WHERE DID THE LOVE GO?

Loss has left me bereft of love -

Or so it seems.

Not for her - my heart aches for her -

but of love for others.

It seems I have lost my capacity to love

And I am so distressed!

There is no energy, no passion,

no motivation, no will power.

I desire - yet cannot - comprehend my friends´ problems

or my neighbors´ chatting.

I so want to care!

But there is no room, no place to put

the concerns of anyone else...

All my love spaces, my concerned places,

my rooms of compassion, the shared sanctums of my heart,

are full of grief.

They are too full to hold more.

So I sit at coffee listening like a tomb

to my dearest of friends.

I cannot understand her sharing -

Today it is a foreign language.

My brain defensively blocks her out,

subconsciously setting a protective limit for me.

I fight against it & try to refocus -

But I have no memory of what she just said.

I am undone by my own guilt & dysfunction -

I want to engage...but cannot.

Later I am in the stands at my son´s soccer game,

surrounded by other parents who happily chat.

I am overwhelmed by their loudness,

by their superficial talk.

It reverberates in my head like a migraine.

I say enough to let them know I´m there

But not enough to engage or truly ¨be present."

This outing exhausts me.

What is wrong?

I try to get out, for instinctively I know I need to.

Yet it takes a colossal effort to enter in.

I am painfully aware 

Of the inadequacies of my heart,

of my own impotence to wrap my arms around any more

than what they already carry.

Oh to be able to bear the burden of love!

Oh that love would be weightless!

Oh to find joy in listening intently!

Or laughing loudly or chatting with friendliness!

Some friends say I must be
"kind to myself, patient"
But today I am impatient with my weariness!
Impatient with my frailty around others.
I don't care or don't want to care or can't care
because of this emotional love-depletion.
I find myself just trying to survive the day.

Oh! Author of love!

Please hasten the day

when my heart,

carved up by grief & then healing,
has slowly drained some of its sadness,

& expanded in its capacity to give again...

To love again,

to care again,
naturally & unfeigned.

Love will be back -

sweeter & deeper than before.

The Love Author Himself whispers to me:
"Be kind & patient with yourself as I am.
I am with you & am guiding your journey.
You are on schedule."

I breathe a sigh of relief.
I am human.
I will love again.

Where did the love go?

It´s just very busy holding me for a little while -

it will soon be back.

Photo by:  Kiz BadArt Team

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THE SILENCE

Sometimes there are no words...

Just silence.

Or tears.

Time has stopped &

the world around you 

is muffled, dream-like.

You see things, people

and hear them -

but not really.

You want to wake up,

to shake off your trance,

Yet there is a certain safety here.

So you stay in the fog

and wait for words.

You struggle to come up with something that

even comes close to expressing 

the profound chaos of emotion inside.

At times, you don't even struggle

for there are certainly no words for This.

for This Reality that exploded into your world
 & crushed you,

& broke your heart.

For This,
there is only silence

and tears.

Some days I really want words & I painfully piece some together.

Some days other people want words from me & I am sadly mute.

I cannot explain this coming and going of expression

Any more than I can explain or predict

the surging & retreating rhythms of grief.

Please be patient with me

and find an ok-ness with this reality.

Because for This,

there is only silence

and tears.

Photo by:  Ozge Gurer Vatandas, Silence

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UNCERTAINTY

After a long silence, it is with a fair amount of uncertainty that I write this post. 

Uncertainty about blogging, uncertainty about if anyone is going to care to read this anymore, uncertainty about lost momentum, uncertainty about writing on such a melancholy subject as grief, uncertainty about how to unblock the dam in my heart and put unimaginable emotions into words, uncertainty as to how to do justice to a journey as deep & uniquely personal as losing a loved one - and uncertainty about writing about various griefs at once.

The words were flowing for a while...and writing does me good...and people were grieving with us and interested in how we were getting on.  But my Dad´s unexpected death on March 4th caught me off guard & stirred up other emotions & losses.  It thrust me backwards, into the beginning stage of grief again.  I sat numb from the disappointment of not being able to say good-bye to him and of having been just weeks away from seeing him and spending a week with him.

