Category Archives: grief

it’s not breaking down, it’s beginning: powerful perspective for your new year

Posted on by December 26, 2023

Hey friends,

This time last year I was sitting on my bed, tapping out words for the December newsletter, just like I’m doing now. But last year, I was frustrated because December had not gone according to how I had planned. I was stewing and praying and typing, and then Kav came into the room crying because he had crashed while sledding and broke his arm.

And then our December really didn’t go according to plan, because if you’ve been reading since then you know that our world changed that day when medical tyrants tried to hold our son’s emergency care hostage to force our capitulation to illegal pressure and abuse to him and our family.

Long story. Lots of trauma. Super eye-opening, too: We realized that not only was the medical establishment as corrupt as some said, but also that tons of self-proclaimed Christians are okay with that and happy to participate in it. We were even accused of child abuse by some for not simply caving to demands to relinquish our patient and parental rights. It is an upside down world when people somehow think they hold the moral high ground by abdicating both their critical thinking skills and their responsibility to protect their children – and demand that you do, too – in exchange for trusting a disgraced medical regime with every financial incentive to abuse both its authority and the children put in their care. We are not ignorant, unsuspecting, or weak-willed parents, and we will not become so just to make those who are feel better about their own decisions.

So anyway, I guess you can see I haven’t really softened my stance on this.

I bring it up though because anniversaries of trauma and pain can be hard to get through. For some reason many of us have almost a superstitious fear about them, as though something else bad might happen around the same time of the year or that we’ll somehow have to relive the ordeal. The memories carry deep pain laced with other feelings like betrayal, confusion, anger, regret, and fear. So much fear. Fear from the event, and fear of the future. We fight fears of repeated pain, or accumulated pain, and we brace ourselves for the next blow.

Right after we went through that last year, we had a major windstorm. Windstorms here aren’t unusual; we had another one just last week, so this time it came the week before Christmas instead of the week after. These were good ones, though, with gusts up to 85 miles an hour, zero degrees plus windchill.

Last week it shook our house and flexed the windows. In the upstairs bathroom during one of the biggest gusts, the mirror on an interior wall wobbled and rattled. The stovepipe, a new addition this year, whistled in varying keys as we sat around the table putting the latest Christmas puzzle together.

And the noise, oh my gosh. As a homeowner all you can think is, Is the roof okay? What is that weird sound? We prayed that none of the trees would fall on the house or the coops, and that nothing would blow into a window.

It was the same kind of anxiety I felt after the 7.2 earthquake a few years ago. We had aftershocks for months and I prayed for our foundation, the walls, and the future. We could see a little damage – we had cracks in our walls like everyone else – but I was more concerned about damage that we might not be able to see.

And isn’t that what trauma really does? Because it’s not just the memories and the pain, but it’s also the fear it creates of what we cannot see in the future. Usually, we didn’t see the trauma coming in the first place, and we worry that there’s more where it came from.

During a day full of aftershocks, the Lord confronted me about it. Hey Love, what if the shaking isn’t damaging the house? He asked. What if it’s actually making it stronger? What if it’s tightening things instead of loosening them?

What if your worrying is doing more damage than anything else?

Huh, I thought. That’s not how I’m used to looking at things; I’m used to expecting things to naturally deteriorate or depreciate. But He reminded me that He is the one who leads us from glory to glory, who led the Israelites through the desert and kept their clothing and shoes from wearing out, who tells us not to be anxious, and commands us repeatedly in the Bible to “fear not.”

His ways are not our ways, and He reminded me of it again during this windstorm. What if the shaking isn’t hurting the roof? What if, instead of picturing in my mind that the wind might be loosening things, I realized the wind might be driving things closer together?

What if, during emotional storms and trauma, the pain that makes us feel like we’re falling apart is actually adding newer, stronger elements to us? What if we believe in God’s goodness so strongly that we know He will take any attack from the enemy and use it for our good, and suddenly we look at the future with hope instead of fear?

You know what fear is? Fear is our willingness to take the weapon out of our enemy’s hand and attack ourselves with it, saving him the trouble.

So what if we stopped falling for it?

The fearless person is completely free. Nothing can threaten them.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

– 1 John 4:18

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

– 2 Corinthians 3:17-18

We’re not ignoring reality. We’re influencing it, just like He told us to.

We’ve been listening to the wrong teachers and the wrong messages and the wrong thoughts for a long time. We’re used to decay, destruction, the next shoe dropping, the slow and steady unraveling of creation. But that’s not the Word says. If we walk in the attitude of It’s only going to get worse, we haven’t been paying attention to what’s actually in the Bible.

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.
They shall build up the ancient ruins;
they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations.

– Isaiah 61:1-4

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, it says. This is the same scripture Jesus read in the temple, declaring it fulfilled. And this is the same Spirit who is in us.

