Grief

Should My Friend Get Help?

boredom

Question Submitted: I am a struggling supporter of my best friend who faces various levels of depression because of her barrenness. Do you think there is a time to suggest that my friend get medical advice about the depression?

We asked Pastor Todd Peperkorn, author of the book I Trust When Dark My Road: A Lutheran View of Depression and pastor of Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Rocklin, California, to help us with this question. Here is what he had to say:

The short answer to this question is that if you are concerned about her, talk to her about it. There is no magic “if this, this and this happens, then you talk to them about it.” My rule of thumb is that if someone’s low mood persists for weeks or months, then I would certainly encourage them to seek medical advice.  

 As her friend, what I would encourage you to do is 1) pray for her and perhaps even with her if you are close to one another, 2) encourage her to get a medical opinion on the matter which may involve either medication or counseling or both, and 3) ask her what you can actually, concretely do to help her. All too often as Christians we take prayer as a last step rather than a first step toward helping those in need.

Peace to you. There are many burdens which we all bear, and by bearing them together, they make a lighter load for us all.

Pastor Todd Peperkorn

 

Brave Warriors

There is empathy from all different walks of life.

Last summer, my husband and I travelled with a communications team for The Lutheran Witness down to San Antonio, Texas, to learn more about the U.S. Army’s chaplaincy program. We visited Fort Sam Houston, Brooke Army Medical Center, Camp Bullis, and other significant military establishments to talk with chaplains, medics, apache pilots, wounded warriors, purple heart awardees, and hero after hero after hero.

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I learned that there are brave men and women who risk their lives every day to protect me and the freedoms I enjoy in this country; I learned that there are faithful chaplains and their assistants who rush towards the boom of every battle to give the gifts of Word and Sacrament to the wounded and dying; I learned that there are many things I can do to support the families of military personnel; I learned that thousands of our nation’s warriors suffer from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and struggle transitioning back into civilian life; and I learned that those who struggle with post traumatic stress speak my language.

For example, in High Ground (2012), a recent documentary on recovering warriors training and attempting a therapeutic climb of a peak in the Himalayas, a master at arms canine handler in the U.S. Navy admits, “Injuries are a very personal experience. I don’t like to talk about what happened. One of my main obstacles when I came back and was in a wheelchair for 3 1/2 years is [that] everybody looked at me as broken, and, um, they missed who I was. And so that became my identity…it was always about the injury, not about me.”

Yes. I resound with that. My identity to most of the world is not “Katie, that baptized Christian who loves people, music, words, herbs, mountains, and running pants” but “Katie, that barren woman.”

Another soldier in the documentary admits before the camera, “I have more in common, I feel sometimes, with an old man on his deathbed than I do with people my own age, emotionally, you know…I just feel like…I’ve lived out my life…like the tank is empty.”

Yes. I feel the life-sucking tentacles of grief wrapped around my bloodline, and I tend to gravitate towards friendships with people who are several generations older than me. We have a lot in common.

The same soldier elaborates, “You just see people enjoying life and being alive and you’re like, why don’t I feel that? I’ve had so many near-death experiences, shouldn’t I be happy to be alive?…It’s really hard to, like, reestablish yourself, I guess, in society because it’s just so different…Everybody looks at us weird. ‘Thanks for your service…Stay away. Keep your distance from me.’”

Yes. My suffering and grief and pain often ostracize me from the party of life.

Another soldier suffering from a traumatic brain injury (TBI) discloses, “People still don’t get it that not all pain is physical.”

Yes. Coping with life-altering circumstances and chronic health problems brings with it an invisible but all-consuming pain that really, really hurts.

So, because there are only so many of you courageous warriors in uniform and veterans’ caps that I meet gassing up at my local Casey’s or walking down the fruit aisle at my Wal-Mart on Dirksen, please allow me to thank you on this little blog. Thank you, not just for your brave service to our country on the battlefield but also for your brave face-off with the enemy of post traumatic stress off of the battlefield. I cannot fully understand the traumas you have experienced in trying to protect me, but I relate to the internal battle you so eloquently describe. I find comfort in your empathy.

God bless you.

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Acceptance

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression.

