Category: suffering

suffering

Hard is Hard

Hannah

I just want to belong, and I feel like I don’t.

I want to embrace community in the same capacity I did when I was well, but the truth is it’s not the same. People feel awkward around me, and I’m embarrassed that that’s what I bring to the table. People look at me with my glaringly obvious physical struggles, and they don’t know what to say. They’ve been carrying a difficult thing this week, but when they measure it against the ticking time bomb of my terminal illness, it feels insignificant, so they minimize their struggle and choose to talk about nothing.

Friends. Family. Random strangers who happen to be reading this… there is a fundamental truth I learned when I buried my daughter that holds true like the steady, blazing colors of a war-torn flag. Hard is exactly that; HARD. We shouldn’t be comparing hards, because there just is no comparison.

With the fresh wounds of having stood at the cavernous edge of my daughter’s grave, I heard things like, “I know how you feel, because my child got pneumonia and had to be in the hospital, and it was awful.” Or, “I know what you’re going through; I still haven’t gotten over losing my dog last Spring.” I watched the moving lips of these stories, but the sound was deafeningly absent because of the noise of what rose up inside of me. I seethed.

How could you compare something like that to what I was going through? And then I learned something crucial to understand. My hard is the worst thing that has happened to me thus far. Your hard is the worst thing that has happened to you thus far. You may not be able to relate to my exact story, because you haven’t been there, but you have your own story where you have experienced the most awful thing so far, and it rocked your world and shook your faith, and left you standing with gaping wounds you didn’t know how to patch yet. And that is where we find common ground. It is inevitable that we will all walk through earth-shattering hard things at some point, and when we come to those trials we each gain a little more compassion and understanding that we didn’t have before.

And maybe that is what I have been missing when I feel like I don’t belong. Belonging was never meant to come from having the same circumstances, the same bodies, the same stories, or the same kind of pain. It comes from being willing to sit beside one another in the places we don’t understand and say, “I may not know exactly what this is like for you, but I know what it is to hurt. I know what it is to be afraid. I know what it is to need someone to stay.”

So please don’t measure your pain against mine before you bring it to me. You don’t have to apologize for having a bad day because my days are hard. You don’t have to hide your grief because mine looks bigger from the outside. Your sorrow does not become less worthy because someone else is carrying something heavier. There is room at the table for all of it.

And if you don’t know what to say, you don’t have to fill the silence with a comparison. You can simply tell me the truth: “I don’t know what to say, but I’m here.” You can tell me about the thing that broke your heart this week. You can let me be more than my illness. You can remember that I am still a person who wants to laugh, listen, complain, celebrate, and care about the ordinary things that make up a life.

I am not asking anyone to pretend that my circumstances are ordinary. They are not. I am asking to be met as a whole person inside of them.

I want to belong—not because my life is easy, and not because anyone can make this hard thing disappear, but because I am still here. I am still loving. I am still reaching for connection with whatever strength I have left. And maybe belonging is not found in the absence of awkwardness or pain. Maybe it is found in the brave, imperfect choice to stay present anyway.

So bring me your hard. I will bring you mine. We don’t have to compare them. We can simply sit together beneath the weight of them, reminding each other that neither of us has to carry it alone.

suffering

Even In The Mess

Hannah

There’s a chance you wouldn’t believe me if I told you what my past few weeks have looked like. One friend, grasping for what to say landed on, “I have no words for your latest mess.” I couldn’t help but laugh at the truth and ridiculousness of that statement. Sometimes, if you’re not laughing, you’re crying.

Micah Tyler’s lyrics to his song “Even Then” have been a treasure to my heart this week:

“Even in the thick of the battle 
And even through the valley of the shadows 
You alone are my defense when 
I’m standing on your promises.

Even when it feels like my world is shaken 
Even when I’ve had all that I can take 
I know You never let me go.

And even when the waters won’t stop rising 
Even when I’m caught in the dead of the night 
I know no matter how it ends 
You’re with me even then.”

