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A Prayer for Those Who Fight Disease

by | Jan 12, 2022 | aging, dying, and death, Caregiving, Daily Prayer

A Prayer for Those Who Fight Disease

Almighty God, 

We lift up friends, family, and strangers,  

any who are fighting Covid, cancer, or other dread diseases.

Bring rest to their bodies 

as they fight off the destructive invaders 

Seeking to do them harm, 

bring clarity to their minds as they face 

a dizzying array of medical procedures 

and medicinal protocols, 

bring hope to their hearts 

as they fend off the despair 

that can envelop us when our bodies languish.

As our friends and family suffer,

bring the soothing of your Spirit 

and the comfort of your faithful presence. 

Draw our eyes to see Jesus, 

the best doctor, 

ministering his merciful healing 

to bodies, minds, hearts, and souls. 

In his healing name. Amen. 

Read Psalm 107:1-21.

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6 Ways to Cope with Grief during the Holidays

by | Nov 23, 2021 | Caregiving, Grief

6 Ways to Cope with Grief during the Holidays

Dear Friends,

As we enter Thanksgiving week of 2021, the first after my mother’s death, I feel a little like I’m in a hotel room groping in the dark to find the light switch. The terrain is unfamiliar, and I’ve already bumped into the desk a few times. Whether you have lost a loved one this year or caregiving has rearranged your life, the holidays can stir up grief like a windstorm in the desert. When we enter the season aware of the potential struggles, we’re more likely to walk through it with hope and kindness. Here are six ways I’ve discovered to cope with grief during the holidays. 

1. Acknowledge the reality, and accept the normalcy of your grief.

Because so much is flying at us during the holidays, we can forget that we have lost something significant. Then, when we cry messy tears during a cheesy holiday movie or dread decorating the Christmas tree, we are taken by surprise.  

Jesus led us in acknowledging his own grief over Lazarus’ death, weeping loudly, even though he knew he was about to raise him from the dead (See John 11). If Jesus grieved, then we are in good company in our grief. Jesus invites us to rest in him in our grief. 

Read the Rest on Substack

A Prayer of Thanksgiving for Helpers

by | Nov 19, 2021 | Caregiving, Daily Prayer

A Prayer of Thanksgiving for Helpers

Lord Jesus,

Thank you for all of the helpers 

you give us in this life:

For friends who listen carefully 

but don’t rush to quick fixes or easy answers 

when we are struggling,

For medical personnel who have trained for years 

to heal all sorts of illness and injury,

For pastors and ministry leaders who often suffer attack 

even as they labor to bring gospel hope to the hurting, 

And most of all, we thank you for giving us 

the Helper who is always with us, 

our Counselor and Comforter, 

our Prayer Warrior and Defense Lawyer, 

our Transformer, 

the Holy Spirit.

May we walk in the Spirit’s assurance and hope 

today and every day.

Amen.

Read John 14:15-30.

Want to read more about thanking God while we live in the “already” and “not yet”? I’ve begun two new newsletters on Substack, one on living in hope in the already and not yet, and the other on aging, caregiving, and the end of life. Please check them both out!

6 Things to Pass On as You Number Your Days

by | Aug 24, 2021 | Caregiving, Numbering Our Days, Weekly Gospel Meditation

6 Things to Pass On as You Number Your Days

“I’ll never forget the time I took Kirby to a football game and fed him a bunch of skittles and popcorn and then let him ride on my shoulder.”

So begins one of my husband’s favorite stories to retell (often at the inopportune time of dinner, given what follows—I’ll let you use your imagination to fill in the rest of the story). The kids will either nod or shake their head and say, “Yeah, we know, Dad,” or patiently listen to the thirtieth retelling of a “dad story.” Is this the kind of thing David was talking about when he promised his fellow Israelites, “Everyone will share the story of your wonderful goodness; they will sing with joy about your righteousness” (Psalm 145:7 NLT)?

