Between Grief and Joy

I’m in a precarious position as I write this column. It is the Friday before Palm Sunday. We are but a few days from Holy Week. This column will be published on Holy Thursday, just as the most somber days of the year begin. Three days later, it will be Easter, the most jubilant day of the year.

As I write, my husband’s mother hangs on to the faintest whisper of life. Before I hit “send,” she could be gone.

When will you read this? In the silence of Good Friday afternoon, or Easter Monday, as you catch your breath after a day of joyous celebration? The line is so fine this week of the liturgical year: life and death, grief and joy, fear and hope.

Faith finds us there, along that fine line. Faith — like a muscle that is stretched and stressed and, please God, strengthened in the moments of grief — carries us from the grief to the joy, from the fear to the hope. There on the death side of the fine line, though, waiting and hoping to hope in joy, we are brokenhearted. It is the person of Jesus who sits with us in Gethsemane, who weeps with us at the tomb, who gives us reason to rejoice on the glorious morning of new life.

We hear the promise in the dark of night: The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit (Ps 34:18). Deep grief changes lives. Deep grief tests souls by stretching taut against every good thing we’ve ever believed and straining against the faith we’ve always taken for granted. Under the weight of sadness, hearts bow and souls cry out in despair. The question is whether we cry out to the Lord who has taken all of our grief upon His own shoulders. Will we let Him come close to our broken hearts? Curled up tightly, defensive against the pain, we are tempted like never before to shut Him out, disbelieving that any good God would allow the dark of a Friday on Calvary. Will we exercise our faith and let it grow in the pain? Will we test it and find that God truly is good, all the time, even on the grief side of the fine line? Will we believe in the triumph of Easter morning?

Cellophane Easter grass strewn across the living room floor and half-eaten chocolate bunnies are the stuff of Sunday afternoon. But Easter, true Easter, lives most gloriously in the soul of the person who has wrestled grief and the doubt it sows in one’s faith and lived to know that Jesus is real. We have to make the first move, however tentative it is. We have to reach for Jesus and ask Him to walk along the fine line. Part of growing in faith is making a decision to believe and to be vulnerable in belief. Strengthening faith means living on the grief side of the fine line and deciding that we trust God’s plan and, further, that we want Him to be our safe place. We want Him to take us to the other side, the joy side. Slowly, we unfurl from our defensive posture and let our souls inhale grace.

You get to write the story.

“You get to write the story.”

The first time I said it this week was via text message to a boy in despair. You get to write it. You’re the hero of your story, and you get to decide how it unfolds. He wasn’t buying it.

The second time, it was a whisper into a little girl’s ears. It’s your story, and you get to be the hero in it. Tears rolled down her face.

“This is not the way I’d write this story,” she said. “I don’t want to have a chapter like this one.”

OK. Good point. This little girl is watching her big brother, her sister-in-law and the niece who is also her best friend move across the country. At the same time, her grandmother is dying. She wants a new book.

Together, as a family, we are learning that the story of our lives is kind of like a MadLib book. Remember those? The sketch of the narrative is roughed out for you, but there are blanks to fill. You choose the noun or verb or adverb when prompted, and the way you choose determines the final story. These are crucial lessons as my children grow into adulthood. Choose well what you put in the blanks; the story depends on your choices.

It’s not entirely true that we are masters of our fate or authors of our stories. It is true that we have to live what life asks us to live. Into every life, God allows sorrows as well as joys. He lets us carry the crosses of illness and grief and disappointment. They are part and parcel of ordinary life. That is “skeleton,” the rough sketch of the story.

We choose how to fill in the blanks. We hold the pen that will move across the paper and determine the direction of our days. No other person alive holds our pens; each one is specific to the person who wields it. The pen writes on our minds, to be sure, but more importantly, it writes on our hearts and our souls. It’s there that the story is truly authored. We write the soul story.

A soul story isn’t a resume or an itinerary or a ledger. Our true stories aren’t told on our pay stubs or our business cards. Our true stories are told in the daily decisions to live lives of complete trust in our Creator. Want to know what to write in the blanks? Want the secret to surviving the grief and turning the page to find joy? Ask God how He wants you to fill in the blanks.

Remember that everything that happens is allowed by God, and in that same recognition, remember that He gives sufficient grace. If you are 7 years old, that means you tell yourself that God knows you’re sad and He’s sad with you. You can fill in the blanks of your story with words of affirmation, little reminders of His love for you. You can lift your head and wipe your tears and look forward with hope to see how He fills the hole you feel.

