Small portions of belonging

"You never belong until you believe you do. And it’s only when you believe you belong, that you believe you are beautiful." (Ann Voskamp, guest posting for Lisa-Jo Baker, "The Gypsy Mama")

Sitting on the dugout bench at a baseball game, alone on the far edge, listening to the jokes the boys made of my hairy legs. Not having the bravery to join in my brothers' latest exploit, and that sense of dread mixed with shame like an angry sea roiling inside me. Playing with my dolls all alone, creating a fantasy land where I belonged and others belonged to me.

But worst were the whispers of an abuser who told me I was "different", "weird", "disgusting", that the world would be better off without me. 

When your soul is still a blank slate, those words begin to define you. Deep-seated self-hatred and self-doubt lead to misery even on the best of days. Sing-song of the schoolyard on which I was also a foreigner - homeschooled before the cool kids did it - "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." Sing-song of the tormented lobbed back at tormenter as she stitches another plate of armor around her soul. 

Maybe it should be sung, "Stick and stones may break a bone, but words will never leave me."

20 years later, I am waving goodbye to 10 years of friendships that are now in the rearview mirror. If I had difficulty trusting before, it is almost impossible now. Relationships become a constant waiting game, anticipating you leaving me. It is only in pairs that I can relax, breathe, open up the armor and let you in.

It has been said that belonging is our foundational need. Perhaps being grown up is realizing that belonging happens in small slices. It is not a universal experience that occurs in every group, every team, every congegration. The few that have known you and loved you anyway give you enough belonging to float through seasons of isolation.

And there's always the hope, hanging like a juicy carrot, perhaps unrealized until our final breath - for the time when 

...you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility...that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace... And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (exc. Ephesians 2, ESV)

"Belong"

We belong to the light, we belong to the thunder

We belong to the sound of the words we've both fallen under

Whatever we deny or embrace for worse or for better

We belong, we belong, we belong together

~Pat Benatar~

Safe to shore

We've walked the rocky shore, my hand in yours, and yours is steady and steadies mine. In your embrace, I climb up from the dark abyss to reality, rappelling up on your love and your brokenness over my despair. You've been my strong fortress in times of war, my adviser in times of conflict, my voice of reason in times of foggy confusion. You are my peace, my warrior, my prince, my passion, my pride, my constant source of those glittering glimpses of joy on a joyless landscape.

It's the 11th Valentine's Day, and we've already given each other our gifts. Utilitarian givers we are, you give me wool and I give you a beard trimmer and we smile like kids in a candy store. There is no fading of this love, only a deepening saturation of trust and truth and triumph over trouble. The naysayers are long gone and have forgotten our 17 day engagement. When you know, you know - and neither of us were wrong about each other. At least I hope you would say the same, after cancer, career changes, church pain, depression, and all those days spent at our daughter's hospital bedside praying fervently for healing.

Are you a saint? Can an ordinary man be a minister unfailing to his broken other half? You hold out Words from Scripture like pearls in a black velvet box. You are my record-keeper, remembering all the good times when I am drowning in a sea of amnesia. You draw me back to shore, the shore where every stone is balanced perfectly on it's neighbor, like the memories balanced between good and bad. We lie down together in the curve of the agate earth, listen to the waves crash in toward us in the dark. We are safe on shore, our stories tangled up in each other like your legs and mine nesting against the beach. You've reeled me in again from disaster, and I lean hard on your warm shoulder.

My haven, my heaven on earth, my husband.

I don't like walking around this old and empty house

So hold my hand, I'll walk with you, my dear

The stairs creak as you sleep, it's keeping me awake

It's the house telling you to close your eyes

Some days I can't even trust myself

It's killing me to see you this way

'Cause though the truth may vary

This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

There's an old voice in my head that's holding me back

Well tell her that I miss our little talks

Soon it will be over and buried with our past

We used to play outside when we were young

And full of life and full of love.

Some days I don't know if I am wrong or right

Your mind is playing tricks on you, my dear

Don't listen to a word I say

The screams all sound the same

You're gone, gone, gone away

I watched you disappear

All that's left is the ghost of you.

Now we're torn, torn, torn apart,

There's nothing we can do

Just let me go we'll meet again soon

Now wait, wait, wait for me

Please hang around

I'll see you when I fall asleep

~Of Monsters and Men, Little Talks~

As an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the young men. With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand embraces me! My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away, for behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come..." (excerpted from Song of Solomon 2:3-12 ESV)

Trust at the hitching post

Back and forth goes the brush, smoothing months of winter tangles on the back of a young horse. My friend is patient, gentle. The horse stands still at the post, soaking up the love.

There is no "trust" that compares to the relationship between a girl and her horse. He is tamed by her affection. She is tamed by his willing heart.

