Update:
Final Reminder: Unless you
contact me and let me know that you would like for me to continue emailing you
my Updates; this is the final one you will receive. You can always find my Updates and Thoughts
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Not much to report for the day. 1)
I continue to sleep better. I have not
been waking up and remaining awake during the middle of the night for hours any
more. I still wake up about every hour
or two, but I can go right back to sleep.
This is helping my energy level during the day. 2) My wife and I continue to establish a
baseline for my insulin usage. Trying to
find the right dosage is somewhat of an art and you want to add additional
units slowly and carefully. 3) I’ve
started being more involved with the daily church work. I am doing reading in preparation for my
upcoming sermon series and beginning to outline future messages.
I’ll tell you of an event that happened several days ago when Ruth was
still at home. Right now I am checking
my blood sugars at breakfast, dinner, and before bed. Karen and I work on this together as we are
still establishing how my body reacts to certain amounts of insulin. The last night Ruth was home, she and Cody
were packing up and preparing to leave in the morning. I became super tired and went to bed. I knew that when Karen got home from work
that she would wake me and we’d check my sugars and then give whatever insulin
I needed. When she got home I was sound
asleep. She turned on the light. She spoke to me. She poked and nudged me a couple of
times. I was so tired that I did not
wake up. I also had headphones on playing
music while I slept. So Karen decided
that I didn’t really need to be awake, she could just take my blood sugars and
give the insulin to me while I was sleeping.
She reached in under the covers to grab my hand to pull it out so she
could start. I woke up from a deep,
sound sleep when someone grabbed my wrist under the covers—and I SCREAMED at
the top of my lungs in terror. J My daughter came running down the stairs
thinking something awful had just happened.
I lay in bed trying to slow my breathing down and had to smile at it
all.
You just never know what you are going to find humor in. I figure you might as well laugh at the silly
stuff that happens. I have a friend who
use to tell me all of the time, “You can’t make this stuff up…nobody would
believe you.” Truth is stranger than
fiction. Find the joy or humor in every
event that you can. It softens the blow
and makes the ride more enjoyable.
Thought for the Day:
When people face difficulties or disaster, it is common for
well-meaning people to offer the hurting person platitudes. The
dictionary defines Platitude in this way: “a pointless, unoriginal, or empty
comment or statement made as though it was significant or helpful.” When we don’t know what to say or how to
offer comfort we often open our mouths and these words come out.
Here are some examples of platitudes: “God will never give you more
than you can handle.” “At least he
didn’t die young (or didn’t suffer).” “I
guess God needed her more than you did.”
“I know exactly how you feel.”
“Don’t cry; He is in a better place.”
These platitudes don’t help the person who is hurting; and often they
hurt the very person whom you are intending to comfort.
So why do we say these things?
Normally it is because we don’t know what to say. We see our friend or loved one hurting and we
want to “fix it” and take away their pain.
We are helpless to really do so; but that doesn’t stop us from trying to
say something to make them feel better.
We are desperate to help; so we speak.
The bible says to do something much different. It says to be with the person. Feel what they feel. You won’t experience their trauma to the same
degree; but listen to their story, feel their pain, seek to understand what
they are going through and be there with them.
It is a ministry of presence.
Romans 12:15 “Rejoice
with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.”
Ecclesiastes 3:1 & 4 “There is
a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
…a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance”
If you’ve read the Book of Job you know that Job faced financial ruin,
the death of all of his children, and the loss of his health. His friends came to comfort him. But the longer they stayed, the more they
said and the less they helped. They came
to comfort but ended up condemning Job and causing him greater grief.
If you feel compelled to say something it is best to merely say, “I am
so sorry for what you are going through” and leave it at that. That is especially true during the initial
stages of grief and loss. Even if what
you said was perfectly true, it would not be received by the person and they
wouldn’t find it helpful. It is like
trying to plant your garden during a Wisconsin winter. There may come a time to speak later or you
may never need to. If the person
questions God or blames Him for what happened; be quiet and let God defend
Himself. It won’t go over well if you
try to defend God. Let it go! People often say things when they are in pain
that they don’t really believe—they are merely emoting: “I’m in pain.” For example, when my wife was in painful
labor with our first born, she declared, “We are not having any more
children!” After the pain subsided, she
changed her mind four more times.
I was talking with my friend, Rob, about the phrase, “God will never
give you more than you can bear.” I said
to him, “God has a much higher estimation of what I can handle than I do.” Rob said something very profound. “That is because that phrase is wrong. God DOES give us more than we can handle; He
does it all the time, and He does it on purpose.”
Think about it. If God only gave
us what we can deal with, well then we would take care of it all on our
own. But God chooses to give us more
than we can bear. He does that for a
purpose; so that we will cry out to Him and have to rely upon Him. When we are in over our heads, we cry for
someone to save us. When the water is
smooth and the shoreline is only a few yards away; “I’ve got this, no
problem.” When the waves are crashing
and we are miles from shore; “Help me! I’m dying!”
We are so self-sufficient, proud, and determined. We strive to do everything on our own terms
and in our own way. The reality is we
would be much happier and content if we learned to trust God and rely upon Him. But trust is something we learn when we are
forced to do it and then find that God came through.
We also like to quote Romans 8:28 to hurting people:
Romans 8:28 “And we know that God causes
everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called
according to his purpose for them”
(NLT).
It’s true; but truth spoken at the wrong time is useless and sometimes
harmful. There is a season to speak and
there is a season to remain silent. We
also tend to use Romans 8:28 in an effort to tell people not to cry and not to
grieve because “everything will be okay.”
That is not what this passage teaches.
What it teaches is that even the very worst or the most horrible thing
that happens to us, no matter how awful it is—still can be used in some way by
God. Perhaps when we go through a
terrible tragedy, after we’ve healed, God can use us to help others who are
going through similar events. Perhaps
our faith has been strengthened as we have hung onto God during the
tragedy. It doesn’t make the event
itself “good” and it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t grieve over our loss or
hurt. We just take a bit of solace
knowing that despite the horror of what has happened; there is some good that
may come out of it. The good may not
even happen to the person actually affected by the event. So don’t even imply that what has happened is
good to the person who is hurting.
Give them a hug. Send them a
card. Give them a call or a visit. Let them know that you care and that you are
hurting with them and for them. Be there
for them. That ministry of presence will
mean so much more to them than any platitude that you offer.
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