Native American Prayer
I give you this thought to keep –
I am with you still – I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush
of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at
night.
Do not think of me as gone –
I am with you still – in each new
dawn.
If you don’t already know,
my mother Freda H. Wilcoxson died peacefully in her home with family at the
bedside on October 4, 2012. The prayer above was sent to me by our good friends
Pete and Gail Pharr and has deep and comforting meaning to me. I have been
humbled by the huge number of Facebook posts, texts, e-mails, and phone calls
that I have received. They have provided
great support and comfort. I am, with my family, deeply touched by your
thoughts, love, and prayers. I am certain that mom is looking on you with joy
in her heart.
I hope that this prayer
will help you through your personal losses. All of you are a part of my family.
With God’s help and each other we can walk through the worst of times and the
most joyous of occasions. God bless you.
The Memorial service will be held on:
Monday October 15, 2012 at 4pm
The Episcopal Church of the Messiah,
407-656-3212
“I see people, as they approach me, trying to make
up their minds whether they'll 'say something about it' or not. I hate if they
do, and if they don't.”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
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The Language of Tears
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A close friend of mine
recently had her first child. I had the opportunity to visit with them a few
months ago and to meet her new little one. At three months old, her baby
makes all the typical sweet coos and sounds that endear newborns to their
adult admirers. He would even offer a tiny laugh when I would make a silly
face at him.
And then, seemingly out
of the blue, he would cry. What amazed me was how his mother knew just what
the cries indicated. Sometimes it was anger at being put on his stomach;
sometimes it was a cry for food; other times, it was the weary crying of his
fighting off inevitable sleep. What was amazing to me was that as I listened
carefully, I could begin to hear the difference between the various cries of
his limited, yet profound vocabulary.
On a cross-country air
flight, I was overwhelmed by the plaintive cries of a young child in the row
behind me. I immediately thought of my friend. Like my friend’s newborn, I
thought of how the child was trying to communicate with his mother through
the only means available to him. With each piercing wail, the tears streamed
down my own eyes. And I thought about how my own tears were the only way I
could express the place of deep sorrow that arose in me as I listened to wave
after wave of his sobs.
There is something about
a baby’s cries that connects to someplace deep inside of me. For most,
especially when sitting on a crowded plane as we were, the sound of a baby
crying pierces ears like a scratch on a chalkboard or the siren of an
emergency vehicle. But for me, the cries of all young children vocalize all
that I cannot say and all that I feel inside. From plaintive wail to
frustrated, angry cries, whether they emerge from my friend’s child, a child
beside me on the plane, or in the schoolyard across from my home, these cries
articulate the deepest yearnings of my own heart.
In this particular case,
the young child’s cries connected to deep losses I had suffered. His cries
told stories of grief and heartache I bore in my own spirit on behalf of
friends and loved ones. His tears expressed for me the bitter sorrow over
lost opportunity, frittered years, idle moments when opportunity might have
been seized rather than squandered. And so, I cried with the child—the child
vocalizing all that I could not say, but that which I deeply felt.
Many times, our response
to tears is to admonish them away. “Don’t cry,” “be thankful” or “look on the
bright side” are dismissive statements, as much as they are meant to comfort.
Yet, there are so many moments in life that cannot be expressed or soothed by
words. They are too deep, too visceral to be simply captured by a clever turn
of phrase. Instead, tears are the necessary articulation of our hearts,
speaking out the groans too deep to be uttered.
Indeed, tears are a
language of their own. Whenever I am tempted to dismiss them or to try to
overcome them, I am encouraged towards their free expression because of the
way in which my Christian faith values them. Throughout the sacred pages of
Scripture, there are tears. The tears of the grieving, the weary, and even
the joyful—tears speak what the mouth cannot say.
The psalmist speaks of
God gathering up tears in a bottle, writing them in a book, as if they tell a
unique story. The apostle Paul speaks of the Spirit groaning with utterances
too deep for words. The ancient Hebrew prophet, Jeremiah, is often called
“the weeping prophet” and Isaiah characterizes the “suffering servant” as “a
man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”
Christians believe that
it was this suffering servant, Jesus, who wept at the tomb of his friend
Lazarus, moved by the weeping of Mary, Martha and all those who had gathered
to mourn his loss. He didn’t just shed a single tear; he wept, crying out in
anguish over the death of Lazarus. In a world that values strength, stoicism,
and in contrast to those traditions that espouse detachment, I find myself
comforted that there is room for my tears, value in grief, and a God who
comes near to the brokenhearted.
Furthermore, if as
Christians affirm, Jesus presents a living picture of what God is like, then
tears are not foreign to God. God is not removed from human pain, but has
borne under it in the flesh, in Jesus. Our tears are understood, welcomed and
honored by a God who feels. And this gives me great hope for the
all too frequent days when tears are as much a part of my days as laughter.
And it helps me better understand Jesus’ own words of blessing on those who
mourn: Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. If
all of this is true, then let the tears flow freely, just as they do when the
young child cries.
Margaret Manning is a
member of the writing and speaking team at Ravi Zacharias International
Ministries in Seattle, Washington. 2012
Released on 10/09/12
In ‘A Slice of Infinity’ newsletter RZIM
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Ecclesiastes 3:1-4 For everything
there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: 2 a time to be born, and a time to die; a
time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; 3 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a
time to break down, and a time to build up; 4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a
time to mourn, and a time to dance
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