I know these four stages of grief very well. They have been my acerbic companions these past eleven years. They lace my morning cup of tea with salt; they lengthen my showers and slow my stride; they chap my cheeks and etch my crows’ feet deeper into my skin; they gag and loose and befoul my tongue; they terrorize my affections, blitzkrieg my hopes, and make a ground zero of my expectations; they tax my strongest relationships and spoil my family reunions; they even follow me to church and laugh at my Faith.

Yet, every few months, my grief cools its stinging heels in the fifth, epsom-salt of stages: acceptance.

Acceptance, that clairvoyant mirror which reflects my reality in 3-D.

I look in that mirror and see an empty quiver. A fruitless tree. A childless crib. An heirless family.

I see a barren woman.

I see the truth, and I don’t like it. I really don’t like it.

But, I don’t ignore it. I don’t fight it. I don’t haggle over it. I don’t wear it as a millstone around my neck.

I simply live with it.

That is, until a grief alumnus comes knocking on my door to pour me another one of those briny cups of tea.

O Lord, Father of all mercy and God of all comfort, You always go before and follow after us. Grant that we may rejoice in Your gracious presence and continually be given to all good works; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

(Collect of the Day for Proper 6C from Lutheran Service Book, copyright Concordia Publishing House)

Get Ready to GETAWAY!

The Great Getaway is approaching fast, and registration for on-sight attendees is now filled and closed. However, we do have room left for commuting attendees.

Do you crave fellowship with other women who understand what it’s like to be childless or to lose a child? Do you have ethical questions about infertility medicine you’d like to ask a pro-life doctor? Would you enjoy eating decadent desserts prepared by a loving pastor and his wife who just want to spoil you rotten? Do you need a retreat in a beautiful house near a scenic park in historic St. Louis?

Then, you might want to join us this summer for the The Great Getaway on Friday, July 26th through Sunday, July 28th. Retreat details and registration information can be found here.

Children at Birthday Party

Shepherds Who Point Us to the Lamb

gethsemaneThere is no better time to talk about suffering than Good Friday, and our church body is blessed to have so many learned, compassionate, and insightful shepherds who know that the life of the Christian is one of taking up our crosses and following Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Take some time this weekend to watch, listen, and read the following as we focus on the suffering and death of our Lord:

Rev. Bryan Wolfmueller’s comments on Issues, Etc. about Sanctification and Suffering

Synodical President Rev. Dr. Matthew Harrison’s video, “Suffering is Purposeful through Repentance”

and Rev. Dr. Gifford Grobien’s comments specifically to you, the barren:

When couples experience barrenness, with Job we should want to worship God and to say,  “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of  the LORD” (Job 1:21). But in the midst of the devil’s temptations such  faithful action and confession seem out of reach. We are distraught. There really isn’t any reason we can hear that will ease the questioning and the sadness. Once again, suffering has overshadowed the way things ought to be. Suffering overtakes even the faithful person. The cross looms and gives no reason.

Instead, the cross calls the church faithfully to follow. Faithfully. That is, even without seeing. Even without perceiving or  understanding. The cross beckons us to see suffering and to see deliverance through suffering. It does not explain suffering; but it promises deliverance from suffering. More than this, the cross of  Jesus Christ promises deliverance through suffering to fellowship with the one who suffered ultimately. The church is a fellowship of  suffering; a fellowship with the passionate One; a fellowship with God of the universe who nevertheless stooped to suffer not just with you, but for you.

Suffering, by its very nature, takes time. We, on the one hand, desire immediate results. We have our food through the drive-through, our information at the touch of a screen, our friends at the click of a  mouse. Even our sins are forgiven in a moment, at the Word of  absolution. That much is true. Yet suffering connotes experience. It  implies time. Deliverance comes after a time of suffering, and this time is not in vain. During this time we are sanctified. We grow in the love of God through the Spirit of God. We are sustained by this  same Spirit through God’s indomitable gifts, so that no temptation overtakes us that is beyond our ability. God is faithful, and with the  temptation he will also provide the way of escape.

Escape. Deliverance. God provides the way of deliverance from suffering. He conforms us to the cross so that we would die and live in Christ. God delivers from infertility. It takes time. It may take a  lifetime. But there is deliverance in the cross.

