Let God In

When your Christmas doesn't look the same because your heart is broken, there are five steps I believe will help you take Christ's hand. Two we've already seen:

Let it hurt.

Let your feelings go.

The third is, Let God In. One of the most serious misconceptions about God is that we need to somehow clean up our life--our questions, doubts, fears, and objections--before including Him in the process. This sure isn't the picture of God His Son, Jesus Christ, gave us in the Gospels! Jesus loves moving into hopeless situations while they're still messy and confusing. The sooner you invite Jesus into the process, the better. He is always waiting for access to every part of your life--even your Christmas disappointments and pain. The New Testament says that He constantly knocks on the door of our heart asking for permission to enter and make everything better. 

Ed

Is Your Heart Broken This Christmas? Let Your Feelings Go

I'm trying to help those of you who feel like the hole in your heart this Christmas will never mend. My worldview is that though there are no perfect Christmases because change and the pain that comes with it is inevitable, there is a perfect and unchanging Savior--Jesus Christ, God's Son (Hebrews 13:5).

Yesterday I shared the first step to help you connect or reconnect to Him, take His hand, and walk through these painful days with Him: Let it hurt.

The second step is, Let your feelings go! I wasted a lot of time trying to impress everyone with my capacity to control my emotions the first Christmas after my lymphoma diagnosis. What I didn't know was that time wasn't the only thing being wasted. All that work to suppress what was going on inside of me was wasting me away. When I finally began admitting and expressing the hurt to myself and those closest to me, a heavy burden lifted from my life. The explosion of feelings might scare you, but it's better to explode on the outside than on the inside...even during Christmas.

Is Your Heart Broken This Christmas? Let it Hurt.

Christmases will come and go; life changes. Trust me, I know. But I also know that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:5).

In these last days before Christmas, I want to show you five steps that have helped me remember His promises, especially during the holidays. I believe they will walk you along the path of connecting or reconnecting to the One who restored my heart and gives me hope this Christmas--Jesus Christ, God's Son.

1) Let it hurt. The first mistake most of us make is thinking that if I can just keep it from hurting, it won't. You probably already know that this is futile, but the holidays make us desperate for control. If you try to deny your pain this Christmas, the time will come when the grief of your tragedy or disappointment will wash over your life and you will feel truly hopeless and alone. Though this is a desperate feeling, it's the only starting point toward hope.

Ed

Christmas Will Never Be the Same

Four days before Christmas, 2001. I should be talking with my son and his wife about their life, their dreams, and the joy of the holidays. That's what we usually do when they fly home from their military duty station from somewhere in the world. Any other year our conversation this morning would revolve around the soon arrival of his sister's family from Oregon and how great it's going to be to spend Christmas just being together with the extended family

But not this year.

This is my first Christmas as the dad and grandpa formerly known as myself. This Christmas, all we're talking about is my deadly disease--my rash, the test results, the next specialist, what we're discovering on the Web about chronic lymphoma, and the gloomy prognosis. I'm sick of talking about me and this disease. And it feels like Christmas will never be the same.

Because it won't. Unless God heals me, life has ruled out that option of normalcy for our family.

This blog caught your attention because you know that Christmas for you or someone you love will never be the same...after the divorce, after you buried the one it feels like you can't live without, after you lost your job, after your child ran away.

I know that living with hope in your heart through the holidays is tough. It's been over eight years since my initial diagnosis. Sometimes I still feel like giving there are nights when the physical and emotional tolls of my cancer break my heart a little more and make it hard for me to even think about getting up to face another day...especially during Christmas.

I don't know all of the pain of your personal life and why you dread Christmas this year, but I do know some of it. I wrote a book--When God Breaks Your Heart--to help you see how God's love for you can define your life, even when your heart is broken.

Christmases will come and go; life changes. Trust me, I know. But I also know that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13;5).

Over the days until Christmas, I want to share the five steps that helped me remember His promises, especially during the holidays. I believe they will walk you along your path of connecting or reconnecting to the One who restored my heart and gives me hope this Christmas--Jesus Christ, God's Son.

Choosing Hope Small Group

One of the best ways to process the message of When God Breaks Your Heart is in a small group. There's something about a gathering of trusted friends in a home or over a meal that promotes healing. 

But brace yourself.  I'm not saying it will be easier for you; I'm saying it will help you more. There's nothing easy about dealing with the hurts of life this book deals with.

A pastor struggling with the deep emotional and spiritual pain of betrayal and abandonment meets every Sunday afternoon with a few couples. His wife reports that it's extremely painful as they pray and talk through the pages of the book...but when the words of the book mix with the love and encouragement of friends, they find hope.

If you would like to know more about how to start a Choosing Hope group in your home, let me know.

Ed 

THE SHACK

A pastor friend called after reading my book and said, "Wow, Ed. Have you read The Shack? Your saying the same thing from two different perspectives. The Shack speaks to the deepest hurts of life through fiction, and your book tells your story from the perspective of John 11. It would make a great follow-up for people who wanted to know if there was somewhere specifically in the Bible they could turn to."

I love the comparison, and I have read The Shack. I enjoyed it immensely as fictional literature, and I do believe that the same hurting heart who draws nearer to God through The Shack would find When God Breaks Your Heart helpful. 

The subtitles of the books tell me that we're both trying to connect broken hearts to God: The Shack, Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity, and When God Breaks Your Heart, Choosing Hope In The Midst of Faith-Shattering Circumstances. The difference, of course, is that the stories in The Shack come from the creative mind of William Young and the stories in When God Breaks Your Heart come from my personal story and the story of Mary and Martha.

So, if you enjoyed The Shack, I think you'll like  the raw honesty of When God Breaks Your Heart.

Ed

First Review

The first review of my book is in, but it's pretty humbling. It comes from two very special girls in my life--granddaughters Megan and Cam. Their mom,and my daughter, Aimee, writes:

So the girls saw it on the kitchen counter and were looking at the book today. And Meg said, "who's it dedicated to?" So I showed her the dedication page. She read and thought it was "cool" with the "should, could, would" part--then the absolute glee in her voice as she said, "PAPA KNOWS DAVID COOK?!" and Cam ran over to see for herself, and indeed, there it was, in black and white--you had thanked David Cook! I regretfully told them that this was, alas, not the David Cook from American Idol, and Megan's next words were priceless: "but it's still really cool that Papa wrote a book." Out of the mouths of babes.

Well, it's not a bad review. It's just that I'm not as cool a grandpa as they first imagined.

Ed

Choosing Hope

Since this is my first book, first blog, and first time having a chronic disease, I want to make sure that no one navigating to this site would think I don't care.

If you or someone you love is facing your darkest days and nights, this is the blog you were looking for.

If you've read my book, When God Breaks Your Heart, you're here because you have asked God to give you hope.

All I can say to you is that I want to be a part of that process. I don't have to be, but I'm willing. If not for Jesus and His people, I wouldn't be here today. I'm asking Him to use this blog to connect or reconnect broken hearts to Him.

Ed