I have been the brute beast tangled in winter's coat, protecting myself from the cold. Softly, tenderly, you draw me out into the vulnerable places, the painful places. Brushing through all these tangles is hard work. But you are teaching me to stand still at the post, to feel your love in the brushing, to wait for that moment we can walk together as one.

When my soul was embittered,when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you. Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For behold, those who are far from you shall perish; you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all your works. (Psalm 73:21-28 ESV)

Yes, my heart and flesh may fail, but, my God, you never will. I am just old enough now to know that I have nothing mastered, despite previous suppositions. Just old enough to see that faith is an iceberg, and I am precariously perched on the narrow top although there is a deep foundation I will not see this side of heaven. When the doubts come, when I am stuck in the "not good enough" and "better off without me" trains of thought, I must remember the vastness of what you've built in me, even if it is submerged under your ocean of Grace and invisible to me. It is there, that foundation. Oh, soul, cling! Cling to the promises, for a new day is coming!

I need you to soften my heart

to break me apart

I need you to open my eyes

to see that you're shaping my life

All I am

I surrender

Give me faith to trust what you say

that you're good and your love is great

I'm broken inside, I give you my life

I need you to pierce through the dark

and cleanse every part of me

I may be weak

but Your spirit's strong in me

My flesh may fail

My God you never will

~Give Me Faith, Elevation Worship~

What I forgot to ask for this Christmas

It pays to open up your heart just a crack. Christmas knocks, and you can open up and let the spirit in or ignore that something that really matters is at the door. My heart was raw this year and not ready to be knocked on. But something made me go to the door. And what I found in the cold winter air outside that door was balm. Balm for the hurting soul. Balm for the discouraged. Balm for the weary. Children laughing. Friendships forming before my very eyes. I want to shut my eyes. I don't want to see. Because I am grown-up and I know that pain follows pleasure sometimes. The post-holiday doldrums might side-swipe you if you open your heart up even a crack for Christmas. For joy. For beauty.

But I watch these people, these people who are living out Christmas, who are living out their calling. They are doing it right among my children. Can I really stop seeing, blindfold myself to these people, just because other people have smiled like this, have lived out Christ with me, have lived out their calling for my children, for me, and then walked away without a word? How do you drop your guard when it's a shield permanently affixed on your heart, riveted there by fear and pain?

Grace. It floods in the cracked door. It rips off the blindfold. It pierces a little hole in the shield riveted there on my heart. Because Christmas...it's the baby born. It's hope reborn. It's redemption, which means beauty from ashes, repurchase of the damaged goods. And if I can be redeemed, then relationships can be, too. These people could be my people. 

I look at my 7 year old daughter's Christmas list. She wants a box of bandaids. Some new pants. A note pad. But she also wants a Kindle HD. My Christmas list is the box of bandaids, the new pants, the note pad. I didn't write down the Kindle HD. Because for a minute I forgot to believe in big Grace. I don't want to ask for the impossible, the improbable, the difficult. I just ask for the littlest things I need. The bandaid for the broken heart. The clothes for my battered body. The note pad on which to scribble down gifts through tears to try and drag my sinking ship out of the dark waters of the past.

But what I really want, really need, is the Kindle. The unexpected, the impossible, the expensive Grace.  Put back together this broken heart. Teach me to trust again. Not just You, Lord. People. Help me trust people. That's what's really at the top of my list. It's almost the end of the year. Year two of the guarded me. Can you help me drop my guard, loosen this shield over my heart, heal me in 2013?

A red-haired legacy

She asked me months ago, when it was just a feeling in her bones - intuition that something wasn't right. She wanted portraits taken. Live in living color portraits of a woman in her 40s who's overcome just about every kind of suffering a woman could endure. A gift for her boy. Her son reminds me constantly throughout the photo shoot that photographers in Germany used to stop her on the street to ask her to model for them. She still has all that model flair - the perfected far-off half-smile, the statuesque posture, the way to tilt your head just right to seduce someone right through the camera lens.

Years ago, she was a battered wife. Then a homeless divorcée, living in shelters with her little boy and on the run from an abusive past. Somewhere along the line, she found Jesus. And although she is a skeptic among the best of us, when the tests and trials come, it is verses and prayer she murmurs under her breath, a little German lullaby she sings aloud when she is faced with a medical procedure and as scared as a child. She is as stubborn and strong as any German, fire-cracker personality to match her red hair, enough character in her little finger to intrigue people for decades of friendship.

These photos aren't about capturing her beauty. They are a legacy for a son. Just floundering through the speed bumps and detours of his 18th year, he's not afraid to kiss him mam while the camera clicks. You must have gotten it right, I think, for a son to be like this when he's more scared then he's ever been before. He isn't pulling away, insulating himself from fear, laughing life away so he can cope.

He's feeling every heavy moment, soaking up every piece of advice, learning to cook potato soup to care for his mom after a painful biopsy.

