He Will Carry You
Day 5
The Lord will carry you if you ask Him. When you are feeling so weak you cannot take another step, ask Him to lift you high into His loving arms. Then rest in Him with an open and listening heart. This does not mean that your problems will disappear, but it does mean you will have Someone to share them with.
"If you are someone who does not know Jesus Christ as your Savior and you have just been widowed or bereaved, you have a tremendous burden," says Elizabeth Elliot. "You are tired, and it is too big a burden to carry. The Lord says, 'Come to me, you who are tired and overburdened, and I will give you rest.'"
To receive peace and rest in Christ, the instructions are clear. Jesus says, "Come to me." You must first approach Him and then talk to Him and quietly listen.
"Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer. From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the foe" (Psalm 61:1-3).
Lord, I come to You. My heart is worn out, and I need You. Take my heavy burden today. Amen.
~ I think for a while I wondered if He was listening. Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers. Or so I have heard. However, I still have a lot of soul searching to do because I don't want to only seek God when I am in despair. I would like to be at a place where I believe the words that are spoken and the bible verses that I read or hear. I want to be a believer and a person of faith. I think that is the first step in achieving it. Say it out loud. Let your intentions be known outside of your head and heart and once you hear it from your own mouth then you will feel it in your heart. I am not sure that what I just said makes sense, but it really wasn't until I said it out loud that I started to take the steps to get what I wanted/needed/desired. Prime example was when I said that I wanted to go to church for my birthday. It was something that I had been thinking for a while, but it wasn't until I said it out loud that I made it happen. I did get help with going from Tiffany, but she wouldn't have gone with me unless I asked and I would have put it off further unless I had exclaimed it out loud. It was then that I learned about the grief share class. It was as if it was steps that had to be taken in order for me to find the path to healing. This lends itself to the theory that every thing happens for a reason. This had to happen in order for this to happen. Hmph. Never really thought about it like that until just now. Revelations!
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Grief Lasts Longer Than Expected - Day 4
Grief Lasts Longer Than Expected
Day 4
Grief's unexpected turns will throw you again and again. You may feel that for every step forward, you take at least one step back. The grieving process generally takes longer than you ever imagined.
Please don't rush this process. Remember, what you are feeling is not only normal; it is necessary.
"It's been seven years, and I'm still going through it," says Dr. Larry Crabb, whose brother died in a plane crash. "I don't know if it's a very holy thing to admit, but when someone says, 'Well, it's been a week, a month, a year -- Larry, for you it's been seven years. Get a grip. Where's your faith in Christ, for goodness' sake?' I get really angry.
"Knowing the Lord and His comfort does not take away the ache; instead, it supports you in the middle of the ache. Until I get home to heaven, there's going to be an ache that won't quit. The grieving process for me is not so much a matter of getting rid of the pain, but not being controlled by the pain."
We read in the Psalms that David grew weary with the process of grief and cried out to the Lord. Then he left the timing in God's hands.
"Be merciful to me, LORD, for I am faint; O LORD, heal me, for my bones are in agony. My soul is in anguish. How long, O LORD, how long? Turn, O LORD, and deliver me; save me because of your unfailing love" (Psalm 6:2-4).
"I am weary with my sighing; Every night I make my bed swim, I dissolve my couch with my tears. My eye has wasted away with grief (Psalm 6:6-7 NASB).
Heavenly God, I cannot even begin to put my grief in a time frame. Thank you that I don't have to. Comfort me and support me as I lean on You. Amen.
~I am so thankful that this day's email told me that I need not rush the process. That this was normal and mostly necessary. I feel like every time that I feel like I worked through something, I fall back. It was then that someone said something to me at a class. They said "you need to try and separate the losses and grieve them individually." It felt funny that someone would say that, but then it made sense. I was bouncing from my sister's death to my role in my mother's departure. It was overwhelming me and I wasn't able to move forward because I was reliving the deaths over and over because I was taking them both on and the same time. I think that I tend to put it off until I reach an emotional damn braking moment. It is then that I find that I am on edge and full of rage and then I get upset that I am so angry and then realize that the anger is really part of the grief process. Anger is my foe. Now that I have acknowledged that anger plays a giant role in my grieving process, I am able to see it for what it is and not dwell in it. I am finding ways to work through it or divert that anger energy into something different. Mostly, I am a work in progress. I am prayerful.
