Do you have a lot facing you this year? I do! 
So far this year, I’ve tried to take comfort in that old riddle , 
“How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” 
And as I have plodded along making tiny bits of progress on my huge tasks, I have been fairly satisfied. 
When a friend asked how I was doing, I said, “I’ve eaten up to one of the elephant’s knees.” 
She laughed. “That’s quite a LOT on an elephant.”

But one morning as I was asking the Lord for guidance in planning my projects for the week, 
it seemed as if He suggested a different picture for my consideration. 
Why not think of this as climbing a mountain?

As I began to think of the differences in those two perspectives, 
I realized how mountain climbing could be a much more helpful analogy for me. 
First of all, I have never really wanted to eat an elephant. 
And when I have heard the old saying quoted, 
I generally think of it in regard to something difficult that I don’t necessarily enjoy doing, yet I know I must do it. 
Many of my plans for this year fall in that category. 
The longer I thought about it, 
the more I realized that the eating an elephant perspective sounds more like being persistent in doing a duty. 
Not always that exciting, is it? 
Besides, when you feel forced to eat something you don’t particularly like, 
even eating one bite can be an unpleasant task, right? 
And, I don’t know about you, but my year’s plan is going to take a LOT of bites.

Then I thought about climbing mountains. 
While I’m really not a mountain climber, 
if I were to climb a mountain, 
it would be an adventure I would take with companions I enjoy. 
While our goal would be to reach the top, 
for me, the benefits along the way would be just as important: 
enjoying nature, deepening friendships as we plod along, resting in beautiful nooks, laughing around campfires, 
and facing challenges we face along the way by combining our skills and resources. 
In my mind, the moments of standing at the top of the mountain enjoying the magnificent view 
and the sense of accomplishment would only be one part of the pleasure. 
Perhaps not the most significant one.

As I look at my year’s tasks from the mountain climbing perspective, I find it produces an entirely different feeling. I’m not focused so intently on how far I have come in reaching my goals. 
For me, as a strongly goal-oriented person, I need to be careful in this area. 
By taking the mountain climbing perspective, 
I focus more on living each moment, 
enjoying my experiences along the way, 
allowing the process to develop my character and enrich my relationships with those with whom I interact.

Maybe you like eating elephants. 
But if you’ve already grown tired of elephant this year, 
perhaps you might enjoy mountain climbing instead.

A nice Psalm to read is Psalm 121. Here are the first two verses:
I lift up my eyes to the hills — where does my help come from?
My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. 

In the past five blogs,
we’ve talking about dealing with “heavy experiences,”
events that throw our lives off-balance.
I shared how I viewed the experience of facing loss as similar to
having a missing piece in a jigsaw puzzle, 
accepting a different kind of flower,
and riding the waves.
However, in processing my losses,
I realized that those perspectives alone do not truly capture the work involved
in regaining balance after a major loss or life change.
That was when I came up with the picture of the balance scale.
 
At first I thought the balance scale was just another way of explaining
the missing piece in the puzzle
or a different  flower:
that after a loss,
we must find ways of filling in the empty gaps of life with something else that is good and meaningful.
But then I realized that it is more complex than that.
 
I think one side of the scale holds all our life experiences.
Day by day new experiences accumulate on this side,
but since most events are not weighty,
these small additions have little immediate effect.
But “heavy experiences” can instantly leave us disoriented and confused,
uneasy and nervous,
because the shift has changed our perspective enough to make us feel out of place.
 
Although adding new things to our lives is one important aspect of dealing with our losses,
it not enough to solve the problem.
The opposing side of the scale holds,
not more experiences,
but our beliefs about life.
This is what causes our distress.
Beliefs that “fit” our life previously,
before the “heavy experience,”
no longer match up.
They no longer make sense.
But for many years, those beliefs have been the foundation on which we secured our lives.
Rarely do we readily dismiss our core beliefs 
because we know, that in doing so, we will cause even greater disorientation. 
So quite often, we exist for some time in a state of misery,
not just from our outer experience of loss
but because that loss has threatened the beliefs we had about what we can expect from life,
from ourselves,
from others,
from God. 
  
Rarely do we share with others this inner distress.
More often we mention how much we miss this or that.
We may quite explicitly express the pain of our loss,
but most of us move through the grief process without comprehending how much is involved.
We fail to recognize that we are dealing with challenges on two sides of the scale:
outer experiences and inner beliefs.

Until next time,
you might find benefit from seeing up close the struggles of one man.
In the Psalms,
David expresses his disillusionment with life. 
He deals with both sides of the scale:
his experiences
and their effect on his beliefs.
In Psalm 10,
notice how David starts with his disorienting beliefs 
then recites the evidence that lead him to his conclusion.
 