She worries she hasn't taught him the important things - where to pay the bills every month, how to get money out of the trust for the property taxes every year. But what she has taught him are the things that remain, even if bills go unpaid and taxes are forgotten and he were to lost all he would inherit, financially speaking. She's taught him faith, hope and love. 

She wakes up in the morning wondering, "is this day I'm going to die?" I remember those days...the days of waiting for test results, the uncertainty about surgery, the wondering how many years I had left to feed my babies from my soul, my life experience, all the things I wanted to tell them before my voice went silent forever.

But I also know that a bad day - even a bad season - does not mean you've had a bad life.

I know that there has never been a day I've been alive that I could wake up in the morning and say for absolutely certain that I'd be alive still at bedtime. It is appointed unto us once to die...only He knoweth the hour... (Hebrews 9:27a & Matthew 24:36)

I know that when the cracks of our broken heart grow bigger and wider, He pours of Himself in to fill us up, until we are saturated with such Grace that beauty sparkles from every dank corner of life and, through the worst of life's situations, we are given eyes to behold the majesty and wonder of life, loss, living.

These aren't lessons I can preach. They're only lessons I can live out in broad daylight for her to see. I see her, through my lens, just being a mama. Giving advice to her son. Accepting his love, so freely given when just weeks ago they were at odds. I see the beauty sparkling. I see already the beauty for ashes, though she might not yet. I see her edges growing softer. She is luminous in her softness. A heart bent to submit to whatever plan God has in this worst of times. A mother any son would be blessed to have, for whatever amount of time God allots.

Though the Lord is exalted, He looks kindly on the lowly;

though lofty, He sees them from afar.

May they sing of the ways of the Lord, for the glory of the Lord is great.

With Your right hand you have saved me.

Though I walk in the midst of darkness, You will preserve my life.

Your love, O Lord, endures forever --

Do not abandon the works of your hands! 

(from Psalm 138)

Letter to Aaron: Past Lovers

There's a cost to sacrificing purity. Shadows in the dark, shadows in the light. A brick and mortar building, 1970's white and red, squat little construction houses memories and ghosts I can't exorcise by willpower alone. He has them too, my lover, my husband, old memories of relationships past that rise up occasionally, and we talk about these, sometimes angrily, or regretfully, at times mournfully. It is so with consequences, bleeding into the present in unpredictable ways. And for all that lack of purity in days gone by, there is a deeper sense of appreciation for what is shared now between us. Still a knowing of what was lost in the folly of youth. We both ache to know what became of those we loved and lost, those we wounded and walked away from, those who scarred us and scavenged our souls and scurried off into the dark of unknown tunnels of labyrinths of their own making.


How were we spared the downward spiral paired to the acerbic slow death conjugated to troubled souls?

It is like a bad habit kicked, the bad taste still rising in your mouth unbidden, the occasional urge to taste the bitterness again, to know what became of those mistakes made, those people paired with, to see where life has taken them to while we have escaped the shipwreck and found the shore and made a home there.

We grit teeth and turn stoic from questions without answers, offer a quick prayer for those we can't reach out to, for they are like fire to our kindling souls still, and instead we cling to each other and purity restored, and to a few simply verses from II Timothy 2, repeating them like a mantra in the dark night, stilling the long twilight of questions and doubt:

Now in a large house there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also vessels of wood and of earthenware, and some to honor and some to dishonor. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work. Now flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. But refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels. The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.

I lit a fire with the love you left behind,

And it burned wild and crept up the mountainside.

I followed your ashes into outer space

I can't look out the window,

I can't look at this place,

I can't look at the stars,

They make me wonder where you are

Stars,

Up on heaven's boulevard

And if I know you at all,

I know you've gone too far

So I, I can't look at the stars

~Stars, Grace Potter & the Nocturnals~

Linked to an old meme from Amber & Seth Haines

Breathless

I apologize for the lapse here on the blog. The last few days have seen my descent into a new and difficult health trial and I've been simply treading water in bed. I had a blast helping out with games at the kids' vacation Bible school this Sunday and Monday, but with a bad cold already on board, and just off the heels of a double pneumonia late in June/early July, I knew I would pay for the extra energy expenditure! What I didn't know was exactly how much! While, last night finally saw me back in the ER looking for help breathing, as I had been coughing and gasping almost non-stop for 24 hours and the oral meds given me by my doctor to treat an amazingly horrific case of bronchitis were not helping. After some new-to-me nebulizer breathing treatments and a shot of IV steroids, I was feeling well enough to head home. This morning I am facing a whole host of new medications to juggle to keep my breathing normal, all on my daughter's 9th birthday. Add to this the fact that both my grandmother and mother struggled with debilitating and life-changing asthma for much (or all) of their adult lives - I am a weepy, exhausted mess! I am repeating one of my favorite verses in times like these - "what time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee" (Psalm 56:3) - each and every time the emotion drowns me on the spot. I can do little about the tsunami of emotions - especially on the heavy-duty emotional rollercoaster cocktail of steroids and nebulizer treatments! - but I can change my attitude and take on a posture of dependence on God, who knows all my tomorrows and has laid out the perfect plan if only I have the courage to step into it.

