The Grief Onion: Getting real

I hugged him tight in a mummy-hold, speaking the words over and over: "It's okay. It's okay. All done! No more hurts." Who knows if any of my meant-to-be-reassuring words actually made it into his head and heart, between my {very} broken Spanish and his incredibly limited English. I do know that he looked up into my eyes with crocodile tears running down his cheeks. As my school clinical day came to an end, I could almost read his thoughts. It's okay? It's NOT okay! It's all done? How do I KNOW it's all done, when you just scooped me up in your lap like we were gonna be the best of friends, then stabbed my finger with a needle? THAT'S not okay!

***What I'm about to share is not meant to elicit pity or even words of advice. I share it to be transparent in a grief journey that is long, rocky, and layered. I share it to encourage and walk alongside those also experiencing grief over the loss of a loved one, whether that loss is recent or years ago.***

I feel like that little guy I wrapped tightly in my arms. I hear Jesus whispering into my broken and battered heart, "Trust me, child...I've got you. It's okay." Meanwhile, my heart screams back, "It's okay?!? It's NOT okay! You've got me?! Well, where were you THEN?" I realized recently that I have never fully allowed myself to be real with God about the pain and hurt I have experienced over losing my dad...Feelings I may even describe as anger and a corroding mistrust in Him. I know it's not healthy to stay in that place. I also know it is not healthy to bury those feelings without ever carrying them to the cross. I have to admit, both to myself AND to God, that I am ANGRY.

It's not FAIR that my little brother doesn't have his dad in the stands at his soccer games, cheering for him and yelling at the refs like all the other dads. It's not FAIR that all my friends will have their dads walk them down the aisle at their weddings, while my sisters and I will walk alone. It's not FAIR that my mom, by no choice of her own, has become a single parent. It's not FAIR that I rarely get through a day without thinking about death or cancer. It's not FAIR that I have forever imprinted memories of my daddy, my knight-in-shining-armor, gasping for breath and slowly losing control over all bodily functions in the last days of his life. It's not fair that my dreams were shattered in one day, with one phone call. It's not FAIR that I am doubly broken and hurt with every new relationship loss and change, simply because I am reminded, once again, that everything on this earth is temporary...especially relationships with the people I have allowed myself to love. It's not FAIR, and there is a part of me, deep inside, that wants to know how God could have thought this was a good plan.

In my opinion, grief is like an onion--layer upon layer must be peeled back and revealed. I'm on the "get-real-with-God" layer. {It's only taken me 2+ years to get there.} Just as I had to hold and rock and whisper comfort into that little boy's heart in order to earn back his trust, I am praying that, as I deal with this layer of the "grief onion," God simply holds me in His arms and reminds me of His forever and unconditional faithfulness. I'm ready to find a new level of wholeness in my relationship with Him as I learn to trust, once again, in His perfect sovereignty.

And for the person reading this who is feeling the same way--Wherever you may be, I am praying the same thing for you. Find healing at the foot of the cross...where Jesus invites us to dump ALL our baggage.

Restless

Do you ever just feel restless? As I grow to know Jesus more and more each day, I better understand this restlessness in me. It used to be a squirming, an uncomfortable longing for something I couldn't even name. It turned into a desire for the beauty, peace, and comfort that always seemed just out of reach. It became a longing for the perfection of a day in heaven, sitting next to my dad and feeling fully satisfied.

I am still restless. I am still "running hard for the other side, the world I've always been denied." There are days when I drive down the road, burdened by emotions and feelings I can't even sort out or explain. I am still trying desperately to find His face in everything, in the mundane, in the joys and aches of everyday living.

Lately, I find this song resounding with my heart. I understand now that, through this restlessness, I am looking for Him...trying to make sense out of this crazy world and the crazy world that is inside of me. On the days when I feel scrambled inside--restless--I pray that He draws me closer to Himself. I pray that, through the incompleteness (or pain, brokenness, heartache...you fill in the blank) of this life, I am reminded of the greater story He is writing, a story that will one day answer this restlessness with everlasting PEACE. Until then, I will always be looking for Him...in the tears, in the monotonous tasks of daily living, in the moments of sipping coffee with dear friends, in the longing for renewed relationship.

Are you looking for Him too?

The Day the World Stopped

My Daddy and I two weeks before He saw Jesus

To be honest, I don't really remember the day I found out my beloved grandmother was dying. Brutal honesty? I had wondered when it would happen for quite some time. Gruesome, I know, but she was pushing 97...and she was oh-so-ready to leave this earth. July 2009. Pancreatic cancer, the devil of all cancers, claimed her earthly body less than a week after she was diagnosed.

Two months later, my dad was diagnosed with the same devil. I do remember that day; I remember like it was yesterday. I remember the terrifying anticipation, knowing that tests were being performed and suspicions had been raised. I remember the tears I wept, against my stubborn will to maintain all composure, as I sat in class waiting for my mom to call with the results. I remember the annoying sympathy, the he'll-be-okay looks and the i-have-no-idea-what-to-do-with-you hugs. All the while, I just wanted to scream, "You have no stinkin' idea the kind of abyss my world is slipping into!"

Then the call came. It was weird. As the words, words I already knew and had rehearsed in my head, came out of my Mom's mouth, an eerie peace sank over me. Resolution gained control over out-of-control emotions. I had to go home, to face the beast head-on. I had to save my Dad, because I knew he was dying.

