February

A sense of dread fills my heart as February is only days away.  February has always been a difficult month.  The beauty of Christmas and the hope of the New Year have both gone stale, and the only thing that's left is cold temperatures and gray days.  In our heads we know Spring is coming, but in our hearts it still feels a long way off.  We wonder if it will ever truly come.

February has taken on a whole new dread since 2012.  This February will be be the third anniversary of my nephew's death.  The day that the pain and pressure of life drove him to the pit of despair and he took his own life.  There is still a part of me that struggles to believe that is actually true.  Did that really happen?  How is it that a child that was loved with such a fierce love could be gone, and by his own hands?  How?  It does not compute.  He brought our family so much laughter and joy.

But joy wasn't his only story.  Obviously.  We are never just one sided.  As human beings, we have many facets.  I know for me personally, although I love to laugh, I know great sadness.  Though I have wonderful friends, I know profound loneliness.  Though I have been loved well, I can still believe the lie that nobody cares. Although I'm surrounded by light, I know a darkness that runs so deep that only Aslan could tear it out.

My nephew, Jon, was no exception to this phenomenon.  Although he was loved and delighted in, he struggled deeply.  Although he had a delicious sense of humor, he knew despair.  Autoimmune disease, pain, drug addiction and alcoholism were also part of his story.

I have deep, dark regrets when it comes to the last years of Jon's life.  The last time I saw him he was on something.  It was the first time I had ever seen him in that state and I did not react well.  I think deep down, I was scared.  I don't do scared well.  I cover scared up with all kinds of other things that look more powerful, like anger, or self-righteousness, or some other disgusting entity.  I ignored him.  That last time I ever saw his face, I ignored him.  I am tempted to hate myself forever because of that. But through much processing with God in the quietness of my own heart, I have agreed to let it change me instead.  I have chosen instead to reject the pharisee that lives inside my heart and kill it every time it rises up.  When I'm tempted to think I'm better than somebody else, my nephew's face pops into my head and I remember his life and his story and his value, and I bow my head in humility.  His story has changed me.

As much as I would like to, I cannot go back and treat Jon differently that day.  So instead, I treat the people who are still alive differently.  I cannot over look human beings like I used to.  I can no longer drive by the homeless man who panhandles on the corner.  The older one, with a walker, who carries a sign that says, "Anything helps.  God bless."  That man, with the blue eyes.  I stop.  I give him money.  I can't help myself.  I see my nephew.  I say things like, "Please try to stay warm," and "I'm praying that God will bless you." I know that he probably uses the money for alcohol.  The last time I saw him, his skin looked yellow, like maybe his liver is failing.  And it breaks. my. heart.  But if today is his last day on earth, I want him to know that he mattered to me, this woman who drives the silver mini van, and wears the aqua coat, with two dark haired, young girls in the back.  I cry tears on my pillow about him in the middle of the night, when the temps drop down low, and pray that God will protect him.

Just as we are changed when new human beings come into our lives, we are changed when they leave us. Joy, trauma, pain, it all changes us.  It's what it's meant to do.  We're supposed to change.  It's the whole purpose of life.  I feel like it's the only thing I have to offer to honor my nephew's memory.  Because his life mattered to me, I'm different now that he's gone.  Because his life mattered to me, I will value every life that I come in contact with.

Whoever you are, right now reading this blog, I want you to know that your life matters to me.  Whether you're a friend, or a family member, or someone I've never met.  Your life is precious.  If you're addicted to drugs, or alcohol, or pornography, or food, or gambling, or social networking, or your iPhone,...or whatever else.  If you're homeless, or wealthy, or empty or full.  If you're in physical pain or emotional pain.  Your life matters.  Not just to me, but to God.  God cares a million times more than I ever could.  The ripples of your life travel long and far.  If you're struggling with despair and are afraid of what you might do, reach out right now to someone who loves you.  I know it's hard, and you don't want to, and you don't want to inconvenience anybody.  Do it anyway.

Ephesians 3: 14-19 from The Message. "My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God."

http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

Puke, Pain and Perseverance

When I was pregnant with the kids, I couldn't brush my teeth without gagging.  Now, I can't brush my teeth without tears.  Two very different stages of life.  Two very different reasons.