What the landscape looks like in black night - even lit by the presence of Christ as we navigate the fog - may change drastically when the morning comes again. I took these nearly identical photos one foggy 24 hours last week - one during the darkness of night under a full moon, and one around 5 a.m. as the dawn was just wrapping it's violet fingers around our side of the world. How much less sinister the world looks when we have walked through the dark tunnel to the other side!

I was also brought encouragement from a short devotional circulated the first day of VBS - more reassurance that this new church has a different and healthy grasp on the role of suffering in the life of the Christian. I share it here as I have spent the little energy I had for typing. If you get the chance, please once again lift my health up for prayer. It will be a difficult few weeks clawing out of the poor state my lung health has declined to, and probably a few months of vigorous rehab and treatment to get me back to baseline.

Session 1: I Am with You

God is with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Daniel 3:1, 4-28

What do you believe about God when everything’s going your way? How about when you’re in the midst of life’s worst-case scenarios? When a job is lost, dreams are shattered, or severe illness strikes, maybe you believe God is right there with you. Or maybe you think God has deserted you.

Look again at how Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego responded to a potentially life-ending worst-case scenario and you’ll discover what they believed about God. These three young men took a stand for God that would potentially end their lives. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego knew that God was able to save them, but they also realized that He might not choose to. Whatever the outcome, they knew God was with them.

Although we know God can do anything, the Bible never promises us an escape hatch from trouble. While you may feel abandoned by God while going through the depths of suffering and loss, the truth is, you can have confidence in God’s promise—He is with you before, during, and after any trouble that comes your way.

Whatever you do to the least of these: Shunning Part 1

A friend loves at all times,

and a brother is born for adversity.

Proverbs 17:17

Every time they fight, I remind them, "Don't forget. Your sister is your best friend, and she will be for the rest of your life." This has always been true. But never more true than the past two years.

I left the church silently and by increments between age 14 and age 18 due to the child abuse I suffered in the church. I didn't walk through church doors again until my brother, part of a college church plant, begged me to bring my piano fingers to his band in 2001, when I was 22. I didn't start attending on a regular basis until my first child was a toddler, when I was 26. And I didn't open my heart to others at a church until I was 28 and diagnosed with cancer. Still, I held people at arms length. I felt like their prayers and their support were conditional, as though I was often in the position of supporting them emotionally rather than vice versa. Something finally changed around 2009, when God sent two particular women I never would have pictured being friends with into my church and I dropped my guard. And so, 16 years after I started holding everyone at arms length, I finally held someone close again. I opened up my home. I went into homes. I even napped at a friend's home. I spent long lazy afternoons with friends. It was one golden year of Christian community.

And then the other shoe dropped. Accused of a sin neither my husband nor I felt convicted of committing, we were slowly but surely expelled from our community in a cloud of foggy accusations coupled with affirmations of conditional love - if only we would repent, we would be welcomed back with open arms.

When all was said and done, the entire church was instructed to completely avoid us - in person, online, on Facebook - even to stop reading my blog. We found ourselves completely alone. We used to entertain frequently. We were left with no one to entertain. One by one, our friends dropped out of our lives, some with painful goodbyes, some with a simple "unfriending" on Facebook and silence. Many nights, when we went into the children's room for evening prayers, we had to deliver the news that another family that included some of their closest friends had chosen to stop contact with our family. There are no words for how devastating those conversations were - for us as parents, or for them as children. How do you explain to children - ages 6, 5, 4 and 2 - that their friends can't be their friends anymore, simply because we no longer attend the same church? Because their parents think that Mama and Papa did something sinful?

We brainstormed together, with the kids. We joined a 4-H club. We signed them up for summer ball clubs. We go to homeschool events and weekly homeschool physical education and swimming classes. We called neighbors to try to establish more regular visits. But there is only one set of homeschooling neighbors - and their girls are 5 and 8 years older than my eldest. There is only one other family in the neighborhood - all boys, and their parents prefer to be left to themselves, like a lot of people who choose to live in the country. Two years have gone by, and none of my children have a single friend within their age group outside our family. Not one.