Ten incredibly short--and yet, brutally long--months later, my Daddy went to be with Jesus. My world stopped. I didn't know how to live, how to have passion and dreams again. I just got out of bed and did meaningless things, watched meaningless movies, said meaningless words. All the while, I wondered why the rest of the world kept going. Didn't everyone else see what had just happened?!? The greatest man I ever knew had left the world, and people were still laughing, still going to the grocery, still saying and doing the wrong things while neglecting the right things.

Sometimes I forget that feeling. Sometimes I forget what it is like to have your world crash while everyone else seems to be living on a bed of roses {even if they are fake}. Today I remembered. Today I remembered, because today I read THIS. A sweet little girl, living on the other side of the country, found out that her respite from a silent evil that had taken root in her head was over. The devil has returned, and although she must cling to hope because sometimes hope is all one has, the odds are not in her favor. Today I remember that feeling...while she and her family are FEELING that feeling. I am sad for them.

While I am sad, I also can't help but wonder if we have it all wrong. You know, we dread death, avoid it like the plague...sometimes avoiding the plague itself with research and drugs and body-disfiguring surgeries. I just wonder, if we saw eternity through God's eyes, would we be working so hard? Probably not, but right now we don't have God's eyes. So tonight I am pleading for God to give this little girl His eyes, or to heal her physical body so that her Mommy and Daddy can blossom under her love a little bit longer...or to do both. All the while, I long to remember that there is always someone around me whose heart has been smashed...could I be the one to take him or her to the Comforter, the Heart-Healer?

Oye.

The dark sky was crystal clear, twinkling with thousands of God-lights. With a mug of steaming tea in one hand, and a sweatshirt in the other (ahem. SWEATSHIRT. alleluia, fall is coming!), I reclined my chair and took the time to soak in the BIGNESS of the sky and the moon. As quickly as it takes for me to fall to my knees, I was once again reminded of my smallness. I am tiny. Nothing. A blip when lined up against the galaxies. But somehow, despite my smallness, God can use me to do BIG things in His larger-than-life story.

Oye. Talk about humbling.

When I think about where He has me, who He has me seeing, touching, speaking to on a daily basis, I am shattered in simultaneous gratitude and fear. How can I EVER fulfill that job description?

I can't. I can't. And it's in that little word that I find my greatest hope. I can't. My back is up against the wall...And I serve a God who is the Master Rescuer, a God who has my back every time.

So, at the end of the day, I'm ready. My BIG God and I can do anything, and as that anything becomes something, His larger-than-life story is written. And somehow, by His overwhelming grace, my name finds its way into the script.

Ever think about that? If you try, your head might hurt. Sometimes all I can say is...

Oye.

He is Enough

Some people meet change in one day, like a quick but delightful coffee date. For others, change comes in a blooming relationship that grows over a lifetime. Jesus changes my life every day.

The story really begins before I was even born, with a man reaching the end of himself and the beginning of what would become a deep and abiding relationship with the God of the universe. It begins with a teenage girl finding her way to the cross, growing to be a woman sold out to Jesus. Two people, falling in love with each other and with the God who ordained their lives before time began. A legacy was born.

I am the child of a legacy, born to parents who love(d) Jesus more than life itself. They set out to do one thing and one thing only with their children: Surrender. Like Hannah with her precious baby boy, Samuel, my parents set me down on the altar of obedience from Day 1. There, the story takes off.

I've loved Jesus for a long time...At least, "loved" the way the world loves. Because you can "love" someone and live unchanged. You can't LOVE someone and live unchanged. I came to Jesus on my own terms, demanding salvation in exchange for partial surrender. I wanted to LOVE life and Jesus. It took a long time for me to realize that Jesus doesn't offer an "entree only" kinda deal. He is the FULL meal...take it or leave it. I just wanted the sandwich.

Then, in contrast to my perfectly perfect world, the unthinkable happened and my world was rocked. My daddy, the one who was the clearest picture of my heavenly Daddy, got sick. Really sick. And suddenly, the world wasn't safe anymore. I didn't LOVE life, because life hated me. And all I had, the only stable thing in my cracked world, was Jesus. He was faithful. I had heard that my whole life, but never was it real in the midst of suffering. Now it was. He was unchangeable. Despite all the lies I had believed my whole life--"It's all gonna be fine"--it was not fine. But He hadn't changed. For the first time, I was forced to accept His terms:

"If anyone wants to come with me, he must deny himself, pick up his cross every day, and follow me continually" (Luke 9:23).

I realized Jesus doesn't call me to safe living. He doesn't allow me to keep my stuff and dreams and desires. He demands that I give it all to Him. Everything. He demands that I live recklessly for the sake of the Gospel. And in return, I get HIM. Not Him AND what He can do for me, just HIM. And He was enough.

He was enough.

Now, every day is a journey into that phrase. Knowing that He is enough, experiencing that He is enough, telling others that He is enough. He has taken my stubborn heart, set on what I want my future to be, and softened it. He took me from, "I will never go to Africa!" to "God, I'll go with you!" From, "I could never live without X," to "Jesus, take away everything but yourself." From, "I can't live without my dad!" to "God, it hurts but YOU ARE ENOUGH."

Nothing else in this world will ever be enough.

Do you believe that He is enough?