Day 4
Grief's unexpected turns will throw you again and again. You may feel that for every step forward, you take at least one step back. The grieving process generally takes longer than you ever imagined.
Please don't rush this process. Remember, what you are feeling is not only normal; it is necessary.
"It's been seven years, and I'm still going through it," says Dr. Larry Crabb, whose brother died in a plane crash. "I don't know if it's a very holy thing to admit, but when someone says, 'Well, it's been a week, a month, a year -- Larry, for you it's been seven years. Get a grip. Where's your faith in Christ, for goodness' sake?' I get really angry.
"Knowing the Lord and His comfort does not take away the ache; instead, it supports you in the middle of the ache. Until I get home to heaven, there's going to be an ache that won't quit. The grieving process for me is not so much a matter of getting rid of the pain, but not being controlled by the pain."
We read in the Psalms that David grew weary with the process of grief and cried out to the Lord. Then he left the timing in God's hands.
"Be merciful to me, LORD, for I am faint; O LORD, heal me, for my bones are in agony. My soul is in anguish. How long, O LORD, how long? Turn, O LORD, and deliver me; save me because of your unfailing love" (Psalm 6:2-4).
"I am weary with my sighing; Every night I make my bed swim, I dissolve my couch with my tears. My eye has wasted away with grief (Psalm 6:6-7 NASB).
Heavenly God, I cannot even begin to put my grief in a time frame. Thank you that I don't have to. Comfort me and support me as I lean on You. Amen.
~I am so thankful that this day's email told me that I need not rush the process. That this was normal and mostly necessary. I feel like every time that I feel like I worked through something, I fall back. It was then that someone said something to me at a class. They said "you need to try and separate the losses and grieve them individually." It felt funny that someone would say that, but then it made sense. I was bouncing from my sister's death to my role in my mother's departure. It was overwhelming me and I wasn't able to move forward because I was reliving the deaths over and over because I was taking them both on and the same time. I think that I tend to put it off until I reach an emotional damn braking moment. It is then that I find that I am on edge and full of rage and then I get upset that I am so angry and then realize that the anger is really part of the grief process. Anger is my foe. Now that I have acknowledged that anger plays a giant role in my grieving process, I am able to see it for what it is and not dwell in it. I am finding ways to work through it or divert that anger energy into something different. Mostly, I am a work in progress. I am prayerful.
Grief Runs Deep: Where Is the Hope? Day 3
Grief Runs Deep: Where Is the Hope?
Day 3
Dr. Joseph Stowell says, "Even though your heart is breaking and tears are clouding your eyes and staining your cheeks, God does give us something worth trusting in tough times. And that's Him, and Him alone."
When your heart is breaking, you can place your hope and trust in the Lord.
"Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the LORD" (Psalm 31:24).
Anne Graham Lotz defines hope: "Biblical hope is absolute confidence in something you haven't seen or received yet, but you're absolutely confident that whatever God has said is going to come to pass."
She also declares that "Jesus is your hope for the future. One day Jesus Christ will come back, and He will set all of the wrong right. Good will triumph over the bad. Love will triumph over hate. Righteousness will triumph over evil. He's going to make it all right, and you can have absolute confidence that that's going to take place. That's your hope."
Sovereign God, I choose hope. I choose faith. I choose life. Give me an unshakable faith in You. Amen.
~ I have struggled with this. I stopped talking to God. I didn't necessarily turn my back on him, my beliefs or my faith, but it was hard to hold a conversation with a God that took my sister and then my mother. It was hard for me to accept that this was the journey that I choose for myself and that I was supposed to go through all this pain and stress.
I kept asking why. Why did this happen? Why my sister? Why now? Why did my mom have to decline so fast and so soon after my sister? Why? Why? Why?
I started asking why this happened FOR me and not TO me. They tell you that what doesn't kill you will only make you stronger. How much stronger was I going to need to be? I feared what more I was going to have to go through and what lessons I was supposed to be learning from this. Why did God take the two women that supported me the most? Why did he take the two people that loved my kid as much as I did? Why did they have to be gone and so close together? Why? Why? Why? What? What? What?
