The Missing

I miss him. I miss him with a missing I couldn’t have fathomed possible. I miss him. It is so indescribably excruciating to see him EVERYWHERE and know he’s not here. To see him giggle and run along the sidewalk by the house and not be able to scoop him into my arms. To see his little bottom stuck into the air as he sleeps and not be able to go rest my hand on his back and feel the gentle rise a fall of his sleeping breath. I’ve heard people talk about moments in which the veil between heaven and earth is thin… I live on the very precipice of hell.

Tonight I pulled into the driveway of the house that was once my home. The place where I always wanted to be more than anywhere else on all of planet earth. The place that held my life; my man and my babies. The evening was heavy with the smell of summer. I could hear my eldest laughing in the backyard with a friend. The cicadas were singing their summer song and light spilled from the windows of my house. Before an exactly Damon sized hole was rent in my soul this would have been a perfect evening. Now, all I feel is pain.

I miss him.   

Tears have been my food, day and night… when can I go and meet with God? (Ps 42)

Carry Me

I understand why so few people share their grief experiences. People have opinions… and mouths. In a place that is so horrifyingly raw there is no “water off a ducks back” or “shake it off.” Everything hurts.

It seems that the world so desperately wants the bereaved to “get better.” Grief makes people uncomfortable. In our culture people are largely unwilling to be uncomfortable… in any way. We don’t confess our sins to each other… that makes us uncomfortable. We don’t confront sin… that makes us uncomfortable. We don’t answer honestly when people ask how we’re doing… that would just make everyone uncomfortable. We don’t even go without air conditioning… uncomfortable.

The thing is we aren’t meant to be comfortable here. This world is not our home. These are tents of flesh, not our permanent dwelling. We are told that we, along with all creation, groan for Christ’s return. We groan for God to come, fold up this heaven and earth and make everything new!! 

  

I groan… I groan daily. The groan erupts of a desperate, aching longing. I absolutely do not groan out of any semblance of comfort! I am way beyond uncomfortable.

But in the past week, as a new season began to turn over in my grief and the black heaviness of depression began seeping any warmth remaining from my bones God made something clear to me. He is the source. No, seriously, HE. IS. THE. SOURCE.

Two consecutive days God spoke clearly and forcefully about who I am. First He reminded me that my perception of the world is to be seen through Him. He reminded me that I am not of this world and I am not to see any situation as a child of this world (1 & 2 Corinthians). He followed that lesson (which hit hard, square in the middle of my despair) with a lesson on the Israelites. I do love my Old Testament. It’s my heritage. Do you realize the Old Testament is your heritage?! That stirs my heart.

I keep a photo album of note cards. On each note card is written a scripture God has given me. Every day, usually many many times a day, I read through each scripture. They remind me what God has taught me recently and what promises He has given. One of the scriptures in my photo album is Exodus 14:14.

The LORD will fight for you. You need only be still. 

For months this was His message for me. Sit still!

Typically when a passage stands out to me as a Word He is giving me I read the entire chapter and sometimes the entire book to be sure I understand the context. However, with this scripture I didn’t do that. Over the past week I kept feeling the pull to read the context of this scripture. Then, something would distract me…

My lesson on the Israelites hinged on this and surrounding verses. Twice in the journey of our forbearers they crossed large bodies of water on dry ground. The one we are most familiar with is the crossing of the red sea. Exodus 14:14 captures the words of Moses to the Israelite nation as they come up against the Red sea, Egypt hot on their heels. They tell Moses “Didn’t we tell you this would happen while we were still in Egypt? We said, ‘Leave us alone! Let us be slaves to the Egyptians. It’s better to be a slave in Egypt than a corpse in the wilderness!’”

So Moses says, stay still, God will fight for you. Undoubtedly true… God does fight for us. But when I finally read this chapter I nearly laughed when I saw Yahweh’s response to Moses as recorded in Holy writ.

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the people to get moving! Pick up your staff and raise your hand over the sea. Divide the water so the Israelites can walk through the middle of the sea on dry ground.

