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Saturday, February 28, 2015

How to heal from grief and loss




Lately, I have had a burden for the struggles of young people and the pain they are under.  One of the
questions I will ask them as I listen to their pain  is 'whether there was some point in their life where they suffered a significant loss in  their life around the time of their diagnosis,'

 In most cases, the emotional walls these young people created within themselves begin to crumble as they recall the death of a good friend early  in their teen years.

You see, in our American culture we are taught that grief should only take a finite number of months to recover and beyond that we should just bury it and 'move on' with our lives.  Grief, however, doesn't work that way. Grief is such a highly individual experience with all people that it is impossible to put a  number on it.

Our American culture also teaches us not to talk about our grief, but to focus instead on our educational achievements. After all, if we focus on the development of our skills or our industrious nature then we will be all right. False.

Young people who carry significant unprocessed loss issues are thrown into survival mode where  they have so much pain in their daily lives that it requires them to focus on just surviving' the day rather than actualizing their potential.

 It is literally impossible for them to do well in school when their whole life is one frantic chaotic set of colliding emotions. As I hear these common stories from young people I am struck by the similarities of those stories and how most of them point back to those early unprocessed grief.

 Not just young people struggle from this, but Adults as well. I remember reading about the high percentage of medical doctors who commit suicide because of their inability to work through their grief after experiencing death within the medical system. These doctors were taught that their calling to this profession was for healing the sick. Many are ill equipped to face grief when sudden losses occur in their practice of medicine. 

 Some hospitals understand this and  have started  groups called grief rounds help medical staff who are having significant problems processing their grief to share what they might be experiencing from any given day. Hospitals who do this understand the value of having emotionally healthy medical staff.

 Grief  isn't  rocket science; yet the emotions we experience from our losses are  real and can cause additional harm as other losses enter into older unprocessed  losses latter on in our lives.

"If there is a God then why do bad things happen" is a common them I hear from people. The sudden loss of a loved one can often be the deciding point on whether people continue to turn from or follow God.

 The other day I read about a 36 year old man who went on a shooting spree in the south, taking out  9 lives, after experiencing the death of his mom. Although I know nothing about this young man, but it became clear to me that when his mom died he was tossed into a whirlwind of emotions that he was totally unaware how to process those feelings. How we handle our grief is a life skill every bit as important as learning to write, spell and understanding math because for the rest of our lives we will be saying goodbye to friends and family along the way.

 When our family experienced the loss of our daughter back in 2007 and we all spiral down into our collective emotions of that loss we chose to keep moving forward, one foot print at a time, attending the  same church we attended before our loss. For us the simple decision to maintain our same rituals we had before the loss was part of the solution for recovering from loss.

 My wife and I chose to find a good listeners who were willing to sit in the muck and mire of our grief, listening to every painful emotion until we had no more pain to share.  I would encourage young people who have significant losses in their lives to not be afraid of their emotions and tell someone they can trust about the pain.

  I would encourage Adults who want to better understand what grief is like to go to my website www.soaringonwingsofeagles.org where they will find a variety of information through videos and testimonials that will help them better understand  the nature of this grief.

When bad things happen doesn't have to be the defining point in our lives.  We do not have to be victims of our grief and by understanding our grief by leaning into those emotions we can be victorious and stronger in the end.

God truly wants you to recover and he understands as our Creator and author of our user manual that recovery from grief takes time; after all, he experienced the same emotions as he watch his son Jesus die on the cross the most painful death any of us can ever imagine. 

 Finally, I noticed that  young people who experience significant losses were better able to help others recover from their losses. Now that is a beautiful thing!

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Coming to America



6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.


I grew up in an area before highway 12 became 394 and County Road 18 became 169. It was long before a patch of wildlife preserve with intertwining snowmobile tracks became Ridgedale shopping mall. My parents built a small 3 bedroom rambler located on top of the hill at the crossroads of these two highways. On the opposite side of this busy interchange sat the corporate headquarters of General Mills, the makers of the famous Wheaties and Cheerios cereal brand.

This 3 bedroom home was built by Ecklund and Swedlund home builders. They were a couple of Swedish immigrants who developed much of the land in St. Louis Park The neighbors who built their home behind my parents were Japanese immigrants who spent several years in a Japanese internment camp. This man came to America to study Engineering, marry, and raise a family. They came to America to escape the post-war ravages of Japan. 

 Across the street was a Jewish couple, immigrants from Germany and survivors of the Nazi holocaust. The husband was said to be a Nazi survivor of Hitler's attempt to exterminate the Jews. He spent time in a Nazi concentration camp.