It’s not decay. It’s strength, He says. It’s not breaking down. It’s rebuilding.

It’s not a super easy way to look at things after a lifetime of assuming the worst. But the Lord told us His ways are different from ours, and over and over in the New Testament we read about the work of faith. Unbelief comes easy; falling for lies is easy. But aligning our thoughts and attitudes with God’s truth requires a discipline that we need to start walking in.

We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

– 1 Thessalonians 1:2-3

“But what if…” the enemy hisses. Don’t go there, though. Don’t take the bait. Thinking on those what ifs will never prepare you for anything but more devastation. The enemy is trying to get you to take the weapon and stab yourself with it. He’s holding out poison and hoping you’ll choose to drink it.

When we command our thoughts this way rather than letting them run amok with whatever fears the enemy tries to feed us, we are partnering with God in building up the ancient ruins, and raising up the former devastations.

And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.

– 1 Thessalonians 1:6-7

How do we receive with joy in the midst of affliction? Maybe that’s the real question. We can’t deny the pain and pretend what happened didn’t matter. But we can change what we believe about it and thus change the power we give it. We can do the work of faith, agreeing with God that He is building, not destroying, no matter what the enemy throws at us. We can labor in the love that casts out fear, trusting Him, steadfast in hope knowing that He is good and is working things out for good on our behalf.

I’m thinking about this as we work on the huge 2000 piece puzzle late into the evening. I joke to my family that this is where we solve all the world’s problems, but it’s true: I complain about a piece having nowhere to go, but then realize I’ve been holding it upside down the whole time. I was trying to put it in the wrong way. So what happens when we set our pieces – our thoughts, that is – right again and start looking at things from God’s perspective of truth, power, and victory, instead of our traditional mindset of defeat and decay?

In many ways, we’ve been going about it all wrong. We’ve thought things were delayed when we were early. We’ve mislabeled things as breaking when they were actually just beginning. We’ve accused God of being slow when He is actually patient.

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

– 2 Peter 3:9

The stretching hurts and we wonder why things are not working out, why everything is fitting so badly. But this one shift might be the nudge that shows how the pieces were misaligned – we were close, we had the right pieces all along, but we were putting the wrong ones together.

It looks like the Church is breaking in a lot of areas. But the truth is, it’s reviving. The wound and bacteria have to be cleaned out before it can heal. The Lord has been teaching His people how to walk in His ways, and even though we’ve watered them down so they reflect our ways more than His in many areas, He is calling us to reexamine how we think about things so we can walk in holiness and wholeness, realigning our thoughts with truth instead of just tradition.

We see corruption in so many areas, and here’s the good news: We’re not seeing something new. It’s been there all along, hidden, and is now being exposed. It can’t hide in the dark any longer; it must be dealt with. The eucatastrophe is coming.

The pain we went through a year ago wasn’t a blow dealt to our family. It was a blow to the enemy. Evil agendas were exposed. Lazy, fake Christianity came out of the wood works. The winds shook and the rains fell and the attacks came, but we are stronger and louder because of it, grounded and founded on the rock.

The physical and emotional storm didn’t take anything away from us. As we keep our eyes on Jesus, every wave that tries to bowl us over only adds more strength to our foundation. The enemy always loses, and we always win. The only possible way we can lose is if we fall for his lies, and we know better.

We hold these pieces in our hand and we don’t have to know exactly what to do with them. We know they go somewhere, and we keep asking Him for eyes that see answers.

Often, His answers are beyond our expectations, and better than we ever could have imagined.

No, wait, we think, this piece can’t possibly fit there, I don’t even know what direction it goes.

Try, the Lord is saying. So you do. And even though it stretches you to reach all the way across the table, to believe for what seems impossible, you find that the other pieces are already there in place, shaped perfectly, ready to receive it.

Praying for you,

Shannon

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if it doesn’t feel like Christmas

Posted on by December 17, 2024

There’s something I want to tell you that I think some of us need to hear right now. 

One night, years ago, one of our kids said, “It doesn’t feel like Christmas.” I think she meant it in passing, but it became a tearful lament as she talked about how we had done all the festive things – the lights were lit, the tree was up, the Christmas music was playing, we had gathered with friends and feasted together – but it still didn’t feel like Christmas. 

if it doesn't feel like Christmas -- Shannon Guerra

She couldn’t put her finger on it. Maybe it was because we were moving, maybe it was because Vince and I had both been sick recently, but the feeling of Christmas was missing for her. 

Maybe you are also sick. Maybe you are grieving. Maybe you are dealing with conflict, or loss, or transition, or some other hard issue, and it doesn’t feel like Christmas. 

Here’s what I want you to hear. It’s what I told her, it’s what I’ve told myself, and it’s what He told me as we began a very hard season several years ago: 

Our feelings do not define reality. 

