there is a season
photo credit: Patrick Hendry @worldsbetweenlines
“The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.” (Psalm 23)
I remember the strangest things from that day so vividly, and then things that I think would be etched in my mind are gone.
I was 22, in the back seat of someone’s car driving in the funeral processional to the cemetery, I’m not sure whose car it was, but as we were riding along I remember this anger building up inside me.
Why is the world still moving?
Why are people going about their lives as if nothing has changed, nothing has happened? Don’t they know? Don’t they care?
My dad served this community practically his entire adult life and people can’t stop for one day?
Such human thoughts. Such normal thoughts, yet such unrealistic thoughts/expectations.
As the saying goes, “we are the center of our own universe.”
photo credit: Feeh Costa @__feehcosta
To say life just doesn’t make sense sometimes is quite the understatement. Not one of us will escape this life without heartbreak and death.
To say that you can be experiencing a season of reaping and a season of loss simultaneously is also an understatement, and one of the many paradoxes of this life.
Just a couple of months ago we were celebrating the birth of our newest grandson, then almost as quickly as we were celebrating we were snapped back to the reality of life and it’s challenges when our daughter-in-law had serious post C-section complications.
I am happy to report, she and baby are doing fine now. Praise to God. 😊
But such as life is, practically as soon her health issues were resolved, we are now, once again thrust into yet another season of life.
This weekend, we will lay to rest, the great grandfather of that new grandson. His very first, biological great grandchild, that he never “officially” got to meet in person.
I can report though, that due to one of the benefits of today’s technology, via facetime, he did get to lay eyes on him.
Obviously, it was important for Mart, my father-in-law, to see the beginning of the next Olsen legacy, so, that was a huge blessing.
That was something my own Father never got to see; the future of his name being carried on through his own children’s children because he only lived long enough to see one of his sixteen grandchildren.
I know I am not the exception to this unfair part of life. Most of us have a story of reaping and losing simultaneously.
After all, as the song says, “to everything, turn, turn, turn…there is a season…”
To say that good times and bad times cannot co-exist in the very same moment is not remotely true, and yet a paradox we will never understand. (To read more about that, you can read my blog post, its-complicated .)
It’s not just something we sing in a song, scripture tells us, “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:” (Ecclesiastes 3:1)
Seasons of our life are reflected through every birth and death we experience, whether it is with people we love, pets we love, our plants, anything that lives here on earth experiences a birth and a death. It’s unavoidable.
photo credit: Timothy Eberly @timothyeberly
Life and death are very touchy topics to write about for obvious reasons. I am not, nor is any human being the creator of either. Therefore, our understanding of it all is limited to our human understanding.
In my humble opinion, I believe that is for our protection. If we knew when life would begin, how every moment would play out, and when the end would be for us and all those we love, would we love? How would we live?
Knowing what to say when someone is hurting or grieving is often difficult, and we all mess up sometimes, but we really need to be very intentional about our words because words misused in someone’s time of grief can cause serious spiritual damage.
I remember someone saying to my ten-year old sister when our dad unexpectedly died that, “he’s in a better place now.”
Those are beautiful words, if the person is in the place to receive that message, but trust me, to a ten-year old little girl who loved and needed her daddy, wanted him with her and not anywhere else, those were damaging words, words that hurt her deeply.
I remember her telling me once, it even made her question God’s goodness.
We all do it, but I guess because it is fresh right now, and this is obviously relevant to where we are in this moment in time, I thought I would mention a couple of commonly misused statements about loss.
photo credit: Andrew Neel @andrewtneel
As I was researching to write this, I actually came across some blogs and things written about very common phrases used in a time of loss that hurt people or actually fueled their hurt and anger towards God.
Wanting to understand, I dug a little deeper into these common statements for some context.
I found the two below particularly interesting because I have heard them spoken to others in their time of loss, and I myself have spoken them to someone in their time of loss.
For example, people often quote Job from the old testament saying, “ well, it’s not for us to understand, but God gives, and God takes away.”
While this statement is true, spoken out of context, and just leaving it there, without the receiver having any knowledge about those words, who spoke them, who they were spoken to, and why they were even spoken at all, seems incredibly shallow at best.
To those who are familiar with them, but don’t know the rest of the story, and have no knowledge or understanding of God’s faithfulness to restore Job’s life ( Job 1:21), these words can be quite damaging.
“Job teaches us that, in all events, God is sovereign. “The LORD gave”—and we praise Him for His good and undeserved blessings. “The LORD has taken away”—and we praise Him that our loss is for our good and that He still has our best interests at heart. In all things, then, we say, “Blessed be the name of the LORD.”’ (Job 1:21, ESV). (the-Lord-gives-and-the-Lord-takes-away)
The above being said, those are not likely choice words to use in anyone’s time of loss.
A second popular phrase used in time of loss is, well this is part of “the circle of life.”
I actually found the context of this statement quite interesting.
The idea of the circle of life is not a new one. Actually, it is a very old idea, but has been popularized by what is known as the New Age Movement.
Stick with me on this one.
According to a well-known author, The New Age Movement tells us that there is a new world coming.
“This movement teaches that God is not a Person, but an It. He is not a divine being, but a divine, cosmic power that permeates this whole universe”
“Your life keeps going round and round on the circle of life. You see, according to the New Age Movement, time is not linear, but circular. It keeps going round and round and round. [And so do you.]”
photo credit: Ashley Batz @ashleybatz
“Once you die, you will return to this earth in a different life. You will be reincarnated, as that is called. And these reincarnations will continue until one day you become one with the divine, cosmic power called God.”
