On Loss

We never did say goodbye.  It was more of a dissolving of the relationship amidst our very eyes, but neither one of us spoke of it.   Knowing that what we once had, had already been buried, we walked around corpse-like pretending that the whole thing hadn’t happened. But it had. And, I think the hardest part about it, was not having the words, or maybe the courage, to say it.  And we pretended. And then, he was gone.

I blamed myself for a long time. Too long.  It was easier to chastise myself than to deal with the pain of his absence.  That’s always been easier for me.  At least, then the pain is controlled.  Safe. In my hands.  And years passed.  The blaming, like a chain around my ankle being lugged everywhere. Affecting my choices. Living half-heartedly. This ghost and I.

I know that you have lost too. And, if we could just sit quietly and feel that, without speaking, without words……We can together remember. What we once held so dear.  And you’re safe in this moment to just embrace it. 

The loss.

Without blame.

Without guilt. 

Without pity. 

Without should ofs and what ifs, and if onlys and why nots. 

I’ll honor yours.  You will honor mine.

And somehow, in the sitting, and the sharing, and the honoring, it feels a little more bearable to breathe.  To not push it away, or bury it, or get past it, but to allow it to be part of you.  Part of beautiful you.  Part of beautiful us.  Because we’ve all been there, haven’t we?  The lost dream.  The loss of a loved one.  The loss of a child.  The loss of our marriage.  The loss of our youth.  The loss of our health.  The loss of our faith.

We all know a little something about loss. We’ve all scaled these mountaintops and come out the other end.  Or we are still climbing.

And sure, it makes us stronger.  But, I think it makes us more connected.  More vulnerable.  More real. More thankful.  Because we learn about our strength in our fragility.  And God shows up in a tangible way because there is no more masquerading.  He gently picks us up.  Puts us back together. And walks with us, and this time we feel him a little closer.

And it's no longer about religion.  Or performance.  Or getting it right.  But, we realize and feel beyond comprehension that we are desperately and divinely loved just as we are. 

Like a father to a child, growing up, nurturing, protecting, guiding.  And then the loss is somehow, just a little easier to bear.

Today I honor your loss.  God will carry you because He too has lost.

John 11:33-37  Then Jesus wept...

Comments are welcome!

(Picture by Charlie Mackesy)

On Grandmothers...

I’m one of those adults who has the privilege of still having living grandparents.  Three to be exact, all of whom are in their nineties.  I hold one very near and dear to my heart and we’ve shared a special relationship for thirty three years. My daughter now has the fortune of knowing her great grandma, and to see the two interact brings me warmth and great happiness.  I feel like a bridge between historic monuments I want others to know and visit.

My grandmother, like many of that era, lived a simple life.  To hold her hand and gaze at her, I am again seven years old, sitting across from her at the kitchen table, holding a hand of cards much too big for my small hands.  She is patient with me as I straighten out the crooked cards, putting several down on my knee to manage all ten.  She encourages me. She engages with me and I feel like the only child on the planet.

Scientists tell us that very young children from infancy to age three have what is referred to as an “implicit memory”.  That is, the ability to remember not in the concrete sense, but in the emotive sense, people and memories that had an impact on us as children.  Studies are also showing that the fetus in-utero is in tune with their mother’s emotional state during pregnancy. It is why smells and songs can often trigger a strong reaction in us as adults, even if we can’t recall the specifics of when they first originated.  Attachment theorists, who research the parent/child bond from infancy throughout the life cycle, emphasize the importance of bonding and connection from the word go, in order to facilitate a healthy upbringing and implicit memories are all a part of this.

I know this to be true with my grandmother.  The touch of her skin, the smell of the crook of her neck, her smiling eyes.  I remember. She is love.

My grandmother will be ninety five years old this summer.  Her “simple” life has created a lasting legacy of children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. I celebrate her.  Who do you celebrate?

Rubber Ducks

My daughter, Olivia, is turning four this August. I look at her chocolate brown hair, her long dark lashes, her almond shaped eyes, her magnificent toothy smile and I wish I could freeze this moment forever.  She, like no other, has the power to move me and reach me in a place that seems infinite. I am blessed to be her mother. The responsibility is simultaneously beautiful and terrifying. She really is my heart walking around outside of my body. I have never felt so vulnerable.

