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.
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.
As this year’s backyard vegetable gardens have started bursting with tomatoes and herbs and every size and color of squash the past few weeks I have found a gut punch creep in when seeing the ripe harvests sprawled across social media. Gardening makes my heart sing. The fresh air in my lungs and the weight of the musky earth beneath my fingers just does something so good for my soul. Only this year it didn’t.
This year as the frosty months neared their end and it was time to drop seeds into plastic cups of soil I was neck deep in my blankets desperate for endurance and relief from debilitating pain. As I considered the planning, planting, tending, weeding, and picking that would go into my garden again this year I had to swallow the hard pill that my body was not going to have strength to do it this time. The planting weeks came and went, and I was still in bed fighting for more.
Every time I glanced out my window and saw the barren garden beds sitting empty of their Springtime sprouts it hurt my heart. I decided it made me too sad to stare out at boxes full of empty dirt all summer, so I had my wingman take me to the store and I chose packets of flower seeds in beautiful colors and patterns. I summoned the energy to rake through my garden beds and pluck the stray weeds from the tilled soil. The packets were torn open and sprinkled across the soft soil and covered in compost. Finally I gave the ground a thorough soaking with the hose, and collapsed back into my bed anticipating what would grow.
It didn’t take long for small green stems and leaves to start pushing their way into the daylight. I was thankful something was growing, but as I scrutinized the growing plants I could not tell the difference between something I had planted and just another weed, and I started to doubt if anything worthwhile would be coming from my garden this year. That was about the time I saw the first post of a friend showing all of the produce she had pulled from her garden, and I felt sad and resentful and just really missed working the earth every day.
I finally had the strength one day to go out and have a look around. Picking my way around the lumpy landscape to get to my garden beds, I could suddenly see past the tall tangles of green that had taken them over. Dotted among the foliage were colors; orange, pink, yellow, purple. As I took it all in I felt the Holy Spirit whisper to my tired heart, “this beauty is for you.” A hug that gathered all my disappointment and not feeling good enough and wrapped it up in grace that extended beyond what I could have imagined.
Those simple flowers in their elegant gowns were the reminder I needed that this life will not always be what I want it to be. There will be places I fall short and mountains I cannot climb, but in place of those if I look in the right direction there is so much beauty to be found. Beauty that says I am still worth it and I am deeply loved. I may not be bringing in baskets full of cucumbers and zucchini to prepare for my family this year, but every time I look out my window at the messy tangle of green that has taken over my garden I see those beautiful colors standing tall in all their glory and I know that I am seen and known and loved. So are you, my friend. In your deepest disappointments things may not look like you wanted them to, but look around and you will find that there is still beauty to behold.
PS- for those of you wondering what on earth FOMO means… fear of missing out 😊
July 14, 2011 Was the day I entered the wildness of grief, and I learned in order to get out you must go through.
As much as I’d like to tell you that grief will be orderly, neat and tidy, predictable, and unfold in five stages, it will not . Grief expresses itself in surprising and confusing ways. You must give yourself permission to mourn; you must choose to heal instead of choosing to stay stuck in that spot. You must choose to move forward.
I have had to decide to live many times since in the face of my daughter’s death. It’s a decision you will have to make too. Not just once. But over and over again choose life. Say yes. Life has other plans for you too.
Grief is wild and messy and unpredictable and uncertain and ever-changing and unsettling and unnerving.
There may be times when all you want to do is sleep, and there may be other times when you can’t sleep at all. There maybe be times when you can eat and eat and other times when you have no appetite at all.
When your arms physically ache to hold your beloved , when you have heart palpitations and stomach pains and fight to keep your balance, this too is grief.
You’ll think you are going crazy. You are not. You have entered the wilderness of grief. And in order to get out you must go through. You must give yourself permission to mourn.
It’s in the telling the story of what happened over and over and over again that you are able to see and come to know the truth, the magnitude of what has happened.
It’s important to comb through the details. To relive the sights, the sounds, and the smells. Go ahead and ask “Why if, and “Why didn’t I,” and “if only.”
Make sure nothing is off limits. Look in every corner. In every crevice. Turn over every rock.
