Share Your Testimony...

What will your cardboard testimony be?

4because we have heard of your faith

in Christ Jesus and of the love you

have for all the saints—

5the faith and love that spring from

the hope that is stored up for you in

heaven and that you have already

heard about in the word of truth, the gospel

6that has come to you. All over the world

this gospel is bearing fruit and growing,

just as it has been doing among you since

the day you heard it and understood

God's grace in all its truth.

27To them God has chosen to make known among

the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery,

which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Colossians 1:4-6, 27 (NIV)

18God did this so that, by two unchangeable things

in which it is impossible for God to lie,

we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered

to us may be greatly encouraged.

19We have this hope as an anchor for the soul,

firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary

behind the curtain,

20where Jesus, who went before us, has entered

on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever,

in the order of Melchizedek.

Hebrews 6:18-20

Michelle Bentham: "Wayward Prodigal & Grieving Mom" to "Victoriously Redeemed & Helper to the Hurting"

Thought Filled Thursdays: Trauma, Triggers, Troubles... Truth to Stand On

I wanted to write a post about trauma, triggers, things that trouble us and some truth to stand on in the days to come. I've long said that there are three primary things that got me through my grief: Truth, Talking and Tears. I have reached a place where the tears mean and come for different reasons than they once did, and I must admit that I had a period of time where it felt as if I couldn't cry another drop of wet sorrow over my son - even if I wanted to. I just felt all cried out. Still... The tears are important, as are the things that triggered them and the truth that I discovered in them when I talked about my loss, my God and the places I had been with Justin since we began this journey together some 20 years ago..

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Tammy wrote a terrific post about things that trigger her memories, her tears and her to work through her grief. Be sure to read about it here. It is such a reminder about the importance of allowing your heart and body to fully express grief as it comes in your life.

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I am a visual/audio person. Images and music tend to have a significant impact on me for some reason - so as I was beginning to write this post a few scenes came to mind and along the way that song at the end landed on me with a deep sense of truth tucked away inside of it.

(**Tissue warning... Tissue Warning... Sobbing scenes ahead.**)

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The first two video clips are from Terms of Endearment staring Shirley McClaine and Deborah Winger. This movie was produced in 1983. I remember being a high school student when my brother and I hosted a sleepover for all our neighborhood friends. Four girls and four boys were sitting in my bedroom floor watching this movie in the middle of the night. All four girls were blubbering and wiping their noses in a full on ugly cry while the boys looked on in awe at all that estrogen charged emotion.

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For me, Shirley McClaine fighting for her daughter was like those last few days of Justin's life when it felt like the world had stopped and all I wanted was to take care of my son and make sure everyone responded with his best interest at heart.

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For many days no one would tell us what was happening with my Jay-bird. He lay in that bed, his blood pressure and temperature were looking really good. With his summer tan on his face he looked so peaceful sleeping there. But, his cranial pressure - the indicator for the severity of the swelling on his brain - just kept rising. On the seventh day, Monday, August 22nd, everything in my life felt upside down. The doctors had come in early while I was away and my dad was with him. I had returned home overnight to go to my own doctor and take my daughters to school. They said that one of his pupil's had stopped responding to light which could mean that he was taking a turn for the worst. My dad called and I prayed. "Lord, please... just let him be alive when I get there."

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I had told the doctors for days that we wanted the complete, unvarnished truth. By noon, when the neurosurgeon's had avoided my son's room and talking to me for the second time I was a frantic mess. I was crying, shaking and ANGRY. I felt much of what Shirley McClaine expresses in this scene - except my son didn't need a shot for pain. I needed answers about his condition - answers no one seemed willing to provide.

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The social worker assigned to be our advocate during Justin's eight day ordeal at the hospital advised me to call the doctor's office and ask them to help me. I went back to the nurse's station. Within minutes I was on the line with a Physician's Assistant who had not even seen my son in the hospital. He placed me on hold and reviewed my son's file and films. I felt like I had been there forever when he came back on and said, "Ma'am, though I have not examined your son I would say that we need to do a test and I will order it for tomorrow or the next day. This test will measure the blood flow to your son's brain."

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I already sensed what the results of that test would be... Still, at least I had some sort of answer to what the doctor's were thinking. He assured me that we would have definitive answers about my son's condition after this test was completed. I asked my husband to call the elders and have them come along with our pastor and family. I did not want to deal with people - I just wanted to have those who'd loved us longest and those who had been there for my son during the most difficult months to pray with us over him before we released him to God. Apparently, Scott did not convey that message. That night more than 150 people arrived at the hospital and my father "ran the tour." When the nurses gave him the heads up that he could bring as many people back as he could - four at a time - he began walking out and leading people back to the room for five minute visits where he explained all the details of the monitors and held onto his hope that my son was going to live.

