enter in

"The way through brokenness is, and always has been, to break the sufferer free from the aloneness of the suffering by choosing to participate in the suffering with them - koinonia -  choosing to stand with the suffering, stay with the suffering, and let it all be shaped into meaning that transcends the suffering."  -Ann Voskamp

I love this quote because it shares how we should relate to others - others with depression, others with grief, others with pain.  Others.  We are not called to "cheer them up" or "look at the bright side," we are called to enter into their suffering, the way Christ entered into our world.  We are to sit with them in their sadness, sorrow, and hurt.  And that is when the true transformation, the true healing, of anyone's life happens - when we choose, out of love, to be present to the suffering of others.  "Greater love has no one than this; to lay down one's life for one's friends."  (Jn. 15:13) I think it is an act of love when we lie down our busy schedules, lie down our to-do list of thing that urgently need doing, lie down our lives and take the time to enter into someone else's brokenness and suffering.  That is truly the only way through brokenness to healing and wholeness.  For others, but also for ourselves.

pictures

Some simple moments that made me smile this week.

"Weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning." (Ps. 30:5)

my three stooges...

calm after the storm

neighborhood walk

buddies

those ears!! Bat-dog

gorgeous blossoms on my plum tree

Add caption

raising the bar on grief

Excellent article by Monique Minahan  -  Raising the Bar on Grief

The doctor who told me my 28-year-old husband was not going to live held a cup of coffee in her hand. She spoke for a couple minutes about how all his functions had shut down and he was living only because of a breathing machine. My ears heard what she said but all my eyes could see was the cup of coffee. Today I wonder why she didn’t put the coffee down and speak to me human to human instead of doctor to almost-widow. Doing so would have prolonged and drawn out the delivering of bad news. It would have required sitting with someone else’s pain and discomfort without being able to fix it. Maybe if she had, what I would remember so clearly almost 15 years later is not how the news seemed cold and rushed, but how the person who held my husband’s life and death in their words handled them with care and delivered them to my heart with as much patience and humanity as could be mustered.

The bar on grief has been set low for too long. The most feared emotion along the spectrum of being human, grief, is asking to be welcomed back to the table of public life, where it can be seen and heard and learned the same way we see and hear and learn our love and our joy.
The unspoken-but-palpable barring of grief from public life, relegating grief to therapists’ offices so that we who have not lost don’t have to see it or feel it or deal with it is no longer acceptable. Neither is the hush-hushness that accompanies it; the subtle and not-so-subtle pressure to "get over it"; the feeling that when grieving we are not fit for or welcome in "normal" life. A new paradigm for grief is emerging as more and more humans courageously choose to show up as whole human beings who are simultaneously full of love and full of loss. They are showing us that our outdated avoidance approach to grief is not healthy, does not support them, and that grief is not something we ever get over. Rather it is something that grows and changes with us throughout our lives. In a culture that encourages happiness and comfort over almost everything else, it is no wonder that we have difficulty sitting with other people’s pain. No one teaches us how to do this. We spend lifetimes doing our best to escape any kind of discomfort whether physical or emotional, but there is no escaping grief.

When grief lands at our door we are often forced to face the most challenging of human emotions with almost no practice, not unlike being thrown off a boat in the middle of the ocean without knowing how to swim.
We feel like we’re drowning. We often want to die. There is no way back and appears to be no way forward. How did we get here? Why is the world still moving forward as if nothing happened? Here, in this eternal pause, we are grateful for people who can sit with us without trying to fix us, who can listen to our words and our silence, who welcome both our laughter and our tears and who can allow us to move forward and backward, inward and outward at our own pace. Sitting with someone else’s pain without being able to fix it is one of the most sobering and human experiences we are privileged to experience in a lifetime. The more we practice sitting with our own heavy emotions, the more comfortable we will get at being uncomfortable; the more we will be able to accompany another person’s pain and discomfort without having to run away or turn away. This is how we raise the bar on grief. One human interaction at a time. Put down the coffee. Pick up your heart. Let’s survive these heartbreaking moments of loss together.