This happened concurrently with our last couple of weeks with Daniela and assisting her in her preparation for her return to the US.  I was committed to doing everything possible to accompany Dani in the process of her return to university life.  I wanted to be happy for her, to be helpful, to be a blessing & support.  But suddenly, I was physically & emotionally exhausted again.  And we began to realize that we were "mourning" her leaving us again after having been home for a year.  It was the right thing for her, and therefore, for us, but it was not easy.

Thankfully, the Lord gave us much grace and Dani is resettled at school and is happy with friends, dance and her international relations studies.  Although she is still grieving (as we all are and as she would be wherever she finds herself), it has been the right thing for her to begin to rebuild her own life.  I am so grateful for some of the really special things God has done for her in this transition.

Since then I felt blocked.  Life was either so busy, so emotionally overwhelming or I was just so exhausted that I felt numb & paralyzed for words.  Perhaps that was shock protecting me.  I just couldn´t find them or seem to get them out.   I was going through the motions of doing what was needed, putting one foot mechanically in front of the other without the luxury of time & energy to craft it into writing.  Now that I've been back from my trip to the US, recovered from jetlag & a cold & a sciatic lower back flare up, I am thankfully being flooded with words in my head!  Now if I can just have the courage to put them out there...

I have continued to process, to question and to struggle with the rise and fall, the ebb and flow of emotions.  But as you can well imagine, another death complicated my journey and pushed me into other places of grief and longing - mostly for my Dad and brother.  I daily ask God to ¨encapsulate¨ these areas, shield my heart and  to open them a little bit at a time when I can deal with it a little more.  It feels like I was at a certain place with Jenna and then BOOM! - another explosion of pain & grief exploded, demanding attention & delaying my advance in my process of losing her.  Now I have multiple, complex layers of loss with their own timelines, issues, memories, regrets, bittersweetness and unique pain.  While losing Jenna is the ¨coup de grace¨, each loss is still huge and deserving of it's own unique journey. 

We have hit the 6-month mark since Jenna´s passing and externally, life has somewhat "returned to normal":  Daniela has gone back to university in the US, Bruce is traveling again and Jordan is busy with school & exams, soccer and friends.  But me?  I feel like the wild card.  My roles changed last year as I stepped out of various projects & roles to care for Jenna.  I am fortunate to not have to rush back into anything...I need time to heal and regain my strength & capacity for activity, people, deadlines, etc.  But what should I be doing now?  Discerning that is kind of the next step for me...continuing to heal and beginning to move forward into a new and different life.  I wonder what that will look like?

If this post seems a bit disjointed, that´s because it is!  Life often feels like that right now and my heart moves back and forth between the different losses, emotions, implications & multilayered processes.

If you are still reading this post...I thank you for your support in this stage of uncertainty!

Photo by:  Francis Rowland

HOLDING QUESTIONS (LESSONS FROM A DRAGONFLY)

I am holding questions -
and my arms are weary.
My mind is tired & perplexed at their weight,
my heart is heavy at the lack of resolution.

There have been questions written silently in a journal,
questions shouted to the sea,
questions with tears over coffee with a friend,
And questions of bewilderment in the intimacy of my family.

There have been questions of concern & curiosity,
questions of philosophy & theology,
questions of fear & doubt,
And questions from shock & incredulity.

There have been questions, too, of reverence & remembrance,
of assurance & love,
of beauty & faithfulness,
And all those answers are YES.  Yes and Amen.
These are the ones that anchor me.

But there are so many that will not fit in the Answered Pile...
There are no logical categories for so many of them in my human mind.
I cannot comprehend the ¨higher ways¨ and I sigh in my longing to do just that.
I am frustrated by my humanity, by my dual (duel??) earthly-spiritual realities.
I live in this place but have glimpses of another,
I am trapped in an earthly body,
Yet see that there are answers beyond me.

