Go M.A.D.
Go M.A.D. means "Go make a difference". Together we discover how we can make the greatest possible impact through Jesus for the people in your world. Whether in conversations, on social media, at home or at work, you can be that M.A.D. person starting today! We'd love to connect with you on social media as well!Connect with us on social media and / or email:Twitter - @GoMADPodcastFacebook - facebook.com/gomadshowInstagram - @gomadshowYouTube - @gomadshowEmail - gomadshow@hutchcraft.comOr find out more about us on our website: gomadpodcast.com
Go M.A.D.
When the Holidays Hurt: Finding Hope (with Ron Hutchcraft)
“It's the most wonderful time of the year!” But it doesn’t always feel that way, does it? On today's episode, Doug and favorite guest of the podcast, Ron Hutchcraft, discuss grief during the holidays. How do we get through it? How do we help others navigate it? And how can we remain Christ's ambassadors when grief is present? Ron shares from years of experience dealing with this topic - check out hopewhenyourheartisbreaking.com for more info.
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Thank you for listening and Go M.A.D. today!
Hey everybody, welcome to Go Mad with Doug and Brad. That is not Go Mad with Doug and Brad today, it's Go Mad with Doug and Dad. Brad is lost somewhere to a turkey coma. We're recording this right after Thanksgiving. No really, he's out bringing his daughter back to college. He thought that might be important to get her back to her classes.
Speaker 2:That is not a turkey coma.
Speaker 1:Priorities, Brad, Come on. No, I'm so glad to have the guest we have today. I'll get to that in just a second. Well, today we're talking about Christmas, yes, but the fact that there's so much grief and suffering that is felt so profoundly during the holiday season, yeah. Time of parties, festivities, joy, celebration.
Speaker 1:I read a statistic today, though, that almost 40% of people are dreading the holidays Two out of five people because of the hurt, the grief that they think it's going to dredge up what's going on. Why are so many feeling so conflicted at Christmas? And maybe not only in dealing with the loved one passing away, which is awful, but maybe it's a financial loss. Maybe you're grieving a struggling child or a grandchild. Maybe it's bad news from the doctor. A struggling child or a grandchild? Maybe it's bad news from the doctor. Whatever it is, today is for everybody. There is someone here that is an expert on hope when your heart is breaking. He actually wrote a book called that, which is one of the most profound books I have ever read about grief and healing, and not just because he's dad. But, Dad, thank you for being here. I got to ask you do you remember there was a time I was thinking back to a Christmas that you were hurt pretty significantly, but this was in a little different way at Christmas. Do you remember this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was all your fault, I'll tell you. Let's start with this. I got you guys a nice NFL regulation hard, beautiful leather football right.
Speaker 1:We went from Nerf to the real stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we had the real and it was like a 60-something degree day, and so we said let's go out and use this thing. So we're out in the street in front of our house and I went out to be, you know, wide receiver. Well, I was wide, but not much of a receiver.
Speaker 1:Wide fingers. If I remember correctly, I'm always the wide part.
Speaker 2:And I caught it on the end of my finger. Yeah, that was really cool. I loved me. I'm glad all the photographers were there. I loved me, I'm glad all the photographers were there, and so I had a wonderful Christmas day in the emergency room and, of course, I was joined by others.
Speaker 2:So I was there quite a while and I will tell you the bottom line is this that broken at Christmas is hard, and not just if it's a broken finger, especially if it's a broken heart, and there are a lot of those at this time of year. And it's a little hard to feel joy to the world when you've got hurt in your heart and all the stuff going on around you, the lights and the celebration and the joy and all of that, and you're really hurting because of something, whether it's a broken relationship or marriage, a broken child or most most of course. Worst of all is that you have literally lost your mate or a child, somebody very, very close to you. And all of that is elevated by this time of year because the highs are higher than any other time of the year, which means if you're low, it's just the contrast in itself makes you feel even lower.
