suffering Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Turning the Page on Suicide

Posts Tagged: suffering

Is Love Worth the Grief?

Posted September 6, 2016 | Karisa Moore

I hold it true, whateâ€™er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
â€˜Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.â€”Alfred Lord Tennyson

If you love, it’s guaranteed that you will also have loss. All things, including relationships, pass away. So is loving worth the grief we suffer? God thought so. So much so, that he was willing to come in the form of a baby, be hunted, persecuted and died and was raised, all to demonstrate his love for us. It is that kind of suffering life that changed my destructive pattern and opened my eyes to the love of Christ and therefore his love for all mankind.

I had already begun this post when the following happened:

Daniel: Mom, can I ask you a question? . . . Oh, never mind.

Me: Daniel, please go ahead, itâ€™s okay.

Daniel: Is all this bad stuff we are going through even worth it? I mean, whatâ€™s the point?

Me: Do you mean, what was the point of loving Jonathan if we were only going to lose him?

Daniel: Yah, and Sonya too (our dog is in the last stages of dying.)

Me: AllÂ I can tell you is my own experience. I spent the first part of my life trying to avoid pain and it never worked. I didnâ€™t know how to give or receive love. But Jonathan changed everything for me. Suddenly my eyes were open to Godâ€™s love, and though there was still pain, I didnâ€™t try to avoid it. Actually I grew stronger and loved deeper because of it. So yes, I definitely believe that loving Jonathan or Sonya was worth more than the heartache we are experiencing now.

Daniel: You wouldnâ€™t be standing here talking to me right now if you hadnâ€™t made that choice.

Me: Exactly. Think of it this way. Youâ€™ve asked me how is it possible to love you when you are unkind to me. Itâ€™s because God loved me that way.

My experience is enough to convince me that no matter how deep the sorrow, opening my heart all the wider is worth it.

Suffering doesnâ€™t equal punishment, it equals perseverance and perseverance must finish its work so that we are complete, not lacking anything. Life is not happenstance; it is a beautiful woven design. I just kept looking at the backside with all the ugly knots. It is in keeping our distance from God that we are most deeply wounded, not in drawing close to Him!

IÂ loved Jonathan and losing him hurts worse than any torture you could put me through on this earth, but I agree with the poet whole heartedly. My life is better for loving God, and therefore opening my heart to my children, and mankind.

Accepting the Lifeline: God’s Yoke is Light

Posted May 29, 2016 | Karisa Moore

Matthew 11:29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.â€

If you’re a Christian andÂ His yoke doesn’t feel light, why is that? I used to think a light yoke meant my circumstances weren’t heavy, but clearly my circumstances are extremely heavy. Our yoke becomes light when we know God’s gentleness and humility so well that the yoke is nothing in comparison. Paul touches onÂ the difference of our earthly weight compared to the heavenly yoke,Â in Romans 8:18Â I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.Â If my yoke still feels heavy, it is because I am the one still carrying the weight! I don’t know or trust God’s character; giving him fullÂ reign of my life.Â The yoke becomes lighter and lighter when IÂ love Him completely and recognize his complete love for me. Have you ever been secure in that kind of love? Can we accept thatÂ he carriedÂ our burden on the cross, and therefore, find rest (relief) in the yoke of our savior.

Much of faith is getting to know our master’s character so well that we trust him implicitly. Think of it this way. We are drowning in sin, sin we are doing, and sin that someone is enacting on us. We are exhausted and God has thrown out his life line. We must choose to grab the line before we can rest and allow him to pull us to safety. Now I can keep attempting to save myself, or allow others to pull me under in their misguided attempts at saving me, or I can trust the character of God. This is so much easier when we get to know his character. We read his love note (scripture) over and over. WeÂ witness that he has rescued others, we ourselves might have thought hopeless, and we act on his character over and over. I’ll grab the lifeline of the certified swim instructor who has swum the channel! Jesus swam the channel of humanity! He tells us his yoke is light, because he wore the yoke of his father, and knows it to be true.

Observe His gentleness and humility throughout scripture. Don’t discount his love for mankind in the Old Testiment as well as the New. From the birth of creation he has loved and called you by name. We have to decide, will we take His yoke upon us? Will we accept the lifeline and rest?

The Object of Our Agitation

Posted March 9, 2015 | Karisa Moore

My son was very agitated today about surface things that I could see had nothing to do with his anguish. Finally, I heard him sobbing in the other room. “Mommy I can’t stop crying.” I wrapped him up in my arm and rocked him as heÂ continued to talk about the object of his concern, but quickly shifted to crying out for Jonathan. “I miss him so much!” he sobbed.