In a way, it is. Because when my husband passes on favorite stories to our children, he is passing on his humility and his wisdom (about a dad who learned his lesson about feeding his child a bunch of junk food and then letting him ride on his shoulders). Some things we pass on may more directly share the story of God’s wonderful goodness, and others will more indirectly do so. 

As we begin to “number our days,” to recognize that although we will live forever in the kingdom of God, our days on this earth will come to an end, we are energized to share our stories, our lives, our wisdom, and our possessions with future generations. As we’ve already mentioned in this column, we can bless our loved ones by passing on crucial information that they will need in crisis, but we can also bless them by passing on other things. As we number our days, we begin to think intentionally about what we want to share now and what we want to leave behind later. Today we’ll consider six things we might want to pass on as a way of sharing God’s wonderful goodness and singing with joy about his righteousness.

1. Pass on a particular skill or expertise that will help others.

For example, my husband is renowned in our area for his expertise at repairing the worst of the worst shoulders—fractures and tears. Before he retires, he wants to train up other surgeons who can perform these difficult operations so the hurting can get the help they need. A counseling friend wants to pass along the tools and techniques she has garnered over the years so younger counselors will not have to learn them the hard way.

2. Along that line, teach someone “how-to” do something seemingly simple but also essential or enjoyable.

It can be something as basic as how to sew, how to handle an automobile skid on icy roads, or how to make your famous rolls. I’ll never forget the first time I tried to make my grandmother’s rolls using a recipe she had shared in a church cookbook. Unfortunately, the recipe incorrectly reported the amount of milk required. With a goopy mess in my dough bowl, I called her long-distance (it was back in the day) to ask for help. I was thankful to discover the correct recipe before she died (but I still would have benefited from in-person lessons, because I never did master her rolls).

3. Share family history.

While future generations may not seem interested now, they likely will want to know more about their family  one day. (On the other hand, sometimes they need to know crucial facts about family medical history now.) My history-loving aunt recently passed along a quilt believed to have been crafted by my great-great grandmother. With the quilt, she shared several typed pages describing my great-great grandmother’s Scottish heritage. My daughter-in-law, who loves history, proudly displays the quilt and has saved the story along with it.

4. Write or speak blessings.

Just as Isaac blessed Jacob before he died by telling him that nations would bow down to him (Genesis 27:27-29), we can bless our loved ones by giving them words about how they uniquely reflect the image of God and their gifts for the kingdom. Some people write letters to family members to leave behind after they’ve died. Others keep a regular practice of sharing these words, perhaps at birthdays or on special occasions. I try to write a birthday card to my loved ones each year expressing how I’ve seen the grace of God displayed in their lives. 

5. Share values and wisdom.

Values and wisdom can often be expressed in what is called a spiritual legacy, “the passing of wisdom from one person to another….” (Daniel Taylor, Creating a Spiritual Legacy). As Taylor explains, values and wisdom are often best shared through significant stories. Taylor writes, “Sociologists point out that passing on wisdom is the main task of the last third of one’s life, part of the shift…from a focus on success to a focus on significance. But it can and should be done at any age. Have you learned something—even tentatively? Pass it on” (Taylor, Spiritual Legacy). My husband’s skittles story is an example of a funny story that passes on wisdom and values (what he learned and also his value of enjoying time with his children). As Taylor points out, it takes time and reflection to determine what values and wisdom we want to pass on, but the stories we share can not only point to God’s “wonderful goodness” in our lives but can strengthen the faith, hope, and love of our loved ones. 

6. Pass on some valued belongings now.

Adele Calhoun, a spiritual director, writes about aging and the spiritual discipline of simplicity, “Aging has always been about simplifying and letting go. Sooner or later we realize that we can’t manage all the stuff and activity anymore. We have to let go. The practice of letting go and embracing simplicity is one way we prepare ourselves for what is to come. One day we all will have to let go of everything—even our own breath. It will be a day of utter simplicity—a day when the importance of stuff fades. Learning to live simply prepares us for our last breath while cultivating in us the freedom to truly live here and now” (Adele Calhoun, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices that Transform Us). We benefit by giving away belongings now as we enjoy seeing another enjoy it. Not using that scuba diving equipment in the garage anymore? Why not give it to a granddaughter who wants to learn how to dive? Not using that sewing machine anymore? Why not donate it to a home economics program at the local high school?