source: Raising the Bar on Grief

love

This is part of a note that a friend shared with me (along with candy and flowers, because I have the most loving friends!).  But I thought it was worth sharing forward:

"Jesus condensed the Ten Commandments into two: "Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love others as yourself." (Mark 12:30-31) "[Jesus said] 'I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other.'" (John 13:34)  "He said the love we have for one another will prove to the world that we are his followers." (John 13:35)
Once we experience God's lavish, unconditional love, the only reasonable response is to share that love with others.  Jesus also gave a command that appears illogical and impossible: "We are to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us." (Luke 6:27)  Our natural tendency is to love only those who love us, which Jesus said is no credit to us.
The selfless love He describes can be expressed only with supernatural help from God's spirit, but it offers the world an undeniable witness of God's transforming love and power.
Maybe we should use February 14th to reach out to those who don't come to mind when we think of Valentines."

how He loves us

I love this song: How He Loves Us 

He is jealous for me, loves like a hurricane, I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy
When all of a sudden I am unaware of these afflictions
Eclipsed by glory and I realize just how beautiful You are
And how great Your affections are for me

And oh, how He loves us, oh
Oh, how He loves us, how He loves us all

He is jealous for me, loves like a hurricane, I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy
When all of a sudden I am unaware of these afflictions
Eclipsed by glory and I realize just how beautiful You are
And how great Your affections are for me

Oh, how He loves, yeah, He loves us
Oh, how He loves us, oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves

And we are His portion and He is our prize
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes
If His grace is an ocean, we're all sinking

And heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest
I don't have time to maintain these regrets
When I think about the way

Oh, how He loves us, oh
Oh, how He loves us, how He loves all
How He loves

Yeah, He loves us, oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves us, oh how He loves
Oh, I love

Yeah, He loves us, yeah, He loves us
How He loves us, oh, how He loves us all

 

"How He Loves Us" by David Crowder Band

tell your story

It is so important for us to tell our stories.  And to listen to each others' stories.  It is how God allows us to grieve and to heal.

deeper grief and new hope

Grief.  I have had a few different perspectives on grief these past few weeks.  When the norovirus struck our house, I grieved in a different way.  I was SO sick that Thursday night, throwing up, body aches, chills, just being so miserably ill from 10pm until 6am.  I do not think I had been that sick in years. But this time it was such a lonely sickness.  I missed having that person who takes care of me be there, to bring me the glass of water, to hold my hand, to just comfort me.  Sometime around 2 or 3am that morning, sitting on the bathroom floor by myself, weak from vomiting, I just started to cry.  An ugly cry, from exhaustion and illness and a deep new layer of grief.  My kids were both asleep (their vomiting did not start until sunrise), so I was just alone all night.  And thinking.  And overcome with sorrow.  Ryan used to say that he loved how I will always tell him to stay away when I am sick (so he doesn't catch it too), when we both know I just want him to hold me.  And I did do that - and I was always glad that he didn’t listen to my request.  He knew I never liked to be alone.  I would follow him around like a shadow when he was home, just to be in the same room with him.  He could be watching tv and I reading a book, but I would read in the same room just to be near him.  He knew that and would keep the volume low on the tv (even though the noise didn't bother me, I could read over the sound of the tv).  Or he would go out of his way to come home for breakfast after PT or home for lunches, whenever he could because he knew just stopping by to see me, home with the kids, would put a smile on my face.  And I got a text almost every single morning that said, “good morning, wife” or “I love you.”  Those went away June 24, 2016.  I know I am venting a whiny, lonely vent here.  But I am now missing that companionship of a beautiful marriage more than I ever knew.  The longest Ryan and I had ever been apart was seven months (his deployment to Iraq), but even with that, he was checking on me almost daily.  Ryan has now been gone from this earth almost eight months.  So this is no deployment.  This is my companion, my person, gone.

