A Grief Revisited {A Post by Tony}

1989. 

We are all sitting around the table at our home in Hailey, Idaho playing Trivial Pursuit; teams boys vs. girls.  The girls are at a serious disadvantage for three reasons:

v                              ~ they are just playing to be nice

v                              ~ my father is fiercely competitive

v                              ~ he has an amazing memory.

My mother pulls the next card and reads to my dad and I, “What is the name of the theme song of MASH?”

Since I’m only in 9^th grade the question is way before my time, but after a long pause my dad says, “Suicide is Painless”. There is a weighted look between my mother and father, a look only they understand that will take me years to grasp, and only in a memory.

We roll the dice and move forward, or is it around in circles?

1966. 

On a bridge overlooking the Willamette River outside Portland, Oregon the police pull a young man from the edge. He looked ready to jump and friends and family had been searching for him for hours. He was the president of his high school student body and was supposed to make a speech at graduation but skipped the festivities for a bottle of pills - the police also take these.  I don’t know of this story until it’s too late to do anything about it.  Days like that day are when I hate H. G. Wells, nothing but false hope. At least I can channel my rage onto someone dead, inanimate, without hurting anyone.

December 31^st 2009. 

We’ve driven miles up into the mountains, almost at 10,000 feet now and still no trace of my father.  My two younger brothers are in the truck ahead of me and we’ve already been nearly stuck or gone off the road half a dozen times.  My father taught us to love the wilderness and outdoors when we were very young.  He used to say, “A day above 10,000 feet is better than 365 days at on the flatland.”  Made me laugh.  Nothing makes me laugh today.   We finally spot his white truck covered in new snow and leap from our vehicles but his is empty.   Up the hill there’s a ladder next to a tree and our minds break, after this everything will be broken, forever, and now I know it always has been and always will be, until the end of the world.  That’s all I need to share about that day except to say that the last time a son hugs his father it should never be around his legs.

Yesterday. 

I have three beautiful daughters and one amazing son.  Like all 7-year-old boys, my son loves cars and playing guns and yelling excitedly at explosions on TV.  I have tried hard to train him up in God’s Word like my father did for me.  He’s tucked into bed and is smiling up at me and as I lean down to give him a hug goodnight I say, “Grandpa would have loved you.”  He frowns slightly and then says, “Dad, how did Grandpa die?” 

I have been avoiding this for too long,

it is time. 

I start to tell him but find out our middle daughter beat me to punch, “Olivia says it was ‘sewer side’ what is sewer side?” 

He is so eager to know, and I am grating to acquiesce.  I plunge.

“It’s called suicide, we hurt ourselves so badly that our consequence is death.”  He understands consequences, he gets them whenever he is disrespectful to his parents or mean to his sisters. 

“It’s death. Why is it death?” 

“Well, when you hurt your sister, dad and mom take away your toys or you don’t get to play on the family tablet for a few days right?”

He nods.  

I continue.

“To God, all sin is sin but some sin carries a heavier penalty than just toys being absconded - the penalty is death.  The worse the sin you commit, the greater the payment.  That’s why Jesus died, to cover the sins of the whole world so we would have eternal life with Him.”  I am internally collapsing now and just want to run from the room and vomit but I know the conversation is not over and I need to be strong for my son.  Quitting on him in this conversation would be everything I promised myself I wouldn’t do.

He’s just staring at me now and I take his little hands in mine and looking him right in the eye I say, 

“Don’t be afraid, I am never going to do anything to hurt myself, I will always be here for you as long as God allows and whenever you feel like you are going to do the wrong thing you can pray and ask Jesus to help.   He nods affirmatively, I stand up and mess his hair one last time.  “I love you son.”

“I love you too, dad.”

So many parts of me died that day in the mountains.  But something else was also born. 

I told my wife that evening, “This is it, Satan is coming, he is going to use this to destroy us and destroy our family and with Dad gone there will be no one left to stand in the gap.  I’m not going to let that happen.  Jesus will guide us through this but we have to trust Him no matter how dark it gets.”

It was dark, fast, faster than I could have thought possible; in less than a year nearly everything was taken from me except my wife and children and I had to start all over in a different country, state, city. 

