"Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." - Matthew 6:34 ESV
At the end of this calendar year I will re-purpose (OK, retire) away from full-time preaching. In less than three weeks my youngest child will be heading off to college. I fully expect a call in the next few months that one of my aged, increasingly frail parents will have fallen or have had some kind of medical emergency or have even passed away in their sleep. And I am increasingly convinced that this year, the 250 year anniversary of the Grand Republic, may be one of its last.
I've still got a few months to preach. I am trying to enjoy my son before he abandons us to become a College Man. I am grateful my parents are still living, and maybe I'm completely wrong about our nation's future, that Dimwit Donnie is just a blip in our nation's history before we finally wake up and realize the damage he and his minions are doing.
But this year has been one that, if somebody someday decides to write my autobiography, will be titled 'The Year of Pre-Grieving'. Even as our Lord has told us to not be anxious about what is coming, that each day has enough garbage in it, I'm already starting to deal with the struggles that I know will be coming soon.
The classic five stages of grief are usually defined by denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. And so given that this summer has found me a bit sad quite often, I wonder if I've already been jumping the gun on the grieving that I will be doing for all of these things. I've been truly angry about where our country is going. Part of me is in a kind of self-denial that come the end of December I won't be standing before a captive audience several times a week. Have I bargained a little bit about my son leaving, questioning whether he really wants to major in what he has said or wondering whether or not he'll really like it there and transfer back to somewhere closer within a year? Am I even accepting that my parents will die having lived a good old age, since I have seen so many others do much the same thing through my years of working with elderly people?
I suppose that my purpose in writing this today is to deal with some of the depression I've been facing. I don't know that it's clinical, and I know that it's not debilitating. Throughout life I've found certain little coping mechanisms; as a younger man I had a punching bag and a pair of gloves that allowed me to take out my frustrations; in recent years I have rediscovered video games, mostly driving and puzzle games that I can pop into for 20-30 minutes at a time. But in recent weeks I've found how much I love an early morning walk where I get to clear my head and get ready for the day. Most mornings I walk around 45 minutes through the streets of our town. I see some of my neighbors doing much the same; do they struggle with their own sense of the future?
Perhaps starting to cope with the things that are going to come will be of benefit to me. Like checking in to an appointment or a flight the day before, pre-grieving has this way of watering down the annoyances of grief that are to come. I've never been much of a procrastinator, as I try to get stuff done ahead of time...and maybe that's what I'm doing with the future griefs that are certain to come. Who knows whether or not this is a good idea, but it's what I do.
