This semester I have committed to making space for me throughout the week to worship with others outside of Sunday Church or even my weekly small group.  I have found it is helpful to be around others worshipping as well as giving myself more intentional opportunities to hear the Lord speak to me and my broken heart.  It is an effort to counteract my self preserving coping skill of checking out. What this has looked like for me is attending Wednesday Chapel at Asbury as well as going to the once a month woman's communion evening get together.

Over the semester many times I have found myself walked into Chapel, putting my things down in the pew, and pausing to take a deep breath and let all the little things of life that I am carrying fall off me.  Some of these things include the daily grind of work and my to do list. And instead, I have time and space to lean into the other areas of my life. Likewise woman's communion has been a safe place for me to cry if I need and to process and work through the hard of life.

This week's woman's communion, like so many in the past, did not leave me without tears in my eyes.  This weeks included dinner, so we feasted and talked with others around the table. And then some woman shared their stories with us.  After we heard stories the speaker for the evening had different symbolic items, sea shells, roses, chocolate, etc. that you were instructed to take if what she said was true of you and then we would pray for that group of people that went forward and received the item. One 'grouping" of people were for woman that had lost a child, had concern for a child, grieving for a child, or something along those lines.  Not necessarily your child but a child.

As the speaker was describing this group my lovely friend Kim put her hand on my back.  I do not know why she did but I know that it was an encouragement. In some ways she was giving me permission to get up and get a rose  if I wanted.  I needed permission because I know that I am not a mom and yet that same ache is true for AJ.  Kim's permission and acknowledgement was comforting and validating even though I did not get up to get a rose. 

You see, I could barely get through the description of the "group" of woman without bawling.  If I would have stood up and walked over to take a rose I am sure I would have made a scene. So I sat and held it until about half way through the prayer. When I could no longer hold onto my grief.  Both Kim and Marcie cried with me and loved me in that moment.  One of the woman in my Staff group from work came and gave me a flower after the prayer as she had known I could not get one myself.  And in some ways I did not feel I deserved a flower.

Lately it seems my grief is bubbling to the surface and in society it is not acceptable to just burst out into tears and yet, woman's communion marked the third time in less than a week that this was true of me. I guess, as they say, such is life.

I am thankful for these moments that others can show me God's grace and love when I am unable to extend it to myself.

Just A Memory

The question of whether or not I did enough or was there enough for AJ continues to come up and I battle with myself knowing it is a part of the grief process and that I cannot be so hard on myself.  And yet, those desires and dreams that I had for AJ and the time, love, and hope that I wish I had a chance to extend to AJ in greater depth, can no longer take place.

Just the week before AJ's death we were all in Arizona for the 2nd half of Christmas break.  I am very thankful for that week hanging out with my family.  There are several great memories from that week but one that sticks out in my head is when Brian and I went with AJ to the mall to spend his Christmas money.

He had his eye on new clothes and shoes.  He as ever teenager does, knows exactly the kind of clothes they want and where to get them.   AJ bought a pair of pants and a t-shirt and then we headed off to other stores to look for a specific kind of shoe he wanted. He only had so much Christmas money left so we searched a few different places before we found some that he wanted and I decided that I wanted to help him pay for them.

You know the natural teenage boy response of indifference or entitlement? Neither of those were a part of his attitude or demeanor that day. Instead in all sincerity he double checked that I was sure and didn't mind covering the cost of the rest of the shoe. His face in that moment as he asked me is engraved in my mind.

So much of my heart for AJ has always been to meet every need he had if I could.  I show people love through meeting their needs.    I am so grateful that I said yes when I felt that tug to meet that need and to extend grace and love to AJ in that tangible way.

I cannot even imagine not having that clear recent memory and experience with him.  I know that I showed him love in that moment but more importantly I know that he knew he was loved by me.

The upward battle

This week I am weary from the upward battle I am fighting in so many areas of my life. I have been feeing the affects of this walk up this hill for a while but this week I have needed a break.

From grief, injustice (in general in life because my personality values that so much), relationships (both good and not so good or forced), work frustrations, to even the simplest of things that should cause me joy like gardening, nothing is happening without a fight.  Not that I expect everything to be great, its hard when you are in the middle of something so consuming and so important like grief to understand or juggle the other crap of life with a good attitude. I shouldn't have to work at getting a tiller to borrow.  I shouldn't have to feel forced to relate to people in a certain way but should be able to connect with people naturally. Relationships with people should be out of caring for one another not governed by expectations.

I managed to make it to Thursday.  I say make it because that is how it feels.  I am making it.  And so most of the time I feel like checking out.  My intentionality in the way that I love and serve others has
been work, instead of something that naturally flows out of who I am during this season.  I know it is why I take it more personally when what I can give (in all of the areas of my life) is not enough or if the effort that it takes for me to be present in other areas of my life is not acknowledged but taken advantage of.

