what’s left not what’s lost.

3 things to do in giving up my grief…

1.  accept what cannot be changed.  then david got up from the ground... he said “while the child was still alive, i fasted and wept... but now that he is dead, why should i fast?  can i bring him back to life?” 2 samuel 12.22-23 (niv)

2.  play it down and pray it up.  after he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the LORD and worshipped.  2 samuel 12.20b (niv)

and then 3.  focus on what’s left not what’s lost.  then david comforted his wife bathsheba, and he went to her and lay with her.  she gave birth to a son, and they named him solomon. 2 samuel 12:24 (niv) 

he still had friends, family, loved ones.  and he looked at what he had left, not what he had lost. 

you say, “i don’t have much left!”  you do, too!  you have your life.  you have a lot more than you're looking at.  but you’ve got to give up your grief. 

self-pity is much more damaging to your life than any tragedy you’ll ever face because it perpetuates the pain long after the pain should be manageable. 

remember the movie, “ordinary people”?  a family was destroyed from within because they did not learn how to deal with the grief.  they didn’t know how to let it go. 

some of you are still holding on to grudges from the past and some of you are still holding on to grief from the past and you’re taking it out on relationships in the present and that is not fair to yourself or to them!  you’ve got to let it go.

just a thought from the front porch…