Dear friends, if we have tasted of the Lord’s goodness and known his wonderful works, we have every reason to “pass on” this goodness to others. Why not choose one of these six ways today and start sharing your legacy? 

I’d love to know: what are some things you have already passed on or would like to pass on as a way of numbering your days?

Sign Up for the Organizing Your Life & Legacy Workshop

Create a legacy that will give you and your loved ones peace today and in the years to come.

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3 Steps to Leaving the Legacy Your Loved Ones Need

by | Jul 24, 2021 | aging, dying, and death, Caregiving, Numbering Our Days, Weekly Gospel Meditation

3 Steps to Leaving the Legacy Your Loved Ones Need

In this month’s Numbering Our Days column, I’m responding to a question from reader Dr. Penny F., a friend and grief counselor. (Please send me your questions and thoughts. I’d love to consider them for this column). Penny asked, “How should we prepare our children and grandchildren for the end of our lives?” Great question, Penny. I’m glad you asked.

As always, if you’re short on time, skim the bold to find what you need. Please share with others who need it, and be sure to sign up to receive the monthly column in your inbox (Check “Numbering Our Days” on sign up.)

Begin with your own preparation

The answer, as is so often the case, is to begin with ourselves. We prepare our children and grandchildren for the end of our lives by preparing ourselves well. If you’re reading this column, congratulate yourself, because you are already taking the first step to leave a legacy that will richly bless your loved ones in their grief process. 

We need to prepare ourselves spiritually, emotionally, and logistically for crisis or death. Today, I’m going to focus on logistics, because having walked through the death of both of my parents in the past four years, I can assure you that a roadmap is a gift. My mother left a file called “Emergency” in her filing cabinet and told her best friend where to find it. The day she died, he sent me some pictures of documents in the file, beginning with a sheet entitled, “What to do when I die.” 

It may sound morose, but if you’ve ever had to figure out what to do when someone you love has become incapacitated or died, you know what a gift it is to have clear instructions. Today, I’m going to walk you through some of the top logistical aspects that need to be addressed sooner rather than later. 

Beginning in September, I will be offering a 12-week workshop for people who want to create a folder or binder like the one my mom had. This group is only open to a small number of people, and because it is the first time through, it will be offered at a steeply discounted rate. Go here for more info or contact me if you’d like to know more.

Three Big Steps to Preparing the Legacy Your Children Need

Step 1: Prepare with prayer and reflection.

Let’s face it. It’s normal to feel a little sad and fearful as you consider the end of your life. That’s why it’s essential to prepare spiritually before you begin the logistical process.

1. Journal about your feelings as you begin this process. 

How are you feeling about doing this? Hopeful for the peace that will come with completing it? A little nervous or sad to contemplate your death?

2. Strengthen yourself with Scripture.

The following passages may encourage you: Isaiah 65:17-25; Revelation 21:1-5; 1 Corinthians 15:12-58. 

3. Pray.

Name your fears honestly to God. Ask God to encourage your heart, give you patience, and help you through the challenging aspects of the process. 

Step 2: Gather essential information your loved ones will need, put it in a safe place, and let a trusted person know where to find it.

This step will take several weeks to several months, depending on how much time you devote to it weekly. It mainly requires patience and discipline to complete. If you’d like to be part of the workshop to have accountability, structure, and encouragement, contact me. 

1. Prepare an Advance Directive. 

I’ll be honest—I had never given any thought to having an advance directive until I was fifty-five years old and two things happened — first, my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and then our twenty-two-year-old son was diagnosed with a brain tumor. As caregiver to both, I heard nurses ask them at each appointment if they had an advance directive. Each time I cringed. I did finally get my dad to make an advance directive, but I never could bring myself to ask our son to prepare one. That year, I prepared my advance directive so that none of my loved ones would ever have to wonder what my wishes were if I became unable to express them. 

