Afriend of mine was texting someone he cares about who is struggling, and he shared the texts with me. I asked him if I could post them here. He said I could. He said he would polish them if he knew they would be publicly posted, but I think there is great value in them as they are.
I would invite you all to think about the power God places in our hands to share highly valuable ideas with others. So many of these opportunities cost so little but benefit so much.
For context, you should know that my friend suffered the untimely death of a son a few years ago. Here is what he said:
Rise above it.
You need all of your logical / rational abilities to figure out what to do next. If you are in an emotional state, you can't even think straight! I've been there!
Focus on removing all of those distractions.
I've done meditation and it helps! Get up super early, find a quiet place, meditate for an hour and pray for another hour. Practice removing all your thoughts. Blank out your mind, every time a thought comes, remove it. It's hard at first, but it gets easier.
This life is a place and an opportunity to learn how to screen out all of the negative voices and emotions and center on your internal peace, center on God.
We overcome this world by not letting anything that can happen to us or our kids take away that peace.
Some example's -
- I just got a nasty gram from my x-husband.
- I just got fired from my job.
- My wife just died.
- My son just died.
We need to get to the point where none of this takes away that peace, because our peace comes from God and trusting in him, and no one can take that away.
If we get ourselves right with God, anything that happens to us is for our good even if it was a "bad" thing.
This is going to sound weird, but, there are so many good things that happen in my life because [my son] died.
Some of the worst things that happen in our lives are the best things for us. As terrible as it was to lose a son, the changes I made in my life, and the changes in our marriage, and the changes in our family, couldn't have come any other way.
If I was to continue to hold onto how awful that event was, what I'm really saying is I don't trust God. If you trust God, you know that everything will work out for the best in the end, if you make yourself right before him.
The best thing you can do right now is to become emotionally, mentally, and financially stable. Your family needs you that way. Your girls need you that way. In order to draw strength from you in their tough time. They need a mother to show them that strength and stability.