These two families became good friends..I cannot imagine what it must have been like for this Japanese and Jewish couple to be forced to leave their homeland, their families and travel all the way to America to start a new life away from the memories. It is safe to say that in each case their lives were better having left those homelands.

 Although each of them spoke English, it was a broken one. I often wondered what it must have been like for each of them. Do they often have sudden terror dreams of their war-torn homeland? Does this Jewish couple have nightmares watching their family members being carted off in cattle cars and never seeing them again?  I am told that the husband of the Jewish couple actually had a concentration camp mark on him which served as a constant reminder of the horrors he once faced. I wondered if he kissed the ground as he stepped off the boat at Ellis Island as he saw the face of Liberty. Oh, what a happy moment in time for this man who once faced the certainty of death in Hitler's Germany!

Not long ago I read something interesting: Immigrants were more likely to start businesses than those born in America.  Corporations like eBay, Colgate, Kohl's, AT&T, Kraft, and Pfizer are just some of the immigrant-founded companies that have become household names.

Fast forward to 2015 and we are hearing the cries and anguish toward Somalians because people are fearful that all Somalian's are terrorists. 

One of the quickest ways of dehumanizing people is to associate them by race and nationality. Hitler did this rather successfully and he came very close to exterminating the entire Jewish race and he would have been successful had America not woken up from their complacent slumber and come to their rescue.


“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
Emma Lazarus

Those words, found on the Statute of Liberty, serve as a reminder of what America represents to the immigrants who travel here. It is a reminder of who we are as a nation and what it represents to those coming here from lands ravaged by war, disease, and poverty. Regardless of race and nationality many of these immigrants value what America represents. Many of these immigrants risk life and limb just to try to reach our shores. Some make it while most do not.

The Hmong people group is one very recent example of an immigrant group that has successfully acclimated to the American way of life. When they first came over I remember reading stories about hardship with many Hmong extended family members living in the same household and sharing the same food and supplies just to survive. Today, many of them are college graduates, holding responsible jobs, raising families in the suburbs and doing the same things with their children as many of us did with our own.

The newer Somalian people group will be no different. In fact, I was truly inspired when a well respected representative of this group came out and strongly condemned  the statement made by
 El-Shabbad about attacking the Mall of America. So inspired were these people that they decided to have a solidarity luncheon at the MOA to show their support for the American way of life. 

It will be interesting to find out what common household names come out of Somalian run businesses in years to come!

I truly believe when it is all said and done these radical thugs that hide behind the Isis/Isil flag of evil will not survive. We have far too many people who value what America stands for to allow this to happen. Consider this Neil Diamond song posted here as an 'in your face' message to these terror groups that nothing will stop America for being who we are and what we will become in the coming generations. 

Finally, I am reminded by a famous quote from former President, John F. Kennedy: "My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

As a Christian, I have a responsibility to pray for the leaders of my country and for the right decisions on how to combat this current menace that is affecting our American way of life. 

As in generations before America will survive!

Saturday, February 21, 2015

The emotions behind car buying



Well, there was no turning back. The Chrysler 300M we used as trade bait was towed. Towed by the dealer to a salvage yard. Thinking I could get one final look at that car and seeing if anything of 'value' got left behind like kids toy or stowaway 'M &  M's in the center pocket I was disappointed to learned that when they matched up the Vin number of the car with their list our car, the one that faithfully brought our kids to school morning after morning and the car that took us on excursions had been crushed.

CRUSHED. Such a painful ending for something we treated like a family member.

CRUSHED. I was hoping the dealer might have found a kindly old mechanic who loved the thought of putting a little labor of love into 'our' car for one of his grandchildren.

CRUSHED:  I was picturing this car being nurtured back to life with a newer used engine and sold to another family at a far away car dealership.

I remember clearly the day I saw that Chrysler 300M. Spring time 2002. It was shiny white and glistened on the small car lot in Eden Prairie beside highway 169. The car had that new car smell with it's black leather interior and the car of the year sticker on the back side window. The smell of leather and the sweet aroma of music wafting from the upgraded speakers was enough to 'sell' the car to my wife.

CRUSHED:  My younger kids at the time loved it because they could easily climb into the car without assistance from mom or dad.

 Once the paperwork was signed and the loan was approved the 300 M became our car. Memories of our car began accumulating like the interest on the money in the mutual fund.

Car sales managers told me that there are a lot of emotions when someone trades their car. Like watching a movie they retrace every scene they had with that car. Car managers tell me that people hang onto their cars longer than they should.

The question becomes, should I toss good money to fix a old car when eventually the car will die, or would I better off trading it for something of value?

Like a movie trailer I watch the scenes of our car over again believing we could have just a few more years with this trusted 'family' member who gave us so many memories.

