Sadness Reignites Love

For several months, husband and I have been giving respite assistance to family members.  If you've ever been faced with the slow deterioration of a family member, you know this bears heavy on your heart.

In the midst of this time, we seem to have moved apart.  Probably to deal with our individual emotional responses.  Maybe because sometimes we don't know what to say to each other.

Attribution

Today I decided it was time to turn that sadness back into love.  The first thing I did was declare today "love each other day."  This was primarily for me, the one that sometimes can say the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Then we we headed into Trader Joe's and I reached over and took Bob's hand.  A gentleman walking out of the store looked at us and smiled.  I hope he wasn't thinking we were too old to be holding hands!

It felt good.  Felt young again.  Reminiscent of those first days of knowing you'd found your soul mate.

And then silently in my heart, I prayed to God that he would give me the strength and courage to support my husband.  Losing his brother, as if someone is erasing away the core of that brother and leaving only a shell.  Must be hard.  I asked God to help me control my tongue and not to talk too much about all the wrong things.

This man I love is hurting and I want to help him see that we can reignite that sadness into love.  By thinking on the goodness his brother shared with others, all the children who loved him as their teacher and principal, the music he shared, the poetry he loved, the piece of him he gave to each of us.

Turning sadness into love.  Look at the sadness that must have gathered around the cross.  Then think on the love for us that was exhibited in the midst of that same sadness.  We can follow that example -- and we can get past this difficult time.  But we must love each other first.

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient,
bearing with one another in love.

Ephesians 4:2 (NIV)

Unloading Our Burdens

"Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me;
for I am gentle and humble in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls."
Matthew 11:29 (NIV)

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How often I've read these words, and rested easy in their offer of comfort and rest.  On Sunday, I learned that a dear friend, a woman younger than I, had suddenly lost her younger brother.  No details of his death were given, only that he was suddenly gone from family and friends.  From my friend, his sister.  

Without thought for where I was, the tears came quickly in rivulets on my cheeks.  My sorrow for her great because I knew how much she loved her brother and her family.  Their pain must be excruciating -- I know the suddenness of loss and it strikes a blow to our hearts and minds like none other.

Wanting to send her a card, I searched for one yesterday that said the right thing.  It's hard to know what the right thing is, and I couldn't find one with the right verse of Scripture.  So I settled for the one that conveyed my thoughts.  The verse above is the one I will write in as my gift to help traverse this time of pain. 

National Geographic

I came home and searched my list of favorite verses for this one.  I began to think on the words and only one gave me pause during this reading.  The word "yoke."  Do people today understand that word?  We certainly don't see oxen yoked together pulling a burden much heavier than they.  Nor do we see people walking around carrying buckets of water using a yoke to balance the two.  So, what would another translation say.

The New Century Version is much simpler and doesn't mention the word "yoke:"  "Accept my teachings and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in spirit, and you will find rest for your lives."

And then I looked at the verse in The Message:   "Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."  The Message wording covers both verses 29 and 30, which gives a broader view of what Jesus meant when he spoke these words.

And yet, what is it I want to convey to my friend?  I want to say that she can lay everything her heart is bearing, all that which feels like a burden, yes, like a yoke across her shoulders.  Yokes were meant to make a burden easier to manage.  In the IVP New Testament Commentary for the Gospel of Matthew, we find:

"They will find Jesus' yoke light because he is a Master who will care for them (Mt 11:29). Jesus' yoke is not lighter because he demands less (5:20), but because he bears more of the load with us (23:4)."

How clearly we can now see what the words "[t]ake my yoke upon you" equate to: Jesus will share that load, that pain we suffer, the grief in our hearts.  He will be there to bolster that load so that for us it seems lighter through our allowing him to share our load.  Such beauty, such comfort, such relief are found in this verse from Matthew.  Walking with Jesus each day makes every load lighter.

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Q4U:  What does this verse from Matthew say to you?  I'd love to get some discussion going.

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Getting Down With Jesus

A WIDOW'S STORY by Joyce Carol Oates (copyright 2011 by The Ontario Review)

Raw truth best describes Joyce Carol Oates' A Widow's Story. Inching closer to the age of her husband in 2008 when he died, my husband is soon to be 75, and reading this work was at times difficult. Oates describes in detail the events leading up to her husband's death, the aftermath in her own soul, and the inch-by-inch process of reclaiming a totally changed life.

Oates recounts for us the most minute of details facing a widow in the days, weeks and months after the death of her spouse. The bureaucratic red tape that must be worked through, the numerous death certificates needed for this and that, the pain of confronting the negotiations with a funeral home regarding the body of one's beloved, and the total loss that covers it all.

In total Oates spent some 40 years identifying herself with her husband, Raymond Smith. Parallel lives in education, writing, and publishing, most accomplished from their comfortable home near Princeton, almost made them one during their life together. Life after Raymond Smith was lonely, isolated, and frightening at times. Oates' descriptions of the mental and physical impact is at times dark and depressing, and the writer uses pleasant memories of Ray's garden, their circle of friends, and walks taken through their neighborhood to lighten the mood.

It must have been a struggle to write this story down but in the end, the reader realizes that without it Oates would not have begun the healing process evident at the end of the book: "Of the widow's countless death duties there is really just one that matters: On the first anniversary of her husband's death the widow should think 'I kept myself alive."