Mediocre Meanderings has long been a title I thought I would use if I ever started a blog. My intention is to share my thoughts, impressions, musings, poetry, and whatever else comes to mind.
Today marks the
18th anniversary of my son, Evan’s, death. He will soon be gone
longer than he was alive.
He was a gem: a
gentle soul, quick wit, worth listening to when he spoke, empathetic,
affectionate, and deeply spiritual. My, what a loss. It is really easy to ask “why?”
Soon after his death a friend suggested I look at the following verses from the
Old Testament of the Bible.
“Good people pass
away; the godly often die before their time. But no one seems to care or wonder
why. No one seems to understand that God is protecting them from the evil to
come. For those who follow godly paths will rest in peace when they die”
(Isaiah 57:1-2, New Living Translation).
My grief was (and still is) potent, but I had some sense of peace after reading that verse. He had a gentle and tender soul. He would have been deeply impacted by many events that he was able to miss. He was spared from evil. Mixed feelings. I am grateful he was spared so much evil. I miss him and always will. That is grief. It is endless.
I am Richard Brewer—a Christ-follower, psychologist, husband, father, grandfather (Papa) sometimes writer, and lifelong student of people.
For much of my professional life, I've had the privilege of sitting with people as they wrestle with some of life's most difficult questions—questions about faith, suffering, grief, relationships, identity, failure, hope, and what it means to live well.
Those conversations have changed the way I see people and the way I understand my own faith. They have taught me that life is rarely as simple as our explanations of it, that people are almost always more complicated than they appear, and that sometimes the wisest response to a difficult question is to empathize and to keep asking better questions.
I am a committed Christ-follower, but I am not interested in pretending that Christianity eliminates mystery or that faith means having an answer for everything. Faith invites us to pursue truth honestly, to think deeply, to acknowledge what we do not know, and ultimately to trust the God we do know.
Mediocre Meanderings is where I explore some of those questions.
I write about faith and psychology, grief and suffering, leadership and relationships, aging and ordinary life—and occasionally whatever else catches my attention along the way.
I do not write from the perspective of someone who has figured life out. I write as someone who has lived enough of it to know that I have not.
These are my thoughts, questions, observations, and occasional attempts at wisdom. Take what is useful. Challenge what is not. And, if you would like, meander along with me.
View all posts by sparedbygrace@yahoo.com
Mediocre Meandering 