God had told His people that He would walk ahead of them on the journey…

After 40 years of wandering God did it again. This time it was the Jordan and it’s recorded in Joshua chapter 4. God parted the waters and the entire nation once again crossed on dry ground. God tells us they “hurried across.” I don’t know how God parted the water but I’m pretty sure I would have been moving my behind across that river bed. In my imagination there is a massive wall of water churning to my right, noise deafening, spray wetting my hair and clothes. All that power held back by the hand of God. Wow.

This time God sent twelve men, one from each of the twelve tribes, back to the middle of the riverbed to retrieve stones of remembrance. These stones were to be set up as a memorial so that the descendants of those living on that day would ask what they mean and be told of the glory of the LORD.

So my bible teacher asked “why the middle?” Why were the stones retrieved from the middle of the river? She discussed the middle as a place of questioning, a place of indecision, a place of “stuckness.” I was in the middle.

In this moment God said very clearly to my soul “Enough.” Enough wrestling with things you already know. Enough fighting my healing hands. Enough. Exodus 14:15. Move from this place baby girl. 

A peace broke over my head like anointing oil. I walked the next few days bewildered, and terrified. Peace?? What? Peace??

I was sure I had snapped and entered some sort of psychosis, or maybe I was in denial? Maybe I was doing this backwards? When would the next wave crash? Peace????

Then He reminded me “Child, My peace transcends anything you can understand and guards your heart and mind.” (Phil 4:6-7)

I’m not insane. I’m also not ok. Far far from ok. I think I may have only begun to grieve. He has washed me in peace, a peace I don’t even begin to understand, and this place of renewed security in Him turns me toward my loss. Rather than fighting and screaming and biting, questioning, spinning and doubting I am left with the depth of my agony.

Now comes depression. Profound, aching depression. But at last, I think I am letting Him carry me. 

Seek His Face

I’ve walked the last week in complete and unqualified defeat. I’ve lain beneath the waves begging for death. I’ve screamed at God. I’ve bargained with God and I’ve accused God (don’t recommend this one).

I’ve started to realize that unlike the picture seen by those outside the tornado the seasons of grief are more like layers. However, at least where I am, layers are not removed they are added. In each oncoming season there is a heavy layer of the one experienced before. So, now I carry the screaming, agonizing, debilitating pain, the fury, and the guilt. One doesn’t dissolve into the other; they pile one on top of the other. Granted, those seasons fully faced down previously do not carry the burn they did when first encountered but they are still there.

So, back to defeat. I’ve been running so fast in my head these last days that I couldn’t even slow my thoughts long enough to catch one and observe it closely. Something was wrong and I was spinning to find it.

I’ve always hated with vehemence the “religious” response to various difficult questions “Well, there are something’s we just can’t understand.” That’s a cop-out people. In my walk with God He has always… let me say that again ALWAYS answered my questions. Always. I recently wrote in the margin of one of my bible studies “Lord, You don’t owe me any answers but You have never failed to answer me.” No, He doesn’t have to but He DOES! Isn’t that the essence of who He is? He didn’t have to hang on a cross and not call ten thousand angels but He did! He doesn’t have to save us from ourselves, but He does!

My problem the last week was that I was buying into this line. I was buying that I would just have to walk the rest of my days in this cloud of nothing and everything. I don’t.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t expect that God will boom a word for word answer to my questions from the sky (though He certainly could) or that I will read a scripture that says “Damon died because…” More often than not in my walk with my Abba He has answered me in quiet whispers in the depths of my soul. I couldn’t explain the answers to you, but my soul understands.

Today He said to me “Jodie Michelle! Wake up child!!! I have given you the mind of my Son, of the Christ (1 Cor 2:16)! Why child are you listening to the foolishness of this world when I have given you MY wisdom and discernment (1 Cor 3:18-23)?”

“Believe Me!!”

My heart says of you, “Seek his face!”

Your face, LORD, I will seek.

-        Ps 27:8

Nothing

The spike that drove my son from my arms lodged itself in my body, pinning me to the ground. With every movement my heart slices itself open on the jagged wood that hacked through my chest. It sends splinters racing through my vessels, ripping and tearing everything they touch. My shredded lungs, gasp for air that does not nourish. Life spills from the wound and I lay, paralyzed, pinned. Invisible tears stream from my eyes and my arms lay useless at my sides. There is nothing.