Again, saying to someone in their time of loss and pain that someone’s loved one is just traveling through space and time, over and over, equal to plants, animals, particles in the cosmos, this says that we are less than who our creator says we are.
Casually saying they are just part of the circle of life is callous and insensitive.
I personally find this demeaning and damaging to our testimony.
This is who God says we are:
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27)
“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10)
It’s incredibly easy to take many sayings about life and death and mistakenly attribute them to God without understanding the context behind the words, but if we want to comfort people during a time of loss, it’s important to be aware of the words or phrases you choose to say.
Something else that is fresh to me right now because of this season we are in in this moment, is the why question that people experiencing loss usually have, and most of us, in our need to have an answer and desire to comfort, we try to answer.
I believe 99% of people have the best of intentions when they try to comfort others in their time of loss, but maybe we need to realize that it’s not only not our place to know why things happen, that we aren’t even qualified to know the why behind the seasons of life.
Maybe the questions we need to ask ourselves about life and its seasons, is more about perspective than all the why or what if questions?
Rather than asking why, maybe we shift our focus to our perspective on life and death?
Maybe we ask instead, Is my glass half empty, or half full? Right now, what do I have or still have in my life?
photo credit: Nolan Simmons @nolanjsimmons
When we look at life and death, people often say, “If God is supposedly good, why do we lose people we love? Why is there death, especially of children?”
These are absolutely fair questions, and God is not intimidated or “mad” if we take those questions to Him.
It’s difficult for our human minds to accept the fact that we live in a broken world. This is a world where God allows free will, and with that free will comes pain, unjustifiable, unfair, and unexplainable pain.
I heard a WAY FM radio commentator share something interesting they heard their pastor recently say in a sermon. He said, he was so tired of the glass half-empty mentality of everyone he spoke to, especially during the past two years in particular.
He said one day, it just occurred to him, instead of thinking if there’s a God, then why is there so much bad in this world, what if we flipped that thought?
What if we had a glass half-full perspective?
What if instead we say, if there isn’t a God, why is there so much good in this world?
Because humans are good?
Because things just miraculously always end positively?
So, love just happens without a creator?
Because God owes us a good and easy life because we are just inherently good?
I have learned a lot in the brief time I have known Greg’s parents. Not that they are perfect, but they are glass half full people.
I have witnessed two people who have a glass half-full mentality.
Mart faced all sorts of medical challenges which stopped this once B-47 Navigator, Lt. Colonel in the USAF, avid fisherman, father of five, grandfather to many, in his active life tracks.
He went from a vibrant life to a life confined to a wheelchair, and while I am sure he had his days, I never heard him complain.
I heard him give God the glory for the other seasons of his life where he was blessed with his health.
Mart’s life was not the only life drastically impacted by his health challenges, but so was his wife Joy’s life.
His physical needs were a hefty lift for anyone, but Joy chose to be his caregiver, and not hire it done or put him in a home.
I have seen “Jesus with skin on” as they say, as I have watched Greg’s mom care for and, I am going to use a dirty, dirty word in today’s world for women to use in reference to caring for others, serve, yes, she served his father through all of his health challenges over the last several years.
Because she saw the glass half full in this season of their life she chose to serve her husband because she loved him, and because she understands loyalty, and sacrificial love.
Joy understands, and is an example of a time to every purpose under heaven.
This is a time in life where the glass half empty people will ask, why me? Why do I get stuck in this position?
Instead, Joy saw that this was her time, not that she hadn’t cared for Mart all along, but she understood, this was her season to love, care for and serve her husband of over 60 years and she served him well.
She saw their past seasons together and chose to see their future through those same eyes in this season of their life.
The example she has lived, particularly in this season of her life, has spoken volumes to all of us who know her, and I am humbled by the lessons I have learned through observing this servant, and the blessing that she is to her children, their spouses, her grandchildren, and her great grandchildren.
When I think of the song below, I cannot help but think of what I am witnessing this weekend as her/our family gathers from all over to lift her up and to memorialize Martin G. Olsen, the patriarch of this family, yet honoring Joy, the Matriarch as well.
Two people who started a life together seasons ago, seasons of life with the birth of each child, seasons of death with the death of parents, seasons of war, seasons of winters, springs, summers, and fall seasons throughout their 60+year journey, together and with an unspoken but lived by code of ethics that has taught their children well.
And their children in return taught their children well.
You, who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so, become yourself
Because the past is just a goodbye
Teach your children well
Their father's hell did slowly go by
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick's the one you'll know by
Don't you ever ask them, "Why?"
If they told you, you would cry
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you
And you (Can you hear?) of tender years (And do you care?)
Can't know the fears (And can you see?)
That your elders grew by (We must be free)
And so, please help (To teach your children)
Them with your youth (What you believe in)
They seek the truth (Make a world)
Before they can die (That we can live in)
And teach your parents well
Their children's hell will slowly go by
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick's the one you'll know by
Don't you ever ask them, "Why?
If they told you, you will cry
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you
Life and death are all part of the seasons of life.
Be mindful what you say to people in times of hurting and loss.
Be the person who lives, loves, and serves with a heart and perspective of the glass half full.
Be grateful we don’t know all the answers. We might not really love or live life if we had them all.
The information around the circle of life was quoted and paraphrased from, circle-life-or-hand-god)