Earlier this week I was putting together tax documents.  It is that time of the year.  I found an amazing tax advisor that will help me navigate what I need for 2016 – a year in which I went from married to widowed, sold a house, bought a house, moved from one state to another, saw the end of regular earnings, and received a barrage of government benefits.  It’s a huge mess to navigate – and I am thankful I have someone to do that for me.  But in explaining how I would file she said, “This will be the last year you file as ‘married, filing jointly.’”  The last time.  I know she meant well but those words stung.

As I was going through my computer files to gather tax forms and financial documents, I forgot I had scanned and kept a copy of Ryan’s last letter to me in my computer documents (as a back-up in case anything should ever happen to the original).  So I was flipping through documents and Ryan’s letter unexpectedly pops up on my screen.  I had not read it for probably six months now.  I had read it over and over and over again the first month after Ryan died, grasping to it like I could somehow hear his voice or understand what happened or even bring him back.  Then I tucked the letter away, because it was too painful and haven’t looked at it since.  Now, over half a year later (yes, it has really been that long) the letter pops up and I find myself re-reading it.  And I see his letter in a whole different light now.  A few quotes from his letter: “I don’t want you to be alone.  I would give anything to hold you one last time.”  “I love you.  I know I say it a lot.  I have always meant it.  As time went on, it just grew deeper and deeper.  It was enough to make me hold on for a lot longer than I would have otherwise.”  “I have loved and cherished our life together.  I just wish the rest of my life had even a tenth of the appeal and contentment as I feel on my way home to you every day.”  Every time I read those words, I cry.  I am sobbing uncontrollably right now as I type this. 

As I re-read Ryan’s letter now, after almost eight months of healing, I see Ryan’s perspective differently though.  I am not going to share a majority of his words here on a public blog, but I now realize Ryan knew for a while that he could not go on living.  And as he made plans, he went out of his way to say things to me to make sure I knew I was loved and to comfort me in the only way he could.  He planned everything so that I was with family when it happened, that I would be cared for.  He even shook my dad’s hand the last time he saw him and said, “take care of my family for me.”  At the time, we had thought that meant for the week and a half while he was away, we did not have any way of knowing he meant it forever.  Ryan hid his deepest pain, his internal struggle, and when he had absolutely nothing left, he still found a way to give to me and comfort me, with his last words.  His letter to me was the last one he wrote, with what he had left, loving me and caring for me.  I grieve in a whole new way because that person in which I was his world – and he was mine – is gone.  How lonely it is to know that kind of love and companionship – and to lose it.  It has dawned on me that no one currently on this planet knows me like Ryan did.  Others may know me well, close friends know a lot, some people may even get to know me to that level in the future – but right now, in this moment, the one person who made it a priority to put me first and learn all about me for 15 years is gone.  That reality hit me like a ton of bricks, in the midst of my sorrow and sickness this past week.

But another reality hit me too.  I hesitate to even begin to process these thoughts onto “paper,” but I am going to attempt to anyway.  I want that companionship again.  I know I will not see Ryan again on this side of heaven, but recently I began to pray that God prepare my heart for that unconditional love again someday.  In His timing.  In His perfect timing.  Ryan and I used to joke about how when we were both really old and our kids would try to put us away in nursing homes, we would escape together.  That we’d probably end up driving off a cliff or something, because we would be so old.  But that we would die together.  It was our “plan.”  But a month or so before Ryan’s death, our silly old age plan came up, as we occasionally joked about over the years, and Ryan said something about if anything ever happened to him, he would want me to find someone else and be happy.  And I got mad at him – because that was NOT the plan.  I wasn’t REALLY mad at him, just that “play-mad” where I told him that was ridiculous, we were going to die together, escaping the nursing home, end of story.  That had always been OUR plan and we were sticking to it, because I would not want life without him.  I don’t know why that conversation pops in my head now, but I can see it clear as day and in hindsight, he was telling me then that it was okay to live my life.  Another quote from his last letter is, “Please do not stop living your life.  Yes, focus on things that need doing right now.  Get the kids into a new routine.  But eventually, live for yourself as well.”  I am understanding that Ryan knew for quite a while longer than I realized that he was not long on this earth and he was slowly preparing me and comforting me, as that unhealthy reality grew in his head.  And, oh, how I wish I could just go back and shake him and fix him and drive those enemy-given lies from his head!!!  I would give anything to go back and stop him.  To have known and prevented his death.  But I cannot.  I cannot go back.  And since I cannot, I sit in awe of Ryan’s strength and love.  That he would find a way to put me first, when he himself was in the worst pain of his life.  I love him with all my heart.  I always will.  And I want everyone I know and care about to know how much I love them.  I do not want to be stingy with my love.  I want to be an open book, letting God’s love flow right through and out onto everyone I know.  Kind of like Ryan showed me while he was alive – and I know he still does from heaven.