People try to talk to me. They can’t see the spike draining my life. They can’t see the blood streaming down my sides. They don’t understand. Obviously there is air, everyone else is breathing. Obviously there is light, everyone else can see. Not for me. My eyes stare, unseeing. My mind cannot process the world.

There is nothing. 

Not who I was

It’s been a long time since I felt condemnation over my past. Well, it feels like a long time. For the past two years I have walked in absolute freedom from my sickening choices and agonizing mistakes. God wooed me from the pit, He began to teach me who He is; I began to fall madly in love and I gave it all to Him. He cast it as far as the east is from the west. I found peace.

I’ve struggled mightily with continuing to write. Rather, I’ve struggled mightily with continuing to publish what I write. The writing pretty much happens, period.

A friend told me recently that Satan is pissed. That he thought he took us out on March 27, 2012. That he hates my blog, he hates what I write and he is prowling like a lion, waiting to devour. “Keep writing” she said “keep writing truth.”

Yesterday and today I’ve felt a sudden resurgence of the guilt from my past. It’s a nasty, sickening, tar filled pit. I hate it. I hate who I was. I’ve had the feeling like I have no right what-so-ever to be proclaiming God. He is righteous. I am not. Someone will find out!!! Stop writing!!

Well, if you know me at all… you already know. That’s the beauty of transparency. It’s already out there. Praise God!

Today my Father spoke directly to this attack.

This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” – 2 Corinthians 5:17-21

My study today centered on, revolved around and picked these verses apart.

What Satan intended for harm, God intended for good. Satan reminded me who I was. He tried to undermine my voice, my search and my praise. God reminded me what He did for me! He reminded me who I AM. I AM A NEW CREATION! I’m not who I was!! God reminded me that I am a miracle. I am His miracle.

Today, for the first time since God took Damon home, my heart soared with unhindered thankfulness. I kneeled in His presence with my face on the floor and worshiped.

I’m not who I was.

The Real Thing

I woke this morning already crying, hard. I dreamt of Damon. In my dream I got to pick him up and hold him close. I was crying and stroking his precious curly head saying “Anything. I would give ANYTHING to hold you again.” Even in my dream I knew he was gone.

This knowledge stands in stark contrast to my thoughts this morning. “This can’t be real… this can’t be my life… How is this my life? No!!!!!!”

I’ve been in a sort of functioning dissociation the past few days. It honestly feels like I’m split in two. There is a part of me that loves on Isaiah, talks with my husband and tells stories about my boys, then there is the real me, curled up in some dark, cold, empty place barely aware that I exist.

This scares me, a lot.

I’ve been reading. I think my husband may have forgotten what I look like without a bible study, bible, or book on grief open across my lap. He bought me a new ORANGE bag to carry my library around with me. I don’t leave home without it. If we’re being honest, I don’t often leave the room without it.

The most recent reading I finished left me much worse off than before I turned the first page. The author upon her writing was two years from the loss of her precious child. The last page of the book sounded no different than the first. In my eyes she had found no hope. She was still in the black, dark, icy grips of devastating grief. Only, she had become functional. She does things now.

No, no, no, no, no!

The last few days I’ve done things. I did some laundry, cleaned the kitchen and even picked up around the house. Is this all I have to hope for? That I will start to do things?? That you will begin to see an increasingly functional human being who, in truth, is still locked away in the grips of soul tearing pain and loss?! NO!! I reject this. I absolutely positively reject this.

My bible studies over the past week or so have centered on believing and claiming God’s power and promises for me. I doubt I have to tell you how sideways this message sits with me. I DID believe. I believed HUGE and where were You?!! I scream time and time again.

Trust me, comes the answer.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is usually my reply. How do I trust you when I don’t trust You? Well, hello duality. Apparently you and I are going to be traveling companions for quite some time. My mind struggles to trust, my soul does not. Sometimes this makes me want to rip my soul out and throw it away (traitor). Sometimes the same with my mind…

But here’s the power I’m deciding to claim today. If God’s promises are for me and He is able, now, to do exceedingly, abundantly, above and beyond anything I can ask or imagine (Eph 3:20) then I am asking and imagining true healing.