Oh to have explanations!
An interpretation of these sad losses & events
To justify the unjustifiable, to respond to the unrespondable
To bring closure to the unclosable...
These are flitting about me like dragonflies near a river,
They hover nearby with the sun glittering on their translucent wings,
thinking, pondering in the sun.
They are both beautiful & mysterious.
Suddenly, they are gone, off to another rock further ahead, upstream!
It seems they are making headway somehow, they have a destination.
And they are using the wind under their wings to lift them up
and take them upstream, against the current,
where they will sit & ponder again under sunlit glintings of truth.

Their wings look too frail to carry heavy burdens.
But they know how to use the breeze.
They innately know their next stop, the next step.
They are unhurried, peaceful.
Yet they progress - against the current & in the face of dangers.

I am holding questions as they seem to -
And hope that in my frailty there will also be beauty,
for the questions are worthy.
Some are frustratingly rhetorical, unanswerable this side of heaven.
And so I try to lay these down in the Mystery Pile -
and to be ok with that.
To be ok with a God who breathes mystery, who is mystery,
who doesn´t necessarily love mystery in a superior, look-down-on-you kind of way -
but who requires mystery to be who he is & orchestrate what he does.
Because simply put, if there were no mystery, He would not be God.
And if there were no God, there would be no life for me, no meaning.

So I hold my questions
on dragonfly wings
on this path of life.
I anchor myself in the answered ones.
And I carry the mysterious ones in a heart
that trusts the Love, the Purpose and yes, even the Mystery, of God.






Photo by: hjhipster

STIRRING UP JUNK

There is a strange phenomenon that occurs during crises.  Old, unbidden, unrelated junk gets stirred up in your life and comes barging into the room.  It makes itself known right in the middle of your crisis like an unwelcome salesman.  A friend of mine likens it to a walk on the beach after a big storm - there is all kinds of junk washed up on the sand for everyone to see.  Great.  Nature doesn´t escape this phenomenon; we apparently don´t either.

As if a crisis isn't bad enough on it's own!  No, it has to go and stir up a bunch of other junk at the bottom of your life.  That is really hitting below the belt if you ask me!  Cruel.  Cold.  Heartless.  Unnecessary.

No one asked my opinion if I wanted this Plan B growth option.  I wasn't invited to vote or write an essay on why I might be against it.  No one sent me the Ten Top Reasons why stirring up junk in a crisis is essential.  And life is not even picky about the junk!  It can be junk, sins, secrets, old habits, blind spots, old skeletons, unresolved issues,  patterns, weaknesses - apparently anything goes!

I did not sign up for this.  Of course, I didn't sign up for the crisis either...

For me, it is this stirring up of junk that is almost worse than the crisis itself.  You expect the crisis to knock you down, sit on your chest and carve out every emotion known to man.  But all of that is at least due to a known crisis!  It's awful & overwhelming & seemingly interminable.  But at least you know why - and deep down you sense that someday you will see light at the end of the tunnel (at least most days you do.)

But this stirring up of junk?  Flaunting your weaknesses in the face of pain?  It´s like kicking a guy while he´s down!  It is so overwhelming & feels so very unfair.  Right when you feel defenseless, raw, naked, vulnerable , confused and weak, these old ghosts rise up like half-empty helium balloons, hanging at eye level and just bobbing there.  Sometimes they just appear quietly like that and bob.  Other times they explode into the room like an unexpected firecracker set off by the neighborhood kids.  It bursts onto the scene unexpectedly, uninvited, aggressive & destructive.  It always makes my heart skip - and then discouragement is quick to settle in and push me onto a path of dejection & self loathing.  The loss of confidence I experience in facing the original crisis is lost and it takes an enormous effort to re-engage and refocus my energies on the original war after this distracting & disarming side-battle.

Why are these old battles so devastating?  In part, it´s simply because they are old.  They have history with me because they are big things that can take a lifetime to overcome - selfishness, communication patterns, emotional reactions, pride, past hurts revived, difficult relationships, forgiveness, etc.  There are not small, easy-fixes.  They are complex, deep-rooted & require a lot of emotional, spiritual and relational work.  It is when these things appear in the midst of my crisis that I despair because I have no strength to face these giants.  Yet they come to me.  They seem to be sent to me...they are the real enemies I face.  Somehow in my crisis (in my case, a death), I am somewhat of a victim.  But these ¨ghosts¨  of mine, they really are mine to face.  I might want to play the victim to my past or circumstances or my personality but in the end, I have to own up to my own stuff and deal with it.  I have to make choices - to believe truth and to move forward to set healthier patterns in motion.  Oh how I need a supernatural strength in these times!

