honoring loss

As the arroz con pollo rounded the table, each person spooned a mouthful of Honduras on their plate. With the taste buds stimulated, our memories came alive. In this way, we honored the fifth anniversary of our return from Honduras on Tuesday, August 2.

We lived in Honduras for a little over four years and over that time four boys lived with us as foster sons: Franklin and Edgar (brothers now 21 and 19), Rodolfo, 12, and Junior, 9. We deeply cherish our experiences there. In fact, this blog exists to honor it and share the hope we have gleaned from it. You can find another post on the fourth anniversary of our return under “remembering honduras” posted August 2, 2010.

And so on the fifth anniversary of our return, dear friends we met while in Honduras shared a delectable Honduran meal to honor the day. Jennifer and Denny dropped in on their way from Austin, TX to Washington DC. They ooohed and ahhed over the chismól, a Honduran relish. I marveled at God’s providence in providing dear friends to accompany us on this important day.

Earlier that morning, overwhelming gratitude had greeted me at 5:00 and I sat with the Lord on our patio and told Him how thankful I was for all He had done. I recounted the people who have walked with us well through loss, grief and finding hope. Some of the ways He has healed me floated across my mind and I opened them like a loaf, gave thanks and ate of the bounty spiritually.  He spoke back to me through His Love Letter with Psalm 21:6-7:

Surely I have granted you with eternal blessings and made you glad with the joy of My Presence. For my daughter trusts in Me, her Lord; through the unfailing love of the Most High, she will not be shaken.

As I got ready for bed that night, something in my gut said that this day was incomplete. I did not want it to end. Curious about that, I asked myself some questions. I realized that while most of me felt that gratitude and joy, part of me still held some deep sadness. I had honored the majority but avoided the sorrow. Honoring sadness and sorrow is a conundrum of hard work, discernment and just plain difficulty.

In fact, I would rather iron than sit with my sadness. On the anniversary, I had some quiet time and I could have chosen to attend to the sadness of soul. Instead, I pulled out the iron and caught up on about a year’s worth of ironing. I mean, it was ok and all but really it reveals to me the lengths I will go to in order to avoid feeling sorrow.

Haven’t we already done this, Lord. Haven’t I cried enough tears already? Do I need to be sad again? Is it ok for me to forget the loss, the feelings of desperation? 

Over time I had walled off the sorrow and for the sake of survival, given in to letting it sit behind a shell unattended. To truly honor the day and the preciousness of the loss, I had to knock a little hole in the shell and let the sorrow leak out. 

This morning, I wrote a letter to Junior who will turn nine in October. The youngest of our Honduran boys, he was almost four when we left. Couch it however you will, our leaving inflicted a deep wound to Junior, our other boys and maybe even other people. We as a family have certainly suffered and grieved. Grace and perhaps time will re-frame our sons’ losses and one day I pray they find healing. But the pain in my heart asks, why did we have to leave, especially young Junior? Why isn’t it enough that we want him and he needs parents. I won’t be able to answer those questions today. In fact, understanding is not required for me to trust God. Surrender is imperative. Naming the pride in me that says my plan would be better is compulsory. But understanding is a luxury I won’t have this side of heaven.

Dan Moseley writes, “losing someone significant involves a loss to the body as well. Loss is a physical experience. The body has ways of knowing that seem to ignore the mind and heart... When we spend time telling the story of loss, we are trying to cause the body to come to terms with the loss.”

I am telling this story today in hopes that my body, my spirit, my soul can converge in more healing. I am telling it to honor our time and experience in Honduras. I am telling it to bring glory to the Sovereign Lord of the Universe. Grief or sorrow over the loss will always be with me but perhaps I can avoid self-pity and a plethora of other pitfalls by the telling.

Moseley goes on to say, “It could be said that through remembering we come to ‘full body’ knowing. When we tell of the one we have lost, we are integrating our body, mind, heart, and soul so that all of who we are fully experiences the truth of the loss.” 

I wrote the letter to Junior more as an exercise for my heart and soul. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to give it to him. Writing it honored him as a human being and as a son I had the privilege to mother for a season albeit brief. May God help us as we attempt to walk out His will and love from a place of wholeness and truth. 

Update on 08.5.2011 by gigi

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6

my rhythm

rhythm: noun; a strong, regular, repeated pattern of movement or sound : Ruth listened to the rhythm of his breathing.

Every year growing up, we traveled to Destin, Florida, early in the summer to the finest, whitest sand known to man. Now, as an adult, I feel incomplete if I don’t get to the ocean at least once a year. And such is my rhythm.

And so this year after the City Swim Meet on July 23, our sweaty and smelly family of five loaded up our van and turned south. This kind of traveling requires commitment and stamina. Thank goodness Matt has the stamina. You put him behind the wheel, and kind of like a bull, he will get there or bust. We got there at 2:00 a.m. For an hour, we came alive and took in our little condo on the 22nd floor. Then we collapsed in the beds for a few more hours of sleep. Most of us had slept in the car too. 