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I, on the other hand, had been sitting on my cot while his nurse, Donna, checked his pupils as was the hourly routine. When she looked up with discouraged eyes that showed me a heart aching for our family all she could do was whisper. "We've lost his other pupil."

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The finality of those words lay over me like a thick, suffocating blanket. My son had slipped away. I felt the warm wet tears that had been mine for days as Justin's condition hit peaks and then dove into valleys ... "That's not good is it?"

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She shook her head, came to my side and sat and held me in her arms as I cried. She wept, too. It touched me in the deep places of my heart the way the staff of the hospital loved on us and met with us in our need. They took good care of my baby and my family during those awful days when tragedy visited us and death consumed one of our own.

These next scenes mark out some of how I felt on August 23, 2005. Such peace in the passing, but then terrible angst. One of my prayers that week was for God to make the outcome sure. Either He was going to heal and restore my son or He wasn't this side of heaven. By that last day, my heart cry was not to bring my son back in a broken state, but to make it absolutely certain and to leave no doubt about God's will. When the doctor's told us that they were sure his brain stem had hemorrhaged on his way back from the last test and they would be in to turn off his ventilator so we should gather our family... Again I felt peace mixed with deep sorrow.

Certainty.

There was not absolution for me until they turned off the machines and there was no gasp of air, no shaking, nothing that suggested my son was still in that body. He had slipped away quietly while no one was looking. He tread the path to heaven with Jesus by his side and I knew with absolute certainty that he would never awaken to me on earth again. The sobs of death consumed me as that truth settled into my life for the first time. I bathed his body, held him tight and left him to the medical examiner. He still is my son.
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The Steel Magnolias funeral scene has always reduced me to tears. The things that M'lynn expresses at the funeral reflected my own heart about the death of my child. She recounted the last minutes with "there was no gasp, no tremble - just peace" She said her husband couldn't take it, he left. Her son-in-law couldn't take it... he left. That men, "they're supposed to be made of steel or something, but they couldn't take it... I was there when that beautiful creature drifted into my life and I was there when she drifted out. It was the most precious moment of my life."
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I felt all that and more in those hours leading up to and out of my son's death. I recently asked my husband where he was standing when they turned off Justin's machines. His answer? By the door. He spent little time in the room with Justin and I, barely able to stand the "frankenstein-esque" monitor in his skull and all the bleating machines and wires that ran to and from his body.

Since I've given you some heavier scenes to contemplate earlier I thought I would drop this next one in because it makes us laugh. It so accurately expresses the full range of anger, emotional tumult and that uncanny role of humor in our tears that can come in times of great tragedy.

This final scene was met with a round of cheers as my daughters and I watched this serial drama for teenagers. One Tree Hill is on the CW (formerly the WB) each week and we've followed it off and on from its inception.

This scene is between the original group of One Tree Hill who are now adults and teachers in the life of a teenager who was killed when he accidentally walked in on an armed robbery at a gas station. I include it because there is truth to stand on in these lines... and it is truth hard to find in the entertainment industry these days. When others are crying out that self-awareness and getting in touch with your inner child or nature, and society says we create our own realities... Here is this little serial drama that does not get it right half the time declaring the truth for all to see. Thank God He uses even the mundane to reveal Himself in small ways.

There's an old saying "God will not give us more than we can bear." But, as I read the Scriptures I hear the Holy Spirit saying something fresh in 1 Corinthians 10:12-13 "Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. 13 No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it." (NKJV, emphasis mine)
God is faithful to keep us from being pushed beyond our limits. In and of our own power and strength we have nothing, Scripture tells us that His strength is made perfect in our weakness - meaning it is proven powerful in the weakest, most devastating moments of our lives. When I read 1 Corinthians 10:13 it speaks this to me: "God will not give us more than HE can bear." That passage says that with God I can withstand any trial, any suffering, any temptation and overcome because He makes the way.
Paul reports in his epistles as having been afflicted by a thorn in the flesh that He prayed three times to have removed. But, rather than removing the thorn, God provided him the grace to endure the tempest and the storm. God will provide the same for you. He is the God of all comfort. He sustains those who are weak and hurting. He comforts those who suffer and mourn and He gives grace and strength to those who feel as if they cannot go on. He causes us to stand. We have a Rock in Jesus Christ upon which to STAND FIRM. So .... my friends, Stand. When you think you'll give up. Stand. When you're down on you're luck. Stand. Get up... Can't you hear Him saying, Get up and Stand with Me in this. He wants you to stand.

