Scared of Sacrifice

"We can do no great things, only small things with great love." Mother Teresa

I’m not entirely sure why, but people who have little, sit very close to my heart. Insidemy heart, actually. I think about it a lot.

When I’m standing at my sink washing dishes with clean, easy water - I think about it.

When it's storming outside and I'm cuddled up with a blanket and heat and a fireplace - I think about it.When I fill a glass with fresh water from my ice-and-water dispensing fridge - I think about it.

When I plop down on at our neighborhood beach, I feel like it’s my safe zone from the barrage of bombs sometimes going off in my life – stress, kids, work, myself, fill in the blank. "Finally, some peace" I think in a first world kind of way. But often, the thought crosses my mind that some people have never known (external) peace. They live in constant vigilance of a real bomb that might knock down the walls of their house and wipe out their families or an exploding bus on their ride to work or school.

Standing in front of my fully-stocked fridge…

Making meals for my family and thinking of other mama’s who have nothing to feed their equally precious babies…

When I drive 10 minutes and take my kid to the doctor…

…I think about it. How crazy lucky and blessed I am.

When I write our sponsored-friend, Melody, I hesitate to write what is true about our life without seeming inconsiderate of hers. I basically don’t write her half because of this and half because I find it easier to send a cheque than to give of myself.

I want our kids to really know something about this. I say it to them already, gently reminding them that they were lucky to be born here…in Canada. I want them to know they did nothing to deserve it. It was a gift or random luck, I’m really not sure. What I am sure of is this: Because they were born with much, they must think about their responsibility to respond to the needs of those who were born with little.Because really, those who were born with little did nothing to deserve that either. I want to do this in a way that sparks passion, not creates a burden. I want them to know that it is a joy to have this privilege. This is becoming real in my own heart. And that's good because it starts with Jason and I and our example.

By Canadian standards, our life is good but not lavish. But to most of the world, we are wealthy. Still, at this stage of our life, it doesn’t exactly feel easy. The responsibilities of life and family make Jay and I feel that perhaps we should start searching for the infamous money tree. Especially when the washing machine breaks and our car decides it is D.O.N.E. and preschool fees are due… and on and on. I’m pretty sure you know what I’m talking about. 

I don’t usually have to remind myself these are first world problems. Sometimes, I have to remind myself these are first world problems. But this reality lives in my heart too. Not in a dark, black kind of way, but in a way that feels connected to our world – the joy and pain and of it. We belong to each other. But these are still my first world problems. And sometimes I get stuck in knowing what to do with them.

To be honest, I struggle to pray for these things. Not pray as in, “God-genie, please give me a new washing machine...or a new car.” I might be wrong, but I don’t really believe in praying like that. I don’t believe God is at my beck-and-call like a bellhop. I mean, pray as in take my tangled-up heart and these grey and muddied questions before the One who made and holds the world. I do believe He knows our needs but what do I need? I think I struggle with this because people all over the world are praying for food today. Or water…so they can live. Literally LIVE – as in STAY ALIVE. This puts my own “needs” into perspective. The washing machine – let me be honest, it feels like a need to me.  But the car – did I mention it is our second car? It doesn’t feel right to say we need it. Like it? want it? Yes. Convenient? Yes. Need it? Not so sure. How to balance all of this with the fact that I do live in North America and have North American needs? Is that even fair to say? See my confusion?!

So maybe I see a prayer about our car as something that I shouldn’t put too high on my list of prayers (or should I?) because I don’t really need it. Maybe I could transfer that prayer-energy to the foster kid in my friend’s class whose life looks like a hell-hole. Or my drug-dealing neighbor who has lost himself, even if he doesn’t know it. Or my own heart still needing so much-shaping to not hoard and have things at the cost of other human beings.

Honestly, I feel a little confused and scared of this growing longing in my heart. I feel a joy and compelling. It's all jumbled. I feel scared of making choices for our life that are not really socially acceptable. In our culture and in my heart too, it’s radical to think of living for something more than your own four walls or four people (or whatever your number). I’m talking about sacrifice. Not the pat myself on the back and return to my mostly self-centered way kind of giving. I’m talking about a way of living: Love that sacrifices. Love that gives up some things in response to the needs I see in my little world. I've seen it in others and I am wowed by it.

Love that really is barely an echo of the Love we’ve been given.

This growing conviction and longing make me nervous because it isn’t really culturally or socially acceptable to live like that. We I think there is something a little off or radical about people who think or live this way. It scares me. It scares me because I know what it feels like to not be acceptable, to feel like I don’t belong. For a lot of my life, I worked hard to be good enough, to be acceptable, likable. As a girl, I never felt I fit. My family was a weird hybrid of homeschooler. Other homeschoolers thought we were wild and my parents too permissive. My church (public school) friends thought we were sheltered and a little strange. They all lived in the suburbs, they thought I lived in the ghetto. In my teenage job, I was often the token white person. And even in my family, I felt I didn’t fit sometimes. I’ve wondered if I was born missing a layer of tough skin other people have. I’ve always been more emotionally vulnerable and sensitive. I embrace this beautiful part of myself now, but it made growing up hard at times. But here’s the thing… I know belonging now. I know I fit – in my own skin, in my life and with others. So when I think about making sacrifices that leave people scratching their heads or clucking their tongues, it reminds me of the life I lived before I knew I was enough - acceptable, beloved. I don’t have to reach too far to remember what it felt like to not belong. And I feel afraid. Oh me of such little faith. I believe. Help my unbelief that doubts whether He guides us gently and wholly into the way of Love.

