Once a quarter, I like to step back to see where I’ve been and what I’ve learned. It’s a gathering of all the threads in life, and it helps me pause to take stock rather than rushing into the next thing.
Joining with Emily Freeman today, here’s some of what I learned this spring:
1. Great loss has not depleted life of great joy
If you’re on my Instagram, you’ve seen some of what May brought us. Almost six years ago, when my insides felt gutted and we were clinging to shards of life as we knew it, I hoped for a May. I could only trust it would come. Feelings didn’t give a hint that it might be true.
But God promises joy and his Word promises our seasons of grief will give way to joy. (Psalm 30:5, Psalm 126:5, Isaiah 35:10)
I still have young children to raise. I still have nights of deep missing and even this month held tears of a so-much-missed daddy. I’m still waiting in many ways for the fullness of chapter 2.
But taking God at His word is never a risk.
It may be a wait or a walk-through-this-first, but May has been a picture in every sense of His faithfulness.
2. We can acclimate to the not-so-normal new
Soon after Dan died, I mentioned “new normal” with a friend, when my daughter interrupted: “This isn’t normal, Mom.” No, baby, it’s not. Because losing your dad when you’re 17 or 12 or 6 or 4 or your husband when life and plans and next week’s to-do list stretched out before you will never feel normal.
May showed us not just joy in Chapter 2, but that practically we’re adapting to Chapter 2. On the second very late-night drive for Nick’s college graduation, with everyone asleep in the car, it hit me: I was driving and it didn’t feel out-of-sync.
It no longer felt off to stand alone next to my high school graduate when everyone else had their mom and dad. It didn’t feel out-of-place to be seated alone at the wedding. I’ve gotten used to the pace of single parenting and decision overload and even caught myself laughing at the crazy of a second-floor plumbing leak two weeks pre-wedding because what? I’m over having a Southern Living house.
Missing Dan is always there — the thin film over every event, every conversation, every supper. We may be limping, but limping no longer feels as awkward.
Correcting an Old Teaching
For years I’ve heard it said that one reason God allows suffering is so we can comfort others going through the same thing.
So, if you’ve had breast cancer, you can comfort someone else with breast cancer. If you’ve experienced infertility, you can comfort another couple dealing with infertility. And so on.
But that’s not what scripture says.
God says He comforts us in all our troubles so that “we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” 2 Cor 1:4
I’m not sure why that verse has stopped me in my tracks so much. Maybe because we limit ourselves? Or limit what God can do through us?
As fellow believers, who’ve known God’s comfort, we can offer comfort to all.
Even if we’ve never buried a child, we can comfort.
Even if we’ve never lost a job, we can comfort.
Even if we’ve never walked through a hard marriage, we can comfort.
We’re not off the hook if we haven’t experienced it.
God is so much bigger than our problems. Because God’s comfort to us is boundless, we can lavishly comfort others.
4. Our Summer Reading is off and running
I love slower days and less homeschooling, fewer evenings out and more simple meals. And summer reading.
I usually make suggested reading lists for my kids and our own summer reading program. (They like my incentives! Our brainstormed prizes: shaved ice, bowling, Sonic slushy, dollar store trip, personal pan pizza, an Xbox hour, pick your own cereal, choose a new book.)
Last week, I finished Option B by Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook whose husband died suddenly on a treadmill at 47 years old. I underlined and highlighted like it was a college textbook. Grief isn’t a respecter and, though her book is secular, we shared so many common reactions and fears. Grief hits hard whether you run a multi-million dollar company or labor unnoticed in your kitchen.
I underlined almost as much in No More Faking Fine over the long weekend. There is sisterhood in the suffering even when stories are different. Faking Fine invites the reader into lament: “expressing honest emotions to God when life is not going as planned.”
It is impossible to move forward from pain without a healthy view of what God does with our hurts and heartaches. He wants pain to leave our hearts, minds, and bodies, but He doesn’t expect it to happen overnight, nor does He give us a formula for healing. But he does give us a language, and that language is lament. Faking Fine, by Esther Fleece
Esther’s story of childhood abuse and abandonment which lead to adult coping and fear may be fairly unique, but the Biblical practice of lament applies to any of us who’ve walked through hard. Two thumbs way up on this one.
You can see the rest of my summer reading list here. Next up is Only Love Today.
So, how about you? What did your spring hold? What did you learn or what’s on your summer reading list? I’d love to know in the comments!
Xoxo friends, Lisa
Thank you for the wonderful encouragement you are Lisa as you share from the depths of your heart. Spring has been busy for my family with a much awaited wedding of our eldest son and also the arrival of our second granddaughter (who as yet has no name!) It’s also been a season of feeling out of my comfort zone in so many ways; hearing God say it’s time to move forward and leave the baggage of the past behind, including issues of where I’m supposed to fit in the grand scheme of life. I am 58 years old and have seen my life unfold covered by God’s grace.
