To water I’m bound weighed down by a sea root
That anchoring asphyx, unaccounted for ages.
Circling, swimming seething for freedom:
Trouble with chains won’t change my aversion
To dive and discover the depths of my heartbreak.
I settle for sand bars and selfish ambition
Swirling, twirling in twisted emotion
I’d forgotten my foot the feeling of roots
Keeping me close in comforting whirles.
From the bar someone bellowed “Below is your trouble”
“You’re stuck in a swirl, descend on the double.”
I scoffed at his two cents
The troubling trait as if traveling the chain
Could mitigate my malaise. Marauders be damned! Continue reading
Grief
Hello Sadness
I guess what I’m learning is to be okay with sadness touching every strand of my life, if it wants to. That sounds painfully melancholy. I don’t mean to say I am going to go find Sadness and drag her into every memory, thought, and experience.
But when she shows up, I want to invite her in and acknowledge her presence. Believe it or not, being sad doesn’t have to take away from a parallel joy.
Why have we split joy and sadness into these opposing binaries? So often they seem to be presented as exclusionary. Of course, there may be times when we, for our own mental health, ought to set aside things like sadness and worry so that we can be fully present to our joy. And there may be times when we delay joy in order to allow our anger a voice.
But I propose these times are an exception.
This extends to more than just our interior lives.
Let me give you several examples to show what I mean by joy (or any “light” emotions) being in the same room as sadness (or any “dark” emotions).
Just Sit With Me in the Ashes Here
Sometimes it’s really hard to know what to say to people who are grieving. I still struggle, even though I’ve been on the receiving end of it.
But I was remembering something, recently, and it reminded me of something anyone can do.
The day my Mom died, after my sister and I were released from the hospital, we went back to the Miller’s house and pulled all the furniture together and spent the rest of the afternoon sitting like that. We sat there until we all went together to pick up my brother Marcel and his new wife Krista from the airport.
I remember my cousin Ellis coming. If my memory holds up, he was traveling in for the wedding and hadn’t heard anything until he was greeted at the airport by a stranger and informed about what had happened.
Others came and went spending hours trying to find things lost at the accident site or making meals or helping pick up the slack for the wedding still happening in four days and the funeral in three. The generosity and kindness of strangers still blows my mind six years later.
But one man sticks out in my memory. I can’t remember exactly who he was let alone recall his name. He came into Miller’s house and sat down on the couch in our little circle. I was a little afraid at first that I’d have to think of something to say. It’s funny how much work it is to respond to simple gestures of love and kindness during times of mourning.
But this man was different. Continue reading
“Grieving” Revisited
Prelude:
I published this piece on my old blog two months and a couple weeks after my Mom died on November 6, 2012.
Written during the throes of the deepest grief I’ve experienced, I find my old thoughts still ringing true today. Yet in other ways, I am encouraged by the progress I see. In the second paragraph I talked about many of us not being willing to share honestly about the battles we faced. In the five years since I wrote this, I think that’s changed–at least among my friends. We are much quicker to “just be real.” It may even be to a fault, but I think I’d rather people be a little too honest about their struggles, then try to pretend they’re totally okay or perfect when they’re not. (I don’t know, what are your thoughts? Am I right about the change in atmosphere?)
From the very first two paragraphs, I can see the hand of God weaving a thread through my story that would eventually lead me to make a major, life-changing decision (watch for my next “Revisited” post a week from now).
I pray this is a comfort to those of you going through the same.
“[Not] an Accident” Revisited
Prelude:
In the fall of 2012, four days before my brother’s wedding, my mother, sister, and I were in a car accident. The incident dramatically affected not only the course of my life, but my very identity.
In the proceeding months, blogging, journaling, and writing poetry became one of the primary ways I processed the accident and aftermath.
Looking through my old blog, Fraction, I was recently amazed at how quickly this process began for me. My first post after the accident was only two weeks later. It was titled “Hope.”
Over the next several months, I want to revisit some of these pivotal pieces as well as publish some of the poetry and other prose I had written during that time, but never published. My hope is that it will not only be healing for me to remember what God has brought me through, but also healing for those of you who have gone or are going through a similar experience.
If that’s you, please know: You are not alone.
I’m beginning with a piece which describes—in details I had since forgotten—what it was like for me to wake up that day. Although some of my theology has matured since I originally wrote it, I do hope you find it encouraging and inspiring.