What I am learning through this uncomfortable time of stretching is that affliction is not always a sign of God’s absence; it can often be an instrument of His grace. Hardship strips away temporary distractions, exposes false reliance, and refines our character so that we value divine truth over temporary comfort.

When the ground beneath us shakes, our natural reaction is to reach out and grab anything that feels stable. But so often, the things we reach for—our plans, our control, our own strength—turn out to be as fragile as the situation we’re trying to escape.

This season has forced my hands open. I’ve had to let go of the need to fix the unfixable, to stop trying to write my own happy ending, and to simply sit in the quiet reality that I am not the one holding my life together. God is. He doesn’t just show up after the storm clears to help us pick up the pieces; He is present right in the middle of the rising waters, when the night is at its absolute darkest.

If you find yourself navigating your own version of a “latest mess” right now, I hope you hear this: you don’t have to pretend it isn’t hard, and you certainly don’t have to carry it alone. It is entirely okay to laugh at the absurdity, weep over the pain, and feel weary all at once. I was reminded today that grace meets us right where we are, not where we think we should be.

The valley may be deep, and the battle may feel fierce, but the end of your strength is the beginning of His supply. Take a deep breath. You are held, you are seen, and even then—especially then—He is with you.

suffering

Life Raft

Hannah

For an easy $80-$250 you can acquire the materials to make a pretty decent DIY life raft, a cost I suspect many of us would easily triple or quadruple if it came down to preserving the life of someone we love. It may be surprising then to hear that there are even simpler and more affordable ways to snatch a life back from the brink. Don’t feel bad, I was acting quite ignorant to this myself until the life-affirming experience I had earlier this week.

A weighty world and a few unexpected shoe drops this week had me feeling rather dismal and uninspired as I rode out the sweltering days of a Midwest summer. The isolating circumstances of my illness had been contributing to a build up of unshared anxieties, paired with a lengthy succession of sleepless nights as I wrestled with symptoms I’ve felt too small to tolerate. After a “hair that breaks the camel’s back” experience, my fear and desperation caused all of this to bubble high enough that my struggles were leaking out into unassuming conversations. Conversations that should have first happened between myself and my Heavenly Father to begin with, but as his attributes have proven to me historically, he again lavished grace upon grace for my shortcomings and gifted me what I had been too troubled and preoccupied to ask him for in the first place.

As I visited with a friend this week her thoughtful questions and tender attentiveness probed out some of the wrestling matches I was engaging in, and unassuming as I was for her to be the answer to any of my concerns, her loving character held the power to change the trajectory of my week, my heart, and I hope, my very life.

We are all fighting battles big and small, and though comparison is an ill-fitting tool with which to measure, the difficulties my friend is faithfully navigating make most of my discomforts look like small potatoes. That didn’t stop her however, from following her heart and lavishing love upon me despite the meager bucket she had been given to pour from. And the results created a chain reaction of love and care that I forever want to be a link of.

What stops the rest of us then, from using our gifts in whatever quantity we contain them to reach out and be the life raft to the hurting around us? We are brushing shoulders with people whose crushing depression or debilitating circumstance may just be one small act of kindness away from the difference between life today or death tomorrow, so I propose we follow my friend’s example and expand our focus from our own hard stories to give us the clarity to see into the lives of the people around us who just need one kind word, one thoughtful gesture, one glint of truth to create the bridge that gets them from their hard today’s and into the lavish hope that tomorrow brings.

Suffering is simply not restricted to the occasional hard story that a friend of a friend of a friend shared with us; it is rampant and violent and bullying the hearts and minds of people we rub elbows and hearts with on a daily basis, so won’t you join me in being a line in the master story of someone whose life went from over to exuberantly fulfilling because of the one simple kindness that someone offered up with their own battered hands? Running on empty won’t ever be a valid excuse for those walking a servant-hearted life, because we serve a God who gives generously to those he loves, and he is capable of feeding thousands with your small loaf of bread.