For a week, we enjoyed the beach, the fresh seafood, the view, the ocean and body surfing, the quiet. We unplugged. We rested. Another rhythm. Since returning last night, I have concentrated on finding a new rhythm: re-assembling our home after the madness of re-entry, re-stocking the fridge, re-establishing a daily routine of meals. Re-orienting myself to normal daily life helps me find my rhythm again.

In Sacred Rhythms, Ruth Haley Barton suggests some practices for helping us keep our lives on a path of spiritual transformation. She addresses topics like solitude, reading scripture through lectio divina, prayer, self-examination, discernment, sabbath and establishing a rule of life. The rule of life helps us answer two questions: Who do I want to be? How do I want to live?

At the beach, I spent some time contemplating what I want my rhythm to feel like. Silence must be part of my days. I’d like to intentionally make Sabbath more about rest and play. My Bible will become more of a love letter and less of an instruction manual. Undoubtedly, a yearly trip to the beach is something my soul and spirit must have.

rest & rhythms

Hammock and rest go together like oreos and milk.This morning I woke up with a sabbath highway expanding in front of me. Both of my younger boys are in Mississippi with my mama. I could have slept in. Instead my eyes flew open at 6:20. I attempted to sleep longer to no avail. 

So Skip, our dog, and I were on the patio early in the cool of the morning with birds singing us awake and good strong coffee to ensure the job.

As I began the Sabbath thus, I thought about the rhythms of life and why rest is so necessary. I’ve been reading Ruth Haley Barton’s Sacred Rhythms. She describes a way to live and settle into a rhythm of work and rest.

Barton writes:

There is something deeply spiritual about honoring the limitations of our existence as human beings - physical bodies in a world of time and space. A peace descends upon our lives when we accept what is real rather than always pushing beyond our limits. Something about being gracious and accepting and gentle with ourselves at least once a week enables us to be more gracious and accepting and gentle with others. 

I realize that sometimes I ignore my human limitations. I work past the point of exhaustion thinking that the world will somehow cave if I don’t keep on going. Rest eludes me. Often illness forces the rest. 

As I am maturing, this happens less and less. Part of the humbling work God has done in my heart is repentance in this very area... a shrinking of myself and an enlarging of who He is. I am learning to acknowledge my need for rest and to allow it. When rested, I am less likely to grab at things of this world to fill me. I am more likely to let the Spirit instruct me on the next steps. 

I want to give from a place a fullness and when I am empty,  let the Spirit fill me to give again. 

Today, on this Sabbath, will you rest?

ebb & flow

This morning when all the children were sleeping, I padded into the den to find Matt reading his Bible. He said we had a minor emergency in that no coffee was pre-prepared the night before. Like the stellar man he is, he got up and ground the beans stealthily in the garage as to not awaken anyone.  A few minutes later he brought me my coffee and stood above me and he said:

“I feel like you have pulled away from me and I am hurt by it.”

I needed a drink. Of coffee, that is. And I stalled a response by gulping in some much needed caffeine. I had felt distance the night before and wondered about it. In a marriage there is ebb and flow. It is to be expected. Natural. But a healthy marriage will note the ebbs. A courageous partner will confront the distance.

Matt and I began a heart to heart conversation about how we had arrived at this spot of distance in our relationship. I am grateful for this courageous partner and his servant-leadership. 

And so, I began pondering the ebb and flow of life. Ebb happens in our relationship with God. Recently I made a quick trip to the Mississippi Delta where I grew up. The trip threw my routine off. I usually spend some time in the mornings connecting with God. I lost my rhythm. Ebb.

Before that I had flow. Something I had been confounded over in my spiritual journey came together. Like the last puzzle piece falling into place, God delivered a message into my spirit and it gelled. It all started in Ezekiel. Zeke has a lot of ebb and flow. 

This is what the Sovereign LORD says: “On the day I cleanse you from all your sins, I will resettle your towns, and the ruins will be rebuilt. The desolate land will be cultivated instead of lying desolate in the sight of all who pass through it.  They will say, ‘This land that was laid waste has become like the garden of Eden; the cities that were lying in ruins, desolate and destroyed, are now fortified and inhabited.’  Then the nations around you that remain will know that I the LORD have rebuilt what was destroyed and have replanted what was desolate. I the LORD have spoken, and I will do it.”

Listen to the contrasts. Sins. Ruins. Desolate. Laid waste. Destroyed. In contrast with Cleanse. Rebuilt. Cultivated. Like the Garden of Eden. Fortified. Inhabited. Replanted. I hear ebb and flow in that. For me that passage represents all that He has been about in my life over the past five years. He has rebuilt my ruins. Yes, He has. He has rebuilt my ruins. Areas of desolation have become like the garden of Eden. And I am acknowledging a large FLOW of the Spirit.