One of the ways to endure suffering as we await deliverance is to hear God’s Word and to pray. When we pray the Psalms we do both. God knows what it is to suffer, for He gives us psalms to pray even in  suffering–psalms of lament. Thus we pray the psalms of lament. Psalm  13: “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?” Psalm 59: “For the  cursing and lies that [my enemies] utter, consume them in wrath; consume them till they are no more, that they may know that God rules.”

Pray these psalms, knowing that the enemy spoken of is the devil, the tempter overcome by suffering. He is overcome by Christ’s suffering, indeed, but it is true that Satan is overcome in his work in our lives when we persevere through suffering. When we are afflicted, the root temptation is to curse God and turn away in unbelief. God is all powerful, so our affliction must be his fault! That is the temptation of Satan. That is the theology of glory. So, when we persevere in faith, in spite of affliction, the work of the devil in our particular circumstances is also overcome through the power of the Spirit in the Word.

Mama Bear

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I know you’re afraid. I am, too.

We’re going against natural instinct, you and me. We know we’re not supposed to step in between a mama bear and her cub, but that’s exactly what we’re doing when we speak out against infertility medicine which breaks commandments of the LORD. We are stepping in between a mother and the children to which she feels entitled.

And a mama bear’s roar is terrifying.

Yet, we step in, nonetheless, because all children are loved and wanted by God, not just by mama bears. Every child’s value is best seen and understood at the foot of the cross on which Christ’s bloody sacrifice was laid out for them. We love these children, because God loves them; and we don’t want any of them to be valued solely for what they provide for the mama bear or the research technician or any other self-serving individual. We want to protect these precious children from being recklessly created outside of the one-flesh union where they can be graded, tested, abandoned, and destroyed.

Things could be different. We could be proactive in applying theology to infertility medicine rather than reactive. We could intentionally teach and counsel couples to live life under the cross of barrenness rather than encourage them to try every possible means to overcome it. We could speak the truth in love that children are not a commodity to which we are entitled in this life but a gift which God in His wisdom gives and doesn’t give. We could be honest in the Church and admit that God has not promised in His Word to give the gift of children to everyone.

Maybe, just maybe, this kind of honesty spoken in love would help the barren mama bears cope a little better. I know it helps me.

Unanswered Prayer

Have you yet to receive a “yes” to your prayer for a child? Does it feel like God leaves your prayer unanswered?

Our Sunday school class has been studying prayer. This past Sunday, Pastor Schuermann drew our attention to this quote from Dr. Martin Luther on the problem of unanswered prayer:

It is not a bad sign, but a very good one, if things seem to turn out contrary to our requests. Just as it is not a good sign if everything turns out favorably for our requests.

The reason is that the excellence of God’s counsel and will are far above our counsel and will, as Isaiah 55:8-9 says:”For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” And Psalm 94:11: “The Lord knows the thoughts of men, that they are vain.” And Psalm 33:10: “The Lord brings the counsels of the nations to nought; He frustrates the plans of the peoples and casts away the counsels of princes.” Hence it results that when we pray to God for something, whatever these things may be, and He hears our prayers and begins to give us what we wish, He gives in such a way that He contravenes all of our conceptions, that is, our ideas, so that He may seem to us to be more offended after our prayers and to do less after we have asked than He did before. And He does all this because it is the nature of God first to destroy and tear down whatever is in us before He gives us His good things, as the Scripture says: “The Lord makes poor and makes rich, He brings down to hell and raises up” (1 Samuel 2:7).

By this His most blessed counsel He renders us capable of receiving His gifts and His works. And we are capable of receiving His works and His counsels only when our own counsels have ceased and our works have stopped and we are made purely passive before God, both with regard to our inner as well as our outward activities. This is what He means when He says: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways” (Isaiah 55:8). Therefore, when everything is hopeless for us and all things begin to go against our prayers and desires, then those unutterable groans begin. And then “the Spirit helps us in our weakness” (Romans 8:26). For unless the Spirit were helping, it would be impossible for us to bear this action of God by which He hears us and accomplishes what we pray for. Then the soul is told: “Be strong, wait for the Lord, and let your heart take courage and bear up under God” (Psalm 27:14). And again: “Be subject to the Lord and pray to Him” “and He will act” (Psalm 37:7, 5). (Luther on Romans 8:26, AE 25:364-5)

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Effects of Sin

IMG_0864Sin – all Sin, Adam and Eve’s, yours and mine – leaves our world broken, laboring in pain for the resurrection when all things will be made new. Sin leaves even our children broken, and so we miscarry.

