Making the Most of Your SummerSample

I didn't plan on spending part of my summer in a hospital in a city where I didn't live.

But life moves pretty fast. When something comes up inside you that you've been avoiding for far too long, you may not be prepared for it.

Last summer, I completed my first sabbatical. After seven years of intense work leading our church in Arizona through significant transitions and a pandemic, I stepped away to rest. I expected to attend a couple of retreats, do a lot of therapy, read some books, celebrate my anniversary with my wife, and spend more time with my family.

The one thing I didn't plan for was the wave of grief that hit me. Leadership coach Terry Wardle once wrote, "Ministry is a series of ungrieved losses." I've found that life is often a series of ungrieved losses.

Well, I had not been grieving my losses. My avoidance and the anxiety it created sent me to the ER at a hospital in a city I'd never visited while traveling to a sabbatical retreat. My eyes bugged out when the blood pressure cuff read 199/120.

I'm grateful that all the tests cleared me, and I was able to attend the retreat (a few hours later than I expected). But that experience made it clear that there were some things I needed to grieve that I was anxious about even facing.

One of the biggest roadblocks to God's plans for the future is our unresolved past losses. We often struggle to move on to what is next because we haven't grieved what's come before. When those past things keep us stuck in the present, we live in the past.

I love how my friend and author Steve Carter defines grief. He says grief is "honoring what emerges when change shows up." While grief is often scary and anxiety-inducing, it can also be the ground where we encounter God in profound ways.

Yesterday, we looked at the first of the four elements of our summer plan. First, we considered how we can make seeking God and His Kingdom our priority this summer. Second, I want you to consider how you will grieve this summer.

The Bible's beautiful promise about grief is that we don't have to grieve alone. In Psalm 34, David describes how God was near him when he experienced a broken heart. In Psalm 147, the writer speaks of God binding up and healing our wounds. In Matthew 5, Jesus talks about how those who mourn are blessed because they experience God's comfort.

If you're going to make the most of this summer, consider attending to your soul and what's been going on underneath the surface. Have you been angry or short-tempered? Unprocessed grief often manifests as anger, but anger is only one stage in the grief process.

So, what do you need to grieve? You cannot fully grieve that loss before you wrap up this plan, but you can identify what you need to grieve and start doing the work. It might be wise to share this plan with a friend and talk with them about your grief.

Tomorrow, we will flip the emotional script and discuss a practice that can transform a difficult season or challenging circumstances. And if you're wondering, yes - that element starts with a G, too!