You write the soul story. You can fill in the blanks with bitterness and anger. No doubt there are such words that will fit there. Or, you can fill the blanks with grace — His grace. If you let Him, He’ll offer you all the right words to fill in the blanks and make you whole.

Gathering My Thoughts

Outside my window:  Nick is warming up to play the sixth soccer game of the weekend. I’m sitting in the car, collecting myself before venturing into a world of relative strangers and forcing myself to be cheerful. Michael and Kristin are not far from here at all. I’m a few short miles from the airport and planes are taking off overhead. One of them will carry their little family to California. I’m not yet ready step out of the car and into the company of people who say things like, “Good thing you have eight more. You won’t miss the one.” Um. No. That’s not how this works. Not at all.

Listening to: Traffic. Game noise. Airplanes. Some random radio turned up way too high. At least that guy has fairly good taste in music. [edited to add: This game is at a church. I just realized the church is broadcasting praise and worship music. I am so grateful.]

Clothing myself in: Jeans, a cabled sweater, and NorthFace fleece jacket that doesn’t belong to me, but most likely belongs to Kate, the neighbor who frequently sleeps in my basement and always wanted to be Kimmy when she watched Full House;-).

Talking with my children about these books: Going West. We had a good cry. Now, we’re going to tackle all the chapter books together.

In my own reading: I’m going to tell you all about my reading later this week. It’s time for a big reading roundup booklist. I’ve got some sewing to report on as well.

Thinking and thinking: about how special my relationship is with Kristin. In some ways, we’re a lot alike. In many ways, we’re very different. Our differences complement each other though and I have learned so much from her in these past couple years. I know that the way she was in and out of my home, so often and for such long stretches, is a rare and extraordinary gift. I’m glad to have gotten to know her this way. Neither of us knows exactly what these long distance relationships will look like. I have a hunch I’m going to learn some valuable lessons from her in the next few months, though.

Carefully Cultivating Rhythm: Kristin and Lucy have been living with us for a few weeks and so our rhythm has revolved around them. It will certainly be strange to wake up tomorrow morning to the quiet. Neither Kristin nor Lucy is quiet.

As Michael’s family was leaving, Christian was arriving. Christian is very quiet (and Nicholas and Sarah and I will welcome him to our ranks). On Tuesday, Patrick will be home and he’ll bring a friend. The house will shift into big boy mode. I need to do a rare mid-week grocery shopping:-). I’m so grateful for the timing of this spring break. My Nicholas needs his big boys. Rhythm will be off, no doubt. Paddy always bring his own energy into a room and Christian is a night owl, but it will be good. 

Creating By Hand:  I have some costume sewing to do. I really, really have some costume sewing to do. And layette sewing, too. .

Learning lessons in: With a nod to my 100 day cough, I ordered some of these for everyone from Sarah to Nicholas. It’s a little bit of change in the way we approach literature-based learning. There are typos that drive me nuts. But for the most part, the structure and novelty of someone else’s very loose plans are good for us in this season.

Encouraging learning in: We are in full-blown midterm mode. The away college kids bring papers and deadlines home. Mary Beth has a boatload of work to do this week and Stephen has begun two dual-enrollment classes. We’re all about academic writing. (Psst, I like academic writing;-).

Keeping house: My house looks like a toddler got to do whatever she wanted wherever she wanted for several days in a row. It’s time for spring cleaning. It’s also going to be 70 degrees outside, so windows wide open, yay!

Crafting in the kitchen: Whatever those big boys want. Seriously. I’m taking orders.

To be fit and happy: I’m going to begin walking distances again. I’m still coughing quite a bit and I honestly don’t know how my lung capacity will be, but I’m going to try to build up again to the healthy habit I know I need.

Giving thanks: for the messages that have filled my phone since very early this morning and how grateful I am for good friends who pray when they say they’re praying. Grateful, too, for a dear girl in Charlottesville who popped in at just the right moment and reminded me with her presence that these big kids leave, but then they come home again, sometimes bringing people we grow to love. I worry about all the goodbyes my little girls have to say, all the time. Then I remember the friends they have found in people like Kristin. And Lexi…

Loving the moments: when Lucy raids the costume box and dances in the kitchen with Sarah for hours and hours and hours.

Living the Liturgy: Some days, I see striking resemblances between my backyard and Gethsemane.

Planning for the week ahead: We still have some very steep hills to climb this Lent. I know that. Last night, I talked to my friend Martha for an hour and half. This is remarkable because I still don’t really have a speaking voice (that 100 day cough and all). But I needed to be heard, and even more, I needed to hear someone who knows me forever, who walked with me through valleys, who understands what language it is that tunes my heart to hope. We have steep hills to climb. Martha reminds me to take baby steps to the elevator and that the elevator is going up. 