An advance directive helps to guide medical care decisions in the case of incapacitation. It allows you to appoint a health care proxy or surrogate and to indicate what kind of treatment you would wish for or decline in medical crisis. My husband and I have used Five Wishes to prepare ours (no affiliation). 

2. Give one trusted person access to all of your important passwords. 

In a day in which our phones hold more valuable information than our homes, it’s essential that at least one person know the password (and if you don’t yet have a password on your phone, now is a good time to add one. If you need help, ask a millennial or check out instructions online).

Additionally, gather all of your essential passwords. While my 83-year-old mother recorded hers in a basic Word document, and that sufficed, most of us will need to use a password keeper like Lastpass or 1Password (no affiliation) to more securely contain all of this information.

Quote from Dr. Kathryn Butler
Quote from Dr. Bill Davis

t3. Appoint a Durable Power of Attorney. 

Appoint someone who will have the legal power to act on your behalf if you are incapacitated. My mother had appointed me as her power of attorney and put my name on her checking account before she died. Thanks to her foresight, paying her bills after her death did not involve jumping through legal hoops. It is often a good idea to make your durable power of attorney and health care surrogate the same person.

4. Make a will and appoint an executor. 

Make a will and appoint someone to be in charge of handling all of your affairs after your death.

5.  Gather essential information. 

Not only will your family benefit if you gather all of the details of your life into one place, you will. Can you imagine the peace of knowing exactly where to locate details about your medical history, personal history, insurance information, titles, credit cards, bills and methods of payment, etc.? 

6. Create a spiritual legacy: stories, values, ideas you want to pass along to the next generation. While I’ve listed this last, this is the gift that your loved ones will likely cherish most for years to come. The other items provide a practical roadmap for the early season following crisis or death, but a spiritual legacy communicates thoughts and stories that will be treasured forever. You can begin creating and sharing your spiritual legacy now. Think about writing a yearly birthday card or Christmas letter in which you share how your loved one has uniquely blessed your life. 

While it’s a good bit of work to gather these items, it’s doable.  I went through the process for the first time in 2017, after my father died. I used the AARP resource, Checklist for My Family (affiliate link), and  made appointments on my calendar to spend forty-five minutes three times a week over a period of several months. Now I am updating my information and using the NOLO resource, Get It Together: Organize Your Records So Your Family Won’t Have To (affiliate link), which is a little newer and more detailed than the AARP resource. I’ve spent about forty-five minutes three days a week, and I’m almost finished after only three weeks. If you’d like the accountability, assistance, encouragement of a workshop for going through this process, sign up today to be part of the beta group for the 12-week workshop that begins in September.

Step 3: Once you’ve begun the process of preparing your materials, discuss it with your adult children and loved ones. 

The best time to discuss your own death and dying is, as we told our kids recently when we had this conversation, when you’re not sick or in crisis. Ideally, choose a time when you’ll all be together. Let them know in advance that you are not expecting to die anytime soon, but even so, you’d like to discuss some things about the end of your life with them so that they will be prepared if there is a crisis. Then, when you gather, give them the password to your phone and password keeper (assuming you feel comfortable with all of them knowing), and tell them where you will keep your binder or files (usually in a safe, for which they will also need the code). 

For Reflection

Have you benefited from someone else leaving you a legacy like the one described? What other preparations would you like to make? What are the challenges? What do you think are the benefits and joys?

Get help organizing your life and legacy!

Starting in September, I will walk alongside you as you gather all the materials you need to prepare a legacy that gives peace to you and your loved ones both now and in the future. Over 12 weeks, we’ll gather online to cheer each other on and to learn tips for organizing your life and legacy.