Speaker 1:You know this dueling joy and sadness of Christmas. It's not a new thing. Actually, one of my favorite Christmas songs is called I Heard the Bells, written at Christmas 1864. Here's your little history lesson. I don't remember that person. Do you remember Henry Wadsworth Longfellow? If that's not the name of a poet, I don't know what is, but he wrote one of my favorite Christmas songs. It's called I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day. He actually wrote it.
Speaker 1:If you don't know this, in some of the darkest days of the Civil War that, of course, divided a nation, was bathing our nation in blood. He knew that the Christmas angels they had announced. Now he knew that the Christmas angels they had announced, okay, that Jesus' birth would bring peace on earth. But the battlefield was singing another song. So he writes these lyrics. Remember this Profound stuff? And in despair I bowed my head. There is no peace on earth, I said, for hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth. Goodwill to men Now. He had also suffered so much personal loss. He lost his wife at a young age in a terrible accident. His son was almost paralyzed by an injury during the Civil War. No wonder he's feeling so much despair at Christmas. And Dad. The reality is, many people listening here are as well, or know someone who is so Dad. That's what I really wanted to ask you. Why is what is it about this season? Why is grief so magnified more this time of year?
Speaker 2:Oh, I think it's a time of year when hearts are more tender, probably than any other time of the year. You know where there's a giving thing and there's a lot of, you know, very tender movies on TV and so on. So you're already in a tenderhearted season. And then it's a nostalgic time. It's a time of memories, you know putting ornaments on the tree. You know we just did it the other day and it was.
Speaker 2:Those, are memories attached to those, and a lot of those memories are your mom and my wife, the love of my life, who I don't have here to be with me at Christmas and hasn't been for the past several years, and that loss is still very, very real. And at Christmastime, you know she was the queen of Christmas. So you know you really she's very missing this time of year. So tender hearts and then the contrast between everybody else feeling so joyful and you just can't get there emotionally, the memories that are part of this time of year. And because everybody else is celebrating, I guess if there's a sense of loneliness and aloneness, it would even be intensified this time of year because there's some place I can't get.
Speaker 1:Wow, you know, I remember a Christmas where I had just gotten married, a few months prior, and we were in Vermont having an amazing Christmas fest. It was just so—it was beautiful, the town was decorated to the nines, we were in a hotel that had just incredible Christmas Victorian, everything. It was a beautiful memory and I'll never forget the knock on the door. I remember where I was in the room. I remember where Anna was in the room as long ago as this was, was in the room as long ago as this was, and, uh, you coming in and and and sharing with me that that my closest friend, one of my closest friends from high school, had taken his own life and, um, because of a lot of, a lot of despair that he had, um, and, and it, that time of year, chose to do that. Dad, I know that your family suffered a terrible tragedy when you were very young. Can you do you mind sharing a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I was a little guy and got a baby brother and his name was Stephen and he was always smiling. You know he was. I mean, I think he was born smiling and every picture of him he's got a big smile. But when he was about six months old all I remember, because I was four, but I remember this vividly, this all of a sudden scurrying around our apartment late at night to woke me up, my grandma's going to rush me off to her house. I remember my parents having Stephen all bundled up and running out of the, you know, just in a panic out of the apartment. I never saw him again because he didn't even survive the night and the doctors back then they couldn't even be sure what the cause was Heart kidneys. They weren't sure he had not been sick at all.
Speaker 2:It was sudden and I will have to say that the faith that has been the difference for me was one that was not at our house at that time. In our family. My dad had nowhere to turn. He had no Jesus to turn to. That was a difference for me and I saw him just crushed, almost immobilized by grief. I have to. I can't help but compare that to my experience years later losing not a child but losing my wife and knowing I've experienced a tremendous difference. I will say that as time went on, my dad did in his desperation. You know, when a man gets to a point where there's something he can't figure out and he can't fix and he can't handle and he can't control, we hit a wall and we go who do I turn to? And thankfully he did turn to Jesus at that point and that made a difference from that point on. But I remember the agony and the ongoing agony of my dad for some time after that.