Yesterday I heard her talking in the bathtub.  She was playing with her rubber ducks and wind-up swimmer.  She makes me laugh out loud.  But yesterday the baby duck killed the mommy duck and swam away to a far off land.  I had a fleeting moment of terror, of psychoanalyzing if she had some pent up anger towards me that was being expressed in play, and then I calmed my irrational fears. I’ve had to be really careful of this these past four years.  The worry for her.  The expectations I have of myself as her parent. I’ve jumped on the worry train far more often than I care to admit. I’m sure you’ve been there. I’ve got a first class ticket on that train and I’d be happy to trade it in for something more lucrative like a pair of new shoes.

We as parents do everything we can to create the ideal circumstances for our children.  The right neighborhood, the most reputable school, the least toxic hygiene products, the least toxic friends, and the scary thing is despite all of this planning and careful thought, our children are still left to navigate their way through an imperfect world.  As imperfect beings. With imperfect parents.  Despite our best intentions there is a gap and our children, like us, need to make sense of the imperfections and what they are going to do with them.

Maybe it’s a health problem, or a divorce, or unemployment, or a mental health problem, or financial difficulties, or a learning disability, or racism, or marital difficulties, or a death in the family, or a parent that is geographically distant due to employment.  We all have our cross to bear, and our instinct as parents is to pretend there are no crosses.   It’s our inclination, isn’t it?  Keeping up appearances.  Pretending everything is okay on the outside when we are kept awake at three a.m. wrestling with our realities.

As a parent, I’m convinced that one of the best things we can do for our children is to teach them about our humanity. Not in an over-sharing, skewed boundaries kind of way, but in acknowledging our mistakes when we’ve made them,  acknowledging our humanness, acknowledging our own need for growth, and acknowledging that we depend on something bigger than ourselves for guidance and direction.  My daughter knows that mommy is strong, that mommy has the answers, that mommy is the leader of this family.  But, I hope she also knows that the strength, the answers, and the leadership come from submitting to something, someone bigger than herself.

Trusting God with my family: The decisions, the joys, the struggles, and the day to day, is a learning curve.  It is a dance of intimacy and He’s been faithful. I’ve been human.  But He’s been faithful.  I’m not a perfect parent, and there are circumstances in our lives that I wish could be different.  I bring these imperfections and my desires and daily try to lay them at His feet. I hold onto his cloak like the woman who needed her disease healed (Luke Ch. 8) when things get overwhelming.  He keeps rescuing and redeeming me.  I am trusting Him a little bit more with every day.  We are cared for.

“Daughter”, he said to her, “your faith has made you well.  Go in peace.”  (Luke 8: 48)

Tender heart

Children’s toys, like fashion, see passing of trends, must haves and have nots. Coveting starts at an early age; the desire to possess that one thing meant to fill us up with utter contentment. Mine was a Cabbage Patch doll. Four to be exact.  I remember the vacillation between hope and despair as my grandparents delivered sad news from the Toy Store of the last doll being sold to another family. There must be another one in the city....and alas, came Leona. I was pleased as punch. Not wanting. She had me at hello, or at least her autographed behind did.

With the new season, came a new fad of plush animals named “Care Bears”.  I was a loyal fan of the show at age six and a more loyal owner to my first bear, Tender heart. She/He was the bear that didn’t really “do” anything, or so I thought. At six, even for a girl, I was sold on action and results, not a mere feeling.

As a grown woman the whole concept of a “tender heart” means much to me now. I should know as I keep one caged behind bars and several pad locks. Protected. Stifled. It, like yours, has been damaged, and bruised. I try nursing it back to health, coddling it, babying it, only to have it again at least jabbed at a little, tussled, ruffled, and back in to its hiding place it goes.

I’ve been reading a lot lately about left brain/right brain tendencies. It’s amazing that there is a dominant side of the brain that is directly connected to our emotions. The amygdale, or “pleasure centre” of the brain, is responsible for communicating our feelings about events that are happening in our lives. Our left hemisphere or more logical, rational, “thinking side” is quite separate from our feelings. The theory is if an individual has a tendency to live their lives out of one hemisphere, the result is more often than not, neuroses; be it depression or anxiety.  The key, the experts say, is integrating the two sides to exist somewhere in the middle, in the “flow”. Exhausted yet?  I am.

The thing is I want to live my life out of my heart.  I’m tired of the analyzing, and caution, and hesitancy.  I love adventure and consider myself to be a somewhat spontaneous person, but over the years, it seems my left brain has taken control. It’s aiming to keep me safe and protected, I know, and it’s needed, but so too is the tender heart that is longing to be freed.  Isn’t yours? What are your tendencies? And, what have you done with your tender heart?