Without further ado:
“I Love You Too!”
The other night as I sat with friends and family in the Miller living room, it suddenly felt like Jesus silently walked in, sat beside me, and whispered “I love you!” In disbelief at first, I ignored it. “I love you!” he seemed to repeat. It seemed like He wanted me to respond. So I did. “I love you too!” I thought awkwardly.
This is relationship. I had real interaction with Jesus Christ, the Creator and Sustainer of life! I think that this type of interaction really happens many times, but I usually doubt it and dismiss it as simply emotion. I will always cherish this brief interaction with Jesus, and look for more. It amazes me how loving and good God really is. Even in His wrath, He is still loving and good.
Yesterday morning, as I sat in on a chapel service, the speaker showed a YouTube clip about persecution in Indonesia. In the clip, Muslims were slaughtering other Muslims who had converted to Christianity. Although it was only six minutes long, I kept thinking to myself “Just make it stop already! Just make it stop!” I thought the clip would never end, but I knew I had to watch as much of it as I could stomach. I had to see. This brutality is the price these people have to pay in order to follow Christ. And then I thought about how this is what Jesus had to pay to set us free! Not only was He mocked and ridiculed, but He was beaten and bruised, and His flesh was torn apart. He suffered immense pain, agony and separation from the Father [God] so that we could be forgiven of sin and unified with the Father.
And I realized how pathetic my love for Him is. Could I honestly bear His name, while having half my scalp chopped off? I’m not sure I could, save by His incredible grace.
I desperately desire deeper love for Christ. I long for stronger faith so that I can stand firm on the Rock, Jesus Christ. I want to trust Jesus, rather than doubt Him or His love. I want to be convinced of God’s goodness. By realizing my security in Christ and knowing that He is completely good and loving, I can endure the pain He may call me to.
Someone once said something like: “to the degree that we suppress pain, we also suppress joy.” I desperately want to be surrendered to this concept: that to experience great joy, I must also allow myself to experience great pain.
I think in many ways I have tried to suppress my pain. I have tried to be strong. But I think there is something beautiful about just letting yourself hurt and allowing yourself to be weak. The picture that I get is a big and strong middle-aged man kneeling before a gravestone bawling and letting his pain out by gasps and screams.
Many times we get knocked down and we can’t get back up. We need a helper, a savior, a healer. Jesus Christ is that Healer.
I do not know if I have responded well to the pain and hard things in my life, but I want to do better. I want to allow myself to hurt: to grieve loss, struggle with change and allow Christ to bring healing when it is time.
I don’t like pain—I run from it. I pursue happiness just like everyone else. But there is health in bleeding; there is relief in flowing tears. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Finally, I am beginning to understand this verse. Jesus is saying, “Allow yourself to hurt, because I will comfort you!” And we will hurt, but we can’t “bottle” it up, or we’ll burst.
Keep battling on. Keep hurting. Keep healing. Keep relating. Keep living. The end is in sight, just a few more years. God is faithful, by His strength we can do this!
Poured Out Like Wine
Hugo McCord
Would you be poured out like wine
upon the altar for Me?
Would you be broken like bread
to feed the hungry?
Would you be so one with Me
that you would do just as I will?
Would you be light and life
and love My Word fulfilled?
Yes, I’ll be poured out like wine
upon the altar for You
Yes, I’ll be broken like bread
to feed the hungry
Yes, I’ll be so one with You
that I would do just as You will
Yes, I’ll be light and life
and love Your Word fulfilled
Where He Leads Me
Ernest W. Blandy
I can hear my Savior calling,
I can hear my Savior calling,
I can hear my Savior calling,
Take thy cross and follow, follow Me.
Where He leads me I will follow,
I’ll go with Him, with Him, all the way.
I’ll go with Him through the garden,
I’ll go with Him through the garden,
I’ll go with Him through the garden,
I’ll go with Him, with Him all the way.
Where He leads me I will follow,
I’ll go with Him, with Him, all the way.
I’ll go with Him through the judgment,
I’ll go with Him through the judgment,
I’ll go with Him through the judgment,
I’ll go with Him, with Him all the way.
Where He leads me I will follow,
I’ll go with Him, with Him, all the way.
He will give me grace and glory,
He will give me grace and glory,
He will give me grace and glory,
And go with me, with me all the way.