Speaker 1:You know, Dad, you brought up that your dad experienced this without having Jesus in his life at that point and praise God that that changed and the Lord used this tragedy directly for him to get to know his Savior. The reality is, you know, there are some folks who are suffering grief this time of year that have Jesus and there are some suffering grief without him, which is such a terrible thing, and they're both hard. They're both hard and both are a reality. And Dad and I were talking a little bit more and we thought it would be a good idea just to boil down a few ideas. So if you've got your pen or your phone or whatever, hopefully these will help to whether you're the one suffering, whether you know the person who's suffering and you want to be the one that comforts them, their ambassador.
Speaker 1:There are ways you can be Jesus to the one that's hurting. There are ways that you can experience Jesus if you are the one that's doing the hurting. One interesting one I actually just had a friend recently say this also. I think people are afraid, when they know someone that has lost a loved one, to even bring it up. They're like I shouldn't say the name. I'll talk about anything except that, because I'm going to create a lot of hurt.
Speaker 2:And I don't know what to say.
Speaker 1:I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say, but it's actually okay, when you do it respectfully, to say the name of a lost one, to bring them up.
Speaker 2:It honors the person, the person who's missing them, even more than that, to ask them about the person, about the person, and to ask let them tell their stories of that person. There were times, there were crazy times you had with them. There were fun times, there were tender times that you had with them. There were hard times you had with them, but let them tell those stories. There's a little healing, a little therapy, I'll tell you. The other thing that does is it enables the person with the loss to look at more than just the end of the life of that person. You know we get all carried away. Well, if only they'd gotten a second opinion, if only he'd left five minutes sooner, if only, if only stop it. Their end of their life is a tiny, teeny percentage of their life. There was a whole life there, and you know some places, some services they call a celebration of life. Well, that's good, to celebrate their life. Let them talk about that person. That's important.
Speaker 2:But don't can I tell you something Never to say? Probably. I know how you feel. No, you don't. Grief is never the same for any two people and even though I've had significant loss in my life, not just there, but I've had other kinds of losses in my life, as health, all kinds of things you know years ago shoulder stuff, all that. Whatever man, you don't know how they feel and it sounds so hollow to the other person and it just makes them like, no, you don't, and it almost shuts them down. So don't go there, but listen to how they feel.
Speaker 1:That is so good. I Another thing that I think is that we almost feel paralyzed because we don't know the perfect thing to do to help this person, so paralyzed in the sense we might not even do anything because we feel like it's better to not risk hurting them than it is to bring them the wrong thing or say the wrong thing. But, man, I think we got to let don't, let not knowing the perfect thing to do paralyze you from not doing anything. Do something.
Speaker 2:You know there's a great prayer to pray and it's very simple. Lord, help me listen with your ears, help me hear what you hear, help me see what you're seeing right now and give me words to say if I should say anything. Two things that are probably a pretty good bet. One is a hug. Hugs are good. The other and you might ask them, depending on where they are at spiritually, the other is to pray for them and pray with them, not just say I will pray for you. Well, how about right now? And to let them hear. You Don't preach in your prayer, just make it a heartfelt prayer for God's comfort and closeness and wrapping his arms around them and carrying them when they can't walk. That kind of a prayer for them, a sensitive prayer. Ask their permission if you think that's needed to say. Would you mind I'm going to be praying for you? Would you mind if I did it right now and I'd just like to pray a short prayer with you?
Speaker 1:And so hug and pray, those are pretty good bets. It's alive and this is why, if you've read the same thing a thousand times, you may have a thousand different things the Holy Spirit tells you, depending where you're at in your life. It's one of the amazing things about the Word of God, and I read this be quick to listen and slow to speak. Yeah, that's good. It's so tempting when someone is suffering with something and you're a friend, you love them, you want to solve it for them and especially I think maybe guys can be like that, but everybody can.
Speaker 2:Oh, we're fixers, aren't we? We're fixers of a home improvement. You want a home improvement?
