Author: Hannah

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Broken by a Pillow

Hannah

A few days ago I was attempting to change the sheets on my bed. My dear hubs likes to use these heavy weighted gel pillows to sleep on that feel best on his neck. He was helping me put the bed back together and I reached for one of his pillows on the floor to hand it to him. Grabbing it with both hands I yanked it up almost to waist height only to have the weight of it slip from my hands and plummet back to the floor. Again I reached for it, and again it slumped to the floor as it slid from my weak grasp. And then I lost my ever-loving mind. “This is ridiculous!” I shrieked, and before I could even think I burst into tears. I know his kind words were trying to console me, but I could not hear them over the shame and frustration and despair that rang through every cell in my body.

I made a beeline to retreat to the bathroom where I hid behind the closed door and let loose hot tears of anger and deep sadness. All I could think was, “They used to call me Mighty Mouse because I was the strongest in my fire department, and now I can’t even pick up a stupid pillow. This isn’t fair, God. This was not supposed to be my story. Why can’t I have my life back?”

Silence screamed back at me as I finished having my temper tantrum and blotted my swollen eyes. Then there was a quiet whisper to my soul, “There are countless others who have that story; yours is one that will show my glory even more so because of your weakness. Just trust me.”

Peace seeps in like the gentle rocking of a newborn to sleep. My Abba Father has got me. He knows the pain, He knows the frustration and disappointment, and He promises to make something beautiful of my broken pieces.

As I crawled into bed I did the only thing I know to do when given the choice to despair or choose hope; lift my hands and praise Him for the many gifts in my life. I list them off into the stillness of night, and like a mighty shield, that act of thanksgiving pushes back my shame, my frustration, and my despair, until all that’s left is a calm assurance that I am exactly where I am supposed to be.

In what ways are you feeling your shortcomings? Are you able to leave those at the feet of Jesus and trust that He’s got you? It’s not always easy, but it always comes with a huge helping of peace.

endurance

A Room Crowded With Sorrows

Hannah

“Swish!” The sharp, boxy machine sucks in a gulp of air and sends it erupting into a strong stream of gurgling water bubbles before sending it whisking up the plasticky tubing and into my nostrils. Brief spikes of pain take turns blazing up each of my legs, the depth of them an ache that feels like my bones are shattering.

I roll to my other side and tuck the heating pad back around my hips and thighs, trying to find some relief, and the effort of moving sucks the air from my lungs and leaves me gasping for each next breath like I’ve just run a marathon. Irritated, I reach for the pressurized mask of my ventilator and slip it over my nose and mouth. The rhythmic breaths it provides offers relief.

Sometimes hope is difficult to find in the lonely hours around 3am. The silent dark seems just the right habitat for all the doubts and big questions to seep into my soul and look for places to take root. I cry out to a God who at that moment feels very far away. “Can’t we just skip to the good stuff talked about in Revelation 21? God living with us. Death no more. Pain, grief, and crying a thing of the past?”

As I’m lamenting over my pain and isolation and how tired I am from these pain-filled nights, my thoughts are suddenly turned to the many stories I’ve heard and read of saints before me who suffered immeasurable losses and bore unthinkable burdens and didn’t whine or complain, but counted it all joy. I picture all of the men and women who have chosen to remain in hostile places to share the good news of Jesus, and suddenly my own resilience seems very soft.

I cry out for a bigger capacity to suffer well, with only joy, to make me tough, yet keep me tender, and to loosen my grip on my meaningless earthly treasures. God is gracious in His gentleness with me. He doesn’t mind being with me in my weakness, and He has written a good story for my life that He will see to completion.

So tonight in the lonely stretches of battling big pain, He gathers me into His arms and carries me through a room crowded with sorrows so that I can take up this cross again and deny myself, following Him down a road I never would have chosen for myself, but that leads to fulfilling and eternal life.

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Thanksgiving

Hannah

In a season of suffering and deep grief, a day set aside to give thanks can feel counterintuitive. This week as I have pressed into a list of tasks to prepare for a day of fellowship and feasting with my family I have faced endless hours of debilitating pain, a frightening drop in function on a repeat breathing test, a company that has decided not to provide my tube feedings anymore, and fatigue that binds me with so much exhaustion that a whole day slips by without me waking. Admittedly, it can be easier to find things to complain about than to be grateful for, but then in my morning quiet time I am reminded that thanksgiving is the way we enter into and experience His presence (see Psalm 100:4). To say “Thank You, God” is to perceive Him with us in our suffering.

In the dark, painful corners of a Nazi concentration camp, Corrie ten Boom wrote, “Thankfulness keeps us connected to the reality of God in our lives.” If a woman persecuted and tortured for doing nothing more than showing love and hospitality can find reasons to give thanks during the darkest days of her life, than I have no excuse not to be counting my blessings. So, I pull out my journal of daily graces and scrawl them down on the pages; the easy-to-miss but very present reasons throughout my days to give thanks to a God who is acquainted with my sorrow, and is fiercely present in my suffering.

