July 28, 2019 - It's just Right. Over. There.

I’m sitting here on a bench in my front yard. It’s a bench I’ve had a while, but it once sat bare, plain and black, and is now adorned with a sea foam cushion. It also used to sit on my entry way path and now sits under a tree. It’s very early in the morning, and I just saw the girl carrying her dog walk by again, though I haven’t seen her walk by in almost 4 years. Yet she looks the same, as did her dog. Both a little fuller in spunk, but immediately recognizable. His car is parked exactly where it was always parked right outside our gate. Situated just so to be seen from his front window. I also just saw the triplets go by. They live 4 doors down, they’ve always lived 4 doors down. But I haven’t. I moved away from this very house 3 and a half years ago. But this week I moved back. And everything has changed, yet absolutely nothing has changed. I wonder if they see me sitting on my bench and say to themselves, “there’s that woman, a little thinner than she was, but I haven’t seen her in a while”.

I’m very thoughtful as I sit on this bench early this morning. If only you could fully be in my head instead of only seeing these few words that will spill over onto this screen. There’s a chaotic swirl of thoughts, almost haphazard in their formation. All a result of several months of navigation of high pace demands both at work and at home, but more recently my being served up a gumbo of life all in a few short days. I’ve learned in life through various circumstances that there is physical exhaustion, there is mental exhaustion, and then there is emotional exhaustion. I know you, too, have experienced each. And when all 3 come on you all at once, you find yourself not knowing up from down at times. But unfortunately, life doesn’t seem to give you a “leave of absence” or even a courtesy nod, and you find yourself trying to figure out exactly how to go about getting yourself out from underneath the layered tripod above you. Forget about getting back on top, you’d settle for a simple, half-way there.  So I am digging myself back to half-way there. And you can almost see it. It’s just Right. Over. There.

What I find so frustrating in this process is it happened so quickly and felt so out of my control. It truly was the perfect storm where I almost felt “set up” by life. It’s as if Work called up Home and had a conference call and said if you do this, and I do this, and then my Social Sphere called in via webex and said “I’m game”, and they all concocted this perfect strategic brainstorming session while I had stepped away for 3 minutes to the water cooler. When I arrived back nothing looked like it had when I left and everything was amuck and suddenly due in 3 hours!

What’s ridiculous is I actually consider myself quite successful at self-care and self-protection. I’ve focused the last 2 years on learning to say no to the things that aren’t service to others or are harmful for myself. (You have to be careful with the concept of learning to say no. It isn’t an all or none thing, I think people take often that “mantra” too far left or too far right. Sometimes we should  in fact put others before ourselves, sometimes work is supposed to be difficult and stressful, that is why it is called work and not a hobby, so carefully evaluate when it is right to say no and when it is not). I have successfully learned to institute boundaries and hold people accountable for actions and remove manipulators from my life. I plan my calendar carefully to avoid over tasking at home and I work hard to avoid “the American way of life” pit falls. Yet with all of these self-care actions in place, the perfect storm still brewed itself the most bitter of coffees and plopped itself right down into my “Calm” cup. So therefore I ask myself……this must have been out of my control and therefore what exactly am I to glean from this moment?

I’m reminded we are to be still even in the roughest of seas.

Psalm 46:10. Be still and know that I am God.

When Life comes at you fast, God has not abandoned you. Often in the midst of chaos, (particularly if you are a planner and problem solver like me) you immediately start looking for your way out. You start planning for the solution and trying to manipulate the situation to your outcome as you see fit. We can’t stand the uncomfortable. We can’t fathom 10 days of frustration. We are an inpatient being of disgrace in that way. Heaven forbid we sit in a moment of discontent for a second longer that we see suitable. We walk to the mailbox and complain the entire way back about the heat for example. To. The. Mailbox. But imagine an hour long meeting that cramped our style and made us stay late after work. One day after work. One day. Are we catching our drift? But now we are pushing a week of heavy demands. Ok that is getting more uncomfortable. Let’s ask ourselves. What should we just learn to better tolerate (the mailbox, the hour long meeting?) and what should we start asking ourselves do we need better boundaries…(months of working after hours?). Each of those will be different for each person, but I do think we all have to ask ourselves 1) are we over complainers and rather high maintenance in any given situation, 2) are we people who allow life to happen to us because we don’t set suitable boundaries, 3) or is this given moment a situation where life is happening outside of our control and we are supposed to be here in this very moment and we need to look for something to take from it?