So that nothing is secret or hidden. So that no part of the experience is hands- off or locked behind a closed door. Allow no part of the experience you’ve lived through to have any kind of power over you. Walk through all of it.
And yes, it’s painful. Especially at first.
But keep on telling your story. Over and over and over again.
And after much time has passed, and you’ve told your story more times that you can possibly remember, you will come to the day when you begin telling it again. Like you’ve done so many hundreds of time before, because you know that telling the story is a path to healing.
And you discover that you can’t tell it. Not one more time. You don’t have the energy or the desire, or the strength, or the need to tell it one more time.
You just can’t do it.
And with your exhale you say to yourself, this is what healing feels like.
I invite you to sit down in the chair next to me. And when you are ready to talk I’ll listen.
This last week I wrestled through some of the highest highs and lowest lows of being a mom. I pleaded for my children’s safety and their salvation. I pushed myself physically and still fell short of the standard I held myself to as the nurturer of my family. I wrestled the bone-shaking chills and pain of pneumonia and of infection contracted during my recent hospital stay. I saw the toll of caring for me in the deep, tired lines around my husband’s eyes, and I spent hours praying without fully having words; begging for mercy, for redemption, for a soft heart, for a miracle. I laid curled in a ball, trying to will the wrenching pain of muscle spasms away, and pushed down panic at the weight around the sharp daggers that tore at my lungs with every inhale. And I wanted to quit.
I begged for God to take me. I considered the process available to hasten one’s demise once they are labeled with a terminal diagnosis. I even imagined what I might still have the strength to do in order to put an end to it myself: the bone-crushing agony of it all. The very core of my being downright cracked to pieces and threw the white flag like a penalty on the gridiron. Despite the guilt it was coupled with, for a brief time all I could think about was having a way out; an end to the pain, the frustration, the burden that I know my loved ones carry because of me.
As I wrestled and fought through these overwhelming thoughts that I didn’t know what to do with, I cried out for help. What came to my mind was the story of the man who couldn’t walk being lowered through the roof by his friends to get him in front of Jesus. At first I did not really understand how this related to me and the oppressive suicidal thoughts I was battling. I was not asking for a healing miracle, I was just tired of fighting and feeling like a burden to everyone around me. The more I thought about the story though, I realized for the first time that maybe this story is less about the man and more about his friends.
Maybe the man who couldn’t walk was tired of fighting too. Maybe he was tired of having to ask people to carry him just to get where he wanted to go. Maybe he was weary of asking for a miracle to which the answer was no. Regardless of where he was emotionally, he allowed his friends to walk right into his brokenness. He called out for help, and let them use their gifts to meet his needs. They literally cut apart someone’s house to get their friend the best kind of healing they possibly could. That is absolute passion on his friends’ part, and a great big dose of vulnerability on his own part.
This story I have heard over and over since childhood suddenly took on new meaning to me. I felt challenged to resist the urge to rush through my suffering, and to instead allow my hard path to crack me wide open and let vulnerability be the fertile ground for new beauty. By trying to control the timing of my own death, I would only rob those that love me the opportunity of meeting me in these hard moments and extending the love that has carried me again and again through these deep valleys. Pondering this new concept, I realized how much this already has happened, which further encouraged me for the days ahead.
Being vulnerable opened the door to kind friends showing up to pull the weight of my daughter’s grad party that I didn’t have the strength to make happen.
Being vulnerable allowed for the most sacred moments of love and prayer at my bedside in the ICU, even before I was aware.
Vulnerability has provided opportunities for precious times when my dear friend sits with me- no matter how haggard I look, or how many days since I’ve been able to wash my hair- and we are ushered into holy presence as she reads my favorite scriptures and prays over me.
These moments matter. Our lives, our stories, and our suffering all matter. When we step out from hiding behind our privacy or our embarrassment or our shame over feeling the big feelings we feel, we open our hearts and our lives to experience the richest, most meaningful moments this life has to offer.
When we are asked to walk a road that feels impossible to walk, it does not feel natural to open your heart up and share that pain with the people around you, but I’m telling you it might be one of the most healing things you can do for yourself. It also gives validation and purpose to the people waiting in the wings to use their gifts to help you. It can be a beautiful, painful story that changes hearts and forges friendships and gives so much glory to the author of our stories.