I realise that identity is a big deal especially with our young ones who are being bombarded with definitions of identity and self. I am currently in leadership where we have a family that has been devastated by one of their children changing their identity. It’s been an awkward and uncomfortable place to be from a pastoral viewpoint particularly as the young person doesn’t engage or communicate with most people easily. Trying to encourage this family has been a situation where our church leadership team hasn’t been on the same page but Ithink over the spring season we have broken a tiny piece of ground together. One of the issues that has been contentious, is the view that because we haven’t passed through certain life issues we aren’t equipped to minister comfort in that area. Reading your spring edition it was an ‘aha!’ moment to see what you wrote concerning this view point and what the bible actually says in 2 Cor 4:1. It encourages me to look at the whole way we support this family as a leadership team through this fresh revelation.
I really am grateful to have read this today. Congratulations on all that’s been happening in your beautiful family. I definitely will be checking out the reading list. My reading list is getting longer ( I buy books like some women buy make up!) I do read a lot and 2 books I plan to read this summer are by 2 wonderful men, Michael Marcel – “God’s Heart for a Dying Land” a book in which the author seeks to provide a historical background and context for the church in Britain and the implications for us in today’s culture as the body of Christ and Jarrod Cooper – “Stronger:Building a Powerful Interior World” which is about where we find strength and how we recognise God’s plan for our resilience. God bless you and keep up the great ministry ❤️🙂
Carol x
Carol, both books sound fascinating. Praying now for clarity as as the body of Christ. ❤
Thank you so much Lisa. It’s so timely that today I have been asked by another blog site I subscribe to “what have you learned this month?” The Holy Spirit is definitely on my case! Between you and this other site I am inspired to start journaling in seasons, months and weeks and there will always be a ‘what I have learned section at the end’ I used to do bi-monthly journals when I was a Worship Academy student and it was very useful. Especially when things didn’t go to plan. Bless you Xx
I love your way with Words Lisa, so easy yet precisely descriptive.
With every change comes a new normal. God’s doing such a beautiful new normal and in you.
xoxo
Thank you, friend. Realizing it doesn’t feel like a stranger’s life means God is mending. Xoxo
You are so right, Lisa, about the comforting of others.
It has been my experience that, we understand, because the emotions are the same, no matter what we have been through.
My heart goes out to those who do not have God in their lives, therefore , no hope.
That is the saddest place to be, and may we, who do know the Lord , have compassion for those lost souls.
Love,
Jo
Yes, we may not understand fully, but we can offer comfort.
Thank you for sharing the things you learned this spring. I’m so glad with Jesus we can find great joy even after great loss. 💕
It feels good, Amanda, to smile again and really mean it.
I’ve not walked in your shoes, you’ve not walked in mine. Yet I find so much encouragement from your writings and what you share. So the verses about comfort are so true we can offer comfort to another even when our circumstances are different. I’m so pleased to read you and your family are finding a new way in life. Thankyou for what you share. Have no doubt it’s comforting others. It certainly is in the new normal I find myself in. X
Thank you, Carol. Many blessings to you today.
So much hope in this post,Lisa. And what a great point about comfort … if we’ve known God’s comfort, “we can offer comfort to all.” So sweet to see you celebrating with your beautiful family!
Thank you, Lois! So much.
Lisa,
Your beautiful words brought tears to my eyes. I haven’t had a chance to read your posts lately but As I read this post out loud to my husband, our hearts ached and of course longed for Dan to be with you still, but we are so very grateful for the healing that God is bringing you. You are always an inspiration to me. Thanks for sharing your beautiful heart with all of us!
Love you, friend.
Carol
Love reading this, Lisa. I so appreciate your perspective on life, and you have had a doozy of a month, joy and pain and frustration and laughter, it sounds like. I look forward to seeing what the summer holds for you. Love the book recs.
What a gift it is to document the seasons and what God has taught you. Such beautiful photos, words, and memories. Thank you for sharing them with us! God bless you!
Such truth, Lisa. We can comfort those in need because God comforts us. I pray He continues to hold you and your family. I admire your strength and am thankful that you are sharing the journey.
Thank you, Mandy.
Thank you for the (very true) reminder that great grief does not have to deplete us or deprive us of great joy! Even after I realized I was able to feel joy again, it took longer to believe I was “allowed” to really experience joy. God has patiently taught me – there is much joy in this life He has given….even a life that has known great grief. So glad you have enjoyed much joy in these past weeks and months! Thanks for sharing!
I always enjoy these “What I Learned” posts (I even did one myself) so I popped over from Salt & Light link up. But what I found was so much more! As God would have it. I know someone who is going through the loss of her husband too and I know your blog will be a blessing to her. I’ll be sending her your way!
So good to connect with your from Salt & Light, Alyson.