Have we ever thought that maybe there is intent in our discomfort? Purpose in our frustration? How many new problems do we end up creating simply by trying to solve just one? We don’t have to solve every single issue that lands on our doorstep.  Have you ever considered that the uncomfortable person in that staff meeting just may be the person that changes your life a few months down the road? Have you ever thought there is maybe a little reforming intended in our heartbreak? Are you out there trying to solve every single issue that lands on your child’s plate? Maybe God needs your child to squirm a little to draw her closer to him. Maybe God needs your child to squirm a little to draw YOU closer to him. Maybe, just maybe God needs you to just sit still for a moment.

Be still and know that he is God.

Today as I am navigating some muck that somehow landed on my doorstep this past month. Some muck that I think was outside of my control. I am being so very careful to pull back and see what is Sally’s to solve, and where does Sally need to squirm a little bit and trust for God to do what God promises to do. His promises are just as true in the muck as they are in clearest of day. And I’m claiming his promises as a reminder that God will do just as he said he will do. I’m sitting in the uncomfortable for a bit. I am even in the most recent of days, sitting in the trauma for a little bit. Trust me, I am figuring it out as I go, so I do not by any means have this all figured out, but I do know his promises and know that those I can trust.

Mathew 11:28 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 

We don’t have to wait for God to do what he says he will do. He’s already done it. His promises are there to be claimed and grabbed hold of and incorporated into our lives. “I will give you rest”.

I wonder how often we sit around waiting for something that God has already done. I often think we as a human race are too busy, too disconnected, too self-focused, that we don’t even see what God has already done for us. Mainly I think we spend most of our lives not walking with God, with him not as a center focus, and therefore how in the world can we see his promises and what is has already laid down for us? His promise is already laid out for us there in Matthew. If we would connect ourselves to him as the center of life, he doesn’t say we won’t have burdens, he actually implies in that verse that burdens will exist, but he promises rest will come. Even as I type these words out on this screen, my heart is rolling around in a moment of rest. Let’s read that again.

Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 

Are you, like me this week, spending your day so task driven and up to your eyeballs in moving boxes and work tasks, and dragging your children from here to there, and grocery shopping, and finding a spot for your socks that used to go in this drawer, but that drawer doesn’t exist anymore…..and instead not taking 10 minutes to connect with God? In 10 minutes of finding that verse, my heart started to unclench in its panic and soften in its rest. We are too busy NOT to claim his promises in our day.

Or do you have something deeper? Are you sinking in a diagnosis that seems impossible? Are you facing something that feels like there is no way out? Have you just lost your everything and you don’t know if there will ever be an up again?  Do you have a prodigal son who has lost his way? Do you have a lost trust? Do you feel abandoned? There is a promise for that too.

Life is going to come at us fast. Often outside of our control. And it’s at those moments that we need his word hidden in our hearts to pull out at a moment’s notice. Just 2 days ago, a dear friend lost her husband in a tragic suicidal moment. Then another friend lost her son, daughter, and unborn child in a car accident on the way to delivery their baby, another lost a brother unexpectedly, after soon another tragically lost a new husband to cancer. This week has been a week of loss. And this week has thrown me back into my own loss as I have attempted to loved on those around me while navigating chaos in exhaustion. It only takes a split second for your world to be upside down with tasks, or for your world to be upside down in a way you will never imagine. Surround yourself with people who encourage you to equip yourself. And surround yourself with God’s word well before you find yourself needing it in a way you never thought imaginable. I hope you flood my inbox with verses you know and love. You never know who else just may need exactly what you write.

Maybe you will find your hope in one of these promises as I came across them this morning out on my lopsided bench. This bench is restoring me in more ways than one, providing a familiar place to bring me and my soul back home.

Isaiah 40:31 - But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary.

Romans 8:28 - And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Psalm 16:8 - I have set the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

Romans 8:25 - But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

Psalm 119:50 - This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life.

Psalm 130:5 - I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope.

Mark 10:27 - Jesus looked at them and said, with man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.

Psalm 27:14 - Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.

1 Peter 5:7 - Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

Romans 15:13 -  May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 5:3-4 - Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.



You can access previous posts HERE.