Jesus is well acquainted with suffering. He walked the hardest road so that we can find hope along our own hard journeys. Be brave enough to open your hands and hold your story out to those who are ready to walk alongside you. You will find strength you need to keep going, help you need to make it to the next step, and you will find kinship in the broken hearts who thought no one else could understand the road they are walking.
Hastening our suffering or skipping ahead to our final breath was never what God intended. But along each step of our good, hard journey, God will meet us with his beautiful grace. It is not a mistake; his power is strongest when we are weak. (2 Corinthians 12:10). Hold on friends. Choose hope.
I was using an unexpected burst of energy to shuffle things around in my garage, attempting to organize the means of the DIY adventures that call to me on my stronger days. I must have been deep in thought, because the abrupt swinging open of the thick wooden door to the house startled me. A tear-stained face appeared, begging companionship. “Can I please talk to you?” “Of course,” I replied, and took a seat on the striped padding of our wooden bench. I patted the seat beside me, and there was an eruption of sobs.
“I just really, really don’t want you to be sick. I don’t like it, and I would rather die so that you can live a happy life.”
I was caught off guard by the heaviness of the situation, and as the lament continued I silently prayed for the right words to comfort this tortured soul. How do you answer the questions for which there are no answers? I was reminded of my notebook full of gratitude; all the beautiful and miraculous that is found woven through the mundane ache of every day.
When the slew of bemoaning faded into hiccuping sobs, I spoke. “Oh sweetheart, I /am/ living a happy life. I love getting to be here and be a wife and a mom and a friend, and my sickness will never take that away for me.”
“But why doesn’t God heal you. He can! Why doesn’t he want that?”
Admittedly it is a question I have also asked from time to time, but I gave the answer that has been whispered to me on repeat as I have studied similar stories of suffering in the scriptures. What if my suffering is the way into a greater love for God and his people? I have found that the process of walking with him through these deep valleys is teaching me how to better love and care for others. Maybe if I was not sick I would not know how to do that.
Not that I have readily accepted the hardships in my life. Not by a long shot. I have had my own sob sessions, wrestling long and hard with God, desperately searching scripture and asking really hard questions. I have waded through grief deeper than I thought I could survive.
The truths I have come to know, and that I shared on that dusty bench in my garage is that whatever trial I am asked to walk through, God will give me the strength to take each step through it. And if a terminal illness is what presses me nearer to his heart and grows my own to love others in a way that I could not have imagined on my own, then that is what is good for me, as well as for those my life intersects with.
Who knows, God may still heal me, but only if healing pushes me further into him. Only if healing accomplishes eternally what terminal illness cannot. These days my prayers are less for the removal of my illness and more for a greater number of days to love God and love people. I continue to press forward and fight toward that end; especially for my husband and my little people.
In the cold quiet of our garage that night, I explained that my present suffering is only going to increase, not ending until my death. Every day I am pressed harder into the story of the gospel, which allows me to fully trust the God who has numbered my days (Job 14:5), and to embrace the future of hope he has planned for me (Jeremiah 29:11). As I thank him for each new day, I search with intention for ways to leave a legacy for my children that will urge them to press into their Father God in their pain; to trust him with their hurt, and believe in him for their future.
My youngest little turned to me a few nights ago and said, “Mom, I want to tell you something, but please promise not to be sad or upset.”
I assured him that I could handle whatever it was that he wanted to share, so he went on.
“When I was at practice today I saw a mom and her little boy on the playground. They were looking for something and then the mom climbed up and went down the slide and something in me triggered. I wanted to fall down on the ground and bang my head and cry.”
He slid his hand into mine, searching my face expectantly for my reaction. I think I did a good job of not betraying the chasm that cracked right through the beating of my heart. I smiled. I thanked him for sharing that with me. I told him I am sorry that his mom can not do a lot of the things other moms can do. We agreed it was hard and sad and unfair. And then I crooked-pinky-promised him that I was going to go down the slide.
