THE SILVER-ROSE RAY

From the womb of the dawn

came a ray of light.

It shimmered silvery-rose

upon the dark, silhouetted horizon.

¨Wake up!¨ she whispered.

¨It´s a new day, a new time.¨

The light grew brighter and chameleoned 

into coral, red and glad orange.

The fiery ball began to rise with proud protagonism,

while the silver-rose ray of light

slipped quietly, unobtrusively, into the background.

Her short work was done.

Yet she was content.

For I had heard her.

I had seen her promise and understood:

The much-anticipated season of Light

that will crush my Darkness

Starts with noticing...

the simple silver-rose ray.

¨But the way of the right(eous) is like the early morning light.

It shines brighter and brighter until the perfect day.¨ 

Proverbs 4:18

Photo by:  Sian Monument

FROZEN

I have stared at this picture for countless hours since Jenna left us.  It is the last family photo of us captured here on this earth, made priceless the day she died.  Our family seems frozen in time to me here.  When I think of our family, this is still the way I think of us...Five...our perfect number. 

In this photo, the love, the joy, even the hope that is captured here with our beautiful Jenna in the middle seem stopped in time.  It´s as if our ¨family clock¨ stopped that day.  This reminds me of the scene in the movie Fried Green Tomatoes where the old family clock was stopped at the death of the much loved Ruth.  This is apparently a Victorian tradition, done for reasons from respect to superstition  to a symbolic marking of how time stood still when their loved one died and a new period of existence started without time.

Time didn´t really seem to exist or have importance in the first period of time after Jenna died.  It is extremely frustrating and confusing to grieving people in general that life stubbornly seems to march on right in the face of your devastation.  You feel like shouting to the world, ¨Stop!  Don´t you realize I just lost my daughter?!  You can´t go on like this as if nothing ever happened!¨  Very slowly, you have to step back into the world in some ways (even though you may not want to) and even more slowly, you begin to engage in time-related events with others.  But time - and life - have changed forever and your heart and entire life and future are marked to prove it.  There is a clear and definitive before and after.

None of us can describe our family without Jenna.   We are still unsure of how to answer questions about our family when we meet someone new.  It seems both untrue & almost irreverent to say I only have 2 kids...Jenna is still so very real to me!  Yet here on this earth my reality is two.  For now, I tend to answer, ¨I have 3 children, one in heaven and 2 here.¨ I recently asked Jordan how he answers if someone asks about his siblings.  ¨It depends on who it is and how much I think they want to know, ¨ he said. It´s a very difficult position for all of us to be put in.  Jenna was ripped from the anchoring middle place of our family unit, destabilizing us forever.  We are all still struggling to accept this reality.  We are still unsure of who we really are as a family.

It´s inevitable and natural that family changes.  The kids move on, move out, grow up, start independent lives, new families - it happens.  I had already begun to experience that with both girls stateside at university.  But being ripped out?  That is different.  It is violent, traumatic, sad...we are still reeling some days, still adjusting, still struggling with our new number of four... Four!

So many days I look back longingly at our "frozen family."  The family we have known is captured whole in this precious moment.  I can still remember that day - the weather, the sound of laughter, the different positions we stood in, the dear friends we were with and their voices and clicking cameras.  It is stopped in time in my mind yet full of life and the present at the same time.

Although I cannot relive or restore this captured moment except in my mind, I do have this memory  to treasure.  This paradox of the juxtaposition of past and present is a tender reality I hold in trembling hands.  While in some ways still ¨frozen in time¨, thankfully, we are indeed very much alive.

This photo may always capture the essence of our family to us.  It will always be precious and irreplaceable.  It may always feel both past and present to our hearts...both are very much a part of us, infinitely important pieces of who we are.



Family picture by the lovely Becca Brown

  

I'LL BE WATCHIN' YOU...

We are really not sure if Jenna can see us or not but 

we often feel like she is a part of the cloud of witnesses cheering us on.

In your moments proud

on your biggest days

when your heart is heavy

yet you rise again

when your courage spurs

others on to good

when you celebrate loudly

or quietly love

when you cross a finish line

at your life events...

I'll be watchin' you.

When you love Him well

when you pour out your heart

when you whisper prayers

or bless with your art

when you fall in love

or you graduate

when you learn something new

or new vision create

when you live victorious

and of course, when you smile...