I've watched my children hide themselves in public, draw themselves inward. Try to blend in. Hide their individuality under a facade of "sameness". Listen for a long time and then try to strike up conversations around what they've heard the other kids talking about. They're afraid to be outsiders. Individuals. Free thinkers. I hate that. I hate what this has done to them. They have always been free spirits. I don't ever want them to feel like they need to conform to make friends. I also see them turning into loners, kind of like me. My oldest daughter especially has a "devil may care" attitude about friendships these days. Who needs 'em? If they don't need me, I'm fine without them, I can see it in her face. At her coach pitch games, she's a star athlete, and she should be one of the crowd. But the rest of her team is joking around on the bench, and she stands hugging the fence, intent on the action, ignoring their antics. Building up her walls. I want to go in there with a sledgehammer and break down her walls and show all of them her beautiful, tender, intelligent, funny heart. I want her to whip out one of her hilarious accents for them, or tell her to do one of her practical jokes. Because she'd make a great friend! The truth is, she has to work through the wounds inflicted on her just like I have to work through mine. And I have to remember that God can heal her just like He can heal me.

We're part of a church now. Real members. We plan to be there for a long time. The youth ministry is thriving, and the kids are happy with the size of their classes. They talk a lot about the loud, rowdy boys. I have one friend from "before church" who attends there, and there's hope for an emerging friendship with her family. Will it materialize? Can I overcome my fear of developing another friendship within the context of church, where I've been burned so badly twice now? Last time it took me 16 years to overcome my doubts and fears. I simply can't afford so long a healing this time around. I owe it to my kids to trust God again sooner. But the heart is slow to do what the mind may quickly realize.

I still have this question: are church friends really friends? Friends who love at all times? Wouldn't a true friend love me when I'm sinning, wouldn't a true friend love me no matter where I go to church? Wouldn't a true friend understand how deeply and irrevocably shunning damages me and, even more importantly, my tender and innocent children?

And deep in my heart, the most painful question is: if you can't love these kids of mine, these sweet, funny, endearing, beautiful, gregarious kids of mine, how could you possibly love me?

The friends that by God's grace are left - the "brothers born for adversity" - sisters and cousins.

This week, we're going to take a deeper look at the practice of shunning in the Christian church. You'll hear a little more about my experience, along with the experiences of several guest writers who have their own stories to tell. What have your experiences been with shunning in the church? Have you been shunned? Have you ever participated in shunning someone? What is your take on Matthew 18? Have you ever thought about how shunning affects children?

If you'd like to join, link up with a post old or new about your own experience with shunning in the church below. Please include the community graphic in your post so we can find each other.

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Springing into trust

lost in the noise,

bird songs lilting,

frog croaking cloys

in night air, I'm God-song sifting.

rocks silent yet -

proof we have praised -

bare feet, grass wet

in early spring, these glory days.

sky summer blue,

my sun warmed face

lifted to You,

I pause in the midst of the race.

the frogs trust You,

while I think snow -

the sparrows too,

those who neither spin nor sow.

so I lift hands,

close eyes to sky,

help for doubting

help me be no Peter, denying.

bolster faith through beauty

hedge me behind,

before, light sky

with promise, clouds silver-lined.

Coping with the everyday after bad news

I can't hear the words to music. It seems like such a small inconvenience, but, to someone who loves music as I do, who goes through each day to an internal soundtrack of songs, it's a pretty big deal. My thoughts drift to hearing aids. I wonder if they would help. At this point, I don't even really know what my long-term options are as we still aren't sure why I've lost some of my hearing or whether or not it will come back.

I look at the hearing aid case at the doctor's office, and I see some of them look just like earrings. So that's pretty cool.

My counselor asks how I'm handling all of this, and I guess I am handling it well. My emotions are raging (thanks in part to the steroids), but I'm living with my emotions without freaking out or reverting to my old habits of harmful coping skills. I haven't said the "c" word in front of the kids. I know it will be hard for them on the 21st, if the MRI shows cancer and I go right to surgery. But at this point, just a week after we heard "remission", I think it would be worse to worry about it for the intervening two weeks. So, to some extent, I'm dealing with the darkest of the worries on my own.

I crave your prayers - that my hearing might be restored, that they will find and treat the cause, that I don't have another kind of cancer. Thank you for all the love you've poured out on me over the past week since this trial hit. I am blessed more than you know.

Hollow eyes

Eyes of glass

matte paper projector screen

with the scenes playing from the inside

I remember too much

and now I can't scream

Got to take it in stride

Flash back to seven

flash back to blood

flash back to lies

as I held back the flood

I was the child with thumb in dike

I was the girl with banana seat bike

One day I "fell on it" and bled so much

I remember doctor's cold gloves

indignity of exam

Private places

empty spaces

filled with pain

never the same

I try to cry, scream, swear, weep

I try hardest to go to sleep

To walk the halls of unconscious mind

like the Oreo lost in the bottom of the milk glass

I dive in and I'm sinking fast

I just go looking for someone to believe in me

Cover up the scarlet letter

Wrap me up in robes

Lead me out trembling

If only I could say (like He did)

"It is finished."

Flip the switch.

Go back to life.

Have eyes that see instead of flash fear reflection.