Pondering: When I pulled up here at soccer, this song was playing over that broadcast system. And then, when I got in the car to warm up during halftime, this song was on the radio. I never buy music on iTunes. But I bought this song right there and then. I'm going to listen to it before I do anything else every morning for the forseeable future. 

Going West

When Nicholas was little, he loved the Little House Picture Books. Every night, for close to three years, we read at least three of those books at bedtime. They traveled with us when we went on trips. A couple of them became so worn that I replaced them, and, at one point, I had all of them memorized. I loved the books nearly as much as he did.

There was one book, though, that I preferred not to read. And there were three pages in that book that tugged at my heart all those many years ago, as if they foreshadowed a day to come in March 2016. On the first of those three pages, Laura and Mary hug and kiss the Grandma and the aunts goodbye. What are those aunts thinking? Are they remembering the day Mary was born? How exciting it was to welcome a new baby? How it made them all more family to welcome one into the next generation? As the girls clung to their dolls, were the aunts thinking of all the times they'd played with them and all the funny little names they knew between them for the playthings--all the many fibers that wove together to make a family culture? Were they thinking of Ma, and how she was one of them, and how much they'd miss her we've-always-known-her presence in their day-to-day?

Then, we see Laura and Mary saying goodbye to their cousins as they get ready to climb into the wagon and leave the woods of Wisconsin for their new home on the prairie. The little family had always lived within the context of a bigger one and grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins make their appearances in some of the other picture books, threaded into the storyline of Laura's younger years. In Going West, Laura says goodbye to big parties at her grandmother's house with lots of familiar babies all lined up on the big bed and breakfasts in her kitchen, where she's treated to pancakes and syrup from her grandfather's maple trees. There is a sense of somber bewilderment on the faces in the picture. What will this all mean?

Were they thinking that it was entirely possible they'd never see these dear people again? Did Laura understand that the easy familiarity she had with her cousins and her grandparents would fade into infrequent written correspondences? Did the grownups think Pa a fool to pull his family from the security of the known community? Did they understand that he only wanted what was best for his family and opportunity lay to the west?

 And Ma. Sweet Ma, reluctant, but brave.

The dog on wheels is named Izzy, in honor of the real Izzy, who lives at Lucy's other grandma's house. Both Izzys will wait patiently for a visit in June.

It's the next picture that does me in every time. Grandma is holding Baby Carrie as the family gets settled into the wagon. She's looking the little girl straight into her eyes while still holding her as close as she can without blurring her vision. I imagine her vision was blurred all the same. How did she do that without crying? She will hand that baby to Ma, knowing full well that, if she ever sees her again, Carrie will no longer fit in her arms. Grandma won't feel that toddler curve around her hips ever again. She won't sit her on her lap at dinner time. She won't wipe the day's dirt from her face in a warm bath by her woodstove. No matter how reliable the post, letters will never let her feel the baby softness of Carrie's cheek or the tickle of toddler hair after a nap. She knows that she won't be the dear, familiar face to any of the girls that she is when she lifts them onto the wagon. They will grow as quickly as children do and if their paths cross again, the little girls will not be so little and she will be but a friendly stranger to them. They are leaving and nothing will ever be the same.

It's 2016. We have Skype. And Instagram. And FaceTime. And Snapchat. We can see each other every day. We have airplanes.

And I am very grateful for all of that.

I'm also spending countless hours trying to understand the new paradigm where some of my favorite people live 3,000 miles away. I'm trying to imagine how an introverted, homebody kind of a mother who has always understood that "acts of service" is her love language (how she gives and how she receives) and everything is about showing up even begins to wrap her brain around the cosmic shift in her household. 

I'm the mama who always hid Going West so we wouldn't have to read that one. 

Even then, I think I knew. 

Tonight, I read Going West to Sarah at bedtime. We both cried.

Monday night, we'll take turns reading aloud from Little House on the Prairie--right after we FaceTime with Lucy.

Take this Cup

I’ve fallen on my face fairly frequently lately. That part, I seem to have mastered. Like Jesus in Gethsemane, I’ve come to the end of myself. I can’t see, like He does, the suffering that lies ahead. That’s definitely God’s good design, because I’m sure if last year at this time I could see all the way to this year, I’d have been terrified. All I see is what is directly in front of me. Still, I throw myself facedown and pray with all my heart. Something happens here, in the facedown position. Grace is poured. I don’t always recognize it at once, but it’s there.  (Please read the rest here)