Tag Archives: change

Tides

Posted on by
Reply
Tides

Tides

The thing about tides is they come in and they go out, rise and fall, flood and ebb.  According to Marine Bio, “the ocean’s surface rises and falls predictably due to changes in gravitational forces originating from the Moon and the Sun. These changes in ocean surface level are known as tides and are evidence of the influence celestial bodies have on our planet.” (http://marinebio.org/oceans/currents-tides.asp) Another thing about tides is that they bring change…in beach surface, in fishing, and in the treasures we find.  It’s fascinating to hit the beach after high tide and search for treasures.  I found sea glass on my last trip, first time ever.  And who can resist the sound of the tide rushing in, that  mesmerizing rumble-roar-crash-whoosh that speaks to us in so many ways?    Most of us talk about the tides but we rarely to never talk about the complete stoppage of the water movement that has to happen so that reversal of tide can take place.  It’s also referred to as slack since the time of stoppage can vary which is why the ebb and flow each day are slightly off in timing.  What would happen if the tide didn’t reverse, if it just stopped?  According to Marine Bio, it would become a geopotential surface, or a surface along which a parcel of air could move without undergoing any changes in its potential energy.  Void of movement, stuck in place, going nowhere.  I can’t imagine the ocean without tides, the beauty we would miss, the mysteries that wouldn’t be revealed, the goodness that wouldn’t come, all because it stopped, got stuck in one place, just slacked. People can do that sometimes, get into a place emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and just get stuck there.  All motion, backward or forward, stops.  There may be ways to get some help, to begin momentum, but until we choose to go toward it, we stay at stoppage. Sometimes we hold ourselves there out of fear.  The thought of what’s ahead, of the unknown, unfamiliar and even unwanted because we can’t imagine it could be good or better, holds us in place.  Sometimes we hold ourselves there out of denial.   We can’t acknowledge reality and any movement would force us to confirm or conforn to what we don’t want to know, don’t want to face, don’t want to accept. Sometimes we hold ourselves there out of guilt and shame.  It’s so much easier to hold onto hurt and anger and bitterness and divert the blame for feelings and circumstances rather than own our own choices and actions, our part in being where we are.  Sometimes we hold ourselves there out of unforgiveness.  How much easier it is to hold onto a grudge than let it go.  As long as we can hold onto it, we don’t have to deal with the what’s next in the relationship.     But when we stay in that stoppage, when we dig in our heels and refuse to budge, deliberately make the choice to stew there, we miss the opportunity for something good, for something we didn’t know or experience or imagine to be revealed, for change.  And not wanting things to change can be another reason we stay in stoppage.  But change is part of life whether we want it or not, and when we approach it right, change can be beautiful, and joyful, and fulfilling, and more wonderful than we ever imagined.  “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28, ASV) Our lives are so like that tide, rising, falling, ebbing, flooding, highs, lows.  It’s sometimes impossible for us to see the good in the bad, to see a reason for overwhelming, terrible feelings, to see hope in a hopeless situation, to see purpose in tragedy, to see light in the tunnel, or dream when we are oppressed.  Those hard things can put us in our own geopotential surface.  It’s when we decide to move, flutter, wave the white flag, reach out, grasp, grab, or in some way act to stir the current around our stagnation in that place that we can begin to turn the tide of where we are, our condition, our thoughts, our attitudes, our circumstances, our perspectives.   It has to start with our own choice, however.  We have to think and then do and then keep at it, even when it’s like going through the motions and the feelings don’t follow right away, but at least we are going through the motions because doing so is the start of turning the tide.  And if we keep up that motion, if we persevere, if we make a little ripple at first that little ripple will expand, become a wave that grows and brings up from the bottom all the old feelings, all the old yuckiness, all that is holding us in that bad place, and starts the roll of the tide.   Rumble-roar-crash-whoosh!  The sound of the tide changing…the start of something changing in us.   “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Romans 8:38-39 NIV

Boxes

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve recently been connecting with people I haven’t visited in a while.  One friend from grade school, we’ll call her Pam, has been reading my blog and wanted to share her story.

She just returned from her brother’s funeral, made more painful by an estrangement  following their mother’s death.  Days after her mother’s funeral, their family was transferred by her husband’s work to Mesa.  In the stress of moving her own family so quickly, the task of sorting through her mother’s personal effects was delegated to her brother, Pete, and his wife, Sherry, who lived near her mother’s home.  Of importance was a letter and life book that their mother had created for each of them over the years but when her health had become such that she required constant care, the personal items had been moved aside for medical equipment and these precious things were now hidden somewhere in the house. Pete promised to mail them.  In the ensuing weeks as the tasks of getting into a new home, getting the kids in new schools, looking for a new job, unpacking and all the other chaos that goes with a move, Pam was too busy to ask if the items were found.  When she did recall that she hadn’t received them and contacted her brother, he told her he had given them to her the day she left.

“I was furious,” Pam recalls, “how dare he not send them and tell me such a story.”