Gratitude is not always easy to embrace. Suffering affords us endless opportunities to complain and despair and harden our hearts. For myself, some days are so acutely painful that I wonder how is there possibly anything good to be thankful for today? Yet I continually find that just that amount of belief is enough to gently turn my heart and head toward my Savior.

To those of you that are trudging through deep grief and fighting daily battles that threaten to consume you, I see you. I hear your desperation and I feel your pain. Still, I urge you to lift your head and look around. Find the daily graces, no matter how small. Your warm cup of coffee. The sunshine streaming through your window. No matter how small your capacity gratitude in that moment, you will find yourself inspired to thank Him for more and more of His gifts and His goodness.

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Seeing Stripes

Hannah

This is meant to be a PSA in the kindest possible way, because I know most people do not go out there trying to be a pain. A lot of the time it is just that they simply do not know better yet. And once we know better, we do better, right?

Have you ever noticed that most handicapped parking spaces have a series of stripes painted on one or both sides of the parking spot? I’m sure before I knew better I was certain they were for playing hopscotch over the lines, or for discretely dumping off your shopping cart when you were too lazy, I mean busy, to walk it all the way to a cart corral or back inside the front door. Then one day I found myself navigating my foreseeable future in a wheelchair and a van with a ramp that goes in and out, and I became very acutely aware of what those painted lines are for, so I’m doing my due diligence to pass this mind-blowing information along to you!

When my ramp is out and I am getting in or out of my van, this is how much room that takes…

Our ramp sticks out a decent amount, and then I have to have room to turn around at the end of it to drive on or off.

See the amount of space left here? This is never going to do. You can see I cannot even get to the bottom of my ramp, let alone turn off of it at the bottom.

How about this one? Nope. It does not seem like they took much, but this is not enough room to turn onto my ramp to get back in the car.

Assuming I had wanted to park in the spot to the left of this car… not going to happen!

This was the last handicapped spot left in the parking lot, and this person had the stripes AND the spot blocked!

This one had narrow stripes to begin with, but there was no way parking next to that I would ever be able to get my ramp and chair out.

This one is really just for amusement because this car had a legitimate tag and clearly /wanted/ to park in the handicap spot, I’m just not sure what happened.

So the moral of the story is please save the stripes for ramps and wheelchairs, not your shopping cart, or two of your tires. If you are parking next to a handicapped spot, please always assume the striped area is needed for a ramp and wheelchair. Understand it takes a little room to maneuver, so unless you’re a fan of door dings and inexplicable tire marks on the side of your car, try to have a little consideration and please give as much room as safely possible. Take a little stress off someone with wheelz and make it easier for them to get out and where they’re going on time; you’ll make their day, even if you don’t get to see it!

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Life in the Balance

Hannah

You often get to see the good and miraculous in my life, and I love sharing those parts with you, but right now I am fighting from a pit so dark it seems to swallow my ability to find the streams of light I have grown accustomed to piercing the darkness. My heart and mind are tired. My body is exhausted. I have dared to hope that I am still here because God is going to bring about a miraculous healing in my life, but as time edges on and I feel the weight of not being even a shadow of who my people need me to be, I find myself dreadfully weary of this life hanging in the middle between the miracle of being restored to health and the seeming relief of death.

Red tape curls angrily around the care that I need; new rules preventing what I was able to get before, but the alternative of leaving the security of what care I do have is intimidating and perhaps foolish. I am tired of having to fight for myself; to advocate for things bigger than myself when I hardly have the strength to take a shower.

Come and save me Lord God, because you bless and protect your people, and I am yours. Give me a glimpse of the glory behind this wall of darkness to refresh my hope in you. You are my God and my protector, please answer my prayer and refresh my hope in you. Let my life be a living testament to your sustaining grace; whether by giving me the endurance to withstand whatever suffering will align my life with your heart, or by extending the grace of calling me Home.

I do not know how to gracefully live out what you have called me to, but I know you have been good all my life, and I trust that if hanging in the balance is what you have for me, you will help me find the strength to endure the calling you have set before me. So help me Jesus, I need your love to restore my peace.

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Four Friday Favorites

Hannah

A few of my favorite things…

I don’t know about you, but watching the news for me can get really overwhelming with all the negativity that seems to saturate every news outlet. I recently discovered The Pour Over, and I am a huge fan. It delivers the news to my email and shares the top stories in an honest and politically neutral way, and then gives little things like an eternal perspective and a verse of the day. It’s such a positive way to learn about what is going on in our world. Sign up with your email address at this link:

https://www.thepourover.org/

I have been such a hard core strawberry Twizzlers fan all my life it almost feels like I am cheating, but these new orange cream flavored ones are the absolute bees knees. They are soft and chewy at the same time, and the flavor is so outstandingly good it is rare for a bag of them to get opened at my house and not polished off in the same day. Try them… let me know what you think!