Speaker 1:you want to Tim Allen the problem, but you might just make it worse by doing that. You know, in fact, if you're worried you won't have all the answers, that might be a good thing, because lots of times you might just need to listen. Man, it's our presence, right, that's our greatest gift, and not necessarily having all the answers.
Speaker 2:There's a tribe in Africa and it's probably other places in the world, where they have an elder who just goes in to the hut and just sits with them and if they need to talk he's there. If they need something to eat or whatever, he's there, but he doesn't go in to say anything unless there's something needs to be said. That idea of presence, you know you guys talk often on this podcast about being an ambassador, being the representative, the face and voice and heart and hands of Jesus in people's lives. And if you have a relationship with Jesus, realize that your presence is a physical representation of his oh man, and just you're holding them, you're expressing love to them, you're talking to him, about them, in their presence. Jesus shows up at funerals. Jesus shows up when there's broken hearts. In fact, psalm 34, 18, boy and I have walked this trail. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.
Speaker 2:Now the theologians say he's omnipresent. It means he's everywhere, all the time. So what do you mean? He's close? No, he is a very present. Help, the psalmist said he's real, real, real, really, really there. He's very present in our time of trouble and I can attest to the fact that there is a closeness and an intimacy and an almost tangibility of Jesus' presence. Jesus is closest when the night is darkest and the valley is longest. So David could say even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, the darkest place to walk, I will fear no evil. Really why? Because you're with me. Because you're with me, god.
Speaker 1:You know, boy, what great help you could be to somebody if you come up and say you know, the Lord is omnipresent.
Speaker 2:Yes, a theology lesson would be just what the doctor ordered. That's exactly. That's a great idea. Put it in.
Speaker 1:You've said so many times, dad, that we get used to saying things in religious ways. If you're going to share about this great hope and this great Savior, put it in terms that you would have understood when you didn't know him, and speaking of this and this is a vital this is maybe one of the most vital. This is one of the most vital things that we'll share here today. That what about looking for opportunities to share about the one that binds up the brokenhearted? Because I mean, I feel like we've got to be sensitive here.
Speaker 1:You don't want to just Sunday school all your replies, just be well, it's because you need Jesus in your heart. They do, and we need to let him work in our heart. Yes, when we already have him there, but if you don't have a relationship with the person, if there's not an obvious open door, you can really biff this. Opportunities you'll have as a representative, an ambassador of Christ, to show those you care about who he really is, the kind of difference he can make. So, when is it appropriate to share my faith in Jesus with someone who's living without him, and how do we look for an opportunity? How do we know when it's there to share about the one that binds up the brokenhearted. How do we know when it's there to share?
Speaker 2:about the one that binds up the brokenhearted. Well, and it really is important for God to give you a green light and open a door, which is why we often talk about the three open prayer. Colossians 4, the great apostle Paul said pray that God will open a door for our message and that, when he does, we'll proclaim it as we should. So that prayer is. Obviously God likes that prayer 'll proclaim it as we should. So that prayer is—obviously God likes that prayer. He put it in the Bible. So if we—and what's a door? It's a natural opportunity. It's just like, yeah, it's like a green light suddenly goes on that something they have said, something that's gone on, has opened a door. But if you're going to talk about Jesus, talk about him in a first-person way. There's a difference between sharing and preaching. Preaching is you know, doug, you need him, you need Jesus. Sharing is I realized I needed him, that I couldn't handle this alone, that this was too big for me and I thought who's big enough to carry me at a time like this?
Speaker 2:An interesting thing that we may forget is that God understands grief because he had a son who died violently. He had a son who suffered the greatest injustice any human being has ever suffered justice, any human being has ever suffered, and the sinless one lied about and executed for being the one who loved everybody. So God gets us. God gets the grieving, the loss. He's. No doubt there was weeping in heaven that day. As his son said my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Answer because he was carrying my sin that day. As his son said my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Answer because he was carrying my sin. He got separated from his father so I would never have to be. So it's a matter of praying for an open door and not trying to beat the door down and not busting into the room. But let that heart, let there be an opening for you to share personally how Jesus has walked with you through a dark valley.
