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.

In Loving Memory

Ryan,

I think of you today and while I grieve the memories we will never get to make and the life we'll never share, I feel so very grateful to have loved and been loved by you. It is my fervent hope and belief that you are held in the Arms of mercy...free of all the pain you walked with in this life. Without a doubt, I know I am more authentic, compassionate, and humbled from having walked (and crawled) your journey with you...sometimes laughing, sometimes crying.

You are my beloved brother and friend, I miss you... But I rejoice knowing that you are free.

Remembering

In Loving Memory of Ryan Michael Sullivan, my big brother and friend. You are never far from my thoughts...I miss you!