Choosing Hope

The other day I came across  this picture I hadn’t seen before.  It is simply, beautiful.  My heart melted to see such a perfect freeze-frame of her little button nose and her sweet, tiny lips.  Truly a gift to this mommy’s heart.

This picture though, it released a wave of  hurt so deep I sat in my closet and cried; an ugly, red-faced,  runny-nosed, swollen-eyed, hiccupy cry.  I didn’t cry because she’s precious, I cried because I. Am. So. Tired. Of. Missing. Her.

Her 3rd birthday this March, I really felt like I had turned a corner.  I finally felt joy, genuine joy about where she is, and really came to a place of  being happy looking forward to being with her again someday.  I felt like I could see Heavenward, past the deep wounds that had been left.  I was able to smile for all the good memories.

One step forward, three steps back.  I don’t know why; I think the death of my brother brought me back to those days, the horror days of  losing her and walking empty-carseat home, folding vacant blankets, packing up hopes and dreams.

I am tired of being a bereaved mother, tired of  being told how I should and shouldn’t grieve, tired of  all the things that remind me that she’s gone.  I am worn by the tears always hovering beneath the surface, by the questions, and the guilt, and the sheer agony of moving on without her.

I can barely stand right now, and I’m wondering where You are, wondering when You will make beauty from these ashes. . I know you can hear my heart.  It’s raw, it’s exposed, and it’s waiting for Your healing touch.

This broken bone, it’s never going to heal right.  Please help me learn to dance with this limp.

I was asked to write a memory of my brother. . .   In the vast expanse of our lives intermingling, there seems no single recollection that could justify the deep intersections of him in my life.

Ben was often misunderstood.  Misinterpreted, misdiagnosed, misjudged. Determined to have an impact on his world, he overcame challenges, pushed past labels, and stood tall in his dreams and aspirations to be who he wanted to be.

A tough and quiet front, he was shy to speak up and flushed a cherry red when attention was on him.  Rather than launching his opinions, he often held back, reflecting deeply on what was spoken and keeping his judgement harnessed for a more intimate conversation.

He was all guy.  Video game loving, hot sauce pouring, practical joke playing, fart-laughing, animal catching fellow.  Underneath all that rough and tough though, he was one of the most tender hearts I know.  He cared so deeply, sympathized so gingerly, loved so infinitely.  He never fought to show a facade to anybody, he was real and sincere and trustworthy.

This dear brother held close many of my secrets.  He was the first I could tell that we were expecting because  I knew we could give each other secret winks across the room of those we weren’t ready to tell yet.  He could give a most impressive eye roll as we giggled about the most recent frivolous family drama.    He was an extension of my heart, as I was confident he could hear my burdens, rejoice in my triumphs, and be unwaveringly supportive because no foolishness could come between us.

When distance separated us, he visited more than anyone else.  He made an effort to spend time with us whenever he could, sometimes staying for weeks. He became the favorite, silly uncle who not only snuggled them close as babies, but grew to be the most patient, funny, and “cool” uncle around. He loved a good xbox battle or Nerf war, but also wasn’t afraid of dress ups and tea parties.

When my husband had to deploy and I was scared to be so far and alone, Ben sat and wrote my fears, acknowledged the unease ahead of me and the strength we would need to pull through; a poem folded into a cherished rectangle of  solace.  He worried with me and stayed available when I was overwhelmed and needed to vent my inadequacy of being a single mom for a time.

After endless months of effort and exhaustion, he was the one who celebrated with me when I finally got to pin on the badge of a paramedic.  In a crowd of no one who seemed to notice, he was proud of me, and spoke of following in my footsteps. He made me feel valuable and important.

When we stood at the gulf of my daughter’s grave, his eyes spoke what his words didn’t need to.  His embrace told the weight of his grief, and his gentle words laid empty consolations aside when he apologized for the self-involved, and blurted,
                          “somebody died here, can’t you all get along, for funeral’s sake?”
There was no ease in his words, but the fierce protection and sensitivity with which he spoke them soothed cooling over my heart wound.

Ben was the one as weeks ticked by and life moved on to remember my heart. He knew it hadn’t all melted away when everyone went back home.  He called just to ask how I was, to acknowledge what was lost, and to make sure I knew in his eyes she would never be forgotten.  He dared to imagine with me what she would have been like,  and didn’t fear upsetting me to speak of the things he would miss in her.

He texted all hours of the night to relay what exciting new call had brought more passion to his life as an EMT.  He wanted to hear my stories too, and in a world where it takes one to understand one, I had a soulmate, a punch line, a sounding board.  When the world showed disinterest, he admired my trade in a way that gave validation to what I believe in, and made me proud to blaze our trail.  He grinned with satisfaction when I taught him how to achieve what became our trademark; a lustrous spit-shine on toil cracked boots.