Speaker 2:And don't again, don't say I know how you feel. Just say what I do know is I know some dark feelings and I know the feeling of loss, and it may or may not have been a death, another kind of loss, but I know what loss felt like for me and I know that I needed someone beyond me and I thought, and so doing I reached out to the greatest love that is available, and I found in Jesus a love that I couldn't. No human being, as much as they might want to, no human being had that kind of love, and he had proved it by dying on a cross for me. Now see, there's no threat to you.
Speaker 2:I'm not coming at you with this and to say, but to think, then, that what the Bible calls a living hope, what's a living hope? Hope is an idea, isn't it? No, hope is a person. Hope has a name, and his name is Jesus, and the fact that he could conquer death meant that, whatever dark feelings I'm, whatever dark time I'm going through, he's bigger than Nobody else. Could be that for me.
Speaker 1:Wait, dad, we can't go on. You mentioned the three open prayer. Oh yeah, I heard open a door, what?
Speaker 2:are the other two? Oh yeah, it was just one. Open, that's right. So much for three open. No, the other two are important. Once it's open a door and then it's open their heart. And if you're going to open the door, then get them ready to hear what you want me to say. And then the last one is open my mouth and give me the words and the tone and the approach to use. It's a powerful prayer. You don't have to say if it's God's will, it is his will. Open a door, open their heart, open my mouth.
Speaker 1:Dad, boil this down for us. People hurting at Christmas, feeling grief more powerfully, in a bigger way than ever. Some know the Lord, some don't, but if you were going to elevator pitch this, if you were going to boil it down for us, what do we need to be keeping in mind? What should we take away here? What should?
Speaker 2:we take away here. Number one share, don't stuff. There's a real tendency to stuff and be strong, or I don't want people to see me weak. I don't want people to see my feelings. You may have grown up around that. Stuffing grief only magnifies, it multiplies, it makes it ugly into something like anger and doubt and resentment and bitterness and loneliness and depression and self-destructive feelings. It's awful when it's stuffed. Shakespeare said no, not to me personally. Shakespeare said give sorrow words. Jesus said blessed are those who mourn. If they mourn, they will be comforted. He said.
Speaker 2:Secondly and this is going to seem counterintuitive, and I know this is true that when you've lost something or someone that you treasure, and that is to look for someone who needs you, you say man, I need people. Well, good, I know that, I know that. But the Proverbs in the Bible says he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed. And right now, if that means finding somebody that's doing dinners for homeless people, or whether it is someone who needs a word of encouragement right now, I know that I, shortly after Karen was gone, a good friend of mine, his wife, never made it up to bed. One night she died at the bottom of the stairs of a heart attack before you know, and just suddenly, no preparation, like with mom, and I know I called him. I'm still struggling myself and there was somehow. It did something for him and it did something for me to get out of myself. Going way into myself, that is not going to help. And so reaching out to somebody, finding some people who need you or someone, lord, who needs me today, is a good prayer to pray.
Speaker 2:Also, it's Christmas time and I would suggest let Christmas happen, even though you may not feel like it. These are things you've got to almost overcome your own feelings. But you need to go to the Christmas concert. You need to go over to their house when they invite you. You need to be playing with the grandchildren. You need to. You know, don't avoid the joy of the season, because the contrast makes you feel worse. You need to let Christmas happen to you. Don't miss the opportunity of some Christmas joy. Even though it seems like a discordant song, you know where you're listening. Two notes don't blend, but you need both notes.
Speaker 2:And then I would just say this let Jesus do what only he can do when your heart is broken, for whatever reason. My experience is your heart is ripped open. It's ripped wide open. It's open in places it's never open. You are never more vulnerable than when you're grieving. You're vulnerable to lies, to bad choices, destructive choices, and you need someone who can carry you and whatever you let into your heart.
