Grace: Get Real And Change Everything

For my friends - G.R.A.C.E - Get Real And Change Everything

Chapter 1 - Mid winter meditation
December 18th, 2022
Kim Sandstrom

I Heard the Words on Christmas Day.

My November went out with a “smack down” on my ego and I was now poised to enter the hardest month of my year, December. (You have to read to the end of my essay to find out why the last month of the year used to fill me with dread). But I read a meditation that came through my facebook feed, because I had “followed” an author. His written words hit me, and hit me good and lovingly hard and for the first time in my life I felt inspired to hitchhike off his meditation and make it my own.
Like so many meditations or devotions that I have read over the years, mine was set to begin, “I had just walked through a very difficult time”. It seemed to me, that the meaningful remembrances that turned into meaningful and resonating devotions, that had been a part of my peripatetic Christian walk, all began in some form or fashion in this way. Mine was no different, except that I had experienced MANY life shattering “upheavals” and often they seemed never-ending and ongoing. It was not an over-dramatization, but a bald fact of my life. I was not alone in sorrow, as most of my circle of family and friends were also affected.

It was excruciating at times to be known as a “tragic figure”, “that poor mother”, that “woman with a sad life”. At 66, I was pretty well beyond not having an honest assessment of the totality of my years. I was not unaware, but I also hoped that before my final transport to my real home, that this view of me might be refined and brought into focus. It was my hope that this heavenly “reframing” would bring light to those struggling too.

But before I get into “what happened” to drive me to writing again, it was the excellent Christmas meditation by Chad Bird, Christian apologist and author that paused me in my December depression. In his essay, he describes four Hebrew words that are “uncovered” at Christmas to reveal their fuller meaning. They are: midbar, zukar, shuv and malak. To break it down, they are: waiting/transforming, remembrance, crossing/the action of repentance, and a heavenly message from God, at least that is how I interpret those words. But what I loved the most was a brief, intimate moment with the Creator in mid-read of Mr. Bird’s devotion, a pause or selah moment, and that brought a revelation and uncovering for me. All the years of looking back, resentments, painful memories about painful choices, could be reframed in light of these Hebrew words; I was making a crossing.

Right after reading Chad’s essay, the morning sun shined through the window frame into my kitchen. From the corner of the sofa, where I sat, in Sheldon-like routine, I saw in the framed light, a message: and the message I received was that I was now free to look back anytime I wanted at the goodness in my life, especially now; now that I had spent a great deal of time examining and reexamining the darkness in and of my life through a the help of 12 Step recovery modalities. . I felt the approval of God and His message to me was that I was within my God-given rights and it was within my God-given power to dress-up in my vintage garments of goodness, the garments of joy and wholesome memories, and I could wrap myself in these golden threads the rest of my days. I already mentioned my age, so you know that these days my hours are measured carefully, and I feel the weight of their value. But in this distilled moment, I felt a freedom that was well-earned and well-appointed. I thanked God for His mercy and revelation. Three days later, I am looking through that same “window” and hope to continue.

Now that sounds like a simple message, but for me, it was complex. My early Christian teaching and my own family culture taught that you don’t really “look back”. You were allowed to make a cursory glance and put a message in a bible, family photo albums and some family tree, maybe, but you were covertly and overtly instructed not to “really” look back at your childhood, upbringing, past. Au contraire. Those memories were to be left in the dust bin. The strong message was that it was too dangerous to do such a thing and the implied message was, that if you did, “look back”, it would destroy you. This was the message of hidden generational abuses, emotional and physical traumas embedded in the trunk of our family tree and stretching from one family branch to another. Needless to say, many in my family were not too keen on seeking counseling. It is likely that my generation, Generation Jones, was the first in my family to ever seek counseling outside the family circle. It showed. So, Lot’s wife was a really scary person to me as I continued my zigzag Christian walk because look what happened to her!

But after reading this particular devotional this morning, (again, special thanks to Mr. Bird), I felt for the first time that I could put on the beautiful feelings and memories that were a part of my past, (they were always there, just covered up), and I could wear and display them again in my thoughts, heart and in my life and that this time of life was the RIGHT time to do this. I could do this, because I waited (my midbar), I repented (my shuv), I received my malak-heavenly message and now I could savor the z***r, the holy memories,, because I was sent the message of the news of Christ’s reconciliation with the father, especially on this eve of Christmas.

So what could it have been that shaken me again in life? I had given back, fighting Him tooth and nail, to the Creator, three of my young adult children: Diana, Daniel and Jeremy. I am only now coming up on the 2.5 anniversary of my last child to be relinquished. Besides these hardest “let go ofs” in my life, I had suffered abuses as a child and young adult woman and even as an older adult, that should have never, in a Godly world, happened to me, but they did. I have had lupus and RA since childhood, lost the ability to walk in my 40;s but eventually learned to walk upright again and I kept moving forward, as awkwardly as anyone ever has dabbling in and paying tribute to addictions of all kinds: food, people, church, prescriptions, alcohol, doing good, and the list goes on and on, but I kept moving through it.

Roman’s 5:5 speaks of God’s love shared abroad in our hearts. I completely misunderstood this scripture until recently. This scripture speaks of how full our hearts can be with the Love of God. My Christmas meditation by Mr. Bird, with the emphasis on 4 Hebrew words, helped fill my heart again with the fullness of His love for me; His love just for me. How precious a gift His personal love for me is this Christmas, as I remember three of God’s other great gifts to me: Diana, Jeremy and Daniel. Diana loved her first Christmas, as her baby brother, Jeremy was born on Christmas day and Diana’s first word? “Baby!”. Diana went to be with her Creator, a week after her first child was born, my granddaughter. Daniel went home to be with the Lord a few days before Christmas in 2018. Jeremy followed a year later, March 2020. In the midst of sometimes sorrowful remembrance, I am surrounded by love, if I just take a midbar so I can shuv my ungratefulness, z***r the heavenly malak. I am not Alone and have never been Alone through any of these days of my life and I am grateful, simply grateful and humbled that I was allowed to be a mother to these three as many days as I was. For you, it may be to remember how blessed you were to be a daughter, a spouse, a sibling to the one you love and miss the most. If it is, I share that with you.

And finally, I bet by now, you’ve given up on what it could have been that got me off my spiritual kilter. As I wrote earlier, the “thing” that happened was not as hard, nor as costly, and not near as painful as these other losses in life, but it did hurt and it was unexpected and I was already at an emotional deficit as I faced the holidays. It spun me pretty good, I can tell you that. But, I can honestly say now, after sharing this with you, how unimportant this trifling issue was and is. What it was, was a power struggle within a small support group and it was full of ego and vanity and nonsense and I engaged in a moment of it and repented immediately. And the joy of the pain is this: in a short amount of time those four Hebrew words came into view again: midbar waiting (for resolution), crossing (into repentance), shuv (the action of repentance) and z***r the end gift/end result; the remembrance and honoring of all of it. May you be able to remember the goodness of your past memories this Christmas.

And now you have read my very first meditation I have ever written. May the Lord be ever so Present with you this season of holy days.
Merry Christmas!
Love,
Kim

His Love and Forgiveness are too much for us without Him to help us "get it". Truly....the Magnitude of His Purity and Goodness is too much to even faintly grasp without His Help. His ability to love and willingness to forgive the very, utter worst in humanity is too much for us, without HIM. Trust this as the days unfold through early 2018.

You cannot control everything that happens to you. In fact, most of what happens around you is completely out of your control. But you do have control over two important factors: You control your response, and you control how much you choose to trust God, regardless of your circumstances.