It is the question that is never answered. If God is good, why does he allow suffering and pain? In 1000 Gifts Ann Vosskamp begins to address that dilemma. Though it can never totally be answered. She talks about her son cutting his hand in a farm accident, but living and keeping the hand. That same week a neighboring farm boy dies and she recalls a brother in law who has watched two of his children die from a rare disease. Why are some people spared and others not? God seems so arbitrary in the way in metes out pain. I don’t want to trivialize someone’s pain by trying to explain something so complex in a 300 words blog post.

I can only say that in the book she talks about giving thanks for even the struggles and the trauma. So as an exercise, I thanked God for my loneliness. I thanked him for the uncertainty of my future. I thanked him for my grieving the loss of my husband. I thanked him for all the ugly dark things in my life. I didn’t pretend like those things were good because they are not. But they do have the power to transform us (if we choose) in a way that happy victorious things do not. And the sad tragic things also have the power to connect us to other human beings. So I am practicing gratitude in all things and waiting like a flower opening to the sun, about to bloom. We’ll see…

Currently reading Ann Voskamp’s 1000 gifts. This book could not have come at a better time in my life. I am learning to practice gratitude in all things. It’s easy to be grateful for a promotion, paychecks and a date on prom night, but Ann shows how to be grateful for the small beautiful gifts God gives us everyday. On her list of a thousand gifts, she has simple things like mail in the mailbox or the way light plays across a room. On my list beautiful things like the flutter of bird’s wings above me, a full moon, a meaningful conversation with a repairman, laughter from another room.

Ann says over and over “the remedy is in the retina” Gifts are everywhere. We just have to open our eyes and see. Though not as poetic, I would say that the remedy is in the senses. When I give thanks for everything, food tastes better, music is more pleasing, and flowers more aromatic. The big transformation for me was when I got up at 3 a.m. to go get my son from work, a task that usually reminds me of my loneliness and makes me grumble. But when I started practicing gratitude and went outside that winter morning, the snow looked different. Seriously, it had changed. It wasn’t ordinary dull snow, it looked like diamonds in a field of goose down. Gratitude transforms what we see. God has given us such a beautiful world, so many gifts.

It is not that I am without a brain. The physical brain is still inside my head. But when my hubby died something inside of me broke, snapped in two. I am usually a very capable, goal oriented person. No longer. I can’t focus. I make a plan and then move in a different direction entirely. Writing is hard. Forming a sentence is a challenge, let alone writing a whole book. I forget the way to familiar places when I am driving. In short, I have become a flaky space cadet. I actually prefer the word Flibbertigibbet. It’s a little more fancy, don’t you think. Grief causes a personality change. I’m not who I used to be and I can’t go back to doing what I used to do in any part of my life. When I explained to my grief counselor about the loss of cognitive ability. She said, “Oh there’s a word for that. It’s called grief delirium.” Good to know it’s so common it has a name. For now, I get to be a Flibbertigibbet. No matter how hard I try, sorrow won’t let me get back on track. So I just got to accept it and walk through it. I’m pretty sure I’ll never go back to being the person I was before. I do hope there is enough mending in my mind for me to feel like an intelligent person again. We’ll have to see. Only God knows and he meant for this journey to be long one.

 

 

Two very different Before and Afters have happened in my life. One is very positive and the other unbearably sad. First, the good before and after. After seven months of work, I finally lost 75 pounds. I exercised and watched what I ate, but to be honest some of the weight loss was due to the stress of watching my husband of 26 years fade before my eyes. Posting about the weight loss feels a little bit bittersweet. I wanted to take steps to insure that I would be around for my kids and hopefully grandkids and to reduce my own chances of cancer after seeing what my hubby went through. Every morning I wake up and think “God I do not understand what you are doing here?” And so I share with you both the happy and the sorrowful.