And as I started to say earlier, I hesitate to put these thoughts into words, but I want that love and companionship again, here on earth.  I pray that it be God's will to place that one person who makes it their goal to know me better than I even know myself and vice versa into my life, that person who sits with me when I am sick and shares their day with me and allows me care for them and prays with me and lets me love them with every bit of love that God has given me.  I think seeing Ryan’s example of unconditional and unending love somehow makes me a stronger person, a person who does not take one second of life for granted.  I have never had the personality to be alone.  When I was lonely, God gave me Ryan.  I married young (Ryan and I were just babies when we got married) and I LOVED every moment of it.  We grew together and learned about unconditional love together.  And then somehow in these past few months I have learned even more about what God’s love looks like in action.  And I want to share it.  In my loneliness, I pray that God use me to pour out His love to others.  And that He provide me the companionship, in a different way and in His way, that I so desperately miss.  In HIS timing, whether that is next week or ten years from now, it is my brave prayer. 

 

peace and thanks

 

This is the framed Bible verse that always hung in our bedroom all the years Ryan and I were married.  We had Colossians 3:12-14 read aloud at our wedding (both the one where we eloped and our family wedding).  It says, "Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.  Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another.  Forgive as the Lord forgave you.  And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity."  It was the model we wanted for our marriage.  We typed it up and mounted it in this frame (here in the picture) back in 2001.  I have read these verses hanging on my wall over and over again throughout the last 15 years.
But it was not until this week that I was reminded of the verses surrounding these three.  Verse 15 says, "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace.  And be thankful."  Peace and thankfulness.
I always focused on Colossians urging to have a patient love for each other.  To seek humility and forgiveness and gentleness, knowing that love is what makes each of these traits easy to "put on" and clothes ourselves with.  But I loved having the reminder that the result of that love is peace.  And we should be thankful.  Be thankful.  Knowing that this was our marriage verse, it makes me realize that I do have peace in my heart when I think of our marriage.  And the time God gave me with Ryan was a gift.  A gift that I will forever be thankful for.
I have this frame tucked away in my spare closet right now, it just felt too painful to hang it up on my wall without Ryan.  But I wonder if, instead, I should type up verse 15 and hang it in my room, as a reminder that the peace of Christ rules in my heart (because of love) and that I am indeed thankful.