Look around for the places you can be a life raft to someone who is feeling one breath from giving in to the raging waters, and then do that on repeat in your good weeks and your hard ones, because these hard-fought days are so much richer when graced with the possibility of hope gifted by a friend… or even a stranger. Then come share your story with me— I want to hear how you made a stand to be the domino in one person’s spiral that then turned out to be the victory shout of unrestrained joy!

suffering

Life in the Margins

Hannah

Someone recently asked me what my favorite tangible thing is. It gave me pause, because I don’t think I’ve stopped to wonder over that question, but the answer was clear. My pink journaling Bible.

It’s hard to explain, but my pink art journaling Bible isn’t just a book to me—it’s the place where my life with God has actually taken shape in a visible, tangible way.

Every page holds more than printed words. It holds prayers I’ve prayed when I didn’t have the strength to say them out loud. It holds questions I’ve wrestled through, verses that steadied me, and moments where something finally “clicked” and I knew God was speaking to me personally. The notes, the colors, the artwork—they’re not decoration. They’re a record of relationship.

Over time, it’s become a kind of memorial. I can flip back and see where I was struggling, where I was growing, and how God met me in those exact places. It reminds me that He’s been faithful, not just in general, but to me—specifically, consistently, and patiently.

It’s also one of the few places where I’ve been completely honest. No performance, no editing—just me showing up as I am. That makes it deeply personal in a way that’s hard to replicate anywhere else.

So when I say it’s my favorite tangible object, it’s not about the Bible itself being pink or artistic—it’s because it carries the history of my walk with God. It’s worn in all the right ways. It’s lived in. And it reminds me who He is, and who I am in Him.

suffering

Still Here, Already Erased

Hannah

There’s a particular kind of loneliness that comes when you realize people are already grieving you—even though you’re still here.

You can feel it in the way conversations change.

In the pauses that linger a little too long.

In the careful tones, the lowered expectations, the way plans quietly stop including you.

It’s as if, in their minds, you’ve already crossed a threshold that your body hasn’t yet stepped over.

People don’t always do this out of cruelty. Often it’s fear. Sometimes it’s love mixed with helplessness. Sometimes it’s their own attempt at self-protection—beginning the goodbye early so it won’t hurt as much later. But no matter the reason, the result can feel the same: you’re treated like a memory while you’re still breathing.

And that hurts in a way that’s hard to explain.

Because you are still here.

You still think, feel, hope, laugh, get irritated, change your mind.

You still want to be seen as a whole person—not a fragile symbol of loss.

When people grieve you too soon, it can feel like being erased in real time. Like parts of you are being gently set aside, boxed up, and labeled past tense. You notice fewer questions about your opinions. Fewer arguments. Fewer expectations. A subtle withdrawal, masked as kindness.

A dimming of the flames that used to be the most meaningful light to you.

There’s a quiet injustice in that.

Because anticipatory grief may prepare them, but it isolates you.

It can make you feel like you’re standing at your own funeral, listening from the back of the room, wondering when someone will turn around and realize you’re still part of the conversation.

What many people don’t understand is that being alive—even with a terminal diagnosis, even with uncertainty—still means living. It means wanting connection, normalcy, meaning, humor, and sometimes distraction. It means wanting to be included without an asterisk.

Not as “the brave one.”

Not as “the one we might lose.”

Just as you.

There is a deep ache in watching people move on emotionally while you are still doing the hard work of staying present. Of waking up each day and choosing to engage with the world, even as the world quietly practices letting go.

And yet—there’s also clarity that comes from this place.

You learn who can sit with you without rehearsing the ending.

Who can love you in the present tense.

Who understands that honoring your life doesn’t require stepping away from it early.

suffering

Standing, when everything shakes

Hannah

🎶 “Standing on the promises of Christ my King, through eternal ages let his praises ring; glory in the highest I will shout and sing, standing on the promises of God!”🎶

Affliction has a way of changing the way we sing. Once, I sang this hymn standing tall, lungs full, voice rising like a joyful Baptist at a Saturday night revival—sure, strong, unquestioning. Now, I sing it slower from the quiet of my hospital bed, tasting each word, weighing every promise against the heaviness pressing on my chest. The melody hasn’t changed, but I have.

