Living Phoenix

Tag: dailyprompt

  • Longing for Acceptance When Devoid of Hope

    Longing for Acceptance When Devoid of Hope

    As grief drags on, minute-by-minute, day-by-day, the constant torture of uninvited memories begins to fatigue the ounce of will that remains in a bleeding soul. The longing to not hurt anymore becomes the pain of an itch left unscratched around the nose. Pleading and begging, praying and crying, bargaining and changing: all fall on the deaf ears of a cold hearted person and a distant God. Anyone who says in those early moments of grief, God brings me peace, are suspect and questionable that they truly loved what they lost at all. They have not felt the burning iron piercing their side, day and night.

    The literature and devotionals are thick with the grieving in the silence of a Creator. Who has ever successfully explained this? “God’s silence does not mean his absence”. How I loathe those words now. Does this mean he sits near and and speaks nothing while I suffer? Does he stand over me, towering above, not reaching out a single hand of comfort? His ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts. I understand. But still, how the longing grows from I want my person back to I want my God to be real in this moment. Eventually, we will break. Our will cannot remain forever beneath the weight of our grief. A crossroad has appeared and the options are narrowed. Which is the correct path, in my own personal suffering, I will not pretend to know. One path goes with God and the other we travel alone.

    I see God as the option that offers me the most hope. And in these moments, it is hope that is our rarest commodity. A precious metal, water in the desert, rumor of a cure for a horrid disease. If God is real, then he has not judged me for questioning him. He has not hurt me for throwing my punches in his direction. It seems, on the contrary, my punishment comes only when I direct my frustration on myself or others. Daniel wrestled with God. How we adore that simple quote. Perhaps, we do not understand the full weight of what is meant by “wrestle with God”. From the painful words he cast at his Lord it was not the playful tussle of a father and son. It was an angry child on the playground, hurt so badly he did not care the consequences of lashing out at something bigger than him. And yet, that was part of his pursuit of God. It was him becoming, and being, a “man after God’s own heart”.

    “Oh Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever? How long will you look the other way? How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul, with sorrow in my heart every day? How long will my enemy have the upper hand? Turn and answer me, O Lord my God! Restore the sparkle in my eyes, or I will die.” Psalms 13: 1-3. Or I will die…does that speak to the grieving heart?

    That is David sitting at a crossroad at the very bottom of life. That is David declaring he doesn’t understand, that he is in great pain, that he reaches out and nothing is reaching back. Sound familiar? But it is also his declaration that if there is to be any hope, in his hopeless life, it cannot come from anywhere but God. David cheated on his wife. He committed murder. And he is regarded as the epitome of the kind, loving, Godly, servant. He had shame. He had guilt. He felt as though he lost everything he had to live for. He had depression. He had profound sadness. He had anger. He grieved. And as he cast all of those emotions onto God, I imagine he finally fell exhausted with no will remaining but to eventually be picked up and carried by God to higher ground. And that gives us something to hope for.

    Hope still eludes me nearly every day. So much so, that I find myself longing for it, dreaming of it, willing to cut off my own decaying flesh to obtain it. Why? I do not know. I just know that I could use someone holding me close and walking with me, and no person will ever do the way they did again. So, I need something more, something bigger, something cosmic. I need a God that is willing to hear me, to tolerate me, to see me. David sang praises again after surviving the worse life had to throw at him. I suppose, I want that, too. For myself, and also for you. And while acceptance may remain in the periphery, this is a step in the right direction.

    “‘Hope’ is a the thing with feathers-” by Emily Dickinson

    “Hope” is the thing with feathers- That perches in the soul- And sings the tune without words- And never stops- at all- And sweetest- in the Gale- is heard- And sore must be the storm- That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm- I’ve heard it in the chillest land- And on the strangest Sea- Yet- never- in Extremity, It asked a crumb- of me.

  • Sunday Sidebar

    Sunday Sidebar

    Most often I find myself praying to forget. Despite them being my fondest memories in life, they are what cause me the most pain. Those treasured moments burn like hot coals in the morning and keep me from sleep. If only I could focus on the troubled times, the hard parts, the things that didn’t bring joy. If only the worse times with her weren’t better than the best times anywhere else. I would gladly have the operation to remove every memory from those years. To go on with a hole in my memory where all my hopes and dreams once lived. Unnoticed. Unaware.