Why, O LORD, do you stand  far off?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? 
In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak,
who are caught in the schemes he devises. . . . 
Psalm 10:1-2 NIV

In the end of Psalm 10, David finds resolution.
But we’ll wait until later to talk about that.

I encourage you to make comments on this blog.
Not only is it helpful for us in developing wisdom,
our observations may also be a help to others—including me.

How does it feel when a significant part of your life changes?
Your life was all together.
It made sense, at least to some degree.
But NOW?
A huge chunk is gone,
or you have something new to fit in where there’s no room.
The change may be desirable or undesirable,
intended or one you would have done anything to avoid.
In any case, major changes disturb the layout of our lives. 
  
How do we cope? 
 
I used to picture this situation like attempting to replace a missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle. 
But I soon realized the jigsaw perspective isn’t the best.
Can we ever find another piece that fits exactly like the one that went missing,
whether it’s a relationship, position, valued item, or opportunity?
Even if we found a piece the right shape,
wouldn’t it be printed with a different picture?
And if we are given a new piece, how can we ever fit it in? 
 
Yet, that’s what we wish and hunt for, isn’t it?
To get things back to “the way they should be”?
We try to force new relationships into being just like the old.
This puts undue pressure and unrealistic expectations on the new.
That’s how I responded after fire damaged our house.
Others thought I should be happy to have new kitchen cabinets,
but I liked the old-fashioned old ones.
The pain couldn’t be resolved until I said goodbye to what had been
so that I could welcome something else.
Nice.
Very nice.
But not the same. 
 
As long as we insist inwardly on having it "the way it was,"
we face one disappointment after another.
We end up filling our empty space with discouragement,
anger,
disillusionment,
even bitterness.
If we’ve lived very long,
we’ve seen people respond to loss in all those ways,
even if we haven’t ourselves.
And whether we observed or experienced it,
we know it is not a happy life.
 
Perhaps the first step is rejecting the jigsaw theory.
Whether we like it or not,
to heal and regain our balance in life,
we must accept the fact that our lives will never be quite the same.
But we know what happens if we stop there,
stuck in the awareness of our endless loss.
We also need hope 
that as we trust God,
He will enable us to take the next steps,
steps that will move us beyond our pain to a new kind of joy.
But, more about that next week.
 
Until then, you might like to read Psalm 46.
Here are a few of the verses.  
 
God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear,
though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, 
though its waters roar and foam 
and the mountains quake with their surging. . . .
Be still, and know that I am God;
Psalm 46:1-3 and 10 NIV

For those of you who would like to interact with others on this topic,
please go to the comment tab near the title and join our discussion.
  

In the past year I’ve had several “heavy experiences.” 
“Heavy experiences?” you ask. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
Well, let’s look at the experiences of our lives.
They come in all sizes, weighed according to the impact they have on us.
How much do they change our course?
How much do they alter our view of the world, 
what we believe we can expect from life?
How much do they change how we view ourselves, how we define ourselves, 
our lives, our dreams?
 
“Light” experiences don’t quickly throw us off-balance.
They are small enough that they don’t immediately challenge our core beliefs,
our life expectations,
our definitions of what is normal.
Yet even “light” experiences become heavy as they accumulate over time
or if they gradually lead us in a different direction.
But those are not the ones we’re considering right now.
 
I visualize life as a balance system, like a balance scale.
“Heavy” experiences.
Now those are ones that immediately change our lives
by adding or taking something weighty.
Births, deaths.
Gaining, losing, or changing a position or job.
Great material loss or gain.
Any experience that greatly challenges the way we define ourselves,
our relationships,
our lives.
 
Heavy experiences may be predominating positive,
like the family camp we enjoyed last summer.
We brought together for two weeks our nineteen person family 
of children and grandchildren.
Fun, but intense.
Filled with revelations,
not only of others but of myself.
Some self discoveries I liked,
others I did not.
Maybe I’ll share more of that another time.
 
But heavy experiences can also be predominantly negative,
like the unexpected death of my mother last fall,
and, soon after, the death of my sister-in-law.
 
In the coming weeks I’ll be sharing 
how my perception of “heavy experiences” has changed
and what I'm l learning about I how I need to deal with them.
 
In the mean time, think about your experiences.
Begin to label them.
Light or heavy, or something in between.
Until next time you might want to consider the following verse, Psalm 62:8 NIV.
 
Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your hearts to him,
for God is our refuge.

Excuse me?
Did I hear one of you say, "What does this have to do with novels?"
What are novels but accounts of experiences, heavy and light, 
that change the direction of characters' lives?