18 days. Eighteen days of one hard thing after another maddeningly marching through the doors of my life—uninvited, unrelenting. Health unraveling into painful new territories, relationships trembling under pressure that threatens what once seemed unshakeable, the future scattering into pieces I can no longer hold together. It feels like too much.

In a weary whisper only God could hear, I said, You are asking too much of me. This feels impossible. I don’t think I can do this. And yet—You must think I can.

So where, Lord, is the help You promised?

Promise. That word flickered through my tired mind and opened a remembered door: “This is my comfort in my affliction, that Your promise gives me life” (Psalm 119:50). There it was—quiet as a breath, clear as a bell: Hannah, this is your help. My promises. Stand on them.

So the words came tumbling—like a river breaking through a dam—every scripture, every promise I could catch hold of, spoken aloud over the noise of despair crowding my soul:

If I stand firm to the end, You will save me. You give strength to the weary. I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Your name is a strong tower—I run to You. With Your grace, all things are possible. So help me do what feels impossible. Help me make it through this.

And this morning, something was different. The circumstances hadn’t shifted—the questions still hovered—but my heart? It stood. Courage where fear had sat. Steadiness where trembling had lived. God had kept His word. He renewed me. He breathed life where hope was thinning. His promises held me upright, where I thought I would fall.

My family woke to the sound of me—quiet, raspy voice —singing again like that happy Baptist at a Saturday night revival: Standing on the promises of God.

And this time, I am not just singing it. I am living it.

suffering

Today

Hannah

Head throbs,

Spasms pulse.

Nausea ebbs and flows in great waves,

Pain spins up to 8 and then ticks back down to 4.

My mind fights my body with its will to get up and participate, move, live.

The weight of fatigue grips my limbs like wet sand,

Every breath a labor, every step a gamble.

The world outside carries on, brightly unaware,

While I drift beneath its surface, unseen currents pulling.

Hope is not always loud.

Sometimes it whispers in the quiet:

a hand held,

a laugh shared,

the sun warming my windowpane.

There are days I curse this vessel,

days I retreat into silence and salt,

but also moments—sharp and golden—

where love slices through the fog.

I do not vanish all at once.

I am still here:

in the tremor of my voice,

in the stories I still tell,

in the soft rebellion of surviving today.

suffering

Sharpie Stones & the Questions They Bring

Hannah

“Why do we even believe in God if He doesn’t help us?” The words sliced through the sweltering afternoon air with razor intensity as hot tears dropped dark shapes onto my 11 year old’s gray T-shirt. He had just finished lying a sharpie-labeled headstone over the dented ground in a shade-protected corner of our yard where he had buried a tiny baby bunny for the second time that day.

“God could have saved that bunny. I prayed so hard for that. If He can do whatever He wants to, why didn’t He save him? Why doesn’t He make you well? Why does He let bad things happen to the best people?”

I sucked in a breath as my chest squeezed with the painful questions that seemed to bounce back off the canopy of leaves above us, unanswered. I was watching my boy reckon with one of the deepest struggles we all wrestle with at times; the ones that can strengthen your faith immeasurably, or send it crumbling into nothingness with the verdict that God can’t be trusted.

As strange as it might sound, these are some of the most sacred moments in parenting. Moments so heart-wrenching, yet so utterly priceless you can almost feel God’s hands on your shoulders as you tenderly walk your children through despair and into hope, reminding them the thing you need so desperately to remember yourself; this life is just a blink, and tomorrow has been promised to none of us. This day is a gift, and if it is full of suffering, it is because God loves us too much to let us waste our lives on earth’s pitiful indulgences. He wants to give us astonishing abundance that lasts forever—and suffering is often the means by which He gives it.

