Good morning…
The nineteen year old son of a family in our community did not wake up yesterday, the morning after he had routine surgery to remove his appendix. Having a nineteen year old ourselves, I can not imagine the excruciating pain of his parents. Our seventeen year old son goes to school with the grieving brother and my husband has enjoyed teaching this high school junior in class. The shock of this family was part of my low-grade fever of sadness.
Already the Hallmark version of Christmas has gone haywire in my head. One young adult did not come home when I expected, and someone else had to leave earlier than I hoped. At times it is hard to figure out what to say to each other, cool kids growing into fascinating foreigners, begging the question “Who are we now?” The transition of our aging family was part of my low-grade fever of sadness.
Having finally gotten our damaged wood floors fully refinished, for the first time in three weeks we slept in our bed, on our main floor, with furniture half in place. Feeling dislodged, disoriented, and discombobulated, living out of our make-shift basement abode has taken a toll during this hectic holiday season. The chaos of our conditions was part of my low-grade fever of sadness.
Our make-shift living arrangements forced me to feel a small bit of solidarity with the multitudes of people who are grieving and displaced after hurricanes and wildfires, disease and death have ripped through and ravaged the routine of so many ordinary lives. The devastation of disaster zones was part of my low-grade fever of sadness.
So what did I do when I felt these feelings coming on, wreaking havoc, stealing joy? Like with any fever, I took my inner temperature.
I thought, “God what do I do with this bundle of sadness?” I felt drawn to get up, don layers, and walk our dogs amid the midwinter dreary. I figured it would give me fresh air, it would be at least slightly productive, and it would offer space, silence and solitude, for the LORD to speak, helping to pick apart and process my low-grade sadness.
Sure enough, by the time I returned from our thirty minute winter walk, I was breathing more freely. Feelings were freed up to come and to go. Sensing the separate strands of my sadness, I could name each one, tame their power over me, and claim God’s enduring truth: As long as each emotion moves through me, noticed, honored, welcomed like a lost sheep into my fold, no “one feeling” will hold me hostage. When I feel under the weather of a low-grade fever of feelings, the biggest gift I can give myself is walking and talking with Emmanuel, “God with us.”
It’s true that no one knows what’s going to happen, or when. Who’s around to tell us?
No one can control the wind or lock it in a box.
No one has any say-so regarding the day of death.
No one can stop a battle in its tracks.
No one who does evil can be saved by evil.
All this I observed as I tried my best to understand all that’s going on in this world (Ecclesiastes 8:7b-9a, MSG).
…Sue…