Where He leads me I will follow,
I’ll go with Him, with Him, all the way.
C.D.
He Loves Me, Yes!
I have found it healthy to now and then go back and remember life: to recall one’s thoughts and actions a couple of days, weeks, months or years ago. This morning I took the time to look back in my journal nearly three months. I came to November 4, 2012 in which I wrote about some personal struggles I was having. About half way through I penned these words: “I just wish I could feel and touch, see and hear Jesus.”
On Monday November 5, 2012, I wrote about what I might say at my brother Asher’s wedding reception on the 10th (which I did not actually say, then). I also described some good experiences we were having in Colorado. Life was relatively normal—even good, I would say.
[Turn the page.]
November 12, 2012: “My life has forever changed.”
I cannot bring myself to read November 12th. I read the first paragraph and realized that every fiber of my being loathes this journal entry, but every fiber of my spirit says that reading it would be healthy. It is like pulling off a bandage for the first time.
My left elbow got all chopped up by glass in the accident and the first gauze bandage that was put on, “healed” itself into the wound. This meant that if I wanted to take the bandage off, the scab had to come off as well. It felt like all the healing had been “undone.” But if I wanted a wound free elbow again, it had to happen.
Or maybe it is better described like my back, which was severely put out-of-place. Apparently the vertebral column is so smart that if put out-of-place, over time it will align itself with gravity so that your head will be straight again, even if your back is still out-of-place. So over November and December my back “fixed” itself and quit hurting. Then I went to the chiropractor and had it adjusted, and the pain was renewed. It is not that the chiropractor gave me a bad adjustment, it is just that my back fixed itself wrong, and it may continually need to be put back in place until the muscles get used to the normal positioning.
So it is with my soul. Over time it has coped and settled with the new reality of the absence of Mom and the grief and pain that accompanies it. But God comes along and, sometimes gently sometimes not—but always perfectly, gives me an adjustment.
Great pain is not something one can just ignore and still remain healthy. If I lightly burn my finger, I can live through the pain and my body will heal itself properly; but if I break my leg, it would be wise to immediately seek medical attention and to continually do so until my leg is fully healed, not necessarily made “normal,” but healed.
God is the Great Physician. It is fun to watch Him “do His thing.” It is not always fun to have him “do His thing” on you, but it is always worth it.
Most of the healing is not done through a grand miracle or a great remedy, but through the slow process of therapy; the process of going back, again and again for adjustments, learning how to walk again, or talk—or love.
So here I am: learning to “walk” again and to trust God. It is easy for me to get lost in the world between the pages of November 5th and November 12th; to wish for life before November 6th happened and to fantasize about how life would be had it not. But I am learning that reality has me in a pool of grief flowing from November 6, 2012. And the amazing thing about reality is that God wants to swim with me in my grief. He does not want to take me outside of the pool and have lemonade. He wants to soak up my grief with me and be there to teach me to swim in the deep parts.
I cannot do this alone. I need God. I need His peace to get me through. I need His love.
His love. What an amazing thing. If I could only grasp a fraction of it, I would be content. But wait, I do not need to grasp His love. He gives it to me freely, and pours it unrestrained into my heart, and from this truth every lie flees. Because if God—the Almighty, the Holy Judge, the Sovereign King over everything—has given me His love without condition, and has justified me and placed me in Christ who sits at God’s right hand: who is there to condemn me? Who is there to keep me from peace? Who can stop me from being healed? No one, I say, because nothing can separate me from the love of God.
On the morning of Tuesday, November 6, 2012, I again repeated to Jesus those words I had written two days before: “I just want to feel you and touch you, to see you and hear you, Jesus.” Three days later as people filed passed my family after attending my Mom’s funeral, I realized that every single day since the 6th I had felt and touched, seen and heard Jesus in an amazingly wonderful and terrible way; because I had felt, touched, seen, and heard the Body of Christ.
He listened to me! And in a weird way, He used tragedy as an answer to my prayer. Yes. Yes! YES! He loves me!
It is because of this love that I can keep pressing forward (although I need daily reminders). It is the assurance of Christ’s affection for me that gives me hope, because I know that all things work together for good to them that love God. Why? Because He loves us.
The Love of God
Frederick Martin Lehman
The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.
–
O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.
–
When years of time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men, who here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race
The saints’ and angels’ song.
–
O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.
–
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
–
O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.
C.D.