The exit signs flashed on, and stayed on. The stewardess braced herself on the side of an aisle seat. My stomach did acrobatics as the plane dropped again and again. All you could see out of the plane’s windows were dark clouds stacked on dark grey clouds. Not a single star or patch of light from the ground. I gripped Jesse’s hand so hard it probably hurt but he knew that going into marriage he was signing up for white-knuckle landings and take-offs with me. An audible “Woah” can be heard when the turbulence continues and the sleeping passengers are jostled awake. We were landing in an ice storm. Safe, but turbulent. Uncertain and slightly terrified, but the oxygen masks haven’t dropped…yet. Neither here nor there. Your past destination or Home. A quick prayer anchoring you to heaven as you float in liminal spaces.

Well, Hello 2018. Here I am. I have mixed feelings about you, but I’m choosing excitement over panic, thoughtfulness over self-pity, and a glass of living water instead of things that do not fill me up.

Sometimes I can focus too much on the things have gone wrong or were difficult. And I don’t remember the good stuff. Looking back on a year of memories, I tend to NOT remember the times when I came to God on my knees and He met me there. The times He comforted me like a small child. I remember the failings, not the rescue. Ahn at Hillcrest Chapel last Sunday reminded us to remember the rescue. To remember the Grace we have been given but do not deserve.

I’m tired of being the grief girl, but I’m also not content with shoving my feelings down and pretending that they don’t exist. I like to carry them like pails of water, and by golly if you carry a pail of water up the hill some of it sloshes out and you have less pesky emotions to carry than when you started with but you have to start up the hill. You have to. Even if you fall and break your head, you get back up again. and you climb the hill again. You kiss the sweet ground when you land, and say “Thank you for giving me another day on this green earth God. I know I complain a lot. and I’m sorry for that. I know I apologize for things you don’t consider bad like awkward phone calls or wearing the wrong shirt to church, and ignore the bad stuff I really should be working through and you have to be patient for way too long before I take the speck out of my own eye. But Thank you for another day. Another year. Another chapter in the book of Redemption that I did not deserve.” Amen, Amen, Amen.

How can we sing about death having no sting, when it’s crippling me?

Landing in the ice storm. Little to no control over the whole situation. Coming in blind and hoping for a good outcome. The wiseman had a star, and what do I have on my darkest days? A bunch of  grey clouds, uncertain ground under my feet, turbulent turns of the stomach. But God lets me grip his hand. He’s beside me on the plane. He’s not the pilot. He’s not the air. He’s not asleep, unaware of my suffering. He’s the still, small voice. He whispers in the times of uncertainty, waiting, and storms.

I spoke of things I didn’t not understand, things too great for me.

Job 42:3b

The plane dips onto the runway. The wheels hit the tarmac and are the most comforting rhythm I’ve heard in a while. Evergreens on the hills remind me I’m once again Bellingham. Kicking myself for taking the cheaper airline ticket on the smaller plane (you don’t even get free soda and peanuts), I laugh as we enter the airport, giddy with my new-found appreciation for life, ground, and safety.  “We’re not flying for a long time after this, ok? Long enough for me to forget this experience.” I tell Jesse. He laughs in disbelief, a little rattled too. The stewardess warns us put on a rain jacket if we have one, since it’s raining pretty hard outside. I let the rain hit me in the face and breathe in deeply.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Merry Christmas season everyone! Below is a poem I recently wrote and shared at a Women’s Christmas tea my church hosted.

Unpacking Christmas Boxes

Three years ago,
Dreams of engagement boxes
Danced above my head,
Buried in snow and expectant waiting
Tortured by bright bows and the sparkle of
“Yes!”
Unaware of the cancer growing in my Mother’s chest.

The angels sing,

Peace, Good-will to all Men.

The next night I dreamt of a large box,
Heavy and sagging in my arms,
I could barely grasp the sides.
And God said to me,
“You’ll carry this next.”

Like Mary, I tucked this away in my heart.

And here I am,
Working at the bakery
Struck with the weight that Mom is gone,
Carrying a box of cake rounds
Which will hold Ginger Spice, pumpkin cheesecake,
And the Holiday glow others can still find.

Emmanuel, God with us.

I unpack each piece and think of the surprise parties, holidays and solemn funerals
We commemorates with sweets.
I hand out to-go boxes, and flatten the cardboard outside the shop
A bride discusses two-tiered wedding cakes,
My coworker admires my ring.

I carry a lot of boxes
Gold, Frankincense, and Myrhh

Three years later,
I dream of God’s banquet table
Spread with abundance and celebration
Buried in my heart, and bittersweet pain.
It’s not the tidy box I asked for.
The angels sing
Glory to God in the Highest
Peace, Good will to all Men.

Mothers carry an immense emotional weight for a family, and when they are gone too soon, all of that worry, concern, and care doesn’t evaporate or dissipate. Even though I try not to, it’s hard to not carry some of that weight on my shoulders. When I’m pretending to be more or better than I really am, it ultimately leads to disillusionment, sadness, and finally retreating. Obedience means being honest to God about where you’re at. Obedience means admitting God has a better way of doing things. I’m ultimately better when I focus on being a child of a God instead of performing a role I was never meant to play. Sometimes I find myself wondering “if I could go back what would I tell myself?”

• Grief isn’t well organized or linear. It’s sort of like accidentally dumping almond flavoring into your batter and realizing it flavors the entire batch. And you didn’t really want almond flavored cookies.
• If your identity is placed in anything other than God’s view of you and his unconditional love things are going to be so much more difficult.

There’s a reason they say hindsight is 20/20. Unfortunately God doesn’t work this way most of the time. At least that’s not how things have been going for me lately. Lately God has been calling me to pure and simple obedience. Which to be honest, I took a little bit of pride in my ability to be obedient to God. So obedient that he didn’t even need to remind me. So good at it I didn’t need to be refreshed, corrected, or disciplined.

^9-10 “The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful,
    a puzzle that no one can figure out.
But I, God, search the heart
    and examine the mind.
I get to the heart of the human.
    I get to the root of things.
I treat them as they really are,
    not as they pretend to be.”

Jeremiah 17:9-10 The Message

God treats me as I really am, not as I pretend to be. And to be honest, this last summer (maybe longer) I pretended I was a lot happier than I really was. It was easier. It seemed like an ok survival skill to pretend that I was excited about things. That I could talk to people easily. That I wasn’t unnecessarily worried about my family. That Two Years was a big enough buffer for grief to abate. But I’m made made in the image of an ageless God who has set my heart to eternity, and no buffer is going to stop me from not being homesick for that place.

And here’s the hardest part: I don’t even really know what the point is half the time. Which is incredibly irritating and confusing. God says something and I have to respond. And try as I might I really don’t know what the end result is. I don’t get to know the consequences I avoided by saying “yes” to God. I don’t get another bite of the apple of knowledge. I simply have to walk away from the snake telling me to eat it. It’s like someone giving you the ingredients for a recipe one at a time and you have no clue as to what you’re making. Obedience requires humility, self-control, and restraint. It means heeding the warnings of an omnipotent God and admitting you really don’t know anything at all. It means not filling the shoes of someone who is gone and accepting that your own shoes will do.

God is interested in the health of the tree, in making sure we are abiding in him and not in our own accomplishments. He doesn’t want to just fix cosmetic things on the surface. Sure a multi-vitamin, journal, and exercise help me a whole lot. God wants to get to the root of things. He uncovered a disobedient heart, and invites me to the freedom of being who I really am.