    Grief is a sign that you loved deeply. And the deeper the grief the greater you loved. The greater you loved the more painful this unnecessary torture of life’s experience will be. There is no way around it but to feel it. And there is nothing good about what you will feel. It is too big to bottle up and hide in the corner. It is to grande, too much, to deal with in quiet rooms alone. It is evidence you are capable of huge love. And therefore, at risk for greatest loss. When love is in front of you the risk is worth every bit. When it disappears, and you feel the pain of generational loss, the gamble seems unfair.

    I grieve because my heart was honest about my love for a person.

  • What’s a cultural tradition from your country that you love?

    Perhaps my least favorite meal, but most favorite tradition: Thanksgiving.

  • The Day I Already Relive: If only I could restart from this day

    The Day I Already Relive: If only I could restart from this day

    Daily writing prompt
    If you could relive one day from your past, which day would it be and why?
    View all responses

    My wedding day. Nothing more needs explored here.

  • Seeing Our Reflection in Other’s Struggles

    Seeing Our Reflection in Other’s Struggles

    Daily writing prompt
    What’s the last movie that made you cry?
    View all responses

    I cry a lot these days. Crying even on occasion would be more than I used to cry, but now it comes easy: like a deep breath, a sigh, a yawn. I cried several times during the Odyssey. The journey, the pain, the fight to maintain hope, all resonated with me. I cried during Solo Mio, although who isn’t brought to tears by the voice Andrea Bocelli. Somedays, I might cry at my patient’s stories or perhaps a weight loss commercial. But why does a good cry quiet my soul for even a few minutes?

  • Nothing taken away can be replaced

    Nothing taken away can be replaced

    Daily writing prompt
    If you could erase one event from history, what would it be?
    View all responses

    That very day I selfishly chose to break her heart beyond her willingness to repair. Or maybe it was the love that was promised wasn’t deep enough to heal with me and the departure was inevitable- and I’d erase the memory of you and the curse of this grief. Oh, but if only there were one mistake to erase I’d erase them all for you.

  • Certainly Uncertain

    Daily writing prompt
    How do you deal with uncertainty?
    View all responses
    Man balancing on a rope above flames in a rocky canyon
    A man balances on a rope above roaring flames in a dramatic volcanic canyon.

    How do I handle uncertainty? A balanced toe on a thin thread of braided fate, chance, and providence: Each woven one at odds with the other. Careful still of gravity, disguised as my control.

  • What’s a moment when you realized you were officially an adult?

    When every decision held a consequence. Responsibility became a purpose. When God died and was reborn more real 10 times before I found an answer. When I held my children. When I found true love. When I lost them all and found I was still breathing despite my every best effort. When I kept moving despite life. Mostly, when I became grateful for it all.

  • If Your Roots Reached Down to Hell, Grow Toward the Heavens: A Personal Pain Biopsy

    If Your Roots Reached Down to Hell, Grow Toward the Heavens: A Personal Pain Biopsy

    “No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.” Carl Jung

    Before we start this journey together regarding surviving our loss and dissecting the evolution of grief, it is necessary to first take the most difficult step: identify exactly what we are grieving. Grief isn’t a vague process that proceeds through natural stages on its own, and if we do not say out loud what we lost and what we mourn then we will become stuck in any particular phase of grief; a breeding ground for what you might call “past trauma” that one day wreaks havoc on the future. And since this step is so important and perhaps the most difficult, and because in writing it I feel like a bit of the pot calling the kettle black…I’ll share my own pain biopsy in hopes that some vulnerability is both therapeutic and beneficial to someone out there somewhere, as well as, myself.

    Do not be surprised to find that taking ownership of your own mistakes and faults, as well as identifying the hurt you caused, may be easier than identifying the non-organic specific losses and hurt. Unless your loss is due to a death, we have blame to accept. And we will. The journey we took to the bottom, however, led us to care so little for ourselves that it made self-judgement and conviction much easier than acknowledging the broken promises or physical losses that we now mourn. But if you are going to grieve and have a hope of healing, admit what you are grieving- a step in the right direction of honesty is being honest with yourself. Carl Jung said, “There is no coming to consciousness without pain”, and “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”

    The pathology of our pain and nearly every stumble we have ever faced is rooted in fear. The most amazing humans have made the most horrible mistakes. And those who look amazing without fault have only hid them well and acknowledged them less. It is much easier to assume a persons identity with their worse moments while seeing our own identity as our greatest attributes. In other words, our assumption of a persons identity is often dishonest and our assumption of our self identity is often honest. That is until you find yourself in the ashes and all you are able to see is all of your ugly parts. The entire system flips on its head along with every other thing in your life. Self loathing. Self distrust. Self hatred. And therefore, flows the ease of accepting your mistakes and the difficulty in naming the things you are grieving most.