I don’t know if I would have become a parent if someone had told me that I would have to watch my children suffer immeasurable pain that I could do nothing about. I don’t like that; I’m a fixer. But even today I am still learning that the only way through is a repeated opening of my hands and surrendering my children to the Only One who can make good of their pain. He promises not to waste it, so I trust that somehow each of these hurts will be used for good.

death, faith, family, grief, gun laws, guns, hope, school shooting, sisters, suffering

Staring Down the Barrel

Hannah

“Hope holds a broken heart together.”

~Ann Voskamp

moonrain

I am sitting in the thick blanket of nighttime, listening to the steady rain beating the drum roll of its sixth hour on the hollow-sounding roof.  The intense piercings of a familiar pain keep me from my slumber, and I am delicate in my constant re-positioning and pill-swallowing to avoid waking the mounds of purring sleep close to me.  My bedroom started out far less crowded tonight, but as the starlit veil fell, came the padding of feet and the tiny, emotion-filled voices describing fear of the dark, tumultuous dreams, and loneliness that needed the quiet comfort of my presence near by.  So here we all are, their chests finally rising and falling with the rhythm of their dreams, and me wondering when things will go back to normal.

This was a headline week for guns.  A few state lines over, lives were shattered as another troubled youngster unleashed explosive fury on rooms full of unsuspecting  teens and adults, cutting short the futures of many who had planned on having more time.  All the articles and bar-room-conversations and social media statuses are blasting loud the positions and rules and amendments and movements that each are convinced will bring an end to this terror. All of this buzz about bullets and laws and security and the NRA, and all I can think is how will these kids face tomorrow?  Closer to home, how will my daughters face tomorrow?

2F7B2588

Mitchell-60Mitchell-76

Just a few days after the most recent school shooting in Florida, my girls experienced their own kind of horror at the barrel of a gun.  My two, along with a roomful of other innocent, energetic young girls had come together to kick off the Spring season of cheer leading.  The room was full of ponytails, giggles, and camaraderie.  As they finished tying sneakers and warming up tight muscles, a new and horrifying ambiance sliced through the room.  My oldest daughter had slipped out for one last dash to the restroom before practice, and when she rounded the corner to go back into the gym, she ran right into him.  No one knew, so the coach opened up the door and let them both inside.  The next 90 seconds were so brief, but stretched eternally in the burning scars of terror that now streak the memory of everyone watching.  A few odd but indubious remarks were made to strike up a conversation with their coach as he positioned himself closer to the cash box where each parent had given the weekly dues.  Then, beneath his slouching hood, he grew expressionless and in the longest instant, the dark, round metal of a gun contradicted the innocence of the hairbows and glitter, and the giggles turned to a fear that would not be forgotten.  My girl, still the closest to him, tried to make a subtle move for a cell phone, but his instincts were fast and he tucked the metal box and dashed for the door.  Then the knee-jerk reactions of the coach slamming her shoulder into the door corner as she lunged after him, the instant tears of the little sister who felt the hysteria of watching her sister so close to a ruthless bullet, and the mayhem of the entire crowd as adrenaline was unleashed.

I am still incredibly grateful that this tasteless man had a thirst for money rather than for blood, and my girls got to come home safely that night.  What was no longer safe though, was their security and peace of mind.  Tears upon tears from the two of them and the best friend as they clung exhausted in an embrace of profound emotion in my kitchen that night.  Panic, flashbacks, sweating whenever they found themselves in a room too far from the safety of knowing a trusted adult was arms-length away.  An incessant need for the security of a cell phone pressed closed whenever they have to leave the house. Nightmares and sleep-screaming through the deepest hours of the night, peace divided by having to learn that sometimes these things happen for no good reason.

Mitchell-116

Tomorrow my girls will face walking back into that gym.  My oldest will relive the details of his coat and his birthmark as she walks through the same hallway where he first cut into her memories.  My youngest will remember the powerful emotions of watching helpless, wondering if she was going to see her sister’s future rewritten.  They will have to come to terms with these memories and these fears, and I will support in them whatever ways that they need, but I can’t help but wonder… what about the kids who watched friends and classmates and teachers gunned down in front of their eyes this week?  How will they find the courage to walk back down those halls?  I truly cannot grasp it.