So there it is... the pulse of my heart right now. I don’t really know what to do with it. I’m just sitting with it. Being gentle with it, with myself. Listening. Wondering. Discerning. Don’t worry, those who love us, we're not planning to sell all of our earthly goods and move to Timbuktu! 

Day 5 (10 Years of Grief)

My heart is a little raw this year.

Over time, our understanding and the meaning we make of our stories, changes and expands. Just as I thought my grief was becoming quite tidy, I’ve had this past year: A year of significant exploration and understanding and an opening of my heart to see the ways I’ve been shaped and the fingerprints of God all over my story - the wounds and heartache, the joys and gratitude. I think this is why my heart feels tender as this season of grief rolls around. In all of this, I am more aware of what it feels like to be alive to life and perhaps more aware of those times when I closed my heart to life in many ways.

After Ryan died, I went with my go-to strategy. Be okay. Look okay. Act okay. Smile. This will keep everything from sliding out of control. It's all I knew. I’d done this since I was a little girl. If life was chaos – organize something. If I felt sad – pretend I wasn't. If I was overwhelmed - get busy and get over it. 

God of What's Left

I’m often driving home from work somewhere between 11:30pm and midnight. Its dark and I’m tired. I need a change of pace to engage my mind and keep me awake. I stumbled upon listening to the sermons of Steve Elliott. He is the husband of a woman who taught and influenced me greatly during my year at Rocky Mountain (Bible) College. More specifically, I’ve been listening to the same three sermons over the past month. Each time, the unpretentious words Steve speaks and prays find a deeper anchor in my soul.

So on a day where I am reminded of much sorrow, I think of Steve’s sermon “The God of What’s Left.” Naomi had lost everything—her entire family, her status, her home. Talk about grief upon grief. She was bitter. And I think, “Yeah. No kidding. Her losses are equal to Job.” Yet as the story of Ruth unfolds, God takes Naomi’s losses and shapes them into joy. Her life is not over or empty, as it first seems. He takes what was left from the rubble of her life and brings joy. Redeeming Love overwhelms sorrow.

Where is God in the hard places? To be honest, in the middle of the hard places, my faith lags. But in grief and loss, in the hard places, we can see God’s ‘hidden’ hand at work. His providence. God’s fingerprints. I don’t say this lightly. And I don’t write it in an overspiritualized attempt to escape the pain or big questions about sorrow/pain. I write this after a 9 year walk, sometimes crawl, with grieving. It doesn’t mean sorrows or setbacks are somehow less painful or somehow worth it to suffer. It ‘just’ means because of the providence of God, they’re not wasted. In God’s goodness, the tears are not forgotten, the sorrows and sufferings are never wasted.

So on April 7, 2011, with 9 years of retrospect, I am grateful that He IS the God of what’s left. I am grateful He takes the dark colors on that canvas of grief and transforms them into a painting that is full of color and depth and joy and pain and love and growth and tears and laughter and purpose and thankfulness ... Thankfulness. Not for the grief or the pain or the loss. But for His goodness. His goodness that has healed my heart straight. Only because of His mercy, grief did not leave my soul crooked.

Today, I remember my brother. I think I’ll make my Great Aunt Jeanette’s peanut butter balls today in Ryan’s honor. I’ll probably watch the video/picture montage we put together for his memorial. Remembering his life. Undoubtedly, I will cry as I miss him and all that could have been. But more than anything-Today, I notice and remember God’s fingerprints and mercies all along my journey of grief. 

Gift of Grief

Grief: The gift that keeps on giving.
A little tongue-in-cheek but true in so many ways.
A couple of weeks ago, I received a letter from Julia, my brother’s wife. She wrote in response to the baby announcement I sent her. Baby announcements and annual Christmas letters are the extent of our connecting—Juge and I. But it used to be so different.

On Monday, I was caught off guard by grief-a new and different kind of grief. One I haven’t recognized beneath the layers. I miss my friend. Just her. She was my friend before she was his widow.

It used to be that when I thought of Julia, I thought of Ryan. His loss, missing him, overshadowed anything else. After Ryan died, I wanted her in my life. In retrospect and if I’m honest with myself, I wanted to keep knowing her because it felt as though it linked me to him.

I did not like Julia when Ryan decided she would be his girl. I was 16, she was 14. She was beautiful and fun-loving. I was jealous. And she ‘stole’ my best friend, my brother. But that quickly changed once they were married. She became my sister. And we loved each other, had fun together, and acted ridiculous together.