March 7, 2019 - The whole creation has been groaning

Romans 8:22   “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”

Less than 48 hours ago I was sitting in the middle of the living room floor. This is how we do dinner. Plates on the coffee table in front of us, legs crossed on the rug, cat somewhere nearby trying to get a swipe at something from the plate. We’ve done this our entire marriage and it is one of the most comfortable places, emotionally, I know of. When we are traveling, I crave to get back to this place. It’s our familiar routine. It’s our time of togetherness where we eat, almost in silence, while we watch our 1 hour of television and virtually unpack our work day. Cooking relaxes me and tonight was no different as I carried our plates to our nook and climbed down into the floor to begin the “unpacking”. As I sit, and eat, and shoo away the cat on occasion, I literally can feel the tension slide out of my body as I sit on the left, Ron on the right and someone else’s life plays out in front of me. Yet tonight, as we were watching one of our favorite shows, things took a sudden and drastic turn.  

There on the screen ahead of me, mid-bite on my end, without any notice whatsoever (as screen writers so very much like to do), there she suddenly lay, on the pavement beside her car, no longer talking, lifeless from the bullet…..and immediately, I couldn’t breathe. I mean, literally, it was as if my rib cage no longer knew what it was supposed to do anymore and all I could find was a millimeter of movement and the result was shallow breaths, rapid heart rate, and an emotional ache that was indescribable.

In under 5 seconds I morphed from the most comfortable place in my home to feeling as though a tanker truck was sitting on my chest with tears flowing down my face and words unable to come out of my mouth…all because our body is vulnerable. This isn’t the first time this has happened. It’s like the third. And I feel like a pro now.

Two years have passed by since Andy’s death and yet our suffering remains real. I know this to be true because without any sign of it coming, it smacks me in the face on a random evening while eating dinner. Our pain is tangible. I know this to be true because it lingers for hours on end with physical ramifications after it surfaces and carries a weight that is measurable and evident to those around me. Our ache is just under the surface. I know this to be true because it slips out from under my skin and you can’t hold it back once it starts its ruthless escape. On any given day I see none of this. But here, given just the right circumstances and environment, the roots take hold and grief sprouts its head in bloom.

I shouldn’t be all that surprised. It’s been a week surrounded in people experiencing loss. I’m rather flooded in it actually, and when others feel loss, I find myself feeling their every ache all the deeper now. But even without that surrounding, I know this 10 second story line would have produced the same physical response as the similarities were too exact. And our bodies are what they are. Trauma exposes itself. But what I know is that our experiences and responses hold no shame. For Romans 8:22 reminds us that we live in a world of circumstance, and circumstance that inflicts grief, suffering, ache, and pain…and that pain will be excruciating. We aren’t people that have to hold it all together. We don’t have to be stoic. We don’t have to sail through in perfection. We aren’t perfect and we shouldn’t claim to be. We said excruciating pain. Therefore we need to understand that it is ok to not be ok. The only thing we HAVE to be is present.

But in that reminder that there will be pain, a groan-causing pain, in the very same chapter of Romans we are reminded of the promises of God’s glory. God always provides the faith outcome when he brings to light the challenge.

“²³Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴ For in this hope we were saved. “

As I gathered up the dishes and headed back towards the bedroom to reclaim myself, I reminded myself that in our pain we see a God of Hope. My groaning ache is a physical response to a feeling of loss. But oh what Joy is found in the promises of Hope. All of creation is eagerly awaiting that moment when loss is no more. When we stand reunited with God the Father and all is restored. Death and loss has nothing over us when we know what is coming. I still suffer. I still pain, with loud excruciating groans at times. I still ache as tears stream down my precious face. But oh, the hope of knowing of his promises and the Joy I find in the day to day blessings - even in tragic unimaginable loss.

Christ is still pursuing me even in and through Andy’s death. He longs for me to see his promises. He longs for me to cry out to him in my grief, and with no shame. He longs for me to see his eternal pursuit of me and his love in and through circumstance.

Romans 8 declares this: “³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,^[k] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹ neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

I’m no longer shocked or caught off guard by the physical reactions. I know how to navigate them. Ron almost sees them before I do. I’m always going to grieve Andy with heartbreaking emotion. We will always experience wretched pain on this side of eternity. “The whole of creation is groaning” with loss, with ache, with pain…with hunger for restoration. Our only chance is embracing and clinging to the Hope that Christ promises and delivers. There’s no shame in what you are experiencing. There is no timeline. But find that Hope. God is pursuing you relentlessly. There is no greater love and there is no greater rescue. And there is no greater place for you to place  your grief.

You can access previous posts HERE.