Speaker 2:When it's ripped wide open will become part of your identity. It will be part of you for the rest of your life and you can let doubt come in, you can let anger come in, you can let bitterness come in, you can let withdrawal come in, you can let depression come in, or you can cry out to Jesus who, as you quoted, doug, he said I have come to bind up the brokenhearted and he can do things in the human heart nobody else can do. He is a resurrected, death-crushing Savior and he can do things. He has power and he has a love that is so unconditional and so massive that when that comes in, there is peace where you never thought there could be. It doesn't wipe out the grief. The grief doesn't go away. It's just that there's something on the other side of the scale called hope and it just weighs more. It doesn't cancel the grief, but the Bible says we don't sorrow as others who have no hope. And I would say when you realize that this Jesus loved you enough to die to pay for the things that have separated you from God, all the things we've done, kind of telling God that you run the universe, I'll run me, I'll do my life. Thank you. All of that stuff, jesus died to pay for it, so you don't have to. There is no love like that, there is no other love like that and there is no other love like this.
Speaker 2:Here's what the Bible says Nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Karen and I had an inseparable love, but we didn't have a choice. There was a night, there was a day when there was no choice. Her time was done here and that love inseparable in my heart, but physically she's not here. She's not here, he still is. There's no way. Jesus is the only love in the world that is divorce proof, disappointment proof, desertion proof and death proof. It's that kind of love. And he is not a, he's not a dead decoration on a cross in church somewhere. He is alive. He is the living hope, inviting him to do what only he can do and to go where only he can go, in the very depths of your heart is the beginning of healing. Wow.
Speaker 1:I got. As we wrap up here, I've got one more friend. If you're listening, I've got a piece of advice for you here Go to hutchcraftcom and look up this book Hope when your Heart Is Breaking, when your heart is breaking. I had a friend recently tell me he owns a body shop in New Jersey. He said, doug, I keep a stack of that book for anyone who comes into my business that is hurting and struggling with anything he says. It says more than any other book I have read on the subject that it's amazing, and we've just scratched the surface here.
Speaker 1:So another thing you can do go to hutchcraftcom. Put in broken at Christmas in the search and you'll find an ebook about some of these things. Man, just go to Google. I'll tell you what I did recently. Go to Google, put in grief Christmas, ron Hutchcraft, and you're going to see amazing articles, blogs a word with yous that cover these things in some more depth. If you're listening, we want to thank you for doing that. We ask that you would, wherever you listen, that you'd go and leave a review, that if you'd love to give us four stars, that'd be great, not if it's out of 10. That's four out of four, please. That would be great, and we're grateful that you're checking this out. We are praying for you that you'll have— I have an idea. Oh, wait a minute. Oh, what is it?
Speaker 2:I was going to ask if you pray on this program. You know what?
Speaker 1:How about this Dad? How about you pray to wrap us up here?
Speaker 2:I was about to say Perfect. Second, I was about to say we pray for you.
Speaker 1:In fact, let's do that now let's really do it.
Speaker 2:Well, Lord, we thank you that you know who's listening right now or watching, and we ask that you would be very present for them right now. We pray that you would move in and wrap your big old carpenter's strong arms around them and may they feel your love. May they feel your love, may they feel your presence. And we pray, Father, that you would give them something that's pretty hard to find right now, perhaps, and that is hope that you are already in their future, getting a future ready for them.
Speaker 2:This is not the end and we pray, Lord, that if they've lost a loved one, we know that that hole will always be there, but we pray that you will help them rebuild the life around that hole instead of having to just stand there and be there all their life. And there is life ahead, Lord, you are the one who said I've come, that they may have life and have it to the full. So please, please, impart life and hope to them today. And for those who know someone who is grieving today whatever loss, we pray that you would give them ears to hear what you hear, eyes to see what you see, a heart to feel what you feel and words to say that you would say if you were there, or just silence, if that's what you would have for them at that moment. So we pray for that comfort, we pray for healing, we pray for hope. In Jesus' name amen, amen.
Speaker 1:We are wishing you a Merry Christmas, a hope-filled Christmas, whether it's Christmas or whether it's any other time of the year, you know what we're going to say and how we're going to end this. We are praying that you will go mad.