I can never remember a time where I have been more at peace than this last year.  Six years of separation from falling down in the snow and nearly going insane have proved to be an incredible adventure.  Beth Moore, in a teaching she did once said, “Daniel is not in heaven regretting having been in the lions’ den, he is in heaven reaping the reward of having trusted God through the lions’ den. “

I will not be taken down by generational sin, and there are many to choose from, but as Paul said,

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.  Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.” 

Found in chapter 4 verse 7 of the book my father was named after.

All photos from here

For When it All Falls Apart

The fridge goes first, warming instead of cooling the food inside.

Then the car, with smoke pouring out from under the hood.


And it all happens suddenly - no one is prepared. One day the milk is ice cold - the next day, I reach in and grab hold of a jug that pours out lukewarm and soured liquid.

I'm reminded that there's no preparation for when everything begins to go sideways. Just when one begins to think that everything is moving along smoothly, that all four kids have been playing peacefully, the neighbourhood is quiet and calm, the car will get us from point A to point B with no problems...that's when everything begins to fall apart.


Can I write here, how much I loved my fridge?

Because I did.

It was the fridge that I had always wanted with almost all the bells and whistles that could be had.

Tony had purchased it as a surprise and grinned from ear to ear the day it was delivered.


And when it started to go - when I discovered how much the repairs *could* be on this bells-and-whistles-fridge, I began to wrestle.

Because no matter how much one has let go of - there's always more.

Even a fridge can become an idol.

And so on the evening that our car broke down, the evening before the repair man was coming to assess the cried-over fridge, I sat in my green chair in the dark and the quiet and I prayed.

I knew we couldn't afford this repair on top of the car - and I knew that holding on to the illusion of control was only going to make things worse and so I opened my hands and let it go.

Kneeling before Jesus, acknowledging Him as Sovereign over all things, coming before Him as a child before her Father, I lifted up our needs before Him. The fridge could go - it really could. Just a plain simple white fridge would do. I was done with fancy.


I have a print hanging in our dining room that boldly proclaim the words of Matthew 6:25-26

Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

As I went to bed, leaving our needs and my dependence on possessions at the feet of Jesus, I fell asleep thinking of those verses.

Morning came and Tony woke up to a text on his phone, letting him know that a rental had sold and the buyers didn't want the fridge - would we like to have it?

Tony's mom texted, asking if she could drive over the mountains and stay at our home for a couple of days - and there was relief knowing that by the time she arrived we would have a working fridge and food of the right temperature to feed her.

Only, she had a surprise of her own...

Even before our car had broken down, even before she knew about the uncertain future of our vehicle, she had wandered through a car lot after seeing a flyer with the words, "Matthew 6:33" printed on it. She had written down our story and handed it in with the hopes that maybe a donation could be given.

And it was - Because God knew.

So she drove that car over the mountains and in the middle of the girls soccer game, she smiled wide and told us that car parked in the back was ours and then waited for that realization to sink into our weary heads.


There's the temptation to feel foolish writing this down in light of loss of tragedy and pain all around me...all around the world.

And yet.

I go back to the early years of our marriage, when I would begin to panic over all the "what-if's" that could happen, the hypothetical scary things that would keep me awake at night. In those moments, Tony would go back over all the ways that God had shown Himself faithful in my life, in his life and in our life together, and my heart would slow and I would nod and those moments of His faithfulness became strongholds for me to cling to.

Because the moments of shock and pain and devastation were sure to come, and they *did* come in huge and unrelenting waves, but because of Christ's faithfulness, His steadfast love that He made evident over and over, I knew that He was trustworthy and sure.

So, yes, it's just a fridge, just a car, in some ways. But in the other ways, in the ways that matter most, it's a demonstration of His care for His own, His provision for His children who are learning what it is to be dependent on Him. It's another marker to look to when more moments come that threaten to undo my faith.

They are two more tangible gifts that lift my eyes off of the fleeting and uncertain moments of now and lock them firmly onto the beauty and greatness of the Most Holy God Who calls me daughter.

And grace becomes just a little bit more understood.