As the months passed and Pete continued to insist  he had given her the items, her grief was overshadowed by the feeling her brother was deliberately hiding something from her.  Until then they had a fairly healthy brother and sister relationship but now it felt tainted by deceit.  

“It became harder for me to talk to him, and though he swore to me again and again that he had put these things directly into my hand when he and Sherry had come to say goodbye, I couldn’t recall anything like that.”

Sherry shared how hurt  Pete was by Pam’s rejection of him and how the once close-knit family continued to grow apart.  And, as when her mother had died not a year earlier, Pete’s heart attack happened as Pam and her family were in the process of moving .  

“I didn’t even want to go to the funeral.  I was curt with Sherry because this was such an inconvenient time.  I had taken a week off work to go through the boxes from storage, the things I hadn’t seen in months since we stayed in a small apartment while the house was being built.  As I was opening boxes I came to one that had the TV remote, something we’d been missing since leaving South Carolina.  I found the bills I had set aside to take care of that I could never find and the kids report cards that we had to call and have faxed to the new school since I couldn’t find them.  As I dug deeper into the box I found a manila envelope with my mother’s writing on it.  It said ‘For Pam’.  And my heart stopped.  How in the world did that get there?”

Inside the package she found both the missing letter and life book.  Pete had given it to her and she had put it in the box and forgotten about it. 

“I had an instant recall of when I had taken the package from Pete and stuffed it in the box with the remote and the current bills and such things that were to be the first box we opened when we got to Arizona.  Somehow, though, that box was sealed and put away with the storage boxes.  If I had only opened the box I would never have put us  through this pain.”

It was 2 a.m. in South Carolina but she phoned Sherry.

“I sobbed for my brother, for my mother, for Sherry and my nephews that I had pushed away.  Guilt washed over me in waves until I thought I could barely breathe.  And Sherry, gentle soul that she is, cried with me and told me Pete never stopped loving me, never stopped hoping that someday I would find the package.  It was too late for me to say I was wrong, to say I was sorry.   I can’t explain .  Somehow through the grief of losing mom and then the move that took us far from everyone, I couldn’t admit I was wrong to Pete.  If he was right and I had lost these treasures, well, then it would be my own fault, and I couldn’t admit that.  I was too stubborn about always being right.  Finding the package no longer held pleasure of getting these things from my mother.  Instead, it created tremendous pain for the way I had treated Pete.  God forgive me.”

How often in our lives we do this – put things in boxes and forget them only to have them resurface at some point and cause us more pain.  And why?  Sometimes it’s like what Pam said, she didn’t want to consider the possibility that she could be wrong.  Sometimes it’s because what we put in that box is too painful to look at, think about, because someone else caused us more hurt and suffering than we could handle.  Sometimes its the things we’ve done that we can’t face. 

Unresolved issues don’t belong in boxes. 

“After making my peace with Sherry and the boys, I had to make peace with myself.  I realized I had to stop my habit of blaming others.  I still can’t believe I couldn’t accept I had goofed up.  The clues, the missing remote and report cards, were there, but I didn’t want to see them. I could have gone to the storage unit and looked, and found these things while Pete was alive, but I didn’t.  God really worked on my heart though.  Nothing will ever be the same as it was, but I know I’m getting better and I’m not as quick cast blame.  And I value my family more than ever, especially my friendship with Sherry.  It’s closer than ever.”   

Do you have boxes?  Are you ready to be done with them?

Some are labeled guilt.  Some are labeled hurt. Some are labeled fear.  Some are labeled wrongs.  Some are labeled what if or what else.  Some are labeled I didn’t or I did.  Some are labeled I gave up or I gave in.  Some are labeled I won’t, or I can’t, or not now.  Some have multiple labels and the box contents are so jumbled that it seems impossible to sort through what’s there, what’s hidden, what’s buried. 

Start somewhere.  Go through one thing at a time, but really look at it.   Closed boxes can pile up, and become hazards, creating unstable walls that hinder and suffocate and collapse and even destroy.

For our own sakes, and the ones we love, we must examine things carefully and closely, even if that means getting professional help for them, so that we don’t make those choices again or the power they have to hurt us again is no longer viable.  By facing the stuff we are inclined to shove into boxes, we move toward change, a new perspective, even a new heart.  We see not just what we’d rather put in the box and put away, but we understand its roots and the impact it caused for ourselves and others, and this knowledge can be painful but freeing.  By rifling through the things we’d rather bury, we open the door to possibilities, the renewal that comes with making new, different, better, and right choices and changes so that those things never have to be repeated, never have to resurface to continue the repetitive cycle of hurt, pain, guilt, and suffering.   And when the boxes are emptied of the things that hurt us, there’s room for good, for joy, for healing,  for happiness.

Don’t have a box cutter?  I know a great one – Jesus.  He’ll not only open that box but will hold you up as you go through it and then shred every last thing that doesn’t belong as a part of your new life, so that it is gone, forever.  He’ll even guide you to find the things to replace that which you think you’ve lost.  Those boxes can then be burned; and Jesus promises to bring beauty from ashes.

          He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Psalm 147:3