I don’t want any of this functional crap. I want the real thing and if the real thing means I’m dysfunctional for the next year until I can truly get some healing then so be it. I want THE REAL THING. I’m not settling for less, Exclamation Point!

laughter and tears

I asked God for joy. I asked Him to be able to look at Damon’s pictures and feel joy. I asked Him to be able to tell Damon’s stories and not dissolve into a heap of sobs. Yesterday I did both.

I still cried, a lot, but it wasn’t the gut wrenching, screaming, aching cry as before. Yesterday there was just a little sweetness mixed in with the bitterness of my tears.

It occurred to me that maybe part of the “acceptance” (I take serious exception to this word by the way but that is another rant for another day) process is acknowledging that there will never again be pure happiness. There will never again be a moment that is purely good. Every good from March 27^th on will remind me that there is a precious someone missing from that moment.

The instinctual response to such a truth is rejection but rejection only postpones the inevitable. So I evolve from thinking that nothing will ever be good again to “accepting” that there will never again be a good without a core of pain and loss.
  

There is an odd peace in this realization, probably because I knew it all along.

So I’m struggling to adjust to my new reality. I’m struggling to adjust to a world where tears are as much a part of my daily routine as anything else and pain is my constant companion.

This new season frightens me, as every evolution in grief does. What does this mean now? When will the next wave of crushing agony hit? It’s more terrifying to be in a place with a semblance of peace than it is to be at the bottom of the ocean of sorrow. At the bottom I know exactly where I am and no matter how many waves pound above the swirling, swimming pain remains constant. Crippling sorrow makes sense. I don’t know how to handle a moment when I feel even this tiny measure of peace.

Will and I laughed today. It was a silly, giddy, uncontrived laugh. It felt good but there were tears behind the laugh. Above his smile I could see the ever present pain in my man’s eyes. Pain I knew was mirrored in mine.

I miss Damon. I miss him every second of every minute of every day. I see him everywhere. I imagine what he would be doing everywhere I go. In the midst of lengthy porch conversations I ache for the chaos that never would have let me sit still for such a thing.

I can’t wait to see him again. I hear stories of parents who lost their children ten or twelve or fifteen years ago. They speak of healing and renewed joy and all I can think is FIFTEEN YEARS?! You’ve had to stay behind without your child for FIFTEEN YEARS? Oh, God, please no.

Maybe the development of the duality of grief is to accommodate just this paradox. The constant almost debilitating ache to go home and the acknowledgement, and perhaps someday welcoming, of the good God still has to give on earth.

I have no idea what the next five minutes will bring, much less tomorrow and to try to conceive what may or may not occur in months or years clenches my heart with the agony of overwhelmed panic. So, I breathe and desperately try to see beauty emerging from ashes. Damon’s death will never ever never never be good, never. Nothing about his death is good, nothing. But God promises to bring beauty from ashes. I’m striving with everything I am to believe this. To have faith.

Then Jesus told him, “You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who believe without seeing me.” - John 20:29   

To Recognize and Transcend

I’m sick of writing. I’m tired of the almost irresistible compulsion to write. I’m tired of the running miles of circles in my own head only to gain the occasional inch of new ground. I think I’m just tired.

I couldn’t get out of bed this morning. Exhaustion and pain and weariness weighed me down. Grief is exhausting. Not just mentally and emotionally, physically too. I’m so tired.

I slept with my Bible. Sounds insane? I’m ok with that. I don’t have a problem being nuts, none at all. I didn’t have the energy to slog myself into a sitting position and focus my tired eyes enough to clear my vision so I dragged my Bible into bed with me and slept. I knew I needed it, so I did the best I could.

This all-consuming sorrow has plunged me into a weird duality. I told a friend yesterday that as in physics it seems that in grief for every thought, emotion or compulsion there is its equal and opposite. I then corrected myself “not equal, but always opposite.” I can’t trust anything I feel or think… there is always an opposite.

When I did finally pull myself from the covers today I gathered my “library,” as it is now affectionately termed, and headed for my front porch (yes, I most definitely raided my Dr. Pepper stash on the way). I stared at my Bible, and the stack of studies, reference books and devotionals. I wanted to open an old favorite but felt a tug to a different study. I whined at God. I didn’t want to work in this one today.

Last night I explained to a precious friend that I feel like one minute God was speaking so clearly then the next it’s as if I’ve been stuffed into a tunnel. There are echoes of voices everywhere, distorted and frightening noises I don’t recognize and I can’t find His voice.

