OVERCOMING GRIEF APOSTLE PAUL WOULDN’T CUT IT IN HOLLYWOOD

• Allow yourself to cry. Tears are a natural relief mechanism. Let them flow. Sometimes crying effectively releases different emotions and makes you feel more at peace with yourself and the situation. Unfortunately, society often portrays tears as a sign of weakness. However, tears portray universal human feelings and are one way of regaining strength.

• Talk with someone who has been through something similar. Sometimes it seems impossible to believe that anyone can understand the pain and suffering you are going through. While no one else can know exactly how you are feeling, someone who has been through a similar tragedy or loss can relate to you. Hearing about their experience can help you feel understood and might even give you new techniques for handling your grief.

Sources: “Coping with Grief and Loss.” HelpGuide.org. www.helpguide.org/mental/ grief_loss.htm; “Dealing with grief: Confronting painful emotions.” Mayo Clinic. www. mayoclinic.org/grief/ART20047261 (Accessed January 9, 2014)

We live in a world that defines manhood largely by sitcoms that belittle and make men look stupid, movies that promote out-of-control, abusive and adulterous behavior and movies that glorify ungodliness as being expected from a man.

Eugene Peterson provides a much different definition of what a man is in “The Message Bible” when he quotes the Apostle Paul in Romans 12:2: “Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”

We’ve allowed the world to gradually squeeze us into a mold — in our thinking — about what a “real” man is.

I grew up in a time when it was often said “big boys” don’t cry. Therefore, for most of my life I struggled to show my emotions because to do so was a weakness and proof I was not a “real” man. I learned to keep my feelings bottled up. It wasn’t until I fell apart emotionally and was crippled with fear and depression that I began seeking what it means to be a man. The journey to discover who I am as a man took me to the Bible, and from there, I discovered two things that are helping me become who I was made to be instead of caving into what the world expects.

I am loved by God because I’m me. I used to think if I were more like someone else I would be more loved by God, but I now realize that nothing could be further from the truth. The more I realize I am loved, the more comfortable I am being me. Romans 12:6 says, “Let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other or trying to be something we aren’t.”

What I do is not who I am. This was and continues to be an insight that has rocked my world. For most of my life, I [like most people] could not tell you who I was without telling you what I did.

I want to stress to you again that what you do IS NOT who you are. The moment I stopped allowing what I did to be who I was — the time I began what I call Manhood 101 — I found the starting place of self-discovery.

After completing surgical training, Dr. Boardman served four years in the U.S. Army and received multiple military honors in 2005. After his military service, Dr. Boardman relocated to Clermont and opened a private surgical practice. He joined MidFlorida Surgical Associates in 2010.

Dr. Boardman, who specializes in general surgery, is board certified by the American Board of Surgery and is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons. He has interest in breast disease, vein treatments, and minimally invasive surgery with emphasis on oncological procedures for breast and colon. He and his partner, Dr. Christopher Johnson, offer patients the latest in minimally invasive surgeries, utilizing the da Vinci robot. He and Dr. Johnson are working

together in the introduction of TIF(transoral incisionless fundoplication), a procedure used to treat acid reflux disease. They also perform inoffice vasectomies and breast biopsies.

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Dr.Boardman serves as the past president of the Lake-Sumter Medical Society and as chief of the South Lake Hospital Foundation board. He is also an assistant professor for UCF Community College. The Florida Medical Association has recognized him for his leadership, and the Consumers’ Research Council of America named him “One of America’s Top Surgeons”.

Dr. Boardman and his wife, Dr. Mary Beth Lewis-Boardman, have two children: Annabella and Sam.