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.

Hear from a grieving mother, your sister in Christ:

Have you ever tried to catch a snowflake, anxious to see its intricacies, only to find that it has melted before your eyes even had a chance to focus? Have you ever seen a flash in the sky and turned around just as the last sparkles of a shooting star vanish, only to realize you missed the show? But then there are other times when you’re walking out of a store, late in the evening, tired from the days events, when suddenly the whole sky lights up right in front of you, right over your head, and the shooting star seems so close you could reach up and touch it…and no one else even gets to see it. It’s like it was only for you, and you didn’t even ask for it.

When I think of the baby that just died in my belly before I was even big enough to change into maternity clothes, I don’t think of the melting snowflake…I think of the shooting star that lit up the sky right in front of my face. I did not deserve Anastasia. My sin and status as a fallen creature is so interwoven into my being that its claws reach not only into my own life…but into the flesh of my children. It is evident in Anastasia’s death. It was not just my sin, but our sin. We all share in the sin that leaves us broken, weeping, alone, sick, and sometimes…in despair. We all share in death because we all share in sin, in our sin.

But there’s something else we all share in…our Savior. Anastasia was bathed in the blood of Christ. Her little ears were covered in God’s Word. And her home, for twelve weeks, was the body of one Baptized into Christ and made a temple of the Holy Spirit by God’s gift of Holy Baptism.

The doctors offered to let me have a D&C the day we found out Anastasia had died. But I couldn’t go. I was so overcome with my sin, with it’s effects, that I needed to grieve and confess. I have never wept so hard or long. Then I called a dear sister in Christ and, when she answered, I burst into tears telling her I didn’t even know why I was calling. We wept together.

And in Anastasia’s death, in my sin, I felt dead with her. But Jesus, He was dead too. Not half dead, not a little bit dead, He was dead. He was dead in our trespasses and sins. Have you ever thought about and wondered what those three days must have been like for His followers? God was dead. They were alone. And to add salt to the wound, they had to carry on in the work and physical labor of burial while grieving. And yet they were still alive. God’s power was enough to sustain His creation even when He was dead.

I carried Anastasia for twelve weeks. And then I carried her, dead, for ten days. One of those days was Ash Wednesday. I will never forget carrying her to the front of the church to receive ashes on my forehead. Presenting my other children for ashes felt like I was handing them over to death as well. Knowing that I infected them with the same sin that poured out death on my sixth child was unbearable. We were all being marked with death…but, it was death in the shape of life, even while I carried death inside of me.

And then I went into labor. I labored for five hours at home. I’ve given birth four times at home to our living children and the pain was no less in duration or strength to birth one so small. When she came I scooped her up and I held my snowflake. Twelve weeks with ten fingers and ten toes, two tiny ears and her mouth open just far enough that I could see her tongue and gums. She is God’s tiny miracle, put right into my hands for me to behold. She might be gone now, as quickly as a shooting star, but she was there, she was mine, and I am overcome with God’s mercy, goodness, and love for us sinners before we yet knew Him. The Lord is merciful. He forgives all. And because we are adopted by His grace, we and our children are adopted into LIFE. Death is not the end of Anastasia’s story, or of my or your stories. Easter is coming. Come soon, Lord Jesus.

Melanie Sorenson

All Depends on Our Possessing

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When with sorrow I am stricken,
Hope anew my heart will quicken;
All my longing shall be stilled.
To His lovingkindness tender
Soul and body I surrender,
For on God alone I build.

Well He knows what best to grant me;
All the longing hopes that haunt me,
Joy and sorrow, have their day.
I shall doubt His wisdom never;
As God wills, so be it ever;
I commit to Him my way.

If my days on earth He lengthen,
God my weary soul will strengthen;
All my trust in Him I place.
Earthly wealth is not abiding,
Like a stream away is gliding;
Safe I anchor in His grace.

“All Depends on Our Possessing,” Lutheran Service Book, 732 s.4-6