Stand
(As Sung by Rascal Flatts)
"You feel like a candle in a hurricane
Just like a picture with a broken frame
Alone and helpless
Like you've lost your fight
But you'll be alright, you'll be alright
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[Chorus:]
Cause when push comes to shove
You taste what you're made of
You might bend, till you break
Cause its all you can take
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On your knees you look up
Decide you've had enough
You get mad you get strong
Wipe your hands shake it off
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Then you Stand,
Then you stand
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Life's like a novel
With the end ripped out
The edge of a canyon
With only one way down
Take what you're given before its gone
Start holding on,
keep holding on
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[Repeat Chorus]
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Every time you get up
And get back in the race
One more small piece of you
Starts to fall into place
Oh...
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[Repeat Chorus]

With my love and prayers,

Michelle

His Strength is Perfect

If I tell you that grief is a season, like I've done the last few weeks, you would probably say - not mine... This feels like it will never end.

Grief is a different kind of journey - so different from any season - no matter what kind of loss you are grieving. When change comes to our lives - we grieve the things we had to give up for the change to come. When change occurs, and change in life is inevitable, we must be prepared to identify our feelings and what we lost. We must also allow ourselves to feel the pain and work through the difficulties of grief. We must be able to ultimately accept the reality of the loss and the change that came with it, and embrace the truth - that life will never be normal (the way it was before we experienced the loss) but it can be good, and normal can be redefined so that we not only survive our loss - but thrive when our season of grief finds its end.

We do not choose grief: it is our natural mental, emotional and physical response to loss. What we have to choose is what to do about our grief. If we ignore it, grief will take its toll. It will lead you to believe you are crazy, or calloused. You will find yourself ill and that you cannot accomplish even the simplest task. Life will not be lived - you will just exist in the aftermath of your loss. Like riding a macabre carousel - you will just cycle through the same devestating emotions until they take a toll on not only your mental, but also your physical health as well.

The Scirpture for today promises a full restoral after a season of mourning. I find it interesting when I read the ending chapters of the book of Job that while God restored a double portion of Job's possessions, wealth, and status in his community - He only gave Job ten children after his children died in the first chapter of the book. Ten children died, but God gave Job a double portion for his pain. All except his children. Are you asking what is up with that? I did, too.

Job, though, rejoiced. He knew what God knew and what we can know, too. The number of Job's children restored to him in this life were exactly the number who died and went to heaven because the first ten children were never lost. God did give Job a double portion for his children. He received ten to live out his days with him, and ten who were sent ahead to God's safe keeping. Those children were never lost to him in the first place. It took 42 chapters for the book of Job to work through Job's grief. I have no idea how much time that was, but I do know that grief takes time.

We will experience different stages or cycles of grief throughout our season, and we will experience some stages or cycles more than once. Grief will not look the same for any one person and we should never compare our grief to someone elses. We will get stuck in the perpetual irony of thinking because we did not grieve the same as someone else we know - that we cannot be fixed. That is simply not true. God wants to bring restoration to your life, but you have to endure your season of grief and let Him deliver the double portion of restoration to you when you have made the journey He has set before you.

Healing is a choice and you must decide that the love and promises of God are worth more than holding onto what hurts. Joy, dancing, and laughter will come, but only after the wailing, the mourning and the pain. Will you embrace the ashes of your loss so you can exchange it for a crown of beauty and an anointing of joy.

There is hope for us, not just in the shared grief of others, but in the Lord who gives and takes away. He is the God of all comfort who promises comfort to those who mourn. But, without mourning there is not comfort - if we do not grieve we will not experience the joy of the Lord. Blessings to you sweet friends. Steady on in your journey of grief.

Salve for a Wounded Soul

10 And do not grumble, as some of them did--
and were killed by the destroying angel.

11 These things happened to them as examples
and were written down as warnings for us,
on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.

12 So, if you think you are standing firm,
be careful that you don't fall!

13 No temptation has seized you except
what is common to man. And God is faithful;
he will not let you be tempted beyond what
you can bear. But when you are tempted,
he will also provide a way out
so that you can stand up under it.