Through class I have learned that asking why is natural and normal. I also have learned that knowing why wouldn't ease the pain. Knowing why my sister had to die wouldn't change the fact that she died. Knowing the bigger picture isn't going to bring my sister or my mother back. Perhaps my sister passing was in preparation for my mother, yet my sister was sudden and I wasn't able to tell her goodbye nor was it expected that she would leave us so soon. My mom was sick for years and I think part of me was always a little prepared for her to go. She had been through a few trials where I thought I was going to lose her and so part of me was prepared for her departure and it was a relief that she wasn't in pain anymore. But, my sister was taken. I suppose my mother was taken too. I feel more responsible for my mother since I had to be one of the people to make the decision to take her off life support. I feel like I did what she would have wanted and honestly, what she had wanted for a while leading up to that point. She was tired of hurting. She was exhausted from always being sick to a certain degree all the time. It certainly doesn't make it any easier having said any of that.
I wish that I had maintained that open line of communication with God. I miss him in my life. I never really went to bible study nor did I pick up the bible and learn verses. I feel like a lot of my adult life I have just been going through the motions. Perhaps I have failed myself and God by not going to church faithfully. I pray to God. I teach my child to pray over his food, be thankful and grateful and to pray at night before he lays down for rest. I feel like I could have and should have done more and learned more, but where I am now, I think that I am learning so much more now that I am open to learning and I feel like for the first time I am listening and actually paying attention.
So, yes, my grief runs deep. I often tend to beg for hope and faith to find me. I pray that I can be a person to find that trust in God and to have the faith and hope to know that everything happens for a reason and that this is truly only a season of grief. This too shall pass. Or, at least, that is my hope and prayer.
Day 3
Dr. Joseph Stowell says, "Even though your heart is breaking and tears are clouding your eyes and staining your cheeks, God does give us something worth trusting in tough times. And that's Him, and Him alone."
When your heart is breaking, you can place your hope and trust in the Lord.
"Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the LORD" (Psalm 31:24).
Anne Graham Lotz defines hope: "Biblical hope is absolute confidence in something you haven't seen or received yet, but you're absolutely confident that whatever God has said is going to come to pass."
She also declares that "Jesus is your hope for the future. One day Jesus Christ will come back, and He will set all of the wrong right. Good will triumph over the bad. Love will triumph over hate. Righteousness will triumph over evil. He's going to make it all right, and you can have absolute confidence that that's going to take place. That's your hope."
Sovereign God, I choose hope. I choose faith. I choose life. Give me an unshakable faith in You. Amen.
~ I have struggled with this. I stopped talking to God. I didn't necessarily turn my back on him, my beliefs or my faith, but it was hard to hold a conversation with a God that took my sister and then my mother. It was hard for me to accept that this was the journey that I choose for myself and that I was supposed to go through all this pain and stress.
I kept asking why. Why did this happen? Why my sister? Why now? Why did my mom have to decline so fast and so soon after my sister? Why? Why? Why?
I started asking why this happened FOR me and not TO me. They tell you that what doesn't kill you will only make you stronger. How much stronger was I going to need to be? I feared what more I was going to have to go through and what lessons I was supposed to be learning from this. Why did God take the two women that supported me the most? Why did he take the two people that loved my kid as much as I did? Why did they have to be gone and so close together? Why? Why? Why? What? What? What?
Through class I have learned that asking why is natural and normal. I also have learned that knowing why wouldn't ease the pain. Knowing why my sister had to die wouldn't change the fact that she died. Knowing the bigger picture isn't going to bring my sister or my mother back. Perhaps my sister passing was in preparation for my mother, yet my sister was sudden and I wasn't able to tell her goodbye nor was it expected that she would leave us so soon. My mom was sick for years and I think part of me was always a little prepared for her to go. She had been through a few trials where I thought I was going to lose her and so part of me was prepared for her departure and it was a relief that she wasn't in pain anymore. But, my sister was taken. I suppose my mother was taken too. I feel more responsible for my mother since I had to be one of the people to make the decision to take her off life support. I feel like I did what she would have wanted and honestly, what she had wanted for a while leading up to that point. She was tired of hurting. She was exhausted from always being sick to a certain degree all the time. It certainly doesn't make it any easier having said any of that.