This morning I was aching for His voice. I thought I would find it where I usually do, thus the whine. I know you’re not going to be surprised when I tell you that He spoke this morning through the study He chose. Of course He did….

In the midst of our lesson (which was not about me at all but very much about you <3) I was pondering this new duality where nothing is ever straight forward and every thought is a battle ground. I was thinking about how I question Him, my faith, my thoughts, my sanity, my purpose, His plan… everything, constantly. Here comes the duality of this one, and yet my soul positively aches for Him. Truth is still truth. My mind is incapable of understanding but my soul, in its covenant bond with its Maker, recognizes Him!

Have you ever had that feeling, maybe you were lost somewhere or sitting at a table alone waiting to meet someone, you search each face, panic rising, feeling more and more awkward by the second and then, recognition! You know that feeling I’m talking about? My soul recognizes my Father! Everything in me is jumping up and down with this realization. There is something powerful about this truth, something grounding, something solid. I will always be able to recognize Him.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about NOW and about what I want and what I don’t want.

Some friends continue to send scripture. A recent theme has been asking God. I kept thinking each time I would read one of these “ask” themed verses “I don’t even know what to ask for.” I have no idea what I want…

So, I’ve been looking inward. What do I want to ask for? What do I need?

I want Damon. This is the deepest and purest want I have. I have to begin to accept that I will not get him back. It cost a stab of pain just to write that. He’s never going to stand and my feet and insist I hold him while I cook dinner again. I won’t get to hear his first sentence. I don’t get to watch him dig in the mud or say “Hi!!” to perfect strangers. I don’t get to see that amazing smile or get worn to the bone by his endless energy and apparent need for almost no sleep. He’s never coming back. David’s words echo in my broken heart “He cannot return to me but I will go to him.” I hate this fact with every fiber of my being but hating it doesn’t change it.

I want to go home… no trumpet today, maybe tomorrow. For some reason I’m still here. Some days I care what that reason is, some days I don’t.

So, while I’m here, what do I want? I’ve finally started to figure this out, at least a little bit.

I want to remember my son with joy. I want to be able to look at his beautiful face and feel incredible joy. I want to be able to tell the stories without dissolving into a heap of sobs. I want to smile when I remember him. He brought me inexpressible joy in life. I want to carry that joy past his death.

This is another one of those duality times. It feels like a betrayal to say I want to feel joy, to be happy again. Not interested in should’s or shouldn’ts it just does. So I have to choose… which side of this duality will I honor? Today it’s joy.

I’m told it’s natural to go through a ‘regrets’ phase, to think about all the things I wish I had done differently. I was a good mother to Damon. I adored that booger bear with every ounce of everything that I am…  and there are things I wish I had done differently.

I often thought “when he gets just a little older….”. Damon was four handfuls. Will and I often commented that he was, without a doubt, a two parent child. He was into absolutely EVERYTHING every second of every waking minute and he had A LOT of waking minutes. There was no sit in the floor and play with the Damonator it was all go all the time. Because Will commutes a lot of the everyday responsibilities of being a parent fell to me, not to mention that whole full time PhD student thing. I was tired…

I kept thinking “when D is just a little older and a little more independent then this will get easier.” I’m not beating myself up about this. I know how much I adore that little tornado. Still, I want to get better… I want to be honest with myself. I need to be honest with myself that I was often too focused on what’s next to appreciate what’s now. There was no next… 

So, I want to learn to be in NOW. I want to learn to absorb every color, every sound, every touch…. Now. I want to learn to appreciate the amazing blessings I’ve been given. To fully enjoy my husband and my son, not as an exercise or a “should” but really.

I have no earthy idea how to do this, maybe because there is no earthly way to do it. Only God has the power to teach me to transcend. Not only to transcend my suffering and my anger and my hurt but to transcend myself and to see others.  Only He has the power to gently guide me into this new place of abiding without the guilt, accusation or condemnation I would likely heap on myself.

Maybe once I start to live in “now” the then without Damon won’t look quite so dark. 

Not

I’m not strong. There is nothing in me or about me that is strong. I’m not wise, perhaps I am gifted, but I am not wise. I am broken, shattered, torn, devastated and so very very confused.

