Faith Everyday Archives - True and Faithful

Those Who Expect You to Get Over Grief Have Never Suffered Life-altering Loss

10.13.2018 By Lisa Appelo 23 Comments

Get over your grief.

Yesterday, running errands and listening to my beloved Christian radio, I found myself shaking my head and talking back.

This speaker went on:

At some point, you have to put a period at the end of mourning. I know folks whose loved one died five years ago and they act like it was yesterday. Get over it. Ask for God’s help, mourn properly and for a proper time. {audience clapping}*

And my heart breaks for those grieving devastating loss five years later or fifteen years later. I want to look into their eyes and whisper over the hand clapping: God sees your pain. God knows your loss. No one else may understand, but God walks with you in it and has so much for you alongside it.

Those who expect you to get over grief have never suffered life-altering loss.

Their advice comes so well-meaning but is so off.

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Hello, Monday. You’re Not an Afterthought.

10.08.2018 By Lisa Appelo 11 Comments

O LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done marvelous things, things planned long ago. Isaiah 25:1

We roll out of bed on Monday and plunge headlong after our agenda. We’ve got a list of things to do and a full week of tasks and most Mondays start with tackling the list.

My Sunday night washed into my Monday morning and I woke up with such sadness. I was in the middle of the post-church lunch prep yesterday when my phone buzzed. I didn’t recognize the number so I let it go. A few minutes later, it buzzed again. Same number. They’ll leave a message, I thought. A few minutes later, my phone buzzed a third time, but again without a message.

And then I got a text: “If this is your number, Lisa, this is {childhood friend}. Please call.”

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Why is Asking for Help So Hard?

09.19.2018 By Lisa Appelo 13 Comments

My words have been published in a book. By Tyndale. Sitting on store shelves.

To be clear, this isn’t my book but my words in a book.

But even more amazing – these words aren’t about me at all. They’re about you.

They’re about the incredible people who showed up, stepped in, came over and helped us in our lack.

What brings me to tears more than anything these days is the goodness of God.

And so much of His goodness came through his people.

Even as I write this I’m seeing the faces of all those who have helped us these last seven years. Hands that brought meals, lined my dining room with coolers, heaped a table with food, brought books for my kids, asked us out for dinner, fixed a water heater, replaced that water heater, appeared on our lawn at Christmas with carols and hot chocolate and stockings, cleaned our house, mowed the lawn, sent gift cards, showed up with hugs, remembered us with countless prayers, coached my boys, sponsored church camp, loved on my kids, cleaned up after a hurricane, sent notes and texts, gave us a car and did a thousand other things I hope I get to see in heaven.

We would not be where we are without that help. [Read more…]

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The Cha-ching in Your Faith Bank

09.14.2018 By Lisa Appelo 14 Comments

The thing about trials is, they come unannounced.

One day, you’re eating carry-out pizza and saying goodnight like you have on a thousand other nights and the next, waking up to the final labored breaths of your husband.

Or three days into the new year, you open your laptop with great enthusiasm to start that new project pressing on your heart, when your college boy walks in from work complaining of a low backache that gets so bad so quickly he can’t walk into the ER. The MRI you thought might show a herniated disc? Instead reveals a lemon-sized tumor on his spine that has hemorrhaged.

None of us plan for these kinds of trials.

No one calendars the middle of the night phone call or the unexpected diagnosis or the unforeseen announcement at work.

The hardest trials usually careen into the most ordinary of days.

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Why God Allows Obstacles on Our Path

09.07.2018 By Lisa Appelo 6 Comments

Once my 8-month-old grandson learned to crawl, his determination was incredible. Nothing was going to keep him from getting to his destination.

Each morning, just after waking up, he made a circuit around the living room’s perimeter, a veritable obstacle course. First, he inched under the coffee table, then maneuvered over a stack of pillows, crawled between the wall and an end table and finally ventured across the tiled floor on bare knees.

The obstacles slowed him but they never stopped him from moving forward.

While my grandmomma instinct was to help him when it looked too hard, his parents watched patiently, letting him struggle until he had moved through each barrier.

They didn’t move the coffee table or shove the pillows aside to make it easier. They smiled at his tenacity and if at any point he would have come against something impossible, they would have bent down to rescue.

Oh, for that trusting tenacity when there are obstacles.

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