I can't say "it is finished"

friends, family circle shields

and tell me no

tell evil where to go

Hide knives and pill bottles

I stifle

and shiver cold

And dive instead

of death and her freedom

into small joys

swing on the swingset

paint a new picture

develop some film

Try to regrow life from a hollow soul.
Try to remember why I want to age out slow.

This is a video portrayal of my Gratitude List for this week.

Excerpted from my Gratitude Journal #568-600:
#569 Friends who come over in the middle of the night
#574 Being allowed to have a pencil
#577 Despair - yet huddling like the chick
I am under His wings
#581 Forgiveness given freely
#583 Cheerful night nurse - swapping night shift stories
#587 the sweet childish "I think I like you very much" from the autistic woman who doesn't speak
#596 A sermon that splays me wide open
#601 That God uses me, least of all His children, to speak the Gospel to broken people. 5 people accept salvation and I give away 3 Bibles in 14 days at the hospital

What the silence speaks

I'm going to put this in writing. Because I trust that someone out there has felt this way, needs to read this, needs to hear that someone else is in the same lonely place. Because writing it somehow brings the breath back into lungs spasming and the light back into eyes behind those squeezed-tight eyelids. Because I know somewhere someone else is crying out for help from Jesus as they put brick upon brick, slap mortar, build build build walls and hope they're invisible walls, walls nobody can see and will keep you safe in here forever. Because, if you read that I am right here, where you are feeling all alone, then you will know the truth - you who are like me, and not alone - and the truth will set you free. (John 8:32)

Don’t let your bones turn to stone

Cause you’re feeling so alone

Just keep on walking

Don’t count the miles

That you’ve climbed

Make you go blind

Cause baby there’s something to find

Let it cover you with grace

Let it take you from this place

~from Oasis, Grace Potter~

Grace. Grace. Grace. The name of my favorite singer at the moment. The name of my favorite blogger at the moment. The name of the book on my nightstand. You get the picture: it's showing up everywhere. Except I don't understand grace, I don't often offer it, I can't wrap my arms around it.

Part of me just wants to say what I'm saying out loud to everyone: I'm fine. I'm alright (that's a Wisconsin favorite). Nope, nothing's wrong.

I've worked my whole life to have a serene face. (A college professor who worked on a reservation for decades called it "typical Native American stoicism".) Is it really worth it to let it crumble now? I vacillate. I can't decide. If I worked at it, I know I could stop that one cheek muscle from twitching when I want to cry, and turn the flesh back into stone, and probably someday I'd even be able to cover up the pain again with quirky stories and sarcastic jokes. I know, because I already tried that method of dealing with what's boiling up inside right now.

What if I don't talk because the words just don't come. I don't have a name for the emotions I'm feeling these days anyway, I don't have a word for this mood, I can't explain why I feel the way I feel. I don't know if it's right or wrong to feel this way.

Looking up into hope.
An ordinary silo turns sunlight into turquoise.

Everything feels wrong.

I think it just boils down to being in too vulnerable a place, too weak a place, to put things out there into this world. For now I just need to hold it in my heart where just God and I can see it, and He can speak truth. Everything I hear and see and do just feels tainted. Like it might all just go up in smoke if I even recognize it's presence. Like it's all lies. Like I can't distinguish, in those spoken words, what is true and what is false.

If I didn't have kids, I'd run away to the mountains and get my head straight in a big pile of snow and some very thin air. But I do have kids.

If I didn't have a husband, I'd probably stay up all night and zone out in front of a couple of movies. Or finish that 300 page book on my bedside table. But I do have a husband.

If I didn't have things that needed accomplishing, I'd probably crawl into bed and stay there with my eyes shut for a few days. But I do have things to accomplish.

If I didn't...didn't...didn't.

But I do, I do, I do. You have hedged me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me. (Psalm 139:5) He has walled me in so I cannot escape; he has weighed me down with chains. (Lamentations 3:7)

I look back and I can't go back there. I look forward and I have no idea which path to choose.

And yet...a glimmer now and then. I drove home tonight with the music blaring until my eardrums hurt, and I did hear truth and, just for a moment, hope bled through the black.

What will come of us today?

What we need we cannot say

It’s been a long long time since I’ve been so afraid

And as we all fall down it’s hard

to see a brighter day, but

I see a tiny light

Like a flashbulb sparkle in the night

I see a tiny light

Telling everyone to hold on tight

What will come of all our pride?

This house of stone is crumbled from the inside

It’s been a long long war, now the battle’s drawing near

Closer and closer ’til it whispers in my ear.

Bring me back to the streets of gold,

Give me something warm to hold

Give me love and only love

And you will see it shining from above

I see a tiny light

But it’s not gonna shine without a fight

The voice in the wind

I stand alone with arms outstretched in the summer field on the prairie, watching the storm roll in. I am pelted with the rain drops driven before the wind. The grass bends over in submission to it. Stand, or run?

