medical help. I do not ask pastor when I am choosing a doctor. I do not ask my PCP what church to attend.

My point is that no one is trying to dethrone God or Christ or even pastor. But lets be honest and admit that when we need help it is in our best interest to know who is able and willing to help us.

When my wife died I found that God's help was no help at all and that pastor's help was not helpful at all. I got help in a grief support group that met at a local church and it saved my life. Griefshare did for me what the Lord would not do and my pastor could not do. If I had relied on prayer and church attendance to see me through these past few years I might not be here writing this today.

One final thought. God always answers prayer. No is an answer. Not now is an answer. Never or later or stop bothering me are all answers. God always answers prayer. He does not always answer the way we would want Him to answer.

What Is Missing?

 What is missing in our churches? Is it revival, or souls saved, or miracles? Maybe. How about humor? When is the last time you heard something from the pulpit that made you LOL? Would is be wrong to actually laugh in church? How about at home? Is there ever any actual laughter and happiness in your home? How about on a date, can either one of you say or do something funny enough to make the other one laugh?

We used to laugh in church. We used to have preachers who could tell funny stories. We used to not take ourselves so seriously. What happened? Grief is hard on laughter. Happiness is a cruel slap in the face to a grieving person. But grief is not meant to be a permeant condition. Sin can ruin our sense of humor. It's hard to feel joy when you are dead inside. But how about the rest of us? Can't we find any reason to smile or laugh when we come to church?

I can remember things that pastor Wayman Mitchell preached because he was my pastor for so long. I can also remember the pastors and preachers who made me laugh. Laughter has that effect on us.

So while we beat ourselves up over our lack of zeal or our lack of fruitfulness may I suggest that what you need is not a 40 day fast but a few minutes of old fashioned laughter.

One added thought. If you are in a band and no one seems to be enjoying your music you are playing the wrong kind of music. If no one is smiling while you perform you need to rethink what you are doing. Public ministry has to have a dimension of entertainment to be effective. If no one enjoys your music no one will hear your message.

Is It Noise, Or Is It Revival?

 I can spot a modern worship song coming a mile away. I can tell by the words of the song. I can tell by the arrangement. And I can tell that the song will be repeated over and over again. I am trying to like them but it is hard for me. Once I have said something I do not feel the need to repeat myself ad nauseum.

I have a suggestion to test the validity of these repetitive songs. The next time that you are feeling romantic I want you to go to your wife and tell her how beautiful she is and how wonderful it is to be her husband and how being married to her makes you feel. And then say it over and over again at least 4 times in a row. See how that works for you. She may think that you are crazy.

In our effort to sing new songs we are singing songs that seem to focus on I, or Me, or how I feel or what I do, and not on Christ; who he is and what he is doing or honoring him who saved us from our sins.

Worshipping in spirit and in truth means that we must worship from our heart and our spirit and with our minds so that our emotion is tempered by our understanding.

Some people mistake rattle for revival!

Kissing Wears Out, Cooking Don't.

 When I was newly saved in Prescott I was one of many young people who were newly saved and were just learning how to live out what Jesus had done in us. And like most young men I was interested in any young women my age who might be interested in me. 

I grew up in a culture where we did not date. We were influenced by the hippie culture and not so much by traditional customs. So as a saved young man I was not sure how to approach or how to meet the sisters who I might be interested in getting to know better.

One thing that I remember was the time when the young women got together and made food and then invited us young guys to a picnic at Thumb Butte park in Prescott. And like any honest guy food was a sure thing to make me want to go to the picnic.

It was at that picnic where I first talked to Kathy Ballard. I knew who she was but that's about all. We talked a bit and walked a bit and evidently something was happening because I remember going to her mother's house to visit and to eat and to fellowship. And a couple of months later we were married.

The way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Your looks may get you noticed but food will show a guy that you are serious and not just another pretty face. I cannot say that it is the only thing but if you are a sister and you have your eyes on a brother why not cook for him or make him some cookies or get your parents to invite him over for a meal. It does not have to be expensive or even extravagant or flashy. But food is a good way to break down walls and to open doors and you may find him showing more than just casual interest in you.

Kissing wears out, cooking don't. That's how the old Amish say it. And long after the loving there will be many meals to share. Love may cover a multitude of sins. But good food will cover up imperfections better than a new outfit or fresh makeup.

Singing Lies As Worship.

 He lived the life that I should have lived. He died the death that I should have died. We sing this song in our churches. Did it ever occur to you that this is more Mormon than Christian doctrine? This idea implies that if we live better lives and do greater things we too can be Christ or God. Isn't that the lie that Satan told Adam and Eve in the Garden? You shall be Gods just like God is? We know how that lie played out in the beginning. But we foolishly sing lies as worship and feel spiritual doing it.

How long will we sing worship songs written by unsaved people and deceivers and presume to call it worship?