I confess that I have definitely felt that God has taken me beyond ¨what I am able¨ lately.  Yet  as I look to Him as my Shepherd on this journey of grief, I somehow must accept that He knows the avenues of clean-up and healing necessary at this time.  Somehow, they are related.  Somehow, they are entangled and pulling one up by the roots may mean victory in several areas.  Or maybe it´s about a place I need to get to, a person I need to be, a truth I can understand no other way, a humility or compassion only born of facing junk and giants.

I can´t say that I understand this or like it.  But I suppose there is one thing we could all agree upon: God is clearly the original multi-tasker!

Photo by:  TW

LOVE WITHOUT BORDERS

LOVE.  The most sought after, fought after, laughed about, pined over, mystifying concept in all the world.  There is nothing more sung about, ranted over, written about, danced about, sacrificed for, declared, celebrated, scared off, confused, delighted, acted out or cheered on around the world.  There are infinite rites, passages, ceremonies, gifts and customs among the nations to express it.  Besides greed, perhaps no more exorbitant sum of money has been spent on anything else in all of time!  Love is the ultimate international language.

Love is well studied and myriads of books, seminars, conferences, retreats, pod casts, etc. have spewed out the inadequate, can´t-do-it-justice findings.  The ancient Greeks would most likely be horrified to know that we have only one word in English for love!  How can ¨I love ice cream¨ and ¨I love you¨ possibly require the same verb?  I guess some cultures are just smarter...

Many of us are familiar with the six loves in Greek (four of which are found in the Scriptures): eros (romantic, sexual love), philia (deep friendship), ludus (playful love), agape (selfless love), pragma (longstanding, practical love) and philautia (self-love).  I couldn´t agree more with Roman Krznaric, an Australian cultural thinker, who wrote: ¨If the art of coffee deserves its own sophisticated vocabulary, then why not the art of love?¨  Indeed!

In our quest to understand love, we have been known to look at love pyramids, love diagrams, love circles, love lists, love charts, love graphs, outlines, designs, stages, types and kinds (these all really exist!)  We have terms to describe various versions of love outside of the Greek ¨classics¨ including: puppy love, maternal/paternal love, tough love, brotherly love, self-love, conditional love and divine love, just to name a few.  

But no one can hold a candle to God´s love.  Love was the major reason I decided to become a follower of Christ.  Discovering at 16 the amazing, crazy, ocean-sized love He has for me simply blew me away!  He captivated me then and He still does today.  His agape love for us is the only perfect love we will ever experience.  Every other version of love - no matter how wonderful - is still marred in some way, for we are imperfect.  How could I resist Him?

Last year, in spite of the pain, we experienced a beautiful love in our family like never before.  As one of us suffered, we all suffered and there was no sacrifice too great to make for Jenna.  Dani stayed by her side, massaged her every day and demonstrated a loyalty & depth I had not seen to that level before in her.  Jordan wrote her notes, cried for her in his room, prayed for her on her bed, did his homework at the hospital & dedicated goals to her in his soccer playing.  Bruce left work behind, read Psalm 23 over her, held her hand for hours, ran several times a day to Burger King for shaved ice for her and valiantly tried to keep us all together in one piece.  As for me, I have never known maternal love to the extent that I did last year, even when I held them as beautiful babies and couldn´t keep my eyes off them.  The love & adrenalin that ran through my system day and night that subconsciously & organically warned me ¨a child you love is in danger¨ carried me through sleepless nights, long waits at the hospital, endless medical errands  and the suffering of my mother-heart that the whole process dragged me through.  It was a year to think about her, pray unceasingly for her, sacrifice for her, love on her, write about her, dream about her and serve her - plus hold my other two dear ones in their anguish.  And although I did it far from perfectly, I didn´t know I had it in me. Most of all, burned into our minds forever, is Jenna´s love toward us - in her gratitude, in her uncomplaining attitude, in her surrender, in her humor in the midst of pain, in her fighting, in her concern for us, in the verbal gifts of love she gave to each one of us as she realized the end was drawing near.  She left us with words we will always treasure as she recounted & affirmed her love for each one.  The closeness of death brought out an appreciation for the preciousness of one another like nothing else we have experienced.  Love can bring out the best you have to give.   