Our feelings, especially when they seem contrary to the reality around us and the truth we know, are often the result of attacks from the enemy who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy. 

Our feelings are the results of our thoughts, and sometimes our thoughts are not our thoughts at all. Sometimes they are attacks planted by someone who wants to strip your season of joy and strip your identity of truth. 

We go through hard things; that is reality. But those things do not define us. Grief does not defeat us, uncertainty does not derail us, and bodily weakness does not make us a failure. 

if it doesn't feel like Christmas -- Shannon Guerra

Christmas was never meant to be polished and perfect. Christmas was meant to point us to the Savior who said, “For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world – to bear witness to the truth.” He is the Savior who meets us in the middle of our mess. He was born for this. 

So Christmas doesn’t have to feel the same way every year to still be Christmas.

Many people are doing different things and are in different situations this year. It feels new and uncomfortable. A little awkward. Maybe it’s deeply painful.

If that’s you, you’re not doing Christmas “wrong.”

Pull back a little, if you can. Don’t look too closely at the pain; don’t give the enemy’s work all your attention. God is at work even more, always more, and He is always taking the enemy’s measly attempts and turning them on their head in triumph for your good and for His glory.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

— Romans 8:28

The Lord is moving in this season and all its weirdness. Watch closely for that; you don’t want to miss it.

Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

— Isaiah 43:19

Here’s the thing I have to remember in this season, and maybe it’ll help you, too: Jesus was born in a manger to show us that life will be messy. It doesn’t mean we’re doing it wrong when the unpredictable happens. It means we’re human and authentic and always needing Him.

Our need is where He meets us. The sooner we recognize it, the sooner we recognize He’s already here with us.

We think that it would be a perfect Christmas, if only. If only everyone was healthy. If only that person weren’t in the hospital. If only the prodigal would come home. If only that relationship or injury were healed. If only that special need wasn’t so, you know, special.

Here’s what I’m learning and reminding myself, and telling you too, if you need it: Jesus’ birth was a damper, too.

If only they hadn’t had to travel at that time. If only the census wasn’t required. If only there was room at the inn. If only they had been a few days earlier. If only they had a real bed to lay down in. If only…all the things.

And here is where we celebrate His birth. In the imperfect. In the serving. In the waiting and postponing and rescheduling. In the running up and down the stairs with treatments and herbs and broth. In running back and forth from the hospital, or the friends’ house, or the church. In praying for the sick, the wounded, and broken, and in recognizing ourselves among them.

This is where we remember that we need Jesus.

This is why He came.

He knew that the sick and wounded and broken needed a Savior to heal them. He knew we needed help to crush the enemy who harasses us.

And so He came, imperfectly, in terrible circumstances, to be our perfect Savior — the One who took the dirt and the mess and the clawing pain of devastation, and put it all under His feet.

if it doesn't feel like Christmas

He’s the rescuer who wasn’t afraid to get His hands dirty. He’s the one who ran into the burning building, who never gave up searching until we were safe. He’s the warrior who had no mercy on the enemy for our sake, turning the tables and bringing the whip against those who tried to defeat and destroy us. And He’s the healer who put His hand on our foreheads, and released light and truth and wholeness.

That’s the King we celebrate and emulate on Christmas and every day. He’s the one who became like us to save us, and to show us who we’re really meant to be: The ones who reflect Him, shattering darkness and scattering light in every situation, just like He showed us.

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find the gold: God’s not wasting any time

Posted on by November 7, 2023

No one can waste time like a writer. Not only are we spectacular at procrastinating, but the technology is irrational, the process is laborious, and you’ll never even see most of the words we write. Typetypetype, highlight, delete – poof, they’re gone, outta here, no bueno, tossed in the bin, gone forever. Another day at the desk, and only a fraction of the words written are kept to be shared…eventually.

And then – humor me for just a minute, you’ll appreciate this – there are the days you encounter technical difficulty that defy logic and the most elementary commands of a computer. You tell the document to print, and the printer says there’s a jam even though you can’t find any paper in the track. So you empty the entire contents of the printer and restart; try again, but it’s still jammed; dislodge the mechanical guts of the machine and finally find a microscopic piece of confetti; put everything back together and ask it to print again.

Suddenly the stupid thing releases twelve emails from last year, the entire 911 commission report, the Mayflower Compact, the Magna Carta, and the ancient code of Hammurabi.

And then it says you’re out of ink.

BLANKETY BLANK.

find the gold: God's not wasting any time

Last year when we were releasing the ABIDE series we spent four days trying to upload a proof, and then two more days waiting for the proof to come back, only to realize the file had formatting errors that had to be fixed before going to print. It was a rookie mistake and I knew better. Every time we saved the files, small elements would move and it didn’t matter what browser I used, how we saved it, whether I retyped things or just re-pasted them correctly, they kept shifting out of place (just like this meme).