I'll be watchin' you.

When you write that book

when you dance on that stage

when you kick that goal

or a new nation engage

when you make a new friend

or forgive one that´s old
overcome a weakness

or cover someone´s cold

when you give ´til it hurts

and you love to the end...

I´ll be watchin´you.

When you cry for me

yet persevere

when you wonder and question

 but trust Him to be near 

When you rest in love

and choose to walk forward

when you follow your call

in spite of your sorrow
when you mourn honestly
yet look for the beauty...
I´ll be watchin´ you.

When you change the world

as you live bigger than I

when you blow others away

with a legacy 10 times mine

when you see me in yourself

and it brings a smile

yet you freely live as you
embracing that unique profile 

when you make Him relevant

and bring Him to the unloved...

I´ll be watchin´ you.

When you find ¨the one¨

who´s all you´ve dreamed

when you have your babies

and they look like me :)
when you carve out your life,
live adventures & dreams

when you love your new family
yet honor your old team
When there´s the gift to be together
sharing lessons & laughter...
I´ll be watchin´ you.

When you finish each season

and live each moment

full and rich it stands to reason
you draw closer to me, to all eternity

and when your yearning grows

and your story is told

When your work is done

and the witnesses´ cheer is bold

when you finish your race

and you cross through the veil...
Well,

I´ll be watchin´ you...

and waiting for you...

and hugging you...

and introducing you...

to your new eternal friends

to your new perfect home

and bringing you to the One

who loved you first and best.

And then we will live...

really live...

...happily ever after.

Photo by:  Jan Jespersen

MISSING HIS VOICE

Oh! how I miss Your voice!
I miss hearing your secrets,
hearing your insights,
even your warnings!

I sit and listen again but hear nothing.
The silence echoes & reverberates...
Sometimes it mocks me.
Sometimes it tells me it will always be like this from now on -
that pain & grief deafen your senses,
mess with your mind,
dull your abilities,
darken your capacity.

I hate to admit that in part it´s true...
That is many people´s experience.
But I am clear on this:
It will not always be this way!
It is a season.
And every season passes.
And every season has its beauty.

I used to hear Him easily...
Listening was my ¨go to¨ way to experience God.
His voice met me in various experiences & places;
I find myself lost without it!

Yet like a person struck suddenly deaf,
I am slowly learning to depend on other senses to a greater degree.
I am sharpening them as I learn to use them,
learning to compensate.
And I realize that I can experience God in so many ways!
He is not limited to my diminished senses
in this time of grief.
This is part of the beauty to be discovered in this season.

Certainly God is unlimited in His ability to communicate.
I am the one who is reaching out through human limitations,
through my wounded heart & senses,
asking Him to build my awareness,
asking Him to enhance my creativity in order to connect with Him.

So I open my heart -
to taste His goodness,
to touch His hem,
to smell His perfume...
soon enough I will hear Him,
Soon enough.
For now, the others are enough...
And they are beautiful.

But oh! How I miss His voice!



SOUND OF YOUR VOICE by Steven Curtis Chapman

Photo by:  Tangent Artifact

TENTATIVE PRAISE

“Aslan is a lion- the Lion, the great Lion." "Ooh" said Susan. "I'd thought he was a man. Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion"..."Safe?" said Mr Beaver ..."Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”

C.S.Lewis, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

To my un-safe but good King....  :)

Praise comes

from trembling lips

Gratitude stumbles

from mustard-seed heart

Wisdom emerges

from a terrible, yet sacred journey

Trust is budding

from this pilgrim walk.

Tears, miles, hours, prayers

all done with Him.

He has not left me.

Yet neither He has explained Himself.

He is Love and Mystery.

The storms, mountains & valleys

are not over.

I thought they were!

But this trek still has more

break-points, look-outs, summits and precipices.

It is all mapped out in tender, yet stubborn love.

I breathe in, I breathe out,

take the next step.

I stop to take in the view

And He whispers

and smiles.

If I don´t pay attention

I will miss it!

So I pause often

To see the sacred in the terrible

to find beauty in the shadows

to embrace joy in spite of 

to kiss velvety petals.

lay on green,

listen to quiet waters.

And in those moments, praise comes 

from trembling lips...






Photo by:  Jesús Pérez Pacheco