G L I T T E R. I enjoy having my nails painted any color, but this 40-something year old woman must still have a 7 year old girl streak, because I LOVE glitter. I love the way it catches the light and twinkles back at me, and I find myself staring at them with a quirky little smile throughout the day. This particular color is from Color Street; the little wrap stickers made for nails. I especially love their glitters because they last for like ever.

https://www.colorstreet.com/sarasigley/beautysocial/4100908

Geocaching! Lately my youngest boy has gotten into Geocaching. You can download the app on your phone and it shows you all kinds of locations near and far from you where people have created a little hiding spot to leave small treasures. I obviously cannot do the ones that involve hiking through the National Forests, but we have discovered a few in easy places around town, and he loves stopping to check on them and see if anyone has swapped out what he left there for something new. Good clean fun with a little suspense and patience to get him up and out of the house.

https://www.geocaching.com/play

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Sitting in the Hard

Hannah

This week I had to be moved to inpatient hospice again as the struggle to breathe spiraled me into unconsciousness. Thankfully I am now back home with my people, breathing a little easier, but I just keep replaying in my mind the moments where my good friend sat on the side of my bed in the shadows of the afternoon the day I arrived there.

I did not have many words, partly due to my being on my ventilator, and partly because it felt like there was nothing left to say. I was discouraged and hurting. My “fight songs” playlist of music was playing through my phone, and my friend came and sat tenderly on the bed next to me, taking my hand in hers and lifting her other hand to Heaven as she swayed to the words of the praise music that was playing. I’m sure she asked me a few questions that afternoon, but the only thing I clearly remember her saying, as tears slid down her cheek, was “this just sucks.”

When someone is going through something painful we often do not know what to say, and the result is we say too much. We have the best intentions to lend encouragement, but in these situations being the “fixer” is not what’s needed. It takes some restraint to not say things like, “you’re going to be ok, you’ve got this, I believe you are going to be healed, etc,” but being present in the pain is a far greater gift.

My dear friend sat there and allowed herself to feel what I felt. She did not try to give me the easy answers or platitudes that would have taken less sacrifice than sitting in my grief. And no doubt it is costly to enter into someone else’s suffering.

The reality is those pat answers are just empty words at a time like that. Suffering is hard, and setbacks can take the wind right out of you and leave you wondering how you are going to move on from where you find yourself. I urge you to learn from my friend and be willing to love your people well in their need to acknowledge that it just sucks.

This grieving what is and what’s been taken is part of the healing that is coming, and it can’t be skipped or ignored regardless of how badly we want to have the answer to the fixing.

The next time you have the privilege of being allowed into someone’s hard, hold back the urge to find the most encouraging thing to say and listen and feel and acknowledge the obvious. This sucks. I’m so sorry you are going through this. This isn’t fair. This is hard.

Your words and your tears will mean so much.

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Providence

Hannah

Providence. A young wife stripped of her physical capacity, struggling to do basic things for herself as life moments pass by, leaving her behind.

Providence. A child living his entire young life consumed with the fear his mom is going to be taken from him. Calling her from school 4-5 days a week to make sure she is ok.

Providence. Two young girls swirling and giggling as they try on their mama’s wedding dress while she watches on, swallowing hard as she wonders if she will get to see them married.

Providence. A young boy looked over as having less worth because he is different, broken. Trying to scream his presence and purpose and his charisma for life from a body that won’t let him speak, or stand, or dance.

Providence. A thin sheet of water turns to glass as the tires screech across it, slamming the car into a semi, snatching away the life of a roommate, known, cared for, and needed.

Providence is a word I’d heard but not understood very much about until a recent sermon I heard from my pastor. I learned that Providence means God is in complete control of all things; there is no chance or fate.

This week I have rolled the word over and over in my mind, trying out its relevance, wondering if I have the guts to cling hard to the truth my mind knows even when my heart feels shredded.

What I am learning to believe about providence is that it is responsible for making an important story out of the hard path I am called to walk. When I view life through this lens it lends the hope I need to keep clinging even in these darkest valleys, though not easily.

Providence and I have come head to head this week. I have challenged why God’s complete control feels so out of control at times. I have pondered why if he is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine… why don’t we always get the answers we long for? It seems that sometimes when pursuing God, he cannot be located. What then?

I discovered reading the story of Esther this week that even in such turmoil God’s name was never mentioned, yet His fingerprints were all over that story! I knew God was trying to help me better make sense of the process and better accept particularly the things that we do not prefer or do not understand taking place in our lives. These things, hard as they may be are all part of God’s plan to develop us and take us from where we are to where he wants us to be. We may not see him, but that doesn’t mean he is not behind the scenes arranging every detail for His purpose.

Even the excruciating details. Even the ones that bring you to your knees, and the ones you don’t know how you’ll ever recover from. Every single detail with His loving heart imploring me to never give up hope that the hard parts I walk through are the beginning of something important and even beautiful that he is orchestrating.

Here I am, arms wide open, bleeding heart held out to You. Trusting you will take and use it for Your Kingdom, because I know You never waste our pain, and Your plans are so much greater than my own.