In regards to the ebb, little e, of last week; I found my rhythm again by going back in my journal to get in touch with what He had been doing in my heart before the ebb. 

St. Ignatius called this ebb and flow desolation and consolation. Consolation refers to the times we sense God’s spirit. It is the sense that all is well. Desolation, then, is the loss of a sense of God’s presence (Ruth Haley Barton, Sacred Rhythms, p. 112). We may feel off center or even rebellious. 

In the last few years, I have been encouraged to notice, simply notice, these ebbs and flows. What gives me life? What drains me? What has brought me back in the flow? What has blocked it? In noticing, I have been able to choose things that put me in the flow and try to avoid the things that block it. Certainly, I cannot always choose the flow, but in noticing I can search like a blind woman feeling her way for what will bring me back to the flow of the Spirit. 

I am grateful for the flow, and I don’t much like the ebb. I wonder how much I would appreciate the flow without the ebb, though. Even in the ebb, I can believe and trust that God is there. I may not feel him or know where He is exactly; but I can trust that He is with me. I trust that because His Love Letter to me tells me that. He will never change. He will never leave me.

As for the ebb in my marriage, we declared a date night. We ate at Whole Foods and went to see Midnight in Paris (****). We remembered what it was like when we were in the flow of relationship. We recently visited Paris. Flow. And seeing the images on screen took us there for a brief while. 

In marriage and in my spiritual journey, I am like an attentive gardner noticing the weeds, the dry patches, the rich soil and the delightful sunlight and cultivating the fruit that comes from walking with the VineDresser.

e-camp tales

They sat among paper and markers spread about the floor on the final day of e-camp - youth not yet in their twenties possessing a wisdom and presence few will ever know. The older one, tan with chestnut hair tied up in a pony tail, asked questions of her younger friend. The younger, pale-skinned with white-blonde hair and braces with red-rubber bands looked to her friend to explain the mysterious.

“Some people decide they don’t want to do it. But when I was seven years old, I decided to live my life for Christ,” she said as she reached for a pink marker. 

Bodies traced on 5-foot strips of white paper surrounded them. The campers in the Create It section had traced their bodies on white paper. As the girls chatted, the campers lined the halls decorating these sketches and expressing their personalities in ways only the uninhibited youth can discover.

Among them, Claire and Josie sat discussing matters of eternity using words with immeasurable impact like: Have  you thought about it? Do you know what it means to be a “Christian?” Would you like me to pray for you?

The e-camp counselors, haggard and stiff, ferried markers back and forth. As we passed, we relayed an alert to pray. Our smiles belied the muscular soreness and weariness of bone we felt after a week of running after 140 children. As I passed my good friend and fellow accomplice in the Create It section of e-camp, she whispered, “Paydirt!” And we both got it that this is the REASON we are here. Our hope and prayer is that the children would get a glimpse of the God we worship. 

e-camp equals 

1,000,000 strips of tissue paper.

500,000 e-mails.

900 stickers.

500 markers. 

250 pencils.

200 lanyards.

180 t-shirts.

165 paint brushes.

80 bowls of glue.

40 drumsticks.

25 journals.

14 construction paper “chains”

10 trips to Sonic.

1 year of planning and praying.

The planning and worrying. The praying and cutting. The painting and hammering. The setting up and the tearing down. The million pieces of tissue paper glued to the concrete floor. The brand new pedicure now splattered with Kilz primer. The t-shirts carefully designed, printed, labeled and sorted and then sweated in with sweet service to our God. The eight or so thawed gallons of ice cream dripping down the Learning Center freezer. One humble leader willing to clean it up. His wife who stacks chairs and submits to her Father. We would do all this and more for one lost sheep to find her way home. We do it because Our Father said He would do it. Only He said He would lay down His life for one lost sheep. 

It all boils down to a question I saw scribbled in a sketch book by a sage 12-year-old boy. “God, how did you let Jesus die on the cross and not help him?”

How?

How?

Are we really worth that? I did not ascribe that worth, He did. Adonai. Jehovah Raah. Immanuel. Jehovah Tskidenu. 

Later Friday night, I sat in the audience as 140 children under twelve lead me in a worship experience that must have bounced off the gates of Heaven itself. A little angelic blonde girl aptly named Summer danced before me. She personified worship and playing before God and resting in His Sovereignty. 

I mused... Is there any joy greater to our Lord than seeing a child break out in unabashed worship? Is there anything that pleases Him more than 140 children singing His Name in praise? Is there any higher calling than to simply be a vessel for His Spirit to fuel these children?

What will this generation of deep thinkers and passionate lovers accomplish? 

I cannot fathom it. I am changed to have been a part of seeing them worship our God this week at e-camp.