I am forever grateful to Julia for the way she loved my brother. She was really just a child when they married but she loved him the best she knew how. She loved him selflessly and faithfully. It eases the ache, even just a bit, to know that he knew what it was like to love and be loved like that. She added so much spark to his life. But her life with him was not easy. She, more than anyone else, lived with the daily struggle of his addiction. I don’t know all of the ins and outs of that. I’ve never really asked. Maybe I didn’t want to know. And if I did ask or listen, I listened desperate for links to Ryan, not trying to hear and know the broken heart of my friend.

After the funeral, the drift was immediate. It was too painful to be around each other. Probably more for her than us. She once told me that being with our family was like salt in the wound. It makes sense. She was with us because she was with him. Being with us was a blaring reminder of all she had been through and lost. But there were other things: misunderstandings, normal life, neglect, thousands of miles, hindsight and new perspectives. So 8 years later, I’m caught off guard. Partially reeling from the sad and self-absorbed fact that it took me 8 years to realize I failed my friend.

Monday caught me off guard – I missed her intensely. My old friend, not my brother’s wife. And this is the thing about grief; it comes in the most unexpected ways. But it also presents me with the opportunity to love better. And that is the gift.

I miss you, Juge!

Shelter

Shelter
by Sandra McCracken

In the arms of a good Father
You can go to the deep water
Where the questions, we have left unspoken
Come out in the open
We will find shelter here

So I lay down, what I cannot hold in my hands
Every sorrow and hope spinning out of control
And here I find sweet resolution comes in letting go
And we will find shelter here

When I look back I can see,
And when I am old I'll remember these things
Like a mountain of stone
And the longing that makes me believe...

There is a tree by the blue river
Where the shade stretches wide over
In this breaking we are hand and glove
We will find shelter here.

I still find myself resistant to label the time that has past: Eight years (cringe!).
I would rather not think about it.
More life lived without him...beautiful (and mostly joyful) living too.
I am grateful for the sheltering and softening of my heart and spirit as life moves forward without my brother.

As this 'season of sorrow' approached, I wondered how or if it would feel different.
This year, April will be marked with a beautiful gift, our baby.
This season has been different. I am different. Changed by grief and love and life but more by time's passing than the hope and joy on our very near horizon.

I love this song, Shelter, because it captures my feelings and thoughts on grief in my eighth sorrowful season. I do find a sort of 'sweet resolution' in having brought my questions, anger, brokenness into the Open and letting go. Being able to let go into the arms of a good and faithful Father. I lay down what I cannot hold, what I cannot understand, and stop trying to make sense of it or re-negotiate it in my heart and mind. Peace in pain. I get it.

As I thought about this place I'm in, I had the simple realization that this is the way grief should (eventually) move. This is the healthy progression of grief that has been worked through and healed up as much as it can be in this life.
Yet I know the passing of time is not a guarantee of healing. I've seen it do the opposite. The deep waters of loss are adept at drowning us. Drowning us in bitterness, anger, entitlement, martyrdom, false spirituality, guilt, regret, an inauthentic life or any number of things. In the end, the brokenness does not heal. It gets infected. So it for this reason, I feel humbled and grateful for the shelter and the One who has sheltered me.

So... Of course, I miss my brother today. But I also looked through pictures of us and laughed a few belly-laughs remembering good times together. I played air band and made cookies with my son. Sat quietly and soaked up the sunshine. Took a nap. Ate too many of those cookies we made. And most of all, let my humbled heart dwell on God's grace that often feels disguised in grief.

Spring, Summer, Sorrow, Fall, Winter

It's not as if I ever forget he's gone.
He is always a part of me, my insides.
But every year, as March approaches April, my world feels a little colder, hazy.
Along with spring showers, the season of sorrow drizzles on my heart.
The dampness sort of clings to me.
It chills me to the bone.
It's hard to shake.
Death = A season of sorrow. It's inevitable.
At first, its the only season there is but time goes on and your heart and life mend.

The transition into my season of sorrow feels seamless. So seamless, its unsettling
It's no longer harsh or overwhelming, it just seems to creep into my heart and thoughts.
It leaves the same way...Subtly.
The strangest part is that its so unconscious. I don't plan to start feeling blue mid-March but inevitably, memories creep in unguarded and unexpected moments.
Is there some kind of unconscious guard that goes down during this time?
I think about him more. I look at pictures more often. I talk about him more...at least to myself.
Its a catch 22. I like it. I like remembering him, his smile, his sense of humor, memories only he and I share.
But it stings.
While it allows me to feel connected to him in a more palpable way, its also a stark reminder of his absence and the huge void in my world without him.

Ryan

I miss him. I miss his place, his 'space' in this world, in my life. Its empty and cold where he used to be. Its hard to describe what its like when you lose someone, its even harder to describe what its like to go on missing them. We've missed him for 6 years now. It seems like yesterday and it seems like forever. I think about him every single day. But today, he would be 30. I've noticed sometimes in the 'missing', we can forget to remember the living they did. Today, I remember.

I want to remember him the way he was, a funny, charismatic, sensitive, fashionable :), protective, loving brother. People were drawn to him. Idolized him (me included!). His brokenness doesn't change any of this.
I love you, Ryan. I miss you. Happy Birthday.