Should I be making decisions?

They say you aren’t suppose to make any major life decision for a year after you lose a loved one. They say that for the first many months you won’t be able to think straight and you may make life altering decisions that you weren’t able to think through clearly. They say you’ll be thinking with your heart and emotions instead of logically.

I wonder if they are all wrong.

It is true that I am thinking with my heart and also very emotionally – but who says that’s wrong? I can’t think like I use to and I am no longer concerned with the things of earth but only with the things of heaven – but who knows if that’s “clouded judgement” or truly thinking clearly for the first time in my life? I am filled with strong emotions for people and concerned for their emotional and physical well-being over all other issues like food, clothing and career – but how am I to know if that is illogical thinking or if my priorities are finally straight?

Could it be that death breaks through the clouded barrier that the prince of this world has placed between us and heaven? Could the loss of a loved one be the bucket of cold ice water that wakes us up out of our narcotic stupor that limits our ability to care for those around us? Could it be that shocking pain awakens our senses to the issues that truly matter and opens our eyes to true reality? Could it be that what we thought was reality all these years was just smoke and mirrors meant to distract us from our true calling and purpose? Could it be that C.S. Lewis was correct – that tragedy is what God uses to wake us up from a life that would otherwise be hopelessly lost and distracted from it’s true intended purpose?

So, why not act upon the impulses of this time of grief and pain?

Why not become engrossed in a project of complete umimportance on a worldly scale and get lost in frivolous behavior like spending all of my time with the poor and needy and spiritually bankrupt? Why not care for others to such an extant that I run the risk of losing my own worldly goods for the sake of saving the eternal wealth of another?

This world has become empty to me. It is useless and void.

But people matter. My discomfort is irrelevant and daily chores unimportant, but people are priceless.

I am in agony over the interruption of my relationship with my son, so why not use this unbearable amount of time we are required to spend apart in a way that will make it seem of some importance? Why not lose myself in the attempt to relieve the suffering of another and exhaust myself in the efforts to care for my family with a hope that the days might begin to pass less slowly? Why not care for the only thing that matters and the only thing that lasts – people – and forget all of life’s other demands?

If I feed myself, I should look for ways to feed the starving; Cothe myself – clothe the naked; Read the scriptures – find the illiterate to read outloud to.;Love my children – care for those with no parents to love them. I feel an insatiable urge to make my time worth the incredible price I’m paying to be stuck here.

Isn’t this what God has been shouting to us all along anyways? Aren’t we suppose to get our heads out of this materialistic and sinful world and focus on eternity? Isn’t fasting and praying truly about being so caught up in the needs of others that we forget to eat and being so overwhelmed with the need to plead to God on another’s behalf that we forget to sleep? Isn’t to obey better than sacrifice? Isn’t it better to go hungry not because we’ve decided to store our food away on a particular prescribed day of prayer, but rather that we go hungry because we’ve given all our food away?

Does God Himself say in Isaiah 58:5-10 (emphasis mine):

Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for a man to humble himself?
Is it only for bowing one's head like a reed
and for lying on sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the LORD ?

Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness [a] will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
"If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,

and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.”

So, what activities should I be limiting myself to? What things are more dramatic and less life altering than the loss of my child? What decision could I possibly make that would be more irreversable than living my life without one of my children by my side?

Please , forgive me if I choose to “live life on the wild side”. I think that, while I am living in this altered state of total awareness of what truly matters and what is completely unimportant, I will risk making many big decisions.

Don’t be surprised if you see me playing ball with Cody while the laundry piles up. Don’t be shocked if I’m kicking a soccer ball with Selah while the grass is two feet high. Don’t spred rumors if I am sipping lemonade with the neighbor when you think I should be washing windows. (I hope I prove to be more interested in lines of communication remaining clear than I am about clear windows!)

But most of all, don’t allow me to forget where I am today or waste the lesson I have learned and slip into numbness again. Don’t allow the enemy’s lies to drug me into believing that my physical comfort or my family’s well-being is more important than the spiritual lives and well-being of those I encounter throughout my day.

Tell me where there’s a single mom who needs childcare, show me where there’s a food pantry I can help in, introduce me to your neighbor who doesn’t know the Lord.

Life will be hard for me – it will be hard forever now. So, if it’s going to be hard anyways, it might as well have purpose.

And that’s a very big decision