Sons of the Shepherd

Writing Your Chapter Two  When Your Heart Starts Waking Up Again       Grief can feel like a long, cold, dark, lonely winter.  Life feels like it's buried under the ground by inches of frost and ice.  There are moments during the earliest stages of grief where you feel like nothing will ever grow again.  Imagine the weather changing and having to endure multiple years of unending winter.  You start to forget what spring feels like, what the warmth on your face feels like, you forget the beauty of a flower bursting forth from the soil.  That is exactly how grief felt for me.  When Tiffanie passed away a part of me died and was buried with her.  I knew there would come a day when happiness and joy would return....but for the time being it felt so foreign.  I didn't even want to seek it out.  But one of the strangest parts of grief is realizing that, one day, your heart begins to wake up again.  When new love arrives at ...

Moving Forward While Honoring the Past       Danger, Danger Will Robinson was the catchphrase for the 1960's sci-fi classic, Lost in Space.   The Robot B-9 used this phrase as a means of warning the young Will when trouble was around.  This particular article should start out "Danger, Danger Matt Robinson."  I'm getting ready to trek into a touchy subject, but for grieving people touchy subjects need addressed.  It's a question that most of them are thinking about, but afraid to ask.  So, what is this touchy subject?  Dating and remarriage.  For a man who has lost his wife, the question of dating again can feel incredibly complicated. Some people believe a widower should wait years before moving forward. Others pressure him to remarry quickly.  The widower will be judged for either decision that he makes. Both perspectives often miss the most important question:  What does God want for this season of your life?     ...

When Grief Has No One to Sit With       One of my least favorite things to do in the entire world is moving.  I can't believe that in the next five months our family will be moving again.  I swore we would never have to lug any heavy furniture ever again, but alas here we are.  Moving is a task that is way too big to be done alone.  If you're interested in helping me move at the end of May let me know, just kidding, actually not kidding!  Grief likewise was never meant to be carried alone. And yet, for many widowers, loneliness is not just a side effect of loss, it becomes a second loss layered on top of the first.   When a wife dies, a man doesn’t just lose his spouse. He often loses his primary emotional confidant, his daily companion, the one person who knew the weight he carried and helped him hold it. For widowers who already lacked deep friendships, grief becomes heavier, quieter, and far more isolating.       My f...

Grief Is a Marathon,  Not a Race       I recently had someone come up to me and say “Matt, I’m surprised you’re still grieving.”  There aren't many times in my life when I become speechless, but that was one of those times.  My immediate reaction was angry, frustration, and to be quite honest, a desire to yell and scream back.  Instead, I calmly and quietly stepped away, leaving the conversation entirely.  This is  a sentence many grieving people hear sooner or later. Sometimes it’s spoken gently, sometimes awkwardly, sometimes with impatience—but almost always with a misunderstanding beneath it. The assumption is the same: grief should be finished by now.   But grief doesn’t work that way, and those that think that grief does work that way haven't truly experienced grief.  Grief isn't a mountain that you climb or an ocean that you swim, it is a life that you are forced to live.       Scripture quietly affirms...