    Two things come to mind that lead to painful grief. One is the loss of something vital to you. Death of a love one. Separation and divorce of your person. A prodigal child. You have no control of any part of the loss. You cannot bring someone back to life. You cannot make someone love you. You cannot change a persons will to make bad choices. The other is the loss of something that confirms your insecurity. Abandonment. Distrust. Feeling unsafe. All of the insecurities. And a successful pain biopsy must address both types. Both are often tied together. You not only lose your spouse or your child, you lose every hope and dream woven into the fabric of your previous reality. And that is exactly why it hurts so badly, for so long, and why we get stuck in the worse of it.

    For example, the severity of my pain seemed obvious to me at first. I lost the love of my life. Similar to having an argument, causing them emotional pain, and then moments later they die in an accident- you never see them again, you never get to say you are sorry, you never get the chance to rebuild what was broken into something greater and more indestructible. Only in this case (and thank God, of course), it wasn’t an accident. And while those wounds remained open the person who I loved the most in this world was out there moving on and healing without me- her sworn best friend, husband, safe place- replaced with worse friend, ex-husband, unsafe person. When the person you love more than any human in your lifetime disappears you feel like you are perpetually stuck in the initial moments after the fall when the wind has been knocked out of you- gasping for breath, chest tight, panic, fear. I was mourning my greatest loss. A person. And that part will stay with you forever. But that can become more generalized with time and confusing and the pain seems to worsen instead of easing and become manageable. The biopsy only included the largest lesion. And with that lesion were the metastasis that turned up at every dark corner of my heart. I not only mourned a person. I grieved deeply for our time. Early mornings, dinners after work, random texts, sending flowers, planning our weekends, cuddling on the couch, reading in bed and hearing her breath and feeling her cold feet. The small things began to add up to seemingly infinite losses. Sitting in the bathroom while she showered and vented about her day, dinners with her family, walking the dogs, jump scares and pranks, teamwork, dancing in the kitchen, sharing a song. But it didn’t end with the direct losses that shunted off of the experiences with the person. It included our future. The dream and planning to bring a child into the world. I mourn the loss of child that will never be born. Finding our “forever home”. Dreaming of pets and farm animals. Dreams of travels and adventures. And I mourned my final day, just before my final breath, when she would hold my hand and say “we did good”. I mourned promises lost and broken, of lifetime together, and for better or worse and sickness and in health. And after weeks of identifying those individual things we grieve, only then can we begin to say goodbye and hope for healing.

    There is no recipe to feel better. And our greatest misconception is that time heals all wounds. It doesn’t. In fact it makes them worse. Every trauma you carry with you was time not healing a wound. Stuck in the cycle of grief. Intention, steps forward, feeling the pain, hard work, praying, and the mercy of God are the only hope we have of healing any wound. A pain biopsy is painful. But the only way through loss and grief is the eye of the storm. You must travel directly through the storm, walk through hell, to get to safer ground. There was a point in the movie, The Odyssey, that resonated deeply with me in regards to this very point when Calypso is seeing Odysseus off on his makeshift raft heading home over uncharted waters. What she says describes what we must eventually face on our journey if we want to get home. And it is a lesson that an attempt to control every outcome in the pit of despair will only prolong your suffering.

    “You are a man that likes to control your fate. But this time you can’t. You must give yourself to the storm. Give yourself to Poseidon. Take your punishment.”

    A pain biopsy is painful but necessary. You don’t just grieve, you grieve the loss of many specific things. And failing to identify them and not allowing yourself to feel the pain will lead to getting stuck. And those demons will show themselves again in many forms years down the road. So, take a deep breath, do an inventory, hold on tight, and biopsy.

  • If you had a time machine and could send just one message to your past self, what would it say?

    Brace yourself. This is going to hurt. Open yourself. This is going to be beautiful, too.