In joy and in pain, I hear the bittersweet strains of the symphony of life, and I bend my head and close my eyes and keep on clinging to the hand of the One who guides me. Tears fall on my feet sometimes. Sometimes I am laughing.

Always, in the wind, I hear another voice, the voice that calls me to doubt, to fear, to flee, to protect myself, to shut down and to give up. But even when He isn't speaking, there is always the warmth of that hand gripping mine, the presence of the Holy Spirit, the comfort that says there is nothing on earth I have ever to fear again.

Bring me joy, bring me peace

Bring the chance to be free

Bring me anything that brings You glory

And I know there'll be days

When this life brings me pain

But if that's what it takes to praise You

Jesus, bring the rain

I am Yours regardless of

The dark clouds that may loom above

Because You are much greater than my pain

You who made a way for me

By suffering Your destiny

So tell me what's a little rain

So I pray

Holy, holy, holy

Is the Lord God Almighty

~ Bring the Rain, MercyMe ~

I will not give up.

I will not be afraid.

I will not defend myself.

I will keep putting one foot in front of the other.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. (from Romans 8)

The last best day

Have you ever experienced the sharp intake of breath as you revel in a moment of pure joy and beauty...and fall like a roller-coaster car over the precipice of anxiety as you wonder if this will last? Anything can be a last, after all. Children grow and change. Bad things happen. People grow apart. Distance separates.

It comes to me like a thief in the night, unexpected. I wonder if it's always lurking there, this silent thief of joy, the heaviness of temporariness that robs me of moments I intended to savor. The last night with Amelia in the hospital. She was awake until 1 a.m. The previous late nights in the hospital were excruciating, because I didn't know how many more late nights stretched before me. But the last night...it was different. It was pure sweetness. Amelia's husky little belly laugh, her antics in bed at midnight, even her "tapping" (i.e. swatting with quite a bit of force!) her itchy spots on her head. I can go one more sleepless night. I can last one more bleary-eyed, sensory overload, nerves like frayed copper wire day. It was worth it to cuddle, stroke her face, listen to her talk, watch a girlie movie together.

Amelia at midnight on 11/15/10. Seriously. She was THAT awake!

But as her big kalamata olive eyes focused intently on mine, as she rubbed the web between my pointer and thumb like she always does when she's falling asleep, and her lips parted in a half smile as the breath slowed and the eyelids drooped heavy, that thief snuck up on me. What if Amelia is going to get sicker again? What if she doesn't recover, what if she has something she won't outgrow, something medicine won't treat? What if this is the last best time? 


A million questions follow the first ones. Did I do a good job as a mother to this child? Have I dropped the ball along the line? What regrets will I have? Have I saved up enough memories to get me through grief? Would I be any good at grief? What if that's what God prepared us for? We've wondered it together, Aaron and I. It took us years to put voice to the whispers inside, as if by acknowledging them they might become real, like the monsters in your room after dark when you were a child. Just close your eyes, maybe they'll go away. Just don't look. Don't look. Don't look. He told me, before we got married, that he was pretty sure his life was going to be tough. I said, Likewise. Mine already was tough. But we didn't go into specifics. Just enough to know that we were united in it, that we weren't dragging the other person down a road of torture they didn't want to go down. When I got cancer, the monsters in the room came to life. In one sense, we rejoiced: the good kind of cancer? Something with good 5 year odds?? That's it?? That's what we've been prepared for. Not as bad as we expected, then. Maybe nobody is going to actually die. Okay. We can deal with this. That's not so bad, God. Thanks for the handout!

Then my cancer didn't go away. Boom. We fell another level, like in Mario Brothers when the little guy goes thudding with a little electronic down spiral in the music as his figure blinks a few times and grows smaller. Then Amelia got sick. Then I had a tubal pregnancy and we lost a baby under horrific circumstances.  My husband and son nearly died from a "routine" stomach bug, in the midst of an intense week of personal and family tragedies. I underwent surgery after surgery, from complications from the tubal pregnancy to insertion of my pacemaker.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Level, level, level, always wondering if we're at the bottom yet or not.

How do you live like that? People ask us all the time. Sometimes we just look at the floor, laugh nervously, because we're not really sure. Sometimes He puts an answer on our lips (I Peter 3:15).

The only way, really, is to call a spade a spade. Understand that joy-thief that sneaks up on you and whispers that you should be afraid is a thief. A messenger of the evil one. Cast him out, with the power of the blood. The power of the blood is, "What's the worst that can happen to us?" Whoever loses his life shall find it, and whoever hangs on to his life shall lose it (Matthew 16:25).

If this is the last best time, then praise be to God my Father for the BEST time.

Linked up to Faith Barista for Thursday's Faith Barista JAM.