Join the Workshop

A New Series on Aging, Dying, and Death

by | May 25, 2021 | aging, dying, and death, Caregiving, Death and Resurrection, Numbering Our Days, Weekly Gospel Meditation

A New Series on Aging, Dying, and Death

A New Monthly Blog on Aging, Death, and Dying

Hi Friends,

Today begins a new monthly series on aging, dying, and death. Please don’t click away. 

Did you know that the fastest growing age group in America right now is 85 and older, and the “current growth of…65 and over is unprecedented” (PRB.org)? Even if we are not aging, dying, or dead, we need to recognize the inevitable reality. And if we are, especially if we are Christians, there is much to be gained and little to be lost by knowing the hope of the gospel for this season of life. I hope you will walk this journey with me. I hope you will share your stories, your thoughts, your questions, your prayers. Please feel free to email me using the contact form or by commenting below. I promise I will get back to you. 

Why We Don’t Talk about It

I don’t mean to be morbid, but I’m dying. I don’t mean to be offensive, but so are you. Despite a myriad of life-prolonging advances in modern medicine, the mortality rate remains at 100%. If I continue to live, I will get old (something our world may consider worse than dying), and if I don’t, well then, I will die. 

Despite the certainty of death, it seems no one really wants to talk about it. Just last month, I had the privilege of taking part in a well-designed and lovingly-executed conference on The Practical Theology of Death and Dying. (My part was to offer a workshop for caregivers.) At this vibrant church known for its well-attended events designed to help people apply the gospel to daily life, the attendance was, unsurprisingly, lower than usual. 

We don’t really have to wonder why. At some level, it’s obvious. It’s morbid (a word that did not used to carry the negative connotation it now does) to talk about death. In our anti-aging society, the subject has become taboo. We can watch traumatic deaths on cable news or bizarre deaths on crime shows, but we can’t talk about the realities of aging, dying, and death.

Why Christians Can Talk about It

And yet, as Christians, the cultural narrative doesn’t, or shouldn’t, define us. We might well ask why Christians are so reticent to discuss the issues of aging, dying, and death. The Bible doesn’t shy away from talking about death. Christians in previous centuries were intentional about preparing for death: pastors preached sermons on death, and tracts were written to help people with the “art of dying” (ars moriendi). 

In his eloquent liturgy that opens his book Every Moment Holy, Volume II: Death, Grief, and Hope (affiliate link), Douglas McKelvey articulates a warm invitation to speak of death, dying, grief, and hope:

“Children of the Living God,

Let us now speak of dying, 

and let us speak without fear, 

for we have already died with Christ, 

and our lives are not our own. 

Our dying is part of the story 

that God is telling to us, 

and part of the story 

God is telling through us…. 

Death will not have the final word, 

so we need not fear to speak of it. 

Death is not a period that ends a sentence. 

It is but a comma, 

a brief pause before the fuller thought 

unfolds into eternal life.  

Douglas McKelvey, “An Exhortation Making Space to Speak of Dying.”

McKelvey is right—we can talk about death and dying. We can talk about aging. We can face the hard and bitter realities—dying sucks the life out of us and aging subjects us to previously unimagined levels of indignity—because God is telling a story of hope to us and through us as we age and die. Aging and dying, while they can bring new levels of indignity and humiliation, can also bring new levels of surrender and growth, not to mention the perspective and wisdom to bless both the dying and the living. When we not only talk about aging and dying and death but face it intentionally and prepare for it, we can know deeper joy, peace, and hope. 

Next month, we will discuss the benefits of discussing and preparing for aging, dying, and death. For today, I’ll leave you with a few reflection or discussion questions. I’d love to hear your thoughts on these or anything else that comes to mind about these hard topics:

For Reflection:

1. How do you feel about discussing aging, dying, and death?

2. Have you known anyone who prepared well for their death? How did that bless you? Conversely, have you known or observed someone who did not prepare well? How did that affect their loved ones?

For A Prayer about Discussing Aging, Dying, and Death, go here.