I wish that I had maintained that open line of communication with God. I miss him in my life. I never really went to bible study nor did I pick up the bible and learn verses. I feel like a lot of my adult life I have just been going through the motions. Perhaps I have failed myself and God by not going to church faithfully. I pray to God. I teach my child to pray over his food, be thankful and grateful and to pray at night before he lays down for rest. I feel like I could have and should have done more and learned more, but where I am now, I think that I am learning so much more now that I am open to learning and I feel like for the first time I am listening and actually paying attention.
So, yes, my grief runs deep. I often tend to beg for hope and faith to find me. I pray that I can be a person to find that trust in God and to have the faith and hope to know that everything happens for a reason and that this is truly only a season of grief. This too shall pass. Or, at least, that is my hope and prayer.
Grief Is a Unique Experience - Day 2
Grief Is a Unique Experience
Day 2
You may feel it is useless to talk about your grief because no one truly understands what you are going through.
"You sometimes feel after an experience like this that you're talking a foreign language," says Dora, whose daughter died. "You feel like there's no way anybody can know what you're feeling. There is absolutely no way anyone can know the depth of your pain. So you feel like it's futile to talk about it because words can't express the pain."
Although countless people have experienced grief before you, each person's response to grief is different. Your path of grief will be uniquely your own.
Be encouraged that regardless of how your grief appears to you or others, it has a precious uniqueness to the One who created you. God, who knows intimately your personality, your relationships, and the experiences of your life, knows your grief and isn't shocked or surprised by your responses.
"O LORD, You have examined my heart and know everything about me ... Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex ... You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed" (Psalm 139:1, 14, 16 NLT).
Father, thank You that my way of grieving is distinctly my own, reflective of all You have sovereignly created me to be and experience. Amen.
~I find it amazing that while we all have lost someone, the way we each handle it is unique to our own understanding. I watch the grief share videos and wonder how these people say some of the things they say and then I think that perhaps they are just more faithful than I am at this time. I lost my way along the way. The first thing out of my mouth was "I was a good Catholic. I did what I was supposed to do. I even got baptized during the time when my mother first got sick and started losing her toes one by one. It was at this time that I was tested and I still believed enough to get baptized."
I JUST suddenly realized in writing that perhaps this was all in preparation for my losses to come. I didn't lose my mother that year. It would be 8 or so years later, but it would be a battle for her and a time for me to grow and get back my bond with my mother that was strained when I moved out when I was 23 years old. I questioned every bit of it along the way. The first loved one that really "traumatized" me was losing my Popo. He was the man in my life and I took it really hard. I was there when he passed. I was there when they took him away. I was 19 when he passed. I am not sure that I really grieved that loss now that I think about it. I had flashbacks for years about seeing him laying there in the bed at the house and looking off into the distance. I remember my cousins being in town and I remember getting that call at work that the priest was coming to give my Popo his last rites. I was shaken and torn. I was so eager to leave work and just get to my Popo's side. I wanted to just be there surrounded by my family. I remember my dad coming by I was sitting in my aunt's yard and I didn't want him anywhere near me. I didn't even want to talk to him. I was bitter and didn't want him or anyone else to talk to me because I didn't know how to express my hurt, I didn't know who to process the loss and I didn't know what/how or when. It is hard.
Now that I am going to these classes, it feels good. I feel like I am finally at a place where they speak the same language and understand me. They don't judge me and surely aren't telling me "it is time to move on" or "it has been long enough" or "they would want you to move on and not be upset all the time". NO ONE wants/needs/desires to hear that and that is the WORST advice that anyone can give a grieving person. One thing that I have learned in this journey is that TIME DOES NOT HEAL ALL WOUNDS.
If you don't know what to say to someone who is grieving, just give them a hug or just listen to them. Don't try and "fix" them or try and change their mind about where they are in their grieving process. We don't need fixing. Most of the time, we just want to be heard or hugged.