A new page for our hymnal

It was a long day of testing. She drew circles, squares, crosses. She stacked blocks, arranged them by color, counted them out loud for the bird-thin woman whose body had miraculously housed three children but seemed hollow now as it bent unnaturally into a "C" around Amelia's small hands. They measured how those coils of brain matter communicated, how they functioned all by themselves, which coils are damaged, which coils show promise, which coils came through the fire of brain infection unscathed.

It is her left brain that is hurting. The part she inherited strong from both parents - the logical, orderly, sequential, analytical, words-and-numbers side of the brain. Her right brain is fine (thus her left hand, her left eye, her left leg). This is why she stumbles to the right, her right hand twitches when she holds the pencil, her right eye glides in to study the curvature of her nose when it should be looking elsewhere.

Those precious curves of the brain, coiling in and out, glistening platinum, bathed in the white vernix for safe-keeping. I am to believe there is purpose in the searing of what is precious in this cursed world, that by this sacrifice He will receive glory.

My mother taught me verses as a child, many, many. Set them to music. Sang them, sing-song through the day, singing a way to a peaceful home, begging God for a peaceful heart, pleading God for rescued children. Two and a half long hard years ago, the doctors told me I might lose my voice forever during my cancer surgery. I bought a USB microphone and sang and read stories long into the sleepless nights, read them and sang them into the person-less laptop computer, with a photo of my children in front me. Children who might never hear me speak or sing again.

How do you mourn these losses, these temporary but oh-so-anguished losses? How to keep the tears from my songs in those recordings, how to make the voices of the stories come alive with the whole spectrum of human emotion, not just the anguish and the pain and the pleading and the grief? Somehow I did it, and the stories have the rasping voice of the crows, the high-pitched voices of fairies, the hilarity of the three singing pigs in Sandra Boynton's classic.

And now those hard, long anguished years have passed. And we are still in the thick of the battle with Satan - the Job battle, the battle where your body is beaten, battered, languishing for a Word from the One who loves, protects, strengthens. I still speak, I still sing (albeit my voice more faltering, projection lessened. I am no longer the singer-in-the-bathroom-corners searching for acoustics to magnify this unsure that is my songbox).  I sing my mother's songs...Not by works of righteousness...For there is one God and one mediator...Search me, O God, and know my heart...And these words which I have told you this day shall be in your heart...Trust in the Lord with all thine heart...

The time has come now. I feel it, pulling, tugging hard at my heartstrings. I am woman now, mother to these four who grow so quick, keeper of this home teetering on the edge of disaster and in the arms of Greatness. I have sung her songs...my mother's...for these three decades. We worship quick in the cracks of the day's work, we worship long in the last lingering moments of the evening with the children huddled under covers and Mama in the blue rocker whispering the last refrains of the day's verses. Now is the time to add our own songs to this hymnal of the generations.

Ten years ago, I worshiped quiet with head bent, eyes closed often, finger tracing the words under the music score of the red hymnal full of centuries-old songs of praise. Then I learned to lift hands, and, slowly still, believe they can be holy hands. They still feel wooden, hypocritical, copy-cat, demanded. Not like holy hands, yet. I wash them daily, hourly, moment-by-moment in the prayer of confession, and I see the blood run off in the Living Water and how they go from scarlet to white, clean hands cleaned by Grace. Maybe if I close my eyes with hands high in worship, faltering voice joining the throng of other believers, maybe I can feel holy hands, with eyes closed.

It isn't enough - Memory Madness drills, devotions in the morning, reading the Word at dinnertime while the youngest splats potatoes on the clean floor and his sister has a seizure and vomits on her plate and the older two try to help - find glasses, get silverware, get towels to clean vomit. I need to sing my own songs. Write my owns songs on my heart. The Scriptures are already written there, rich, bountiful. Now the notes. Please send me the songs, Lord.

May every generation of this besieged family write a new page in the hymnal of Scripture-songs my own mother started, with her song-bird voice and her lilting melodies that pour easy from her right brain.

Amy's left brain doesn't work. Maybe she can teach me to be more right-brained. Maybe we can use her melodies and my memories to write Scripture songs that are the reflection of the broken.






I've attached a few of the mp3 files of the recordings I made before my cancer surgery.  Although I didn't lose my voice, I did suffer vocal cord paralysis (at first) that has now progressed to vocal cord paresis (weakness), and my voice is forever changed.  These days, my kids beg to listen to one of two CDs at bedtime: "Mama Sings" or "Mama Reads".  I would encourage moms everywhere to make CDs like this for your kids.  What a comforting, delightful way to go to sleep - and eases the burden of sitting there to sing every.single.night.

Gen sings Proverbs 3:5; recorded June, 2008, just before surgery for aggressive thyroid cancer


Fern's Song: I Timothy 2:5-6


Search Me, O God (Psalm 139:23-24)


Teach them diligently unto thy children (Deuteronomy 6:6-7)


Reading Sandra Boynton's "Moo, Baa, La la la!"