It All Depends On Christ, Not On Us

 We are saved, not because of anything that we did or will do, but solely on the merits of what Jesus Christ did for us. Jesus lived the life laid out for him by God before the worlds were even created. God orchestrated the plan to bring Christ into the world and to bring him to the cross and to fulfill the promise with an empty tomb. We are saved only because we choose to believe that this story is true.

So why do we feel in our church that it is up to us to do everything? God's hands are evidently tied so that He cannot do anything unless we are doing everything first. And churches with their pastors who have become leadership churches are the worst at telling the rest of us how we, if we work harder, can be just like them.

I find that when we work like it all depends on us God watches from afar waiting for us to collapse in exhaustion and thereby getting out of the way so that He can do what really needs to be done. 

God is god. He is not a capitalist or a conservative. He is not a socialist or a communist. He is Lord of Heaven and Earth. His will is being done whether we do anything or not. History did not end with the cross. Just because the Bible ends in ancient times does not mean that God is not busy right up to this present moment. 

Unfortunately for us much of the New Testament was written by a hard driven type A personality. Thanks to Paul we are not a Jewish sect like the Pharisees. But thanks to Paul some men read his words as a mandate to work our fingers to the bone to make sure that God will be pleased with us. 

God is pleased with us when we just believe. God loves us even when we do not love Him. Jesus is unique and you will never be the Christ no matter how you live or what you do how what sacrifices you make. 

One final word. Pastors think that we come to church to hear them teach and preach. We come to church to see family and friends and to worship our God. We come to listen and we hope that we hear something that will help us where we are right now. Most people who leave our churches do not go to the bars or to the clubs. They find a church where they can serve the Lord without the constant pressure of be more, do more, it all depends on me theology.

Grateful For My Pastors

 I was grateful to have our pastor back home tonight. I am grateful for the word that he brings us and for the spirit of his enthusiasm for this church. We are blessed beyond measure by the gifting of pastoral ministry that we have in our church.

My Question

 The doctor told me to drink more water so I have been drinking more water. The doctor recommended that I take some supplements so I started taking supplements. The doctor told me to cut back on carbs so I cut back on carbs. 

Why is it so easy to do what a doctor tells me to do but not so easy to do what the Bible instructs me to do? I have faith in my doctors who I can talk to and who are just people. Why can't I trust in a God who is faithful and true? 

Faith in my doctors produces action from me. I need faith in Christ to do the same in that arena.

Pray for me.

The One Size Fits All Myth

 We seem to live in a one size fits all world. We hear easy solutions for complex problems and we follow one view of how to live and work and succeed. And no one seems to notice that the emperor has no clothes.

A turtle is not a failure because it cannot fly like an eagle. A trout is not a failure because it cannot climb a tree like a squirrel. But we have standards that we impose on everyone whether it works for them or not. Just like the old Pharisees, we impose heavy burdens on people that we will not even lift one finger to do.

As a very young pastor I learned some valuable lessons that I suppose every young pastor needs to learn. Such as; you run with the runners, you do not disciple the whole church, and the soup is never eaten as hot as it is cooked. A wise pastor knows what his church needs. He knows what to do and how to do it. And he knows that to get everyone on board supporting the overall vision you have to deal with individual people as they are. Bringing out treasures both new and old. Being an able minister of the manifold grace of God.

I listened to about 2 minutes of a new pastor's farewell sermon in another church and he was so out of touch with me that I turned him off. Love covers a multitude of sins, but not all of them. 

I have lived long enough that for the most part I know what works for me and I know what will never work for me. I am not a failure and neither are you for doing what we can and avoiding what we cannot do.

Child Like Or Childish Faith?

 How can I say this without hurting anyone? There is a difference between child like faith and childish faith. Child like faith is simple; God said it, I believe it, and that settles it. That is the kind of faith that keeps us hanging on through the storms and trials of life. 

But we Pentecostals sometimes exhibit what I call childish faith. This is when we say we are healed when we are not. This says God will provide while you remain broke. This is kin to the prosperity Gospel and the blab it and grab it kind of faith. It is what I call giddy faith even though there is nothing to point to as the source of your giddiness but some vague verse or prophetic utterance.

I know people who say they are healed and will not go to get medical help. I know people who say that they gave but they put in a hot check. Childish faith is living like a new convert decades after you got saved. Pentecostals are notorious for this kind of faith. The problem is that they have nothing to show for their silliness.

I believe in Divine healing. But if you pray and nothing changes maybe you should go get a second opinion from a doctor. If you are in financial straits and no miracle money appears maybe you need budget counseling and a better job.  If you cannot see past the end of your nose don't tell me you are healed, go get glasses. Can you imagine if the family of Lazarus had stood him up in the corner for 4 days waiting for Jesus to come? They did the grownup thing and they put their dead brother in the tomb. If Jesus works a miracle for you 4 days late He has no problem with whatever you did  in the mean time.

