July 7

We will be burying Mom's and Grandpa Rosenfelt's ashes at Fort Snelling National Cemetery on July 7th at 9:00.

Through the end of the 2007 fiscal year, 176,567 people have been buried there.

Talking to Myself

While the kids were playing in the sandbox yesterday, I was listening to a sermon titled, "Spiritual Depression in the Psalms" by John Piper. Does it seem like I've been drawn to his preaching a lot lately? They are just so full of Scripture and God-centered. It's been good for me.

The text was Psalm 42.


Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.

That's just part of the passage. You need to read or listen to the whole psalm to get the full impact. Piper referenced a book written on the passage by Martyn Lloyd-Jones:

Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that
you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those
thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not
originated them but they are talking to you, they bring back the problems of
yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking
to you. Now this man’s treatment [in Psalm 42] was this: instead of allowing
this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. “Why art thou cast down,
O my soul?” he asks. His soul had been depressing him, crushing him. So he
stands up and says,: “Self, listen for moment, I will speak to you.” (Spiritual
Depression, 20-21)

I've been hearing "self" tell me a lot of depressing things lately. It never dawned on me that I should talk back. Isn't answering yourself one of the signs of being crazy? :-) Since hearing that quote yesterday I've been thinking about how important it is to speak truth back to myself.

Here's the link for some notes on the sermon and for your reading enjoyment. If you prefer, there's a link to listen instead.

Unresolved

In the days immediately after Mom died, I was so thankful that we didn't have a strained relationship that would leave me with a lot of regrets. About a month ago, I started to remember things a little differently.

There was a period of time where my relationship with my mom was really strained. It was probably about 8 years. It wasn't bad all the time, but we had some really intense, emotional exchanges. In the interest of full disclosure, I need to take a lot of responsibility for it. The main thing that I struggled with was that I really wanted my mom to be proud of me. I felt like there was specific things that she had in mind for me to do and if I wasn't doing those things, I wasn't living up to her expectations. I put a lot of that on myself, but I would not be honoring my mom's memory by pretending that all of our issues were completely on my shoulders.

Once I was married, things weren't as bad. I don't really know why. I wish I could ask her what changed that made things better. Did I change? Did she change? I so envy those of you who get to grow up as an adult and get to know your mother better as you learn how to be a wife and mother. You will have so many opportunities that I wont have. Most of you will probably have years to work though the mother-daughter strife that you've had.

Dad was going through some of Mom's things about a month ago and he sent me a couple of letters that I had written to her. I'm sure he thought they would be something that I would treasure. I wonder if he ever read them because they were from some of the most strained seasons of our relationship. It brought back all kinds of painful memories. I'm still struggling with how to deal with it. I would give anything to hear her tell me that she was proud of me and that she trusted my judgment as a woman, a daughter, a wife and mother. I think she told me those things sometimes, but I want to be reminded because I'm starting to doubt it.

Just a paragraph ago, I said that most of you would have years to work out your issues with your mom (or daughter), and a little over 4 months ago, I would have thought I did too.

Plan B

I've been so challenged by the story of Todd and Angie Smith. I posted a link to some of their story in an earlier post. I took the time to watch/listen to some of their story as they told it to their pastor at Crosspoint Church in Nashville as he was preparing a series called Plan B. The basic idea behind it was this: How do we deal with life when it doesn't work out like we planned or when God doesn't show up in the way that we hoped?

The Smith's tell their story from the perspective of losing an infant daughter. This clip is part 3 of their interview. If you're interested in the other parts, they are parts 1a and 2b in the related video section. At about 4 minutes, 45 seconds in, the words Angie and Todd say really resonate with how I feel about losing Mom.