1 Corinthians 10:10-13 (NIV)

As I read these verses of Scripture I was moved by something... These verses show us that the Israelites were given to us as an example and a warning of how not to live. You see the Israelites failed to recognize the blessing of God's deliverence from Egypt in the Exodus account. Instead, they grumbled, complained and blamed God and His servants for what they were experiencing. In our grief it is easy to grumble and complain -to miss out on the blessings of God because all we can see, feel, taste, touch and smell are our circumstances. But, these people who complained against God for so long, eventually rebelled against Him, too. We must be careful in the sorting season of our grief not to get stuck in defeated cycles of grumbling and complaining. We must instead embrace the promises of God. Like the one in verse 13 of 1 Corinthians:

This verse is often said to mean that God will not give us more than we can handle. And, I respectfully disagree with that conclusion and here are a couple of reasons why:

1. In and of my own self, I can do nothing. Without God my works are as filthy rags and perishable junk. [5 "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:5 (NIV)]

2. God's strength is shown perfect in my weakness. His grace is proven sufficient when what I am dealing with is more than I myself can bear. [And to keep me from being puffed up and too much elated by the exceeding greatness (preeminence) of these revelations, there was given me a thorn ( a splinter) in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to rack and buffet and harass me, to keep me from being excessively exalted. 8 Three times I called upon the Lord and besought [Him] about this and begged that it might depart from me; 9 But He said to me, My grace (My favor and loving-kindness and mercy) is enough for you [sufficient against any danger and enables you to bear the trouble manfully]; for My strength and power are made perfect (fulfilled and completed) and show themselves most effective in [your] weakness. Therefore, I will all the more gladly glory in my weaknesses and infirmities, that the strength and power of Christ (the Messiah) may rest (yes, may pitch a tent over and dwell) upon me!
2 Cor 12:7-9 (AMP)]

3. Finally, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. My power to endure any temptation comes from Christ who suffered every temptation and tragedy known to man and lived without sin. Look to Jesus and read 1 Corinthians 10:13 with new eyes. [13 I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me [ I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me; I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency].
Phil 4:13 (AMP)]

"For no temptation (no trial regarded as enticing to sin), [no matter how it comes or where it leads] has overtaken you and laid hold on you that is not common to man [that is, no temptation or trial has come to you that is beyond human resistance and that is not adjusted and adapted and belonging to human experience, and such as man can bear]. But God is faithful [to His Word and to His compassionate nature], and He [can be trusted] not to let you be tempted and tried and assayed beyond your ability and strength of resistance and power to endure, but with the temptation He will [always] also provide the way out (the means of escape to a landing place), that you may be capable and strong and powerful to bear up under it patiently."
1 Cor 10:13 (AMP) [Emphasis mine]

God will not allow us to be tempted beyond what He can empower us to withstand and resist. He will empower us to not only withstand and endure - He will empower us to do it with grace and patience. We must rely on His strength - especially when we have nothing to draw from.


His Strength is Perfect...

The Wind blows where it will...

When the winds of change blow... What choice do we have but to move?

That is exactly where we find ourselves. We are at a crossroads. An opportunity for significant, positive change looms on our horizon. Our response becomes critical - lifechanging.

I can't go into all the details, but yesterday the wind blew into our lives unexpectedly and shook us up a bit. It promises change, future, hope and challenge. And, here we are in the middle of it again.

How is it that the winds of change swirl all about us but scarcely find us watching for them? I think that is the thing that is rolling through my mind. We are now facing the fact that several years ago when a similar opportunity came our way - we chose selfishly, foolishly and moved in a direction that took us away from God's narrow path. Which inadvertently landed us right back on the narrow path when we began walking our journey at Gateway Church. Now, we are faced with that very same decision and looking to choose wisely. We are praying about the direction, but will begin setting things in motion on Monday... And the change will come to us within a week or so... It's exciting, crazy scary and trying all at the same time. It feels impossible.

To my surprise, last night was a calm night. We were not in upheaval and my husband was not disappointed or angry or seemingly frustrated at all. I guess I shouldn't be surprised - we have been building up to this place recently. Instead, he was listening, weighing, considering and agreeing. We prayed together after discussing our situation and found God in our midst. Maybe, just maybe we are called to be flexible, transient - not too attached to the things of this world, just good stewards of them. Maybe this is the way God brings us back to where we should have been all along, but in a different way. Maybe... Just Maybe... This is the day for change.
Does it really all come down to what we are willing to believe?

" 'If you can'?" said Jesus. "Everything is possible for him who believes." Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" ~ Mark 9:23-24 NIV