How Do You Handle Bad News?

My family has had a lot of bad news lately. Not a little bad news, or news that is bad, but only a little bad; but really bad news.

Medical issues with my kids. Medical issues with my wife. Yesterday, my wife's grandfather passed away suddenly, collapsing as he watered the lawn, just days short of his 80th birthday.

It the nature of Living. Often tough to understand, understandably depressing, and emotionally exhausting. They are also choices waiting to be made.

I'm not here to tell anyone they can't grieve or be sad, or even be angry. It's their choice. And it isn't, by nature, a bad choice. When it comes to sick kids, emotions run high. Simply 'choosing' to feel good is a mask that is just as dangerous as falling into a bottomless pit of despair.

What exercising our Power of Choice allows us to do is to choose to feel badly, to grieve, to be angry, while simultaneously putting us in control of choosing how, when, where, and for how long we feel bad, grieve, and be angry.

Among other issues, my 6 year old daughter may be losing her vision - she may be legally blind by 10. This makes me sad and angry. But being sad and angry simply doesn't help her. It doesn't help my wife. All I can do is make the choice to give Rachel the best care available, and help her create her best possible future - making sure that my sadness and anger doesn't turn her sad and angry before she's old enough to understand her own Power of Choice.

Sometimes life gives us lemons. And the lemons may be too damaged to make lemonade. But they always carry a seed for something better, if we're willing to dig deeper into the problem fruit, and make the choice to plant.