Unattended and Unintentional

Chapter 9

As I began to read chapter 9. I kept telling myself, "oh I don't think this one will apply to you." My pride was obviously way off. Suffering from loss and grief doesn't only mean I have lost my family or my best friends.  Loss and grief are personal and unique to everyone. The more I dug into this, I realized my own loss and grief was centered around all of my other "problems" My sadness and guilt and insecurities all come from a place that I associate loss and missing out with. This deeply affects me and my way to cope is to run away, to move on and pretend that isn't me who feels like that.

I am an avid Pinterester, and all the time I pin quotes like 'stay strong' and 'move on' and similar things. But we aren't called to avoid this emotions. They don't make us less of a person. In a quote that Scazzero takes an excerpt from, this one really stood out to me.

'Catastrophic loss by definition precludes recovery. It will transform us or destroy us, but it will never leave us the same. There is no going back to the past... It is not therefore true that we become less through loss - unless we allow the loss to make us less, grinding our soul down until there is nothing left.' pg 160

I know to some people my own personal loss might not seem like anything. But I have to tell my self to not think like that. The Lord sees my sorrows and some how still loves me the same.

"Unattended to over time, they [our losses] prevent us from entering into walking freely and honestly with God and others. " pg 161

This hit me hard. I realized that this is exactly my life. I have left unattended (probably since training 2 summers ago) all of my feelings. I have locked them away unattended, just building and building. Ultimately hindering my walk with Christ and those around me.

But really God invites us to embrace this loss and grief. He wants us to grow through them and give them to him, not store them up. Jesus teaches this to us in John. In order to grow and multiply we have to be like seeds and die first. But in his soil, surrounded by him not our loss, for that isn't a fertile place to grow.

"God assures us that he will defeat the goblins on our behalf and lead you into new resurrections."

Chapter 10

This chapter has become something of a motivation for me. I think that being like Jesus is literally the hardest feat for us humans. But then I realized, duh. Its supposed to be, we aren't perfect! Intentionally following Jesus comes down to one thing Love and loving well. And who knew that Scazzero was going to bring up listening?

Now that I am a housemate, I seem to often be the catch all for one particular housemate's emotions, I have had to listen a lot. 80% of the time I love to listen and help and offer my advice and tell her I'm praying for her and so on. But is that really always loving her like I should what about that other 20% (okay its maybe more) . I internally role my eyes when she comes into my room late at night and wants to chat. For a time that ends up being way too long. I know you are thinking Kenzie is so mean..but these are my true reactions. Its not how I should be reacting and I know it.

Like Scazzero said, I was blind to the fact that listening is the indispensable element to loving people.  Jesus was an intentional listener! Me? I am distracted and selfish and I interrupt and try to change the subject so I can do what I want.  Just because I don't want to express my feelings to her...( remember I bottle mine up... ) doesn't mean that I shouldn't accept her emotions and walk through and alongside her in them.  So like I said above this has become a motivation for me. To understand God's grace in myself and make it a priority to be an intentional listener all the time!

Kenzie :)