Many emails to the website’s support crew later, Vin finally fixed it all in Photoshop. And the delay didn’t make sense for any reason other than possibly, just maybe, that support team at the website needed to learn about Jesus and prayer, because they got to read pages 44 through 56 of ABIDE volume 4 in advance. Either that, or they desperately needed the recipe for Farmbake.

So much wasted time. But just as often, it’s my own fault.

For example, the file I’m working on lately says “round 4” but that’s a lie because I’ve tackled this book at least twice that many times. But this is probably the fourth time I’ve completely rewritten it, trashing so many paragraphs and pages that were less than what I want it to be. I’m back to those beginning chapters again and honestly, I’m nervous about getting further into it because I know where the story is going, even though I still don’t know how it ends.

I know pain is coming. So I stall and do other work, saving just thirty minutes of the day to tackle this one. Thirty minutes at a time will not finish a book by February – or even May, probably – but some days it’s all I think I can handle.

Which doesn’t mean it really is all I can handle. It’s just that that’s how much obedience I’ve been willing to put into it. So the delay is all on me, and the reward will come as soon as I surrender into really doing the work.

Part of the problem is that it’s a memoir so almost everything is in past tense, but I’m still learning to recognize what happened. And the problem with that is that I am telling, not showing, which is a huge no-no in writerly endeavors. This happened, then this happened, then this happened. It’s not that boring, trust me, but still, it’s telling and not showing. As Annie Dillard says, “You have to take pains in a memoir not to hang on the reader’s arm, like a drunk, and say, ‘And then I did this and it was so interesting.’”

But this is a story that must be told, not shown, and I’m walking the line carefully to protect our kids and ourselves and others who, alas, would not be flattered if I shared in full what really happened. Because also, as Annie Dillard said:

Everybody I’m writing about is alive and well, in full possession of his faculties, and possibly willing to sue. Things were simpler when I wrote about muskrats.

– from Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir

Maybe that’s why I write so much about poultry lately.

So I grab a stack of books off the shelf, all highly recommended by someone or other as excellent specimens of memoirs, which are notoriously hard to write well.

I open one: Memoirs by Pablo Neruda. This is at the top of many lists. I thumb through, and…telling, not showing. Not all, surely, but a lot of it. Past tense, this happened, then this, and then this. But not like a drunk; it’s interesting.

I thumb through A Walker in the City by Alfred Kazin, and The Road to Coorain by Jill Ker Conway. Same. Past tense. Lots of telling. But it’s not bad; it’s good writing. I grab a few more books off the shelf, skim through from back to front, read snatches of sentences here and there.

When Vin brings up afternoon coffee I’m hunched over my shelf looking for Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood and cannot find it anywhere. It’s red, I’m sure, but I scan all the red books to no avail, check all the others in case I’m misremembering, and finally find it with a pink spine that used to be red but faded in the sunlight back when my shelf was on the other wall. I crack it open and there’s this: I was ten when I met the dancing school boys… and she’s telling but she’s also right there with me over coffee, and we’re looking back together. And that’s both an answer and confirmation because that’s how I tend to write anyway when I’m doing my best work.

But before I get there, I still have to choose to do the work, any work, and risk it not being the best work because it can’t all be the best. Not all the words that get typed are words that get published. Vin and I have started calling these the invisible words, the ones that didn’t ring as true as the words that came later. Because it takes a lot of words to sort through before the right ones come that are worth sharing with everyone else. It takes a lot of digging and sifting to find the gold.

And that is life: We are learning to live our story in the best way to find the gold. We risk the days knowing that there will be plenty of them that feel wasted, that we don’t want to share or relive. Some of our days are filled with grit and regret, fingers in the dirt full of pain and confusion, betrayal and trauma. Those are the ones that bring us to a crossroads of choosing to get bitter or get better, to lose our faith or to find it. One choice leads us to the gold, and the other makes us the drunk hanging on someone’s arm, spewing things that should’ve been deleted.

The good news is that we can surrender anytime. It’s never too late to let go, and do some deleting. The Lord knows what to do with our surrender. He’s not wasting any of it; every piece of grit refines us into someone who reflects Him more.

Some people come through awful childhoods and become productive, contributing adults, while others do antisocial and even monstrous things. Why?

It is similar to one brother asking another, “Why did you grow up to be a drunk?” The answer is, “Because Dad was a drunk.” The second brother then asks, “Why didn’t you grow up to be a drunk?” The answer is “Because Dad was a drunk.”

– Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear

The wasted days and regrettable experiences are making us into who we are, just as the invisible words are getting us to the ones that tell the story the way it needs to be told. Deciding whether to surrender them or cling to them is what makes the difference.