My heart, my emotions, my thoughts and my feelings cannot be trusted. Nothing is stable in me. Nothing makes sense.

Every day I wish I could let go. I want to walk away from God. I want to stop believing. I want to stop trusting but I can’t… because I DO believe. I can’t walk away from Him because my soul knows Him. My soul longs for Him. When everything in my flesh twists and turns and bites and screams in His arms my soul recognizes my Elohim, my Yahweh.

What do I do with that? What do I do with anything, now?

I used to wonder what on earth “deep speaks to deep” meant. I don’t wonder anymore. I get it into the very essence of my soul. He is deep and the deep in me recognizes and longs for Him.

As the deer pants for the water

So my soul longs after you, my God

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God

When can I go and meet with God?

My tears have been my food

Day and night

While people say to me all day long, 

“Where is your God?”

These things I remember

As I pour out my soul:

How I used to go to the house of God

Under the protection of the Mighty One

With shouts of joy and praise

Among the festive throng.

Why, my soul, are you downcast?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,

For I will yet praise him,

My savior and my God.

My soul is downcast within me;

Therefore I will remember you

From the land of the Jordan,

The heights of Hermon – from Mount Mizar.

Deep calls to deep

In the roar of your waterfalls;

All your waves and breakers

Have swept over me

By day the Lord directs his love,

At night his song is with me –

A prayer to the God of my life.

I say to God my Rock,

“Why have you forgotten me?

Why must I go about mourning,

Oppressed by the enemy?”

My bones suffer mortal agony

As my foes taunt me,

Saying to me all day long,

“Where is your God?”

Why, my soul, are you downcast?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,

For I will yet praise him,

My Savior and my God.

- Psalm 42

Run

I run.

I love to run. I’m an addict. No, seriously, I’m an addict.

Often, in my life before the searing tearing pain, my man would look at me with raised eyebrows and ask “love, do you need to go for a run?” First, let me make it clear that he is the only human being on the planet that can get away with that. Second, I knew it meant I was being irrational, intolerable, or just plain pissy.

I would run and apparently return a new woman.

I tried to run a few weeks ago. I had no delusions that the skies would clear but my body ached for the familiarity and my mind needed the release. I hit the road, expecting after the first mile or so to feel the familiar rush of endorphins and at least a slight lift in the ever present black.

Instead I was met with a sharp stabbing pain in my right knee. Wait? My right knee? Ugh! But my left knee is my bad knee!!

I run with my left knee heavily braced. I have no idea what’s wrong with it but the brace works so I just go with it. I was a multi-sport athlete all through high school. I endured two painful surgeries followed by months of immobilization and then physical therapy to repair damage from playing basketball on torn rotator cuffs for two years. I’ve twisted, turned or sprained every joint in my body. It comes with the territory. So, I’m used to ignoring the pain. Usually it passes after a while but this was not passing. It was growing. Finally I sat on a curb in front of Applebees, ripped off my shoes and sat there and cried. Really God? REALLY?

I was sure my knee was blown. The pain was UNREAL. Surely something was bad, bad wrong.

Nope. My friendly neighborhood orthopedist (AKA a very kind friend who is also a very competent physician) assured me that this is an “overuse injury.” One of the bands of tissue in my leg extends over a place where the bone protrudes slightly (mine slightly more than most). When I run that band pops back and forth over the protuberance, so it gets really sore. Fabulous.

He also assured me that I am not further damaging it when I run. It just hurts like all… well, you know.  

After a week and half (I think) of carefully following his instructions to reduce the inflammation and yogaing myself into all sorts of crazy positions I hit the road today.

Half mile…good

Mile one…good

Mile one and a half… oh crap

Mile two… OOOOOUCH!

I tell you all of this because I feel like God taught me something today. Don’t get me wrong, my knee is screwed up because it’s screwed up but I know He will teach in any situation through any circumstance if I will be a willing pupil. Today He used my blasted knee.

It’s really crazy to me that my knee can hurt that bad and I’m not ripping some ligament to shreds with every step but it’s true. So when the pain started I had a choice. I could sit down on the curb, yank my shoes off and cry or I could keep running.

