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~ by Pat Luffman Rowland

Prayerful Pondering

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Saying Goodbye

02 Thursday Dec 2021

Posted by Pat Luffman Rowland in Goodbyes

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

blessing, closure, death and dying, emotions, enf of life decisions, grief counselors, handling grief, Living Wills, love, mourning, regret, retirement, sorrow, Winnie the Pooh

Goodbyes are especially hard for me. I just don’t handle them well — never have. It’s a part of me I don’t quite understand.

When I took early retirement from a job that I loved, I refused the customary appreciation reception; I simply couldn’t bear to think how emotionally hard it would be. I had poured heart and soul into my job. I knew it was a place that God had brought me to serve Him and letting go was necessary but not easy. Additionally, I asked my staff to treat it as if it were any other day and not say goodbye. I felt it was the only way I could get through it. I slipped out the side door of my office and quietly drove away.

When my 14-year-old kitty had to be put to sleep, I declined the private time at the Veterinary ER with her prior to the moment. I knew when I left home with Chloe that she would not be returning with me, so I had said the things that I wanted to say to her before we left and while we traveled to the point of goodbye. After she had entered heaven’s gates, the veterinarian told me I could have as long as I needed to stay and hold her, but I couldn’t stay. While I was still in control of my emotions, I had to get back home.

I was at my husband’s bedside when he died, when they unhooked him from life support, at the time of his last breath. Again, I was told to stay as long as I needed, but I could not extend that goodbye either. Richard wasn’t there anyway. I saw him go home to be with the Lord. I saw him healthy and happy. So did our friend who was with us. She said the presence of the Lord was so strong in the room that she would never again be afraid of dying.

My manner of goodbye seems to be through hurried escape. It’s my way of surviving the pain, I think. I need to distance myself and be alone. I need to move through the sea of grief and get back to shore where I feel safer. I really don’t think it’s the best way to handle goodbyes, but it’s my way and God understands. He understands because He created me just as I am. I have been told that when we love deeply, with total abandon, we hurt just as deeply. In all three of the events disclosed, I loved in total abandon.

When something ends that has been important to our life as we’ve known it, we lose a part of who we are. A layer of our being is permanently gone and can never be recaptured. What it was will forever be, but we can’t enhance or change any part of it.

A friend invited me to a ceremony of closure regarding the ending of her marriage. Just months after they were married, she learned her husband was still married to not one but two other women. Yet knowing this, she continued to love and mourn him. Her counselor suggested the shredding of their marriage certificate with her pastor, the counselor, and a close friend. We sat in our church sanctuary where she was given time to say anything she wanted to say. She did it without anger, just brief statements of her love, disappointment, and deep sadness. Then she tore into small pieces the paper that had officially bound them. She told me that the ceremony provided the closure she needed and afterward she was able to move on without looking back. That was powerful. I wish I could be like her: get help with grief, embrace it, take action, never look back. But we just aren’t all built the same way. I’ve tried to imagine handling differently the ending of things in my life and maybe I wouldn’t even if I could. So there’s so reason to look back with regret, is there?

There was a wise old sage that I used to quote in customer service training. He was filled with such good advice in the most uncomplicated of terms. His name was Winnie the Pooh. He said this about goodbyes: “How lucky I am to have had some things that make saying goodbye so hard.” So am I. Blessed, in fact. Thanks, Pooh, for making something that I’ve thought complex sound so very simple and clear.

______________

I am so sorry I have confused many with this blog. I am not giving up my blog, not moving, not going anywhere. This was simply meant as a reflection on how I have handled permanent losses in my past.

~~The new masthead is a photograph by my son-in-law, Mark Hearn.~~

God Is Always Faithful

15 Saturday Feb 2014

Posted by Pat Luffman Rowland in God's faithfulness

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

blessing, encouragement, faith, faithfulness, hope, trust

And Israel said to Joseph, I never expected to see your face; and behold, God has let me see your offspring also. Gen 48:11 RSV

I cannot help but think of how the years without Joseph must have been for Israel (first called Jacob). Joseph was the son of his beloved Rachel, the woman he loved from first sight. Joseph brought Israel more joy than any of his other children, and at a very young age this favored son was taken. How Israel must have grieved! How he must have said like many who have lost a child, if I could only see him one more time.

The ending to the story is a happy one for Israel for something he never dreamed of happens. His son Joseph is restored to him, along with Joseph’s children. What an inconceivable blessing for an old man who thought his son was dead.

Over my lifetime, I’ve come to see how like God this is. When God hears the longings of our hearts and responds, it seems to me the blessings are always greater than imagined. In the harshest of trials, I have learned to be confident. The end will come in God’s timing and with the end will be more blessing than I could ever know to ask.

In the toughest trial of my life, there were moments when I wondered if it would ever be over. But as tough as it was, I never stopped loving God or believing in Him. That trial kept me seeking God in every possible way and place, and that alone added good things to my life. When the trial was finally over, I could look back and see the rich and abundant blessings poured out on this unworthy person. I saw the crooks and turns, the hills and valleys, that brought me to a deeper faith. All that I had gone through brought me to a surer confidence in God. Blessings of abundance were poured out. Not because I deserved them, but because it is how God is, how He loves His children and rewards us when we diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6).

When we reflect on life experiences and see how involved God is in our lives, how can we not see His faithfulness and His love? He will never desert us; His word gives us that promise over and over.

And those who know Your name will put their trust in You, For You, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek You. (Psalm 9:10 NIV)

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:37-39 ESV) 

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The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23 ESV

If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10:9

God has not given us a spirt of fear, but of power and love and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7

Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name. For the Lord is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations. Psalm 100:4-5

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9

© Pat Rowland and Prayerful Pondering, 2010 - 2013.
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Pat Rowland and Prayerful Pondering with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Hope must be in the future tense. Faith, to be faith, must be in the present tense. Catherine Marshall
Everything over your head is under his feet. Dr. Tom Lindberg
What an excellent ground of hope and confidence we have when we reflect upon these three things in prayer--the Father's love, the son's merit and the Spirit's power! Thomas Manton
Our Christian hope is that we're going to live with Christ in a new earth, where is not only no more death, but where life is what it was always meant to be. Timothy Keller

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