Gypsy, I read this in a Christian book recently and thought it would fit perfectly on this thread (btw, if you aren't a Christian, skip it...or read it and convert, score me some air miles to heaven!)Anyway, it's by David Wilkerson in "Have You Felt Like Giving Up Lately?"
"Dear friend, don't think of your trial as judgment from God. Don't go about condemning yourself, as though you have brought down upon yourself some dreaded penalty for failure. Stop thinking, "God is making me pay for my sin." Why can't you see that what you are going through is a result of His love? Are you being chastened? Do you feel as if you are being dragged down? Are you in pain? Are you suffering? Good! That is evidence of His love toward you. Submit! Take up your cross! Be prepared to go down even more. Get ready to reach your crisis. Get ready to reach the end of yourself. Be prepared to give up. Be prepared to hit bottom! Please understand you are in Christ's own school of discipleship. Rejoice that you are going to become weak in order to experience His overpowering strength in you. He laid His cross down; why won't you? For Him, a Simon appeared. For us, a Saviour appears. We get up and go on. It's still our cross, but now it's on His shoulders"
Once while grasping the tail of a super huge lab who was barreling down a hill ready to attack fireworks, he wagged his tail and sent me flying. I literally bounced in the air down the incline several times before coming to a stop, embarrassed as all get out.
And of course it happened in front of 20 people (the in-laws and friends of family) who all laughed uproariously.
Here are a few quotes on grief and loss I came across in my lunch hour internet browsing:
It isn't for the moment you are struck that you need courage, but for the long up hill battle to faith, sanity and security. Anne Morrow Lindbergh
"When it seems that our sorrow is too great to be borne, let us think of the great family of the heavy-hearted into which our grief has given us entrance, and inevitably, we will feel about us their arms, their sympathy, their understanding." Helen Keller
Grief is a tidal wave that over takes you, smashes down upon you with unimaginable force, sweeps you up into its darkness, where you tumble and crash against unidentifiable surfaces, only to be thrown out on an unknown beach, bruised, reshaped... Grief will make a new person out of you, if it doesn't kill you in the making. Stephanie Ericsson
Our grief always brings a gift. It's the gift of greater sensitivity and compassion for others. We learn to rise above our own grief by reaching out and lessening the grief of others.
If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else. Booker T. Washington
Boy, do I ever know how to have fun on my lunch hour!