Day 2
You may feel it is useless to talk about your grief because no one truly understands what you are going through.
"You sometimes feel after an experience like this that you're talking a foreign language," says Dora, whose daughter died. "You feel like there's no way anybody can know what you're feeling. There is absolutely no way anyone can know the depth of your pain. So you feel like it's futile to talk about it because words can't express the pain."
Although countless people have experienced grief before you, each person's response to grief is different. Your path of grief will be uniquely your own.
Be encouraged that regardless of how your grief appears to you or others, it has a precious uniqueness to the One who created you. God, who knows intimately your personality, your relationships, and the experiences of your life, knows your grief and isn't shocked or surprised by your responses.
"O LORD, You have examined my heart and know everything about me ... Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex ... You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed" (Psalm 139:1, 14, 16 NLT).
Father, thank You that my way of grieving is distinctly my own, reflective of all You have sovereignly created me to be and experience. Amen.
~I find it amazing that while we all have lost someone, the way we each handle it is unique to our own understanding. I watch the grief share videos and wonder how these people say some of the things they say and then I think that perhaps they are just more faithful than I am at this time. I lost my way along the way. The first thing out of my mouth was "I was a good Catholic. I did what I was supposed to do. I even got baptized during the time when my mother first got sick and started losing her toes one by one. It was at this time that I was tested and I still believed enough to get baptized."
I JUST suddenly realized in writing that perhaps this was all in preparation for my losses to come. I didn't lose my mother that year. It would be 8 or so years later, but it would be a battle for her and a time for me to grow and get back my bond with my mother that was strained when I moved out when I was 23 years old. I questioned every bit of it along the way. The first loved one that really "traumatized" me was losing my Popo. He was the man in my life and I took it really hard. I was there when he passed. I was there when they took him away. I was 19 when he passed. I am not sure that I really grieved that loss now that I think about it. I had flashbacks for years about seeing him laying there in the bed at the house and looking off into the distance. I remember my cousins being in town and I remember getting that call at work that the priest was coming to give my Popo his last rites. I was shaken and torn. I was so eager to leave work and just get to my Popo's side. I wanted to just be there surrounded by my family. I remember my dad coming by I was sitting in my aunt's yard and I didn't want him anywhere near me. I didn't even want to talk to him. I was bitter and didn't want him or anyone else to talk to me because I didn't know how to express my hurt, I didn't know who to process the loss and I didn't know what/how or when. It is hard.
Now that I am going to these classes, it feels good. I feel like I am finally at a place where they speak the same language and understand me. They don't judge me and surely aren't telling me "it is time to move on" or "it has been long enough" or "they would want you to move on and not be upset all the time". NO ONE wants/needs/desires to hear that and that is the WORST advice that anyone can give a grieving person. One thing that I have learned in this journey is that TIME DOES NOT HEAL ALL WOUNDS.
If you don't know what to say to someone who is grieving, just give them a hug or just listen to them. Don't try and "fix" them or try and change their mind about where they are in their grieving process. We don't need fixing. Most of the time, we just want to be heard or hugged.
Understanding Your Grief - Day 1
Grief Share - A Season of Grief Daily Emails
Understanding Your Grief
Day 1
Grief is not an enemy or a sign of weakness. It is a sign of being human. Grief is the cost of loving someone.
Since grief comes to everyone, why do some people seem to work through it better than others?
"Some people think that going through the losses or crises of life are the exceptional times," says Dr. H. Norman Wright.
"I see it differently. I see the times of calm as the exceptions. Life really is going through one loss after another, one crisis after another."
"Instead of avoiding talking about these times, let's do our homework. When you know what to expect, you're not thrown by them as much, and you're going to be better able to recover."
Join us each day for the next year as we walk with you on your journey through grief, strengthened and enabled through the Lord Jesus Christ.
"But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint" (Isaiah 40:31)
Lord God, teach me to embrace my grief and not fight it, so that I may experience the true healing that comes from You. Amen.