woman's conference

On the morning of January 14th, I wrote a blog post (titled "reaching out") about what God had put on my heart for this new year.  That post talked about how important I felt it is to step outside our comfort zones, take risks, and reach out to other people.  I talked about sharing our heartaches with others and letting our hearts break for others heartaches, following the example Christ set.  If you scroll back a little bit, you can find that post and read those words. 
Little did I know when I typed those prayers and thoughts that morning, that the pastor's wife would call me that very same afternoon and ask me to prayerfully consider being one of the two speakers at our church's upcoming woman's conference. 
I immediately said "no," because I am not a public speaker and that is SO far outside my comfort zone that I did not have to hesitate before giving her my negative answer.  She so sweetly encouraged me not to answer right away though, and to spend some time praying about it.  And her wise advice to me was to decline if I felt I was not ready to share my story but NOT to decline out of a place of fear, that God could work through the fear and she and others would help me with that.  I remember holding the phone, as I sat on our guest room bed (because it was quiet in there) and I froze.  The words I typed that morning in my blog came flooding back to me - something about stepping outside our comfort zones, something about speaking up, something about reaching out...  Seriously, God?!
So I begin to let my sweet friend know what I had just typed that morning.  And she replied back that she had wanted to ask me over the holidays if I would consider being a speaker, but that she kept being led to wait and wait.  And that TODAY she felt it was time to ask me.  I got goosebumps.  I mean, the very afternoon after I type a blog post about speaking up and reaching out, she calls me and asks me to speak up and reach out... And she had no idea I even kept a blog, let alone the message God had put on my heart that morning. 
So then I really felt like I had to at least consider this...  But seriously, public speaking?  God, why?  Can't I just hide behind my blog page and share that way??  Please?
I began to really pray about this opportunity though and I know several others were also deep in prayer for me.  And as I thought about maybe sharing my story, sharing Ryan's voice, I thought maybe this WAS something I could do.  Maybe it was something I needed to do?  So I gave a not-so-confident-yes answer. 
I had two weeks to prepare, so I sat down to try to put what I felt God leading me to share into words for my speech... and then my Charlie got sick.  Like 103 fever-coughing-so-hard-he-threw-up sick.  It was so bad I had to take my little boy to urgent care that Saturday and he was diagnosed with both pneumonia and bronchitis.  I was so busy caring for Charlie and then stressing about some reoccurring back pain I was having (side note - I found a GREAT chiropractor and my back pain is now under control, nothing major, like it was 2015), that I did not have the time or the energy to write my speech.  I told the pastor's wife I was sorry but I just was not able to commit to being a speaker at the woman's conference.  She respected my answer and, again, just encouraged me not to let fear drive my decision.  And she was right... God did not give me any peace about backing out of this opportunity, He was instead giving me words that I needed to share...  I was using Charlie's illness and my back as reasons to say "no," but it really was fear driving me.  When I saw the pastor's wife again later that week, I somehow ended up saying "yes" again...  And now I only had five days to write my speech and prepare...
I got a rough draft of my story put down on paper while my Charlie was slowly on the mend from his pneumonia.  And then norovirus hit our house...  My sister's family had been fighting it, so I knew the very moment I felt ill what was about to hit me and it was not going to be pretty...  It struck me about 10pm on Thursday night.  I went from tucking my kids into bed and cleaning up around the house to suddenly being brought to my knees with nausea, vomiting, and body aches worse than I can describe.  I was SO very sick that night.  And I was SO emotional that Ryan was not there to take care of me.  Ryan was always the best at caring for me when I felt ill.  The nasty norovirus only lasts about 24 hours and I read somewhere that it will not kill you, but it will make you wish you were dead.  That is a true statement.  It's just a nasty, ugly stomach bug, worse than I care to describe. 
So I spent all night Thursday night just absolutely miserable and then Charlie drags himself into my room around 6am, having just thrown up and caught the bug himself.  Friday I literally spend the whole day cleaning up vomit-covered blankets, sipping liquids, and trying to console a little boy who had not completely mended from his pneumonia and was now fighting dehydration from such a severe stomach bug.  I was in tears Friday by afternoon, from exhaustion and body aches, from emotions over "single parenting" such a sick child, from being cooped up in the house, from grief and sickness. 