Ben didn’t wear his emotions on his sleeve, he wasn’t quick to blurt out his point of view, but his enduring strength and quiet compassion made him an irreplaceable friend.  Had anyone gone to Heaven before me to love on my little girl, I may have been jealous, but Ben? I could think of no company sweeter to be with her while we finish our earth days.

My words are too small to capture my brother, but my memories swell to hold every bit of him I can cling to.

It’s going to be one marvelous reunion when I get there someday, and many more memories to be made.

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I promise my life story won’t always be about grief, but that’s the season God has me in right now, and I’m  doing my best to learn from it and move through it.

Bad news is always a bit surreal until it sinks in.  I don’t know if I quite believed my brother had died when Mark told me.

I don’t remember how we got packed, only laying in a daze telling the nurses my IV needed to go faster because I needed to leave for my brother’s funeral.

Then, we were there.  The familiar Kansas plains stretched on in bright sun as if everything was right in the world.  Some part of me expected I would see him, well as ever once we arrived.

  Settled at my mother’s house, he never walked in to spend the evening with us like he usually did.

That’s when I knew what my eyes needed to see.  I set out with my hubs to drive to Ben’s house, needing to be surrounded by everything that reminded me of him.  Maybe this was all a dream and I will walk into his kitchen and see him pouring hot sauce on something, or cleaning silvery meat from a successful day’s fishing trip.

It was night, and his house had a dark stillness to it. All was quiet except the usual cracking of the aged deck beneath our feet.  That’s when my eyes saw it, and my heart started to believe it . . . The bookmarks of the horrible thing that brought us here.

His window smashed by the first rescuers trying to make their way to him, and once inside, the air felt thin, watery, lifeless.  There was no warm assurance that the nightmare was over.

His toil-stained caps that hung waiting  across the dining room, because what bachelor wouldn’t?

The cluttered bookcase where his firefighter books slumped, tattered by his earnest ambition to one day brave the hot flames and quench to victory its fiery talons.  The pulse of his passion for fire now blood-drained, left slouching in frayed pages of blank words.

I knelt at the place where he died, arms spread wide,  an empty embrace held closed-fisted by his absence.

Walking into his bedroom it seemed he had simply hurried off to work, not gone forever.   His sheets and pillow still rumpled from a night’s rest, as he wasn’t expecting visitors.  For a seemingly  unending  clock face of minutes I sat soaking up the essence of him.  Looking at the strips of all that he put his life into.  So many memories, happy, joyous, tender, but still mirrored by a veil of  heartbreak.

The realness my eyes took in was stored to solidify these truths once my heart is able.  For now it has been too much.  The pictures, the music, the seeing him still and breathless rakes too deep a hurt to occupy my emotions.  I scarce can think of it because it hurts so profoundly that fears rises and unease comes crippling to shatter my soul.  There’s just not time for that, I have to be solid for so much more.

There will come a day of facing it head on, of grappling with what’s left and realizing what never will be.  That day I will stand strong and feel all that I feel and not run; let loose the gravel that binds heavy with my sadness.  This day however, I can’t think on the pain, I have to only gratify the knowledge of his current wholeness, and acceptance, and rejoicing as he is no longer weighed down by this world.  I imagine the tenderness with which he scooped up my small daughter and held her close in the city of light, waiting for our homecoming.  My heart longs deeply for that day.

For now, days hammer on, and I still my heart-screams to focus on the ones who need me present.  Soaking up every memory made, thanking for the ordinary amazing graces that soothe the emptiness, and walking, walking stranger-like through this world that is not my home.

I’m not sure where it comes from, but I am often reminded of a parable of two farmers praying for rain.  The point of the story was that one farmer just prayed for rain, but the other farmer prepared his fields for rain.  He prayed with an expectation that God would give what he was asking for.

Lately our prayer lives have been transforming.  We are hearing from many promises, urging us to be diligent in our prayers, pray specifically, down to the details of what we are asking for, and to pray with expectation in our hearts that we will receive.  That last part is the hardest.  Deep down I want to protect myself, to not get my hopes up so I won’t be let down.  My heart is convicted though. . . pray specifically, and pray with expectation.

I some ways I AM preparing my fields, but I also feel the hesitation in the depths of my faith.  I hold back from telling most people what we are hoping, because I fear having to come back and tell them we were wrong.  Sounds silly when I hear some of the stories of prayers answered, but I am seeking, striving, to be able to give myself wholeheartedly to the expectation of our requests.