During my pregnancies, my gag reflex was out of control.  I would throw up for almost any reason.  The smell of bread in a plastic bag, being hungry, the texture of eggs, brushing my teeth - they all sent me running to the toilet.  In retrospect, it's a small price to pay for a brand new life. I may have thrown up enough vomit to fill a dumpster, but I have three amazing human beings to show for it.  The suffering was worth it.  

Last Spring, I started reading a book called Why Pray.  It was a great little read, and as all good books do, it messed with me a little bit.  It began to change the way I prayed.  Instead of praying for weight loss and health, I simply started to pray that God's Kingdom would come in my body and in my heart.  I didn't realize how life changing those prayers would be.  I assumed that God and I had the same ideas about what was good for my body and my health.  I was wrong.

Shortly after starting to pray that prayer, something changed.  My Rheumatoid Arthritis, that had been managed by nutrition alone, without any meds, started to change.  My energy drained.  My feet swelled up and my toes stiffened and wouldn't bend.  I had pain every single minute of every single day, and in a new place every week.  I went back on my meds only to have them changed twice since then.  The latest medication they have me on is a chemotherapy drug, Methotrexate.  This medication is the reason I can't brush my teeth without tears.  My mouth is covered in ulcers, one of the many side effects of this drug.  I give myself a shot of it once a week.  There is no cure for RA, but the hope is with these strong drugs that they can slow down the progression of the disease and minimize the damage it does.  The only thing worse than giving myself a chemotherapy shot is, I'm not sure it's working.  Pain and fatigue still fill my days.

When all of this first started to happen, I wasn't upset.  I felt like because I had prayed that prayer, that I could really trust that this was God's will for me and that he would use it for good.  I was willing to surrender my health.  I was willing to live with pain.  But here's the thing.  It has started to affect other people.  People I really love a lot.  I see the concern in Matt's eyes.  I see the disappointment in my kids faces when I have to say no to a field trip or an outing, or even a trip upstairs to tuck them into bed.  It hurts them.  I know they understand, but that's not the point.  This disease is not just stealing from me, it's stealing from my family and I hate that.

Matt and I have cried many tears about what the next step is.  There are more meds to try, but they come with even more risks.  Very serious risks.  Is my quality of life now worth serious cancer risks in the future?  Is the quality of my life now worth a shorter life span?  We still don't have answers to those questions.

One thing I know for sure is that God loves me.  Something in me is different.  I feel settled in God's love in a new and powerful way.  I can't explain it.  I just know it, to the depths of my being.  I'm loved.  Through this suffering, God is bringing new life.  Though outwardly I'm wasting away, inwardly I'm being made new.  And maybe someday, looking back, like I look back on my pregnancies, I will be able to say that the suffering was worth the new life being formed in me...  But as Aragorn says in The Lord of the Rings, "But it is not this day."  I am just not there yet.

I'm not ready to wrap it up in a neat little package that says, "worth it."  It's hard.  I'm ready to meet Jesus, I can't wait to see his face.  But I am not ready for my children to not have their mother.  I am not ready for my husband to marry somebody else.  He's mine and you can't have him!  I don't mean to be overly dramatic, I know I'm probably not going to die tomorrow, but these are the thoughts that sometimes fill my days.  The disease I have is serious, incurable and life threatening.

So here I am.  I'm sitting here in the middle of two truths. The first truth is that life hurts and doesn't work out like we plan it, and the other is that God loves me and has not deserted me.  One does not exclude the other.  They are both true.  God is with us in the pain.  As Brene Brown says, '"I thought faith was going to be like a epidural and take the pain away, but instead it is like a midwife saying, "Push, it's supposed to hurt."'  

So, I will not give up.  I will persevere because God is with me.  I will surrender to what God wants to do with my life, but I will not surrender to this disease.  I will fight it every step of the way because my children and husband need me to do that.  Just as I continue to brush my teeth even though my mouth hurts, I will persevere through pain for the greater good.  I will let the pain change me.  I will let it make me softer, more compassionate and more loving.  I will not let it make me bitter and mean.  Because when all is said and done, love will have been the only thing that mattered.

2 Corinthians 4:16 - That is why we never give up.  Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day.

1 Corinthians 8:1-3 - But while knowledge makes us feel important, it is love that strengthens the church.  Anyone who claims to know all the answers doesn't really know very much.  But the person who loves God is the one whom God recognizes.