Hearing those words 'your car was crushed yesterday' was akin to hearing the doctor say 'we couldn't save her'. 

CRUSHED: The finality of those words with no turning back. 

A car is not a person, but yet still conjures up similar emotions; especially when that car was the last connection you had with the memory of the child who died. 

Memories you struggle to hang onto. Memories you hope would never end like a train getting smaller in the horizon before disappearing.

Finally, I asked the Salvage yard owner what happens to cars that had been crushed? He said they are placed on a flatbed and sent to a company that makes rebar and then he a added ' some day your car will become the supports in a new building or bridge as though that would give me comfort.

CRUSHED. Time  to say goodbye and create new memories with the next car, or as my really young son once said to one of our other cars that faced the same demise 'bye bye car'.

Friday, February 20, 2015

50 Shades of Silence and the devastation it can have on our recovery from grief




6 When Jesus saw him lying there, knowing that he had already been there a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”7 The sick man answered him, “Sir,[b] I don’t have anyone who can put me in the water when it is stirred up. When I’m trying to get to it, someone else has gotten in ahead of me.”8 Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9 Immediately the man was well, and he picked up his mat and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath. John 5:6-8


No, this isn't a movie review of that current movie that was trending over the Valentine's weekend.

  I was thinking of lamp shades.

Every store that sells shades sell a variety of them . Depending on how much light you want to diffuse into the room  you are trying to design. Some rooms want just a little light, enough to set the mood of the room. Other rooms cry out for  a lot of light.  Whatever the light dimension you are desiring there is a lamp shade to help. 

As I wrote this blog post I am reminded by the numbers of people who sit in silence with long forgotten stories within, long forgotten by the person who knew that person, but stories that still linger in the inner soul of that person.  Stories that bring back images of the battle field, images of the loss, traumatic images of the loved one who died seemingly linger  on in the imagination of the person living their loss.

" Are you still dealing with that?", said one person to a grieving widow, " You should be over that by now--like it has been a year since he died."  It seems only in the American culture do we try to get people to bury their grief before they are even ready to let it go.

"The war is long since over," says one to a long suffering veteran. "The world is at peace and it is time to forget about the past."

Like the store that sells shades we try to get the person to completely cover up their pain source with no possibility of helping that person recover fully from their pain.

I learned first hand that the only way I was able to travel this road of traumatic loss ( think EMT's, ambulance, calling the time of death) was to journal my pain and talk to others, willing to listen, about that pain. I also learned that reading my bible and consistently attending a worship service each Sunday at a local church was the only way I was going to recover from those images.

For me, attending Church was the one constant I had before my loss and it was the one constant I had after it. Church was a source of comfort and gave me the hope of where my loved was presently lives.

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16
 Before the tragic loss of our loved one, I must admit,  I was more concern with the petty things in church: whether my needs were being met by what our Pastor taught.   After the loss it was though my soul had been soften ready to fully absorb what the Pastor would say to me from the pulpit.

I remembered not longer after our loss talking to a friend who was more self absorbed by the petty things of the church telling me all the things that were wrong with the current state of the church, but I on the other hand saw none of the things this man saw for where we were at this particular season of our grief looked forward to this Pastor's teaching with pages upon pages of tightly written sermon notes.  I have learned from my journey that brokenness opens up a small crack in heaven and gives us for one brief moment a glimpse of heaven and helps us to see life in the holy scriptures we hold in our hand.

In the case of recovering from grief and sorrow silence is not golden.  Sharing our pain with others willing to listen begins the healing process. I learned from Chris Kyle's story that his accuracy with the gun saved thousands of American lives.  His comrades knew that this sniper was watching their backs.

  Isn't it time for us to watch each others backs when traumatic grief enters their lives. The only way to help them recover from those traumatic images is to sit with them in the muck and mire of their grief until they have told their story so many times that it no longer haunts them in their dreams.

God wants us to recover from our emotional losses and help us to live and thrive. As your recovery takes place you will be given the capacity to help others overcome their pain.  Learning to share our pain, not burying it, is the beginning of learning to live again.

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Sudden traumatic losses doesn't have to be the defining moment of your life





28 “Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. 29 Put on my yoke, and learn from me. I’m gentle and humble. And you will find rest for yourselves. 30 My yoke is easy to bear, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

I love movies with happy endings. Movies are a way  of escaping, momentarily, the ills of the world we live in. As kids we came out of these movies desiring to become the hero we just watched. 'We are Marshall' is a true story about a winning football team suddenly crashing into a nearby field stunning the town that had just turned out to celebrate with them prior to take off.