I was a mess - physically, emotionally, and mentally.  And that speech at the woman's conference was the very next morning.  But I did not feel led to pull out and cancel.  In confusion, I literally sat down and I prayed, "God, if you want me to be there, You will have to provided the healing.  Because I can't do this in the condition I and my children are in."  I called the pastor's wife Friday night and let her know it was not looking good...  But I still went to bed Friday night feeling like God was leading me to be at that conference.  I left it in His hands.
Saturday morning (or really in the middle of the night), Katherine came into my room, sometime around 3am - it was her turn and she had caught the stomach bug and, of course, thrown up all over her bed.  I spent a few hours in the middle of the night doing laundry and Lysoling every surface in my house and trying to get a sick 14 year old comfortable enough to go back to sleep.  Sometime around 4am I realized I was not going to be doing the speech - there was just too sickness and too much exhaustion.  I surrendered, lied down on the couch, and prayed, expecting to be up and down with Katherine, caring for her, all night long. 
Instead, I dozed off there on the couch and woke up to sunlight, sometime around 7:30am.  Katherine had not thrown up the rest of the night!  Charlie was doing better, and I actually felt good.  Like I somehow had energy and felt good.  Could it be that God provided the healing I asked Him for?  I tentatively showered and kept checking on my children.  They seemed to be okay - exhausted and achy, but okay.  So, knowing my sister was checking in on and taking care of my children, it looked like I was going to be giving that speech after all...
And the woman's conference was wonderful - I met some amazing women who shared such precious stories with me.  It was a great time of fellowship, worship, and time together.  And I gave my speech.  I was the second of the two speakers.  While the first woman was speaking, I started to get really nervous - like a panicky-I-can't-do-this kind of nervous.  I mean, I had barely finished writing my speech in the middle of all of our illnesses.  I had not had time to edit it, let alone practice it.  What was I thinking?  I couldn't get up on that stage in front of all these woman and share my story with them...  Panic.  Sheer panic.
I started to pray.  I realized the enemy had certainly tried his hardest to keep me from being here at the conference today.  Sickness, doubt, exhaustion, fear - these had all been huge roadblocks - and yet God provided a way through or around the roadblocks.  And I was sitting here, where I felt He called me to be.  As the first speaker was finishing her story, I felt so nervous waiting for my introduction.  But instead of introducing me, the worship music leader came up on stage and said we would sing one song in between the two speakers.  And she began to play "In Christ Alone." 
I think I have mentioned before, in another post, that that song, "In Christ Alone" is MY song.  It is the song I go to in my trials and in my joys.  It was the song I played CONSTANTLY when Ryan was deployed and I needed strength.  I played it so much when my children were little that my son grew up calling in the "pretty song."  THAT song is my life song.  And the worship music leader had no idea...  I put a link to the song at the bottom of this post.  It is beautiful.  That song eased all my anxiety and calmed my fears.  After singing it, I was able to easily walk up to the stage, be introduced, and give my speech, telling my story, telling Ryan's story, telling God's story.
I was blessed to be able to share my story on Saturday.  I saw several women crying while I spoke and I pray that whoever was supposed to hear those words did.  The words were not mine, but what bubbled up in prayer, what God led me to put on paper that day and to share with those precious sisters at the conference.  I am humbled that He not only LET me share, but that He provided the way, through all the enemy's roadblocks, to get me there and strengthen me enough to stand on that stage and speak.  I put a copy of my speech in the post right below this one (titled "My Story") in case you all want to read it. 
After the conference, I had so many women come up to me and share THEIR stories with me that I was blessed.  Sharing our stories, sharing our weaknesses, being there to listen and reach out and let our hearts break for each other is SO important.  It is where we truly live.  Where we truly love.
And a side note, my Katherine was still sick on Saturday.  When we all caught the norovirus, each of us were sick with vomiting for at least the first twelve hours.  For Katherine, she only threw up that one time at 3am, then she did not throw up all the rest of Saturday morning - the time while I was dozing on the couch and getting ready for the conference.  But then she returned to vomiting later on Saturday, before beginning to mend on Sunday and Monday.  It is almost like she had a "pause" in her sickness on Saturday morning, like God gave her a pause so I could get to church for the conference without leaving a sick child behind.  That is the only way I can think to explain that.  God is good.
We all seem to be on the mend from all the sicknesses these past two weeks - but please pray for good health for us.  I am not sure my heart can take the emotions of being sick and caring for sick children on my own any more right now.  And at the same time, my heart is overflowing with thankfulness that God would choose to use me in some way and overflowing with blessings from having seen God work to get His message of love and comfort to the women at that conference.  God is so good.