~I can honestly say that it was this first email that started me to really want to work through the process. Going to the classes has been vital to my success as they are so supportive and it feels like a "safe" place to express my hurt, my concerns and my doubt. It is there that I am renewed in my faith and am able to keep my head up. I don't always have something to say, but when I do, it amazes me that I have said something that helped someone else in their journey. It feels like such a blessing to be able to gather with a group of like minded people and find my way through their support and the word of God.
Understanding Your Grief
Day 1
Grief is not an enemy or a sign of weakness. It is a sign of being human. Grief is the cost of loving someone.
Since grief comes to everyone, why do some people seem to work through it better than others?
"Some people think that going through the losses or crises of life are the exceptional times," says Dr. H. Norman Wright.
"I see it differently. I see the times of calm as the exceptions. Life really is going through one loss after another, one crisis after another."
"Instead of avoiding talking about these times, let's do our homework. When you know what to expect, you're not thrown by them as much, and you're going to be better able to recover."
Join us each day for the next year as we walk with you on your journey through grief, strengthened and enabled through the Lord Jesus Christ.
"But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint" (Isaiah 40:31)
Lord God, teach me to embrace my grief and not fight it, so that I may experience the true healing that comes from You. Amen.
~I can honestly say that it was this first email that started me to really want to work through the process. Going to the classes has been vital to my success as they are so supportive and it feels like a "safe" place to express my hurt, my concerns and my doubt. It is there that I am renewed in my faith and am able to keep my head up. I don't always have something to say, but when I do, it amazes me that I have said something that helped someone else in their journey. It feels like such a blessing to be able to gather with a group of like minded people and find my way through their support and the word of God.
Grief Share Emails
So, when I started grief share class, I got the workbook, but I also kept hearing about the emails. I signed up and I get a daily email with helpful hints and bible passages. I figured since I am printing them out anyway, it would be good to go ahead and post them and then write about it on here. I haven't sat down with my grief share workbook as of lately to work. I really should do this on a daily basis, but I think sometimes that perhaps I put it off so that I am not crying daily. Who wants to be crying all the damn time? Not me. I don't want to be angry anymore. I don't want to cry all the time and I surely don't want to be an emotional wreck at work. Ain't no body got time for that. I do, however, realize that I need to work through my feelings, emotions and concerns and just work through the process. Putting it off really does make it worse when it finally does catch up to me. It is just like postponing the inevitable. Really, it is more like bottling it up and then the emotions are like carbonation in a bottle. It just builds up so much pressure that eventually it will explode! So, finally I realize that it is time to work on it and through it so that I am not dwelling in and on it.
Time to grow. I am in hopes that I will and can stick with this and finish it so that I can help others in the long run. It seems that when I am helping others is when I feel like I have really accomplished something in my own healing.
All that I share on here before the "~" symbol is from these emails. These are not my words nor are they changed to make it as though they are my own. After the "~" symbol is my own personal reflection on the daily email message. It is purely for my own reflection in hopes that it will help me and if someone else reads, then my prayer is that it is helpful to that person as well.
Copyright 2003-2013 by The Church Initiative, Inc. All rights reserved.
Time to grow. I am in hopes that I will and can stick with this and finish it so that I can help others in the long run. It seems that when I am helping others is when I feel like I have really accomplished something in my own healing.
All that I share on here before the "~" symbol is from these emails. These are not my words nor are they changed to make it as though they are my own. After the "~" symbol is my own personal reflection on the daily email message. It is purely for my own reflection in hopes that it will help me and if someone else reads, then my prayer is that it is helpful to that person as well.