God asks us to give it up, to unlock the padlock, to open the cage and vulnerably give it to Him.       “…Give me your hearts…”  (Joel 2:12) I don’t know about you, but I already feel “in the flow” just thinking about that.  For what better place to bring our hearts, than the very Creator who gave it it’s beat. Who knows its every desire. Who hears its every longing. And I trust that the same God who broke bed for his disciples, who washed their feet, who called the little children, and who turned his cheek on a wooden cross, knows a little something about a tender heart, and can certainly care for mine.

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you;  I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26-27

Adaptation

I once cycled across Ireland with a damaged knee cap. It was a seven day “cycle-a-thon” to raise money for street kids in Lusaka and 3 hours into the first day something gave out in my knee. I kept going. I had another leg, why stop? Two bottles of A5-35 and many ice packs later, I pushed through.  By the end of the trip my bummed leg was four times the size of the other and even to this day if I listen carefully, I can still hear the grinding. It’s still a running joke with my girlfriend Nina and I. My adaptability.  My ability to make the best of every situation and keep going regardless of the circumstances.   It’s a blessing, but it’s certainly a curse, this limitless of mine. Making do. Expecting less.  Tolerating. While I want to be strong, I don’t want my spiritual gifting to lie in the area of taking large bites of a proverbial shit sandwich with a smile on my face.  At times I envy those high maintenance type women.  You know who you are!  I think you may have something to teach me.

Yesterday I joked with a colleague of mine about the war in Afghanistan.  Not the tragedy of the war itself, but likening it to my work space of all places.  He is a trained Occupational Therapist and came to assess my work station to see if any improvements could be made to assist me in feeling more comfortable. It was an enormous step in itself that I even made myself available for this appointment. Carving time out of my schedule to make myself more comfortable when I had more grueling things to tend to, like suffering through a boxing workout, was asking a lot.   But, I did and it was an important lesson for me.  You see, I’ve been working at this desk, and in this same chair for over four years now not realizing that my chair and computer screen could be altered in both height and angle to make both my vision clearer and to support my posture. It took him a flick of a wrist and a push of a finger and suddenly the lights went on.  It was as if I had been driving with a muddy windshield all this time only to be welcomed by a squeegee kid.  Comfort. He was astonished by my adaptation to less than stellar conditions and I expressed how I could work in a war zone and still adapt myself to getting the job done with positive attitude in tow. Keep going, right?

I began thinking about how God sees my ability to tolerate, and even expect less than ideal conditions. Does He really want me to be accustomed to difficulties and hardship? How does he feel about my “batten down the hatches” approach to life?  Is their a purpose for it and do other women identify with the same?  And, like so many habits, was this a learned behavior, or an innate personality trait that was with me in my crib tolerating a lumpy mattress, or sour milk?  Most importantly, I wondered, does this attitude affect my ability to achieve dreams or welcome in God’s blessings?

And here is what I discovered:  I think God’s okay with my easy going nature and if I miss the boat on something, from a better computer screen, to the man of my dreams, His Grace will cover me.  I can’t see Jesus as a type “A” personality running around organizing his disciples’ day planners and ensuring his Sermon on the Mount started at exactly 10:00 a.m.  I can’t see him complaining about the heat in Israel, or the untended gardening in Gethsemane.  And, on his long walks (and I’m sure there were many), I bet he didn’t comment on his shin splints, or insist on the finest leather shoemaker to tend to his feet. I can’t see any of these things. I’m quite sure, that if afforded these luxuries, he would have felt a whole lot more comfortable, but perhaps he would have missed the boat on some pretty important moments in history.  He knew there would be enough fish and loaves; he didn’t plan a menu.  He knew his twelve disciples would be found and loyal (well at least 11); he didn’t do any formal screening or background checks.  He went with the flow, he kept going, and God had his back anyway. 

So, here I sit typing in my poorly lit loft area that is inadequately furnished and un-air-conditioned, and on this hot summer night I know 3 things:

1)      I’m going to “keep going”.

2)      When I falter, or stumble, or screw up, or bust something including a knee-cap, God has me covered.

3)      That God loves type “A” people just as much as us “tolerators” and there is a place in this world for both of us to co-exist and be the hands and feet of Christ.

Forgotten?