Here is the link to my favorite song - In Christ Alone

Another great song from the conference - My Story

my story

This is the speech I gave at the woman's conference:

I have known God and believed in Him for as long as I can remember.  But it really was not until June of this past year that our loving and personal God became truly present and real to me.  And it turns out that the ideas I had about how God relates to us were really quite different than how He actually chose to make Himself known to me.  For me, it took a crisis moment, a horrific tragedy, a fall into a pit of despair deeper than I had ever known, and a desperate cry for help in order to open my heart to really receive His love.  And it took other believers, other women, those who willingly allowed themselves to be used as God’s hands and feet here on earth to share God’s message of love to me. 

            On June 24th, 2016 my life fell apart.  Our family, my husband of 15 years and our two children, were living in Texas at the time.  My husband was stationed at Lackland AFB in San Antonio.  That particular Friday morning, however, I was here on the Central Coast, visiting family, when I received a phone call from my husband’s squadron letting me know that he had not come in to work that morning.  When I tried calling his cell phone and could not reach him either, worry began to take hold.  You see, my Ryan had been battling both depression and PTSD for several years, as a result of some very stressful military assignments.  So knowing he fought some internal battles on a daily basis, my heart immediately hurt for him and I began to worry that today was perhaps a day that was too much for him to handle.

As the minutes ticked by and still no contact could be made, my worry began to change into a deep panic.  His military squadron was refusing to give me any details, other than that the police were now involved, also trying to locate my husband.  I then received a text from my beloved Ryan that said “I love you, Jenny,” followed by a silence so deafening that I knew my world was beginning to crash down all around me.  Soon after that two uniformed military officers arrived at the door of my parents’ house, where I was staying.  And like some slow motion scene from a movie, they began to tell me that my husband had taken his own life.  My Ryan, who was supposed to be here in California in just two days to visit family with us, was now suddenly gone.  Just gone.  At the time, these words being spoken to me were more than I could comprehend.

For those of you who have unexpectedly lost a loved one, you know the intense shock that can come with sudden grief.  That morning had begun as a normal morning, me playing with my children in my parent’s backyard - and then within a matter of hours, I was suddenly spiraling down into a state of numbness and shock – a physical, emotional, and spiritual despair.  Those next few weeks are still a bit of a blur to me; they were filled with funeral details, Air Force survivor briefings, phone calls, visitors, and unending tears.  I was unable to keep food down for several weeks, subsisting only on sips of smoothies.  Horrific nightmares kept me from any real sleep.  My whole body was shutting down and, to be honest, I was okay with it.  With my beloved husband gone, I truly did not want to live anymore.  This was just too hard, this was too big for me.  I couldn’t open my Bible and I was not able to utter any prayer, other than a desperate whispering of “Jesus, help me,” over and over again in the middle of the night.  I knew sorrow was completely consuming me, I knew my children needed me, and I knew seeking God was my only hope, but I did not have the strength to seek Him.  My shock and my grief were that overwhelming.

Others said things to me like, “the pain won’t always be this bad” or “in time the grief will lessen.”  But I missed Ryan with such a deep ache that I could not even fathom a day when despair would not completely consume me.  If there was indeed going to be a day when the pain of my sorrow would lessen, it was SO far out in the future that, for me, it offered no comfort and no hope at all.  How would I possibly survive the long road from where I currently was to some kind of future healing?  Psalm 13:1 says, “How long, Lord?  How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?”  That was exactly where I was at.

It was then, in the weeks that followed, that the children and I made plans to stay and eventually move here to Lompoc, where we have family.  I knew, in my weakness, I needed others to pray for me through the grief and that transition.  One of those praying friends mentioned the GriefShare group here at Trinity.  I came in here, to this sanctuary, on a Sunday in August, without hope and unable to see an end to my pain.  I had visited five other churches between the time of Ryan’s death and my visit here.  This church was the first place where I was met at the door with hugs.  You all embraced me and welcomed me that Sunday with Christ’s love, not even knowing the pain and hopelessness in my heart – a pain that was barely hidden behind the fragile façade of my attempted smile. 

I joined the GriefShare program that Wednesday, just two months after my Ryan’s death.  And discovered that I did not have to find the strength to sift through my Bible for God’s promises, because the GriefShare group put the verses and prayers right in front of me – all I had to do was read them.  And as I read God’s promises of comfort and David’s Psalms of lament and as I prayed for healing and some kind of relief from the pain, God made Himself present. 

