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When We Don’t Get Closure

  In February, we finished off our last high school soccer season. We knew each game might be our last, so we tried to take it all in. We took lots of pictures. My parents came. The girls got sweatshirts made to commemorate it. While it was sad to end, we had closure. Closure is important. We teach our ministry staff, when they come back from overseas assignments, to build a RAFT (Reconciliation, Affirmation, Farewell, and Think Destination). In other words, we take a good look around and see what needs healing, celebration, and grief. Then we look ahead with hope to what is coming next. That aspect of Farewells-saying goodbye well to a season, both to people and places, and allowing ourselves to grieve well, is essential. When we know something is going to end, we pay attention. We notice what we've taken for granted. The ordinary suddenly becomes precious and noteworthy. When we are cut off from saying goodbye well, it is difficult to fully engage with hope in the next one. It's so devastating and unnatural when we are denied the opportunity for good closure. This season we're in is full of cut off endings. When We Don't Get Closure When our daughter went to school the Thursday before spring break, we didn't know it was her last day. We had no idea she wouldn't wear her school uniform or drive carpool again. If we had, we would have done it (and the days leading up to it) differently. This spring we all missed so many events, but maybe the most difficult are the lasts that we won't be able to get back. The things we can't reschedule. Watching the last club soccer season. Celebrating the end of a year-long program. Enjoying the last days of work before retirement. A friend moved away and you didn't get to say goodbye. You had to leave your host country and you don't know when (or if) you'll go back. I've wondered why this feels so wrong, this cut-off grief. I wonder if it's because we ache for shalom-the way that things are meant to be. The peace God intended. We bend toward justice and righteousness. It is good to desire what is right, and this just feels wrong. When we work toward healthy closure, it's like a satisfying ending to a book. We are shalom people. We celebrate goodness. Ending in a place of restoration and peace is in our wiring. It's so jarring when we are kept from that. So What Do We Do? I've contemplated what to do about this abrupt grief we feel. We begin by acknowledging the weight of it. It's another part of living in the reality I talked about in my last post. It doesn't feel right because it isn't. Like stopping a race before the finish line, or quitting a book halfway through a chapter, it's unnatural not to finish well. It's been helpful for me to recognize this. It's a particular…

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Living in Reality

  "You don't get to decide reality. You just get to enter it." That's a phrase a friend of mine shared years ago, and it changed my life. Reality is what is true. It's true whether or not we believe it to be true, whether or not we want it to be true. It just is. How We Respond to Reality I think of this a lot, as I see people choosing the parts of our current reality they want to embrace. Not all of it-just what fits the picture we want to hold onto. Some of us prefer optimism-let's find the silver linings and look on the bright side. There's a benefit to that, but not when it's delusional. Not when it turns a blind eye on the plight of the less fortunate. Some focus on the gravity of the situation, with just cause. We can't look away from the reality of the pain this is causing so many, including ourselves. We can't avoid the hard truths, but in doing so sometimes we miss the good that is happening. Sometimes it's not optimism or pessimism that keeps us from reality. It's just willful ignorance. A stubborn refusal to name what is real. Like an athlete who says, "No, I'm good to play" when they are obviously injured. This reality isn't one that any of us would have chosen, but it what we have. We don't get to decide if we want it, but we do have the opportunity to enter it with Jesus at our side. My friend Iris recently said, "Jesus will not meet us in fantasyland. We meet Jesus at the foot of the cross in reality." Our current reality is rough. Each morning I wake up and wonder if maybe this pandemic is a nightmare we can shake off. We can't. So if we can't shake it off, how do we enter it? How Do We Enter Reality We enter it honestly, confessionally. As with any trial, we are being stirred. This situation shows us where our idols are-where we hold too tightly to comfort, security, control, success, peace. So as we recognize them, we confess them. We agree with God about the hold they have on us. We speak honestly about our emotions. So many are stirred in us in situations like this-anxiety, grief, anger, frustration, discouragement. God wants our unedited hearts. He can handle them. We speak the reality of how we feel, knowing that He will sift through it and bring us to His version of what is happening. We don't pretend that things are better than they are. Nor do we take God out of the equation and predict despair. We look suffering in the face and see God standing with us in it, holding us, comforting us. The more we are willing to enter suffering, the more we can minister to others in it. We enter it knowing that while we are all in this together, we are experiencing different realities.…

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Why We Need Kindness Right Now

  Sometimes as I think about this strange season we're in, and how much longer it's going to be I wonder how we will get through (honestly, it's good they're doing this in stages. We need to be eased into the reality of it). What I keep coming back to is this: we need a lot more kindness. Why We Need Kindness We need to be kind to ourselves, and we need to be kind to others. In stores, online, in zoom calls and on the streets (from a safe social distance, of course). Our world needs more kindness if we're going to get through this well. We need kindness because we've never done this before. And when we do something for the first time, we don't know what we're doing. Which means we'll feel lost and uncomfortable and incompetent. And the last thing we need right then is to put unrealistic expectations on ourselves to know what to do and be able to keep going just as we did before. No, we need someone to be kind to us. We need someone to be patient while we learn this new season. We need kindness because this is scary. And when things are scary we get anxious. That's normal. Some of us are more anxious than others for a lot of really good reasons-our health is poor, or our parents are old, or we have to work in hospitals. Whatever the reason, whether it makes sense to us or not, it's understandable. When someone is scared, it doesn't help to tell them not to be scared. They need empathy. They need someone to listen to their fears and tell them we're with them. We need kindness because it's just too much sometimes. And when it's too much it's not because we're weak or we did it wrong or we stink at this. It's too much because we weren't made to live this way. Adrenaline is only supposed to last us so long-just enough to get away from the danger. We can't get away from this danger. When we hit the wall (and we will) we need to be kind to ourselves about it. We need kindness because this isn't normal. But this is the only normal that we're going to get for a long time, and that's hard. Learning to live with that is discombobulating, which is a fantastic word but something none of us like to feel. We're living with little "t" trauma all the time. A lot of us feel disregulated. Kindness helps get us back to a healthy place. We need kindness because we're sad. The big, obvious losses we're incurring are easy to note, but we tend to ignore the little ones. We did a zoom call the other night with old friends from overseas, and while it was a delight, the fact that they are here in my city and I can't see them grieved me. Those little losses are like pinhole pricks in the…

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