My Spiritual Selfie – Day 2 of 20 – Grief, Communication and Spiritual CPR

Yep – with selfies I communicate to other people my:

 

Emotions

Hopes

Momentous Moments

Successes

Failures

Personality

And so much more

 

I also communicate through the written word, personal responses. actions or inactions. All that communication is done purposefully. I know I am communicating. I am doing it with a purpose.

 

But my Spiritual Selfie communicates to God all the above (because God knows and sees all) and more – because I am communicating even when I do not realize it and communicating things only God can hear or see.

 

When I lost my Daddy, I remember as I walked toward the funeral parlor thinking, so this is grief. My emotions communicated to others and to me what seemed to be my deepest truth. But later, when we lost our grandson, David, and then our daughter, Laurie, I realized I hadn’t learned as much as I thought about grief. I was not ready for the onslaught. It hurt to communicate and little was left that had meaning. I felt cut off from the vine – as though the cord connecting me to oxygen (life) had been torn away.

 

How long can one cling to dust?

 

Especially when the dust is not even reality. A shadow. A lie.

 

I’ve had some Crazy, Wild and Amazing experiences since I’ve come to know Christ and have found that LIFE is dependent on communication and drained away when communication is severed.

Grief feels like forever and it wasn’t long before my emotions were numbed and heart cries were all I could express. Like the camera for a selfie, emotions in crisis are often turned inward. I could not help myself.

I had to make a determined effort to let God communicate with me and bring me back to life.

 

How does God communicate His life to us? With truth.

Truth defies emotions.

Truth frames grace.

Truth fans the flame of hope.

Truth brings eternity to moments, whether ordinary or momentous

And Truth gives purpose to successes …and to failures.

 

Ways the True Vine communicates life and truth to me?

1. By choosing to abide [be at home; live there] in me and with me (comforting me that His truth supercedes all feelings. I can live above my emotions.

 

 

2. Through His Words He quickens that which is dead and enables me to live in the permanent place He leads me to possess (Deut. 12:47). None of that is in the world because all the things of earth spoil, rot, dry up, blow away or burn away and have no lasting strength or meaning. His place of truth is unchanging, life giving and has eternal meaning.

 

3. With the lie of accusation removed, with judgment removed, through hearing and believing Genesis 1:1 emotions can be routed because I can know I have God says so. Just as God breathed life into Adam, He placed the breath of the Almighty in me! Amazing thought – personal, intimate, eternal CPR!

 

4. John 6:63 – through His Words – I passed from death to life when God communicated His life to me. If the vine is life, what can the branch, or the soil, or the water, or anything earthly do without the vine? Nothing. Without life they do not even exist! But the flesh, with the Spirit contains life greater than food.

 

Lessons:

1. Care for other branches the same as I should care for myself – Why do I expect others who may not yet know Christ, to “do” things – to “change” or behave other than as one who is yet unknowing? And how can I even think of refusing to love others in the same manner as I’ve been loved. I must daily be reminded how and when Christ loved me and gave His spirit and His life to me.

2. But to bring life I need to Care for myself – nurture spiritually – or I will have dead branches. Cut off from life the spirit is dead.  Other believers are part of God’s plan for my strength and nourishment, and I’ve been blessed with many prayer warriors who strengthen me so I can strengthen others. If nourishment is not provided to the branches they weaken and cannot produce fruit. When I am too weak to take in nourishment, music and prayers are like intravenous infusions and transfusions. Strength from without.

   Several have told me they see coping and healing. Thanks for the CPR. Just as I long to continue to impact others’ lives, many of you have helped to make that difference in mine.