Tomorrow is the day we may see into a window of how our prayers will be answered.  The anticipation is light and excited, but not without fear.

Pray with us please, that every day we would increasingly trust He will give us the desires of our hearts, and that this story will develop into one of incredible goodness and faithfulness as we see our expectations come to fulfillment.

We have read again and again of His desire to give us good things, and His prodding to ask and we will receive.  We believe our desires were His desires first, and look forward with anticipation.  

Pray on with us my friends, and watch for good things!

I have faced it.  Challenged it.  Decided to keep living like I wouldn’t let it rob me of my dreams.

I thought I had been throwing myself hard enough to make that happen.

Last week though, there were words that cut.

I had urged the kids that if they diligently and obediently completed their chores and schoolwork, I would take them out for some fun that afternoon.  Obviously, since that was the first time in their lives that they had ever been required to do work or school, I was met with grumbling from one tired heart.

Sitting at the top of the stairs, my presence unknown, I could hear the frustrations being muttered from the next room.  My heart dropped hard as I realized what a deep and wounding disappointment had been planted in the freshness of a young soul

      “I doubt that will happen anyway; we won’t get to do anything special because YOU will probably feel sick again.  You’re ALWAYS sick and hurting, and you never are strong enough to take us anywhere.  You will never be well, because God doesn’t listen to me pray for you to get better.”

My joy fell, and my chest ached at the realization that life, the bitter grating side of it that drowns out all the good, had cast such a choking shadow on the spirit of my little one.  I cried. It was true.  No matter how stubborn my efforts to prove I can carry on as I always have, things are different.  In my determination, I have neglected to see how observant little hearts are, and how attentively they can sense the smallest changes.

That was a low.  I desperately want to cover my weakness, to be the mom my babies need  instead of such a painful disappointment to them.  It  hurts that they don’t understand.  While some of them have come to comprehend that a snuggle on the couch is the new best way to spend time together, others have written me off and stride out to find the attention their hearts need in other places.  It hurts.  I want to be able to do anything for my children. . . to chase them around the house or keep up with them at the park.  They deserve that.

Truth is, I can’t make it all seem right.  I can’t go farther and longer than my body allows, and I am prisoner to the days when I can’t stand.  It is a new challenge to reach tender hearts from the sidelines, and I pray that one day they will see that although the dynamics of our lives change, my love for them and my prayers for them have stayed the same.  They are my reasons, my inspiration, and my greatest joy. NOTHING can ever change that.

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For my Lobster, my One Love.  Together we can move mountains.

The song that so defines us must be shared. . .

                                                     

                                                Those of you close to my story know the last few weeks have been very painful.  I have never thought life needs to be perfect to be wonderful, but there are some times the pain is so heavy, so deep, every breath takes effort.
 
Disheartened, worn, clinging by strings of faith, it took a quiet sunless drive for me to cry out aloud for mercy. Convictions of where I could improve tapped at my heart, and my immense desire to live a legacy worth remembering pulled at the weight of my soul.

That was the night I cried for presence.  At the very desperation of clinging to hope, I needed to know that there was indeed a reason for this suffering, a purpose in the raw scraping of my heart, a confidence that yes, God is real and giving Him my all and enduring the wait of healing was what He really desired for me.  I begged aloud that I would see a sign that would give me the push to keep on in this blind and treacherous marathon to store up my treasures in Heaven.  I felt like I was losing, being mocked at my attempts.  I longed to know there was purpose for all this pain.

Two days later, things came crashing down again.  The deeper I dug, the more trials clawed at our foundation.  Our dreams of adding to our family collapsed.  Our marriage pulled thin.  There was disharmony in our children, and another joy-shattering loss slammed us in the chest.

My white flag flew. Tears burned hot scars of defeat across my face and my soul.

In the midst of my deep dispair, there was my man smiling and turning my eyes up.

    “Don’t you see?” “This IS the answer!”

His voice so gentle, heart so pure, spoke of how our strength is a threat. A powerful threat to the darkness that thirsts to destroy us.  The closer we walk, the faster the punches come, trying to end us.

At first, this seemed motivation to throw up my hands, give up my hope.  I would be lying if I said those thoughts were not seriously entertained in my mind.  In the end though, I had to admit I’m a fighter, and for a reason that good to fight, I’m going to remain gloved-up.  The heartache is painful, the blows discouraging, but with my mighty soulmate and the ever-cheering teammates beside us, it is a race worth running.

I have come to know life is filled with pain, but it is making the joys even more worth celebrating.

I’m sure there will be more days of being face-down, but I am thankful and blessed that my loves and my friendlies will always be willing to pick me back up and point me back on my way.

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