My favorite season has always been Autumn.  Beyond the crisp leaves, and the smell of sharpened pencils, there is something about the season that always seems to offer this underlying sense of security. Maybe it is the turn of the cold forcing us inside the safety of our homes, or perhaps it is the routine of the school day unfolding for yet another term. But it offers me familiarality. I curl up to it like a cinnamon roll, soaking in the comfort and inevitability of what is next to come.

Hot summer days can't offer me that same peace.  Even with the memories of the days extending for what seems like forever, the grass stained trousers from a long sticky game of tag, the bruises and scrapes from a 2 hour go at red rover and double dutch, it still feels unfinished. Unsettled. Open. Limitless.  I can get lost in those days, swallowed up by the prairie skies that go on forever. It's on those days I grapple with feeling forgotten.  Don’t we all?

My least favorite bible verse, where on days of feeling alone and forgotten can throw my faith to the wolves, has always been about God caring for his sparrows.  I flash back to spring yard preparations last year and my disturbing finding of a dead baby sparrow in the crook between mine and my neighbor’s home.  He nestled peacefully but mortally in the cushion of the uncut grass.  I walked past it, avoiding its presence, and pretending, as I often do, when faced with death or ugliness, that it really hadn’t happened. It really wasn’t there. Emotions numbing to their auto-pilot position.  Had God forgotten? And if he had, does he forget about me?

You see, I’m not one to wrestle with the concept of God’s love. My friends can sometimes get lost in debates about the crucifixion and resurrection, the virgin birth and miracle healings, and all the complexities really have no impact on my psyche. I get it, and the unfathomable, in some strange way, makes sense to me and my lens of this world.  I absorb it. Jesus as God’s own son, in flesh and blood who died for me because He loves me immeasurably is real to me. I feel the reality of His love in my life. He’s my empathetic witness.  He’s beside me on this road, on my road.  But here’s the thing I get lost in: the details. Does he really care about the details? And if so, why is this road so often so hard. And why, as I sometimes do, like this long summer night, feel forgotten? Like the sparrow, I nestle into my cushioned burial place waiting to be revived and rescued but so many walk past avoiding the ugliness. Avoiding the messiness.

But I am learning this: When I succumb and trust that the details are taken care of by the same Masterful Creator who cares for you, life gets easier.  I trust that the same source, who measured the pitch of the birds singing outside my window this morning, and colored, in intricate ways, the hostas that bloom in my flower bed; cares for me and has designed me in incomprehensible ways. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. (Psalm 139:15)   The ugliness then, the messiness, somehow, with His grace and beauty gets cleaned, redeemed, and rescued without my striving, my working it out, my pleading.  It is then I realize, that we are not forgotten. 

"He delights in every detail of their lives.  Though they stumble, they will not fall, for the Lord holds them by the hand." (Psalm 39: 23-24)

Welcome Here!

I am so glad that you stopped in.  This is an exciting new adventure in my life and road trips are definitely more fun when shared, so please stay a while. :) This is meant to be a place for YOU. For you to be refreshed, renewed, and encouraged.   Please feel free to leave your comments, musings, and thoughts.

Paper bag Princesses was, you guessed it, inspired by the 1980's Robert Munsch Classic.  The story is about a beautiful young princess named Elizabeth who is set to marry her dashing prince Ronald.  As in life, her plans went awry. In the story, the young couple is visited by a fierce dragon who burns all of Elizabeth's possessions (including her wardrobe-tragic, I know!) and abducts the prince.  In feminist fairytale fashion, Elizabeth pulls up her boot straps, aka adorns herself with the only alternative to a fig leaf in sight; a paper bag. 

To make a long story short, clever Elizabeth manages to outwit the mean dragon and comes to Ronald's rescue.  Instead of true, unconditional love, she is instead welcomed with Ronald's disapproval of her disheveled non-princess like appearance and he orders her to immediately flee to  dispose of the paper bag and replace it with a more appropriate garment so they can be married.  What the story doesn't tell us, is if Elizabeth takes pause to reflect on her choices (her age, her potential eligible suitors, her biological clock...you get the picture).  What the story DOES tell is Elizabeth holds her head high and sets her sights on greener pastures. AKA Ronald is kicked to the proverbial curb!

I chose the title Paper Bag Princesses for "our" blog as what one of us women can't identify with feeling like a princess, only to be adorned with paper bag like circumstances, be it your difficult job, your difficult marriage, your compromised health, or just your complicated journey with its twists and turns unfolding in a way, you hadn't quite expected.  We too, all have our Ronalds.

Be encouraged....