I think its that point in the grief process that people have moved on while your still stuck right where you were 3 months ago when your world changed forever. People still ask how you are, but they ask in the simplest form of that phrase not out of really wondering if you are doing okay with the loss that you are inevitably still working through.

God sees me in my grief.  He really sees me. And when I want to give up he reminds me that I am not alone.  And for my not so healthy coping skill of checking out, he shows me love through someone tangible.

God's grace and love today is my wonderful friend and co-worker who gave me a hug.  Not that I communicated I needed a hug but because she felt the heavy heart I have been caring with me.
 She let me cry without expecting an explanation. And when I described the upward battle she responded with, "I will sit with you on this hill".  She will sit on the rock that's on the path up this hill mountain  that I am climbing and she will love me even in my ugliness and sadness.  She is allowing me to sit in my sadness and not have any expectations to keep going or give her anything.

 And for this, I am ever so grateful and thankful. Because like everyone else in the world, I am a mess.  Its just at this point in my life my mess feels like its seeping out of every crack of my life.  And its ugly.  Its disappointing. Its hard. And yet I am loved.

Worthy of Trust

A quote from the book The Hardest Peace:

God’s purposes in present grief may not be fully known in a week, in a year, or even in this lifetime. Indeed, some of God’s purposes will not even be known when believers die and go to be with the Lord. Some will only be discovered at the day of final judgement when the Lord reveals the secrets of all hearts and commends with special honour those who trusted him in hardship even though they could not see the reason for it: they trusted him simply because he was their God and they knew him to be worthy of trust. It is in times when the reason for hardship cannot be seen that trust in God alone seems to be most pure and precious in his sight. Such faith he will not forget, but will store up as a jewel of great value and beauty to be displayed and delighted in on the day of judgment.

 Wayne Grudem, The First Epistle of Peter

Dreams Die

It's weird how much of a tendency we have at wanting to hurry through the pain. Sometimes we put up the walls and or try and skip right over the mess. You can close the door but every time you open it and look out to see if the pain has gone it will always be there. The only way is through it. Pain is not fun. Vulnerability is not the easiest.

When my mom died I put a wall up and moved on only to find that I had put a wall so big around my heart that I wasn't being vulnerable with anyone in my life not even God.

 

This time around, in an effort to keep moving through pain and not hurrying through it I have been writing and sharing more of my heart than I have in a while. I do not want  all of the hard work that I did in 2014 to be forgotten and I do not want to return to that state of living.

And yet, its been weeks of processing before I could sit and finish this post.  Its real and its hard.  And typing it, reading it, and saying it out loud is even tougher. I did not know what to title this post and I am not sure I even like the title.

One main theme that I am realizing and still trying to put my head around is that dreams die. 

 

The night AJ died, some of my dreams and desires and things that I was excited for died with him. I know that I have shared a little or with some, losing AJ triggered a sibling loss but also a maternal loss. I know that I do not have kids and cannot really understand, but I know that AJ being 10years younger and with my mom dying when he was only 12, the maternal loss is there. 

 

Just last year about this time we were having discussions on if AJ should come and live with Brian and I. And I had kind of made up my mind that if the opportunity/discussion came came up again, I would not hesitate. I wanted more for AJ. And I wanted to try and give him all that I could. He had a rough go at it since mom died and I wanted my chance at helping, because I loved him. Not because I had all of the answers or even could imagine all of the hard that would have come if AJ had come to live with us.  But I loved him and out of that love I would have given anything to aid him. Brian and I never got that chance to welcome him into our home.  That has been and is still one of the hardest things that both Brian and I are walking through. 

 

But as we were talking about the possibility, I as many of you do too, dream up what could be. I dreamed up what life could have been like. Now please know, while I dreamed, I knew it wouldn't be easy and it would  change my relationship with AJ. But I dreamed that he could come and live here. We could sit on the couch and read together. Something we both enjoy. We could work in the garden together, make dinner together, and we would even teach him how to drive.  Maybe run track at the high school and I would go watch him run. He could mow lawns here or work somewhere in our small town. We could play softball at the field right by our house or ride bikes around town.  He could go with me to watch Sully and Harmon on Sunday nights. 

 

The possibilities of shared time together were endless.  You see that was what I would have given him, time.  AJ needed time, love, and an invitation into healing.  That's all I had to give but I knew that if I was present that it would be okay no matter what obstacles would inevitably come up.

Even when he didn't come and move here and I had come to peace with that, I still dreamed for him.  I dreamed of him graduating high school, going into the military, and then to college.  I dreamed and prayed for the same dreams that he had wanted for his life. 

But dreams die.  And three months ago, Monday, these dreams died.