'We are Marshall' is a reminder of the impact that traumatic and sudden losses can have on the entire community and why we must not try to bury this type of grief.   As the surrounding community was plunged into sorrow there was the sense that football would never again be played at Marshall, because the university did not want to open the door of ripe old emotional wounds as people started comparing the new with the old team that died.

'We are Marshall' illustrates the powerful impact that institutional grief can have when traumatic events happen in schools, in homes and businesses around us.

 It is a reason why institutions should  have a crisis management plan just in case the unthinkable happens. Studies have shown, for example, that when a student dies the impact of that loss goes far beyond the immediate family of that child. When classmates are not allowed to process their own feelings of loss associated with their classmate, a profound sense of depression settles in over the learning that goes on in that school. Kids are thrust into just getting through the day rather than trying to maximize their learning. Survival, not self actualizing, becomes their focal point.

The same thing occurs in the business world.  After a workplace shooting in Minneapolis which took the life of the business owner and many others such profound grief enveloped the business community that it momentarily interrupted the flow of production within that business.

Schools and businesses must have a crisis management plan that includes the use of stand by grief and loss professionals to come on board to help support the students and employees impacted by this profound grief. You might think this sounds like common sense, but it really isn't; not when you understand that in America there is this thinking that burying one's grief  is the solution to getting over it. 

Grief doesn't  work that way. It is a skill equally as important as learning to drive a car,asking a girl out on a date, and filling out job applications because  grief is the general theme of this life and unless we learn to navigate it  'old' grief wounds will be re-opened as new grief surfaces.

It isn't just schools and businesses that are profoundly impacted by institutional grief. It also impacts our medical community with the rising number of suicides among our  brilliant medical professionals. Several years ago I discovered this first hand when a good friend, a surgeon, took his life. He was profoundly impacted the loss of some of his  patients that ending his life was the only solution to escape the inner pain he was in.

Lastly, learning to navigate grief is akin to learning how to surf the waves of an ocean. In the beginning we may keep falling off the board as the waves knock us off, but with plenty of practice we learn to get back on the board and steady ourselves for the ride.  As we learn to move through the emotions of grief we will develop valuable tools that will aid our survival and help us thrive as each wave of grief hits us.

 Finally, we have a Savior who desires to walk with us when the unthinkable happens to those we knew and loved. This Savior has the uncanny ability not only to carry our loved one home, but to also walk with the rest of us as we travel through the emotions of that loss. 

The death of someone doesn't have to be the defining moment of your life, but like a marathon runner crossing the finish line it will be the moment that makes you stronger!

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

How do we maintain our joy levels in the midst of grieving?




His anger lasts for only a second,
but his favor lasts a lifetime.
Weeping may stay all night,
but by morning, joy! Psalm 30:5

It is so easy to let ourselves go, not intentionally, after the loss of someone we loved. We eat the comfort foods thinking that we would feel better. We sleep to much because we want to return to our dream state where we can possibly 'touch' and 'talk' to our loved one who has died. When we aren't sleeping we throw ourselves into life's activities, thinking that will fill us with enough things to make us feel better about the loss.

Like the character, Phil Connors,the arrogant Pittsburg weatherman,we wake up reliving the same intense emotions we had the day before for the one we miss. Left unchecked these emotions can lead to I statements that send us into a downward spiral:

1.) If only I was able to catch the symptoms my loved one was experiencing, then maybe he/she would still be alive.
2) If only I did that life saving procedure better he/she would be alive.
3) God took him/her from me because of me ( didn't do enough spiritual leadership in my home, I wasn't good enough to the one I loss).
4.) If only I had better communicated t hose symptoms then maybe I would have had a better outcome.

I did this plenty of times in the months following the loss of my daughter, but eventually I came to the realization that those 'If only' statements were false.  I began to realize that my God was capable of feeling the pain I was going through and helping me recover while at the same time bringing my loved one home to heaven in the midst of welcome home banners and graffiti parades on the streets of gold.

He does this through his Holy spirit that dwells in each of us when we accept his son, Jesus Christ into our hearts.  Which is why I made the choice to keep putting one foot in front of the other and do the things that pleases God:

1.) I attend weekly worship services and listen to the God inspired messages from our Pastors.
2.) I listen to soul healing Christian music.
3.) I read the word of God.

I discovered that by doing those things I begin to counter the false messages that kept repeating in my mind. As I feel better from those action steps I begin to make other postive steps:

1.) I try to eat less of the junk food and more of the healthy stuff.
2)  I exercise more.
3.) I watch the news less, especially before bedtime, so I can more easily sleep.
4.) I check in with my doctor and give him a ready report of my grief so he can monitor my grief with appropriate over the counter sleep aids, or a mild anti-depressant if it warrants.

God wants you to not only survive the loss you experience, but he also wants you to thrive and come out stronger in the end.