Psalm 34:18 says “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”  The Bible does not say we will not suffer here on earth or that our hearts will not be broken, but it does say that God’s presence is made known to those who are crushed.  He draws nearest to those with broken hearts and He provides the hope.  The biggest lesson I have learned in my grief journey is that I do not have to wait for time to ease my pain or for my sorrow to just go away, but instead, pain and hope can actually coexist.  In fact, sorrow and joy can even coexist.  God's comfort becomes an ever-present source of strength.  I read somewhere that a broken heart, busted wide open, best allows God’s love to flow inside and then outward to embrace others in pain.  And that is a truth that, before grief, I had never felt.

You see, God can use brokenness.  Grief is the price of love and its pain can be transformative, if we allow God full access to every part of it.  When we have a broken heart, we can do one of two things – we can let it scab over and harden, or we can embrace and share our tender woundedness.  Our gut reaction, and what the world often teaches us, is to toughen up, put our chins up, move on.  But I think God calls us to embrace our wounds.  Ezekiel 36:26 says, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."  A hardened heart may not feel pain, but it also does not feel joy.  It is my experience that intense pain can actually make it possible to feel other emotions more strongly as well, including love, joy, and empathy.  In this broken and hurting world, our loving and gracious God has figured out a way to take our brokenness, our hurts, our deepest pains, and use them to shower us with the deepest joys.  

I think that if my Ryan had shared the brokenness that he felt in his heart, if he had allowed others to know the pain and turmoil that his depression and PTSD had caused, there would have been a way to save his life.  When we share our brokenness with each other, we allow God’s love to flow into our hearts and then outward to comfort others. 

2 Corinthians 12:9 says that God’s grace is sufficient for us, that His power is made perfect in our weakness.  And Paul says he will boast all the more gladly about his weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on him.  It is not always comfortable to share our brokenness, but letting others see how much we need each other and letting God’s strength work through us is beautiful.  It’s much more beautiful than seeing someone who appears to have it all put together in their own strength.  We are not called on to be strong – we are called to love kindness and to walk humbly with our God; to lie our brokenness at his feet.  In the pain of my grief, I was beginning to see hope through those promises.  Reflecting on God's love did not instantly remove my sorrow, but it did begin to ease my pain by directing my eyes towards the one who gives hope.  Just as Psalm 130:5 says, "I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope."  And with such a raw, tender heart, I was more perceptive of God's still small voice.  With such a great need for comfort, I was expectant of His presence.

 Without Ryan by my side, I had been brought, suddenly and painfully, to my knees in such a way that I had nothing left, but to seek Him.  And as I sought Him, he sought me back. With comfort.  

Psalm 51:16 says "My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise."  There is a joy that comes from God’s healing presence, even in midst of sorrow.  Joy and sorrow can coexist.  Every time an overwhelming wave of grief returns to me, as they so often do, and I am able to focus on Him who finds it a joy to strengthen me, I am giving Him glory.  The weaker I am, the more I give Him to work with.  And, goodness, God has had a whole lot to work with in my life these past few months.  But seeing the joy of God at work, brings a peace that I never knew existed.  So if I can share one thing with you, it is that I urge you to not to be afraid of showing, or as Paul says, boasting, about your weaknesses.  And then let’s all love kindness enough to create safe places to be weak in front of each other.  I found that at GriefShare and I know I desperately needed that.  I bet some of you do too.  Creating safe places for each other is our way of letting God do His job.

If it was not for those precious others – my friends, my family, and those at GriefShare - who allowed their hearts to break with mine and then allowed an outpouring of God’s healing love to flow through them, towards me, I would not have realized how intimately our God ministers to our hearts.  We need each other, we need our hearts to break wide open for each other.  My prayer, and I ask you all to pray over me, is that as I learn to transform my thoughts about Ryan from pain to remembering him with joyful memories, that I never stop actively seeking the one who performs that healing transformation.  And that as my heart continues to heal, that it does not harden or forget, but that it stays tender and raw so that God will use it, to His glory, to show comfort to others.