Book: The Unwanted Gift of Grief
Author: Tim P. VanDuivendyk, DMin
Date: 2017/12/23-27
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主题：
书的主题是，grief是我们unwanted但来自于神的gift。在这个过程中，神会开始祂的医治。它能给我们transformation，最终带来走向wholeness & completeness，更好地去internalize神的永恒与真实。
你是否accept这个gift？
我：
主啊，我愿顺服，可是我的肉体不愿，总想逃避。求你帮我。
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Chapter 7 - Wrestling with sadness and depression
Depression is the darkness before the dawn. The darkness may take more than a few months or even years. When one moves into depression, it often means that he or she is moving to accept the fact that what has happened will not change or go away.
In sadness and depression, there is a deep sense of gloom. These are the dark nights of the soul. We may wrestle with these nights of the soul many times before dawn comes. .... An inability to concentrate permeates most events and may interrupt our ability to focus or work.
Depression is similar to entering a dark tunnel or cave. It is so dark we may not see our hands or feet in the darkness, nor do we know where to place them in order to keep moving through the darkness. We notice that stopping along the way, does give us a bit of rest and a time to cry, but we keep on searching for light.
在Depress当中真的很不好受。正如黑暗的隧道中，好像永无止境。
The more we avoid and run from depression, the tighter and longer its grip. We need to let the desert and the wilderness transform us.
Usually, the fastest and most effective way out of sadness and depression is through it, not around the desert, not over the desert, not under the desert; but through the desert of depression.
当面对痛苦的时候总想逃避。比如我是面对学业、未来的工作的筹备。有时候甚至是深陷于自己的难过情绪当中，无可自拔。
荒漠作为比喻真的一点没错。最好的方法是——通过它，也只能如此。
我无法想象当年我主在客西马尼园、在荒漠的心情是如何，摩西、约书亚在荒漠中又是如何。但是他们都是存着信心。
对神掌权的信心，对神美好应许的信心。
我信：黎明、盼望、Healing，这些是一定会来的。因为黑暗、难过这些都是temporary，而祢，truth，真善美的极致和完美，是eternal。
In the desert, we will find growth and renewal. In the desert, we will hear the still small voice of God or nudge of the Holy Spirit. which will guide us to strength, wisdom, hope, future, and healing.
By going into the desert, I do not mean that we isolate ourselves or withdraw from the world. I mean that we allow the pain to be experienced, as it needs to be experienced. We allow our tears expression. Our tears need a release and will speak to us in the midst of the release. Our sadness wants expression and this same sadness wants to comfort us.
也是在这种状况下经历神的呼唤。虽然轻声，真的很轻，但是那是得救的唯一方式。在走过之后，我们便能说：我经历过神。
曾经风闻有你，如今亲眼见你。
When we begin to heal, we often don't realize the healing movements.
The unwanted gift of sadness and depression often never gets utilized. God and the Spirit wish to embrace us in the pain. However, when our pain and tears surface, we often run away into business. Rather than stay too busy, we need to schedule time each day to go to the desert, feel the feelings, and reflect on our loss.
After many nights, days, and sometimes weeks and months in the darkness, we take a turn and suddenly see off in the distance a brief light. Our step and hope quicken. We breathe faster in hopeful anticipation. We have been in the dark night of soul so long we had forgotten what hope felt like. At times, we do not realize that we feel a little better until later or the next day. It is similar to realizing, "For a few minutes, I felt good yesterday."
In this state, it is often difficult to experience God's presence. God is often felt as distant or absent. The Holy One may seem transcendent, beyond, far away, or voiceless. Not being able to experience God out there beyond us, we often withdraw into our soul's inner sanctuary. We go deep into this inner sanctuary and, at some point, we may intuit, sense, feel, or perhaps hear the still small voice of God or the slight nudge of the Spirit. Our hope and healing quicken.