All of these assorted, random thoughts about love this year come down to this:  there are no borders for genuine love.  No political frontiers that can keep it out, no bitterness that cannot be conquered, no sin too big to be forgiven, no relationship too difficult, no war too awful, no illness too devastating and not even death itself, for:

¨love is as strong as death, 

its jealousy unyielding as the grave.

It burns like a blazing fire, like a mighty flame.¨

S. of Songs 8:6

Whatever kind of love you are celebrating on Valentine´s Day, I hope you will remember all the kinds God has given you to enjoy.  I pray most of all that you will experience His divine, sacred, unrelenting love for you - for that is the most stunning love of all.  Love without borders...that is the kind He has for you and for me - and all the world.  Celebrate it!

THE WINTER OF GRIEF

" It was you who set all the boundaries of the earth; you made both summer and winter.¨

Psalm 74:17

The winter of grief pierces my heart.  The bitter cold has made bones of the trees outside.  They stand naked, vulnerable, frozen in their dormant posture.  They seem much like me in their waiting, in their defenseless exposure, in their inability to move.  They have been reduced to attitudes of  essential survival.

My heart goes down early with the sun (how soon the darkness comes in winter!) and withdraws in loneliness.  It instinctively searches for warmth & quiet in its hibernated state.  It is a serious season, a seemingly unending one and its barrenness stretches out before me.

Yet in spite of the cold, there is a certain beauty - pristine snow and its painting of the winter wonderlandscape, glowing indoor fires, hoodies & hot chocolate, flannels & fleece, cinnamon candles & music floating like the flakes themselves - all a juxtaposed part of this season.  There is the hope of the evergreen, the uniqueness of each snowflake, the fun of snow sports, the warmth of family, the sweet dreams of sugarplums and even the early crocuses with their promises of spring.

But my grief is desolate & raw right now in winter. I cocoon up against the flurries of sadness, the wind chill of depression and the bleakness of the wasteland of energy & passion.  I observe the beauty of this season from afar, like a tourist, yet I am restless & yearning for another.

Where I live now there is no snow in winter, just the cold.  Last week the almond trees blossomed.  They are always the first and most eager for spring.  But they brought false hopes; two days ago another northern chill swept over the country in defiant response.  My heart ran again for cover.

I reflect, somewhat bemused, on the fact that the southern hemisphere of the world is in summer - maybe I am just in the wrong place!  And those countries along the equator who have no winter at all... do they not have a ¨winter¨ in their grief there?  I seriously consider moving...but I´m pretty sure the winter of my grief would stubbornly refuse to leave me until it´s time is done.  It clings to me with chilling yet intentional purpose.

My soul yearns for warmth, sunshine, the soft-hued colors & fresh air of life-giving spring.  I long for its promises, its breath and spirit.  I long to come outside, out of my hiding, out of my cocooning, out of the sadness of loss.  I know I have a long journey in front of me but I just want to turn this corner into tender, verdant spring.  To move, grow and progress.

Oh may I be persevering during this winter of grief!  It will not last forever and there is purpose in it just like all the seasons.  Help me to understand that in this apparent dormancy, there is growth and life; it is just not as evident.  Things are hibernating, resting, preparing for the surge of growth & life that is to come.  Let me walk this one out faithfully, one day at a time.  There will soon be a thawing, a warming, the songbirds will return and the flowering will begin...  

¨Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him.  

As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains,

like the spring rains that water the earth.¨

Hosea 6:3  

Photo by:  blmiers2