Most kids get excited about a play date with friends, a new toy, the weight of a lemonade stand’s worth of quarters in their pocket… at the words that his mom would go down the slide with him, my boy’s face lit up like Christmas morning covered in a blanket of snow. “Actually?!” He beamed. “Absolutely. There are a lot of things I cannot do, but I can figure out how to slide with you.”
So transpired the day that we drove to the park, maneuvered the obstacle course to the top of the slide (because why just have simple stairs?), and made time stand still to the sound of my shoes squeak-clunking down the blue plastic slide that gave my son a moment of the most joyous normal that he could have imagined. He watched me slide, rode on my lap down the slide, and raced me down the double slide.
Even though there will always be things we miss out on together, I pray that every time he sees a slide instead of that painful trigger he will be filled with the memory of the day I said yes to reaching for more, challenging the limits, and grabbing hold of the joy that makes my hard story worth it.
I have not had much strength to write as of late. I do often in my mind; if only my brain came with dictation so I could get it written down. 😊
I am here still warrioring on with each of you who bravely get up each morning and embrace the good and the hard of your own stories.
One small treasure that I have been reminded of in this string of hard-fought days is that thankfulness if the key to peace. When my mind wants to run with with worry, I am practicing replacing those anxieties with thanking my Savior for the miraculous as well as the mundane, and He has been faithful to pour into me a peace too thick, too rich with the serenity of it all that it can only come from Him.
Is the roar of worry drowning out your thoughts? Try it. When anxiety creeps in, start listing the graces of your every day, and you too will find peace.
Before my brain cells even had the time to process the thought, my hand reached for my phone. I thought, “I need help. I will just make a post real quick asking if anyone can trade me shoes.” And then as the final neuron fired to let the thought become whole, I crumbled. Reality caught up. No one can trade shoes with me. These are MY shoes; the shoes I was trusted to wear. They are worn to the shape of my feet, and even those painful blisters they caused have been allowed because it was known that my feet would withstand the wounds.
I peek in on drowsy faces and memorize the tufts of hair and spatters of freckles that move with the rhythm of innocent peaceful sleep. Sleep is such bliss because you forget, and right now they are sleeping peacefully, hopefully dreaming of some beautiful far off land, or another enchanting adventure. Right now they have found solace from reality.
My light burned dim next to my bedside as the night hours stretched one into the next. The quiet of the house invited me to slumber, but the heaviness of my heart would not allow. I thought again on my shoes. This unflattering, beat up pair that I would have never chosen for myself, and yet they are the ones I find myself wearing most often. Even the times I have thought I am done with them, and slipped them into the donate box or the outside trash, they always seem to find their way back to my closet. That’s how I know I cannot simply ask someone to trade with me. No, they are mine to wear.
My mind is wild as I run through all of the possible scenarios for how the day could unfold. There is definitely no thought of sleep. I grasp empty air and plead with my Maker, begging for mercy, for grace, for pardon. He turns my thoughts back to my shoes and how as uncomfortable as they are they have always carried me to my next destination. They have provided shelter from sharp shards meant to slice tender soles, and they have kept me dry when my footsteps skirted troubled waters. These shoes have not always been easy to wear, but He reminds me that He has always given me the strength to do it. He has always filled me with enough to wake up and put on those shoes each next time, and make it each day walking a path I want to run from. His reminders bring peace, and my heavy eyes sleep, escaping the pinching narrow toe of my shoes, and running barefoot along a sandy paradise.
The next morning reality hangs in gray strings of fog from the tree limbs, but I confidently don my shoes. I step toward the hard thing, knowing it’s coming ready or not. That’s when I noticed across the way from me a young woman with frazzled hair and deep pockets of purple beneath her eyes. Her thin body seems to tilt back and forth as if it might fall and shatter at any moment. I almost dismiss her, but I happen to catch a glance beneath her long, dusty skirt the shape of a pair of shoes like mine. The same pinched toes and blistered spots, and while her shoes are not exactly like mine, they are similar enough to know she has been walking a lonely and grueling journey, just like me.
I smiled knowingly at her, and gave her a small fist pump in the air, as if to say, “stay in it! Keep going forward! You’ll get there soon.” And I thrust my pointy toe forward to show her; you were never alone.
Choosing Hope 