Everyone has an opinion about what needs to happen.  More guns, less guns.  More restrictions, more screenings, more freedom, less.  So many different points of view.  I have an opinion too, but I’m not going to share it right now.  Right now all I can think about is the downright brokenness of it all. The terror, the pain, the distrust and the loneliness that has gone down in irreversible ways.  The truth is, regardless of what decisions are made about whether or not guns are legal and what the process will be to get one, there is an issue at the foundation that is something we all hold the answer to.   This world needs people who care more for the hearts of their neighbors than about how their status will suffer if they are seen breaking bread together.  It needs hearts that can anticipate the needs of others, and read from the eye motions and the face lines when someone needs an extra dose of kindness.  This world needs people who are wholly committed to seeing each other for what they are; other humans who are hurting and struggling and trying to make it, and in desperate need of being loved, accepted, and understood.

We don’t need gun laws, whether for or against, in order for this to happen.  We simply need to look up, and look around, and reach out with everything we’ve got in order to say, “I see you, and I know you’re hurting, and I’m going to walk you through it.”

We all just want to be seen.  Have you ever stopped to think that maybe you are part of the answer?  What is it that’s holding you back?

Mitchell-85

PLEASE LEAVE ME A COMMENT, IT LETS ME KNOW YOU’RE LISTENING!!!

daily graces, endurance, family, hope, joy, suffering, trials

Bits and Pieces

Hannah

Mitchell-199

I have this blank canvas to scribble my thoughts, but lately I have let them recycle, tumbling unsorted in the confines of my mind, timid of what people will think if I speak out loud.  Someone told me not long ago that I should try writing about something else.  I took it to mean people do not want to hear the confessions and wonderings of my soul; they are probably rolling their eyes and turning off their screens.

After talking with a close friend about what else to write about, I came to the conclusion that I don’t want to write about something “else,” and I don’t know how to.  The reason I write about what I do is that it flows quite easily when I need to release and process difficult things.  It’s therapeutic for me to free up some space in my thoughts by unleashing the tangle of words and emotion that sometimes becomes difficult to find space for.  Part of me also supposed, in the beginning of this place, that someone else would find hope and strength in the raw processing of the journey of my life.

I have been learning more lately that it is okay to let every experience, good or bad, shape who I am and how I view things.  Let’s be real; life is never going to be all rainbows and bubblegum, so if we are going to become something other than tainted and bitter, we are going to have to figure out how to filter through our ups and downs and pick out the important growth-inducing bits, and let the rest hit the shredder.  That’s what I’m trying to do here; sift through the daily barrage of twists and turns and cling to the slivers of truth that will deepen my character and make me a softer, wiser human for the other people on this expedition with me.

1d0c4-rainbow

Think back to the last hard, life-changing thing you went through.  It might have been the loss of a loved one, loss of a job, a difficult diagnosis, a traumatic world-event… you know how you had that numb feeling for awhile afterwards?  Thankfully we all have this mechanism that only lets us take in what we are capable of at the time.  Our simple minds and hearts would simply explode if the full force of things hit us all at once.  So we take it in little by little, in easily digestible chunks that we can begin to process and break down.  That movement happens in the telling of the story.  Each time you share your story, your mind is able to handle a little bit more and apply a greater understanding than it could the last time, until eventually you can boldly tell your story, maybe still with some tears, but with a confident and understanding boldness that has replaced the initial shock and bewilderment.  That is my place here.  I will keep on sharing the plot twists of my life as I continue to find deeper meaning and healing in the new details I understand every time I brave it.  And if in doing that some of you are able to pull out the important truths, the pieces that make you bold and brave and inspired, then even the more reason to keep shouting it loud.  My story.  My unbelievable, true, heart-breaking, beautiful, hope-giving story.

Will you share yours too?

b1e09-10416599_10204285307072505_2956806890011125655_n

 

PLEASE LEAVE ME A COMMENT, IT LETS ME KNOW YOU’RE LISTENING!!!