I gritted my teeth, kept my eyes forward and I ran. Mostly because I’m stubborn like that and because I’m sick of not getting to run. I’m entirely sure that I looked ridiculous. The pain was so bad that much of the time I was almost dragging my right leg. Likely tomorrow it will be tender and hard to walk, the muscles that I had to strain in uncomfortable directions to compensate for my awkward gate will be sore and tender as well. Tomorrow will be rough.

So, here I am. Everything hurts. Living without Damon hurts. Getting up in the morning hurts, so much more than any words could begin to describe.

Am I going to throw myself down on the curb, rip off my shoes and scream at God? Yes, some days I will. Some days I do…

But I’m so sick of not getting to run. So some days I will lace up my Mizunos, pop in my head phones, rock out to my praise music and RUN. It’s going to look awkward and the pain will be beyond severe. Most people won’t understand why I’m dragging one leg behind or why the next day and probably the day after I can barely lift my body.

You see, I’m learning to use my “body” again. Nothing works how it used to and everything hurts but still some days I will run.


Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. - Heb 12:1

Depths

Today was a screaming day. My throat is sore and the heels of my hands are bruised.

I spent most of the morning sitting beside a lake clutching pictures of my son to my chest and rambling at God. Some of the conversation stayed in my head, some of the words spilled into the air. I talked to Damon. I told him about the memories a saw staring back at me. I told him how desperately I miss him. I cried “Where are you God? Where are You?” over and over.

At some point the crisp morning air seeped in through my jacket and I decided I had cried enough. I went home, hopeful that my morning session of vomiting up every emotion in the human spectrum would mean a relatively stable day.

It did not.

Something inside me snapped today. It snapped with a loud sickening crack and every ounce of anything good snapped with it.

I sat on the floor in Damon’s room pressing my body against his crib as hard as I could, gripping the wooden slats, wailing. I shook the crib and screamed with all my might. I huddled against the corner and gently stroked the woodgrain. I reached my hands between the bars and stroked the sheet where his head used to rest. I beat the walls with my hands. I screamed and screamed and screamed.

I completely lost my mind.

There was nothing but screaming, aching, wailing depths. I have never felt so hopeless. I cried out his name “come back, come back!”

I have no idea how long this went on. I’ve never been so deep in the black.

“Help me”, I croaked desperately at my husband… “I can’t” he said. He can’t…

We sat in each other’s arms, grieving together. Whispering.

“Help” I reached for the strongest, dearest warrior I know “I’m failing.” She responded with scripture. She responded with David’s words, his cries to God and I know she hit her knees.

That’s the beautiful thing about a true warrior, they don’t tell you they’ll be praying, they draw their sword and they get after it right then and there. I know she prayed because in the following agonizing minutes I felt the suffocating layers of the black lift. It’s still black but now there is not layer upon layer of black. I can feel the hope again, just a glimmer.

and the greatest of these

In the weeks following Damon’s death thoughts came and went in disjunct spurts and swirls. Most of what happened in my head was incoherent or thought was entirely absent in the presence of the screaming pain. One thought I clearly remember: my fear that I would never feel love again. I knew love. I was afraid I would never feel it again.

My man and I have something special. We had to fight hard for us. We battled destructive ways of thinking, learned to lay down our pride and had to submit to healing of some potentially fatal wounds, some inflicted by each other, some by others. By the time we stood in front of friends and family and exchanged rings we had gotten real in ways I believe some couples haven’t in thirty years of marriage. We love. We love hard and deep and strong and we mean it when we say “I love you.”

We are crazy about each other. We drive each other crazy! And we are crazy about each other.

When Damon died I feared this died with him. I knew I loved Will. There was never a question in my mind if I loved him. I knew I needed him. I literally could not go anywhere without him. He had to come in the bathroom with me when I showered for goodness sake! I knew I needed him. I was afraid our madly, wildly in love was gone. I couldn’t feel it.

Then one day, I don’t remember when or how, I felt it. I felt that beautiful familiar glow. Love. Agape love, yet another gift from my Father. True love.

This morning my man, my covenant partner, my rock (little “r”) looked at me with love in his eyes and said “You’re so beautiful.” I thought, now that’s some agape right there!