Before, we did not believe that God was with us. But now, in the soul's inner sanctuary, we discover that the Spirit of God is imminently and intimately with us, even closer than our own breath.
In this wrestle, we enter the experience of the Garden of the Garden of Gethsemane. We embrace the cross and move toward resurrection. Our anxieties embrace peace. Our fears embrace courage, our doubts embrace faith, our despair embraces hope, our broken life begins to heal, and our grief finds direction. We are being made new. We are living towards resurrection.
神的治疗在苦难中，不知不觉便出现了。祂微弱的声音，一开始可能根本听不清甚至不知道是来自于祂。
祂通过各种途径，比如在你读到的圣经，来自于他人的安慰，敬拜的讲道等等，会告诉我们祂在我们身后作为我们的shelter。祂在我们painful的过程中，拥抱着我们。
这是healing的开端，来自于神的invitation。
在黑暗之中自己的挣扎是十分难受痛苦并且绝望。进入痛苦，正如神进入客西马尼园。也是让我们能进入客西马尼园。我们在痛苦中能体味神为我们受的苦，去体味祂的荆棘冠冕，去体察祂的十字架，去感受为我们受的鞭伤。祂经历这些是为了解决罪的问题——祂已经解决了罪的问题，我们已得胜。我们相信基督，信祂的名，必定得胜，也必定有祂给我们带来的平安。
这Healing让我们在经历苦难的过程中，慢慢学会跟他建立更深的关系，让我们用尽一切方法去找祂、去抓住祂给我们带来的盼望，并依赖他。在痛苦中，能让pain去拥抱peace，fear能被神的courage填充，受伤的我们也能经历healing。
In the desert, we "let go" of what we hold on to so tightly in our lives. We let go of the one we lost. We let go of the way life was. We let go of yesterday. By letting go, we enter mystery. Our thinking gives up on emotions and feelings. Our tears may release and flow. Our masks and facades give up to transparency. Our adult logic gives up to regressing into feelings of a child state again. The rational self gives up to wonder. Our need to control gives up to letting go and letting be. Our awareness of temporal time gives up to eternal awareness. We let go of the way life has been and, as a result, our life is transformed toward depth, height, breadth, and newness.
Our spirit is transformed towards healing and wholeness. All things become "new," yet, we still know the old. We are grasped by the Spirit and participate in a faith, which sees through things, people, sadness, despair, and depression with new eyes.
In the desert of depression and sadness all things are being made ultimately new, ultimately healed, ultimately whole and holy. Through this painful wresting, we began to differentiate and individuate toward new being. We let go and transform. We internalize the truth. This was a truth we knew all along but could not fully grasp. This truth is that all things are gifts but are also temporary. We are invited to die to the old in order to rise up to new life. This process is painful, yet leads to transformation.
You know it takes time and works to get through it. You know the road is not easy. As with the caterpillar, you know that in order to become a butterfly, a transformed creation, you must enter a process of giving up the way life has been in order to find new life. You know that metamorphosis is a difficult work but brings transformation.
God from the eternality seeks us.
He is the truth that seeks us.
我们的最终归宿也是永恒和完整。保罗说，人看为有益的、肉体所看重的，对于他来说都是有损的——比如他的身份、地位、知识。这些为了能更亲近神，他都let go。若不是为了神，这些都是他与神之间的障碍。
我呢？我的完美主义，我的理想情怀，我喜欢在我的小世界里面畅游，我引之为豪的兴趣，我的高道德和价值观，我喜爱“舒服”、“愉悦”、“快乐”的感觉。
这些都交给祢了。这些都是temporary、虚无的，我也不要再抓。虽然很难，每天早上起床，这些都扎根在我脑海里和心里。
这些全部给你，我才是“灵里贫穷”，才能够以你的灵为生命。在这个痛苦的荒漠中，吸收祢为我生命的根本，从而我得以transformed——正如毛毛虫变为蝴蝶。
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