My heart broke for his grief! Oh Lord, equip me to comfort him. How many of usÂ have those moments,Â we feel anxious about our broken toy, the car that just cut us off, the snow trappingÂ us inside, the phone ringing–all the things that on another day wouldn’t bother us, but today it is just too much. All the time brewing beneath that agitation is real heart ache, longing, brokenness, fear, and sorrow.

Why did God create us with emotions? Emotions tend to squish out in strange ways when we deny them their purpose. I believe that our emotions were created to feel joy, pleasure, interact with each other andÂ ourÂ GodÂ internally and externally–literally to be stirred by God. When the fallÂ occurredÂ our emotions were suddenly stirred by sin, which will always point to us away from God. But, we can learn to lay out our heartache, our pain before his throne so that he can replace our burden with healing. Our emotions always long to be in right relationship with God! Don’t be afraid to lift the veil to reveal your heartache to him, He longs to hold us, and is moved with compassion for our sufferings.Â He may prune away what we think is causingÂ us grief to reveal the root.

If someone around you is agitated about things that don’t seem to match in value do a little gardening. Dig past the surface to the root pain;Â much easier to heal when we correctly identify the source of our anguish. It may just be as simple as being present withÂ your loved oneÂ and listening, but it can make all the difference in the world.

Perseverance: The “Hooah!” of Christian Discipleship

Posted January 5, 2015 | Karisa Moore

Romans 5:Â 3Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5And hope does not put us to shame, because Godâ€™s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

My sciatic nerve is damaged. I have had pain every single day for the past eight years and it would be weird if one day the pain was suddenly gone. I have learned to adjust how I sit, stand and move to keep the pain at a tolerable level.Â Â My grandfather, on theÂ other hand,Â burnt his foot because his nerve receptors were destroyed and he didn’t know he had stepped on hot coals. Which would you rather?

Losing Jonathan hurts worse then any other pain I have experienced. I could try to avoid it, many do, or IÂ can allow it to teach me perseverance. Some translations use the word endurance, but I see perseverance as the “Hooah!” ofÂ Christian discipleship. Perseverance comes from the gut of our spirit, and is anÂ outward acknowledgment that I hear, understand, and obey the will of the Lord. When I persevere I am allowing God to draw out my character, which makes the impossible possible (hope) and displays Godâ€™s glory. At my core is the knowledge that God will not fail me.

Many of us endure trials, but not many allow those sufferings to complete the work in us so that we are not lacking anything (James 1).Â Â That is what my suffering has the potential to do. Jonathan death motivates me to speak boldly on the behalf of others, to be aware of depression and suicide in a way that I never have before, and to seek the face of God every day. I know the pain will not always be this severe. But until that moment comes the pain is necessary and teaches me the discipline of perseverance. Hooah!!

The Shortest Route through Grief

Posted November 13, 2014 | Karisa Moore

Turn the Page:

Proverbs 3:5-7Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
6In all your ways acknowledge him,…
and he will make straight your paths.
7Be not wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
8It will be healing to your flesh
and refreshment to your bones.

Simple is a loaded word. It carries the weight of my desires, failures, and pleasures. I have complained a lot, through the years, when things break down, or seem to take too long. “Why can’t things be more simple?” Obviously, grief is no exception to the rule. We must go through it if we want to live life to the fullest. If there were a short cut through suffering and loss, I’d take it.

But scripture states clearly that there is! The shortest route between two points is obedience to God. For all of my complaining I am my own worst enemy when it comes to simplifying life. What makes my life more complicated is sin. I don’t want to go through suffering, so I have tried to avoid it, medicate it with alcohol, bad relationships, and running away or fighting my way through. None of which have ever worked. God has offered all of us a shortcut through Christ.

Since the moment the officer arrived on my doorstep with the nightmare of Jonathan’s death I have had a choice. Do I go through grief my way, or God’s way? He told us we would suffer and grieve in this life, but he also promised us that we would be comforted. The short cut is to love the Lord my God with all of my soul, heart, and mind. To lean not on my own understanding, but to acknowledge him in all my ways. God will make my paths straight!

By no means have I fully accomplished this, but it is my goal. When I accomplish the above command, I will go through this grief the shortest route possible and be comforted along the way to boot. Grief will be but a speck! It is when I disobey God and go my own way that things get more complex. Just ask the Israelites who spent forty years wandering through the wilderness when they had had God himself leading the way! If I want a shortcut through grief then I’ll keep my eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of my faith.