Copyright 2003-2013 by The Church Initiative, Inc. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Grief Share
I started Grief Share class at Lakewood Church in November of 2012. My friend asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I told her that I wanted to go to church. I had long stayed away from church because I couldn't understand why I lost my sister and then my mom. I was lost. I am still lost, but finding my way. So, we went to church at Lakewood and it was good. I found out they have grief classes on Mondays, so I went. My first class I cried almost the whole time. When we sat down in a small group to talk, I said out loud what I had been thinking. I was angry with God. I was angry at the relationship that I didn't have with him and the relationship that was strained because of my losses. I was angry that my sister was taken and that I had to be the one to make the decision about my mom. I was angry that I was put to the test to the degree that I had been. I was angry that I was still reliving the days over and over. Remembering hearing my brother in law tell me that my sister was dead. Hearing them tell me that my mom had flat lined and that I needed to get to the hospital asap. Hearing that I needed to make a decision. Standing over my mother and saying okay to taking her off life support. Angry that I lost my two biggest supporters. I was angry that my identity depended so much on the support of those two women. I was lost. I was angry that I was so lost without them. I suddenly became the oldest and the decision maker. I suddenly didn't have a support system in place. I had to move a 4 bedroom house into a two bedroom apartment. I didn't know how I was going to take care of me, Justice and Ashley. I was lost. I was in denial. I just went through the motions for two years. I was on depression meds and they were just keeping me in a fog. I got up to 355 lbs. and was miserable. My friend had the lap-band done in October 2011 and was doing so well. She was the one that told me to find out about it. I did and decided that was the route I was going to take because I didn't want to die. I was now a diabetic and had my son to live for. I thank God for giving me Justice, because honestly if I didn't have him I wouldn't be here now. My fight would be gone. Once I made that decision to get the lap-band done, it was less than 30 days and it was surgery day. Before having the surgery I had to get off all medicine. I decided that I wouldn't take the depression medicine anymore. I didn't want to be on them anymore anyway. It was just a crutch that really needed to be gone so that I could try and do this and I needed all of me coherent in order to do it. It was time to try and live again instead of just going through the motions of life in my new reality. So, after surgery and with the holidays approaching, I found that I was emotional eating. The emotions were grief. They were the losses overwhelming me for the first time. It was living through the emotions and loss and missing them all over again, yet for the first time. Hard to accept that makes sense, but it does. I gained 15 lbs during the holiday season. While I had Ashley home for a while, it was comforting to have her there yet I still ate. During that time, I also started questioning the validity of the band. I was hungry. I was eating and with little restriction. I wasn't ever really satisfied for a long period of time. It was another level of emotional eating at this point. I had done this to myself and now this crap wasn't working. OMG! So, it was at that point that Roxanne (the nurse practitioner) believed in me and we started to test the band's validity. By January, it was proven that the band wasn't holding fluid like it should. They sent me back to my surgeon and by the end of that same week, I was at the surgicenter having my revision surgery. It seems like I do everything fast! :\ Justice got sick over that weekend while he was over at Aunt Carrie's house while I healed. I met my Aunt at the pediatrician's office on Monday and he had the flu. So naturally I had to be put on Tamiflu since I had just had surgery and had put myself at risk of the flu. It made me sick, so I only got a few doses into me before giving the medicine to my aunt who got sick because Justice was with her. :\ Justice was out of the daycare for a week and away from me for a full week. It was rough. I missed him and he missed me. I got him back on Friday and he was better and I was still sore, but better. Anyway, long story short, it was along this journey that I decided that it was a good thing to find a support group for grief since I was going to a support group for my lap-band. Grief share has been wonderful. I got a workbook and while I admittedly am not doing it daily, I have been going to class. I have missed a few because of the surgery and then sickness this week. The classes are 13 weeks and then they repeat, so I will be able to take them all eventually. It just has shown me that I need to keep working the process, because I can tell when I have missed a week or two that I need to get back to God and the group. I feel so much better when I get to go there and even when I don't really feel like the lesson was intended for me, something I say may help someone else or something they say will have helped me that night. It is a beautiful thing.
In class week before last that I figured out that journaling my grief journey was helpful. While the video was going I wrote and jotted down ideas and thoughts and it was like a release. The next week the same thing. It was like I was for the first time letting it go by writing it down. I think writing it down meant I was acknowledging it and thus able to move forward. It sounds good anyway right?
So, I missed last night's class. I am glad I stayed home because the nasty green stuff that my body is throwing out is gross and I wouldn't want anyone else getting sick. This, of course, means that I miss Zumba tonight too since Wal-Mart didn't have my medicine in last night it will be tonight before I even get my first dose in to me. Here's to hoping that Thursday's Zumba class with be an option!
So, now that I have set a short background for my grief and this journey, I am going to use this place to journal my journey through my workbook. I will take on each session of the workbook. It is time to put in the work in order to grow and start to live again.
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