It is one thing to get fired for witnessing instead of working when you are young and a child. Grownups have responsibilities and a family to support and that tempers their enthusiasm for witnessing instead of working. If you are witnessing like a brand new babe in Christ you have childish faith. It's time to grow up. 

My Newest Blog Is Up

 I have started a new blog. It is a blog about music. Not about music style or theory. But about music being performed. I love good music that touches my soul and that lifts me up off of my feet. I love music that lifts me up in Heavenly Places in Christ. And so I decided to start a blog to share music videos that I have enjoyed over the years and post them for you to enjoy as well. 

You can find my new blog here: https://becausehelives73.blogspot.com/

I will post songs from time to time from a long list that I have compiled through the years.

Music That Moves Us

 Have you ever had a performance bring you out of your seat and to your feet without being told to stand? I have. Not in church where we sing songs to the Lord Jesus and rarely with such power to move us in spontaneous worship. I have heard songs that got me to my feet with my hands in the air and often with my eyes closed in concerts. I have been moved by dramatic presentations that moved me to tears and brought me to my feet.

I have heard songs that brought goose bumps to my skin and put a lump in my throat. Not every song does that. I have had songs that made me smile and that made me sad. It takes a heart felt performance to produce a heart felt response.

Sermons are designed to elicit a response from us. I have listened to pastor Mitchell with such rapt attention,  hanging on every word and wishing he would go on. I have heard sermons that I wished would just end also. And I have heard music that was terrible or predictable or uninspiring too.

I listen to a lot of gospel music and some of it is very good. A few songs are so powerful that even listening at home I feel myself moved and improved. Good music affects us in a good way. Bad music makes us not appreciate the power of music as much.

God bless us, every one.

Why Marriage Matters

 Here is an interesting bit of information. People who study human society have cataloged what they called the Life Stress Inventory. This is a list of events in life that cause most of us the greatest stress in life. Most of these items are of no interest to me. But the top three items are what caught my attention. Here they are.

1. Death of a spouse.

2. Divorce

3. Marital separation

Marriage comes in at number seven. Incarceration in prison at number four.

People who enter the covenant of marriage enter into what the Bible calls the Two Become One union. This is the most permanent and lasting bond people can enter into into. Before there was any hint of the cross in the Bible there was marriage.  And so this helps us understand why the tearing apart of a bond like marriage is stressful to say the least.

I can easily say that the death of your spouse after years of marriage is the worst thing that I ever went through. I have talked to people who are divorced and they are damaged goods. Prison is hard on the individual but it is harder on the spouse on the outside.

I bring all of this up not as an academic exercise but rather to appeal to our churches to do more to encourage and support and to maintain marriage in our churches. You think that salvation is the most important thing and in one sense you are correct. But beyond the alter life must be lived. My experience was that the death of my wife almost cost me my faith. So anyone who thinks that marriage is a side issue or not important will find their church full of stressed out people and broken homes. Just saying.

Ministry Out Of The Spotlight

 Last night I attended the service at the Potter's House NE to see evangelist Steve Bowman minister. It was great to meet some new San Antonio saints. It was good to see Steve again in person.

One thing brother Bowman said last night has stuck with me this morning. He said that not all ministry is behind the pulpit. That is so true. For every pastor or evangelist who preaches behind the pulpit there are numbers of good folks who minister behind the scene and  out of the spotlight in every church.

One thing that pastor Rubi has been focused on is to challenge us to find our place and to do our part for the overall health and mission of our church. My desire is to find where I fit in in this new environment. One thing that I do I am doing now, as I write on this blog.

While we do our part the overall effect is that people are saved, healed, and delivered in our church and through our outreach. And saints pray and give and support the vision of world evangelization while never leaving their local church. And through it all God is glorified as we do what the Lord Jesus by the working of the Holy Spirit enables us to do. Amen.

Anti Vaxer Lies

 I have gotten fully vaccinated for covid-19. Two shots and then a booster. I feel like it is my duty to do my part to control sickness in society and in church. I stayed home when I was sick until I felt better and then I went back to church. That is called being mature. It is the grown up thing to do.

Parents do not let their children tell them how to manage their health and what treatments to use. It is the grownups who make the decisions. It is the grown up thing to do to get vaccinated against a virus that, like the flu, can be controlled. 

I believe in Divine healing. I have seen people healed instantly. I also know that when God does not heal now we use medicine to fix what ails us. That includes vaccines. 

It is not a sermon worthy topic to preach on vaccines unless is is part of a bigger picture, like pastor Rubi has preached. But in the mean time there is no Biblical reason not to get vaccinated. What are you afraid of? I missed some deadly childhood diseases because my parents got me vaccinated against them. A flu shot does not keep you from getting influenza. A covid shot does not prevent you from getting covid again. It helps your body fight off illness that otherwise might make you very sick.

If you are an anti vaxer you have no business spreading your lies in our or any church. And when your children get very sick we will pray for them in spite of you.