In the past weeks his wife has not worn a stich of makeup, she hasn’t done her hair and there rarely passes a stretch of hour upon hour when her eyes are not puffy from tears. My man’s shoulders have been watered with buckets of salt streams and just about every shirt he owns has been good and snot smeared. This morning was no exception. When he looked at me and said “You’re so beautiful” it was on the heels of yet another morning of sobs. I was not beautiful. I assure you. Neither was he lying.

This got me thinking about love. I rolled the word over in my mind and God brought me 1 Corinthians 13:13

Now these three remain faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I did a little mental back pedal. How can the greatest of these be love? My faith is my shield. My faith is everything. It is what I cling to.

Why do you have faith child? …

Because I love! BECAUSE I KNOW YOUR LOVE!!!

Whoa… God and I had a whoa moment this morning. On the heels of my kicking and screaming and fighting and biting He granted me a whoa moment. Isn’t He just so GOD?

I trust Him (have faith) because I know His love. Because it was He who wooed me from the pit. It was He who healed my wounds (Ps 103). It is He who faithfully walks beside me every single step in this pain (Heb 13:5). It is He who feels every ache and who collects every tear (Ps 56:8). I am His and HE IS MINE.

I can trust Him because I know His heart… because the greatest of these is love.  

Truth

God is good.

He has put this simple truth in front of me a million and twenty times in the last week of complete blackness. He tells me over and over in His Word that HE IS GOOD. It is written on the wall of my entry way as big as Dallas.

The LORD is good. His love endures forever. – Ps 100:5

Romans 3 tells me of His righteousness, that He is fair and just, ALWAYS.

How Father, how can this be true? How can this be true when I watched my son die 44 days ago? When I walk the hall to my bedroom and feel the piercing absence as I see an empty crib A THOUSAND TIMES A DAY?!?!

How Father? How?

I’ve been screaming this question, flinging my anger and hurt at Him, running from Him for days. I was terrified. I felt there was no way He could reconcile truth with truth.

Truth 1: My God is ALL POWERFUL. If my God is all powerful then He is always all powerful. If my God is all powerful then either He took Damon’s earthly life Himself or He permitted Satan access to my son’s physical body. There is no separating the two. Either He is omnipotent and omnipresent or he is not! I know that He is. So in the past week I have wrestled with this fact. Damon’s death was either part of God’s passive will, or His active will. My pain, my loss is by my Father’s hand.

Satan is still responsible. Make no mistake. It was Satan who rebelled. It was Satan who brought sin into this world and the wages of sin is death. Satan is evil.

In light of this first truth how can the second stand?

Truth 2: God is good.

He reminded me of something my man said many months ago. Damon had always been sick. Before he went home he had battled ten ear infections, numerous sinus infections and several infections that we never even pin pointed. Because of his constant illness my baby endured so many treatments. I remember having to hold him down while nurses gave him painful antibiotic injections. I cried over him while I did… but I knew. I knew that this option was far better than the other choice. It was horrible but allowing the infection raging in his body to continue would have been so much worse.

God reminded me of the tears that slipped from my eyes over every single procedure. He likened His pain today to mine then. The thing I know about each time my baby had to endure such pain is that for him it was forgotten a moment later. I gathered him in my arms the instant I could and he was happy, surrounded by my love. For me, however, the pain went on. The pain of watching my child suffer stayed with me long after he had forgotten.

He also reminded me that the choice I made to hold my son down while someone hurt him was with information and understanding my child could not fathom. All he knew was it hurt. I made the choice that was best for him, even when it meant some pain.

Will pointed out months before Damon died that this was helping us understand God. Our painful difficult choices were helping us fathom, with a tiny sliver of recognition, why God’s choices may seem to make no sense. Particularly when they cause pain.

I don’t pretend to understand the mind of God. Not even kind of, not even close but He has at times allowed me moments enveloped in His heart. He cannot be separated from His goodness. He cannot be separated from His Godness. Both are truth.

Truth doesn’t stop being truth when my heart is torn. God is truth. God is good. I have to trust that He made the right choice.

I know it was not something done flippantly. I know it was agonizing. I know. Because if even we who are sinful know how to give our children good things how much more will our heavenly father who is good give good things (Matt 7:11)?

I have often said that I believe God designed us the way He did, to parent and love our children so wholly, so that we might in some small measure understand His love for us. How huge His love must be and if that is true, how immense His hurt must be.