11. ice cream on the porch before bed
12. arms aching from the painting
13. hearing our four laugh with their daddy
14. the way Tony determinedly gives thanks when everything begins to fall apart
15. the friend who steps in to take care of animals when the car has broken down
16. the way Jesus tenderly lets me wrestle
17. a fridge!
18. a car!
19. moments with Nana
20. teasing Liv
21. afternoons at the farm
22. those crazy tall sunflowers
23. picking peaches
24. even when everyone is overheating
25. even when everyone is crying
26. even when we have to drive another hour
27. front porch meetings
28. golf cart afternoons with him
29. Olivia's last night being 8
30. breakfast birthday cake tradition and how everyone looks forward to it, year after year.

Going Back to What I Know

I sat down this evening to finalize lesson plans and curriculum choices and organize them all neatly and send them in.

That was the plan, but there are so many choices.

Last year we stepped back from practically everything and just focused on rebuilding small hearts, and it was a good thing and a needed thing and in the praying over this coming year, I'm sensing that we are to begin to open up again. Slowly, yes, but with intention and grace.

Ah, grace. The word I have wrestled with so much this year.

August comes and the heat lessens and I look ahead to a school year with a knowing of all the hard work that comes with it. The temptation to rush, when small ones need to slow and absorb. The temptation to be lax, when self-discipline needs to be exercised.

This life we have been called to is one that I love, one that I'm still learning to navigate all the tensions of, one that I'm still learning to turn over to Jesus completely.

In the quiet of my Bible reading each day, there has been one phrase that has been jumping out at me over and over again to the point that I finally took note of it and realized it's what I've let go of in the rush of living.

It seemed almost cliche, you know? It all began for me in the late fall of 2010 in the middle of upheaval and deep sadness. I came across this blog and I grabbed hold onto her idea of writing down 1000 gifts. And I did it. And then I slowly stopped after the popularity started to fizzle and it seemed silly to continue when even the posts on her page slowly ended and disappeared.

I just stopped giving thanks.

And as I look back over the last 2 or 3 years, I can see a hardening in my heart - a sort of callous that I've allowed to form to protect myself from a life in ministry. 

But the truth is, giving thanks isn't a movement or a novel idea or something reserved for certain holidays and seasons.

Paul exhorts us, in the middle of his darkest moments while chained in the darkness of a prison to,

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, 

kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another, forgiving

each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above

all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And 

let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one

body. And be thankful.  Colossians 3:12-15

Giving thanks is to happen in all things. Why? I'm sure there are many reasons, but the one that seems to be resonating with my heart most deeply is it's a way to remind my heart that God is faithful and good and sovereign when everything else around me feels shaky and uncertain.

Protecting my heart only hardens me and makes the situations around me more difficult. But pausing and choosing to see the goodness of God, even in the darkest moment, it keeps my heart open and it makes my faith in Jesus stronger.

So, I start again. Every Monday I'll sneak back here and add to the growing list with no goal, no end number in sight. I'll just keep building a foundation to remind my heart in the trustworthiness of the One Who created me and placed us here.

1. That sunflower *almost* ready to bloom

2. The lavender beginning to blossom

3. Those tomatoes on the vine

4. The smell of bacon frying on the stove

5. The way Lyla chooses to watch Anne of Green Gables over and over

6. Visits on the porch with the dearest of friends

7. Summer sun and finally, almost, beginning to love it

8. Hint of Fall in the air

9. Those 2 books wrapped in ribbon handed to me at church

10. The sister who holds me accountable

To Love

His sister dropped him off with those two bags filled with his dirty clothes right outside the abandoned house beside us.

I caught a glimpse of his face, just before I turned back inside the house,

just before I cleaned out the rest of the clothes from the washing machine.

He had called Tony and asked if he could do his laundry at Madison House because we were all leaving for camp in the morning, but when the washing machine here in our home is large, and there was already crazy chaos happening, why not just do his laundry here?

He said yes in his quiet way.

We've almost been at Madison House 4 years. Not long, I know, but long enough to have memories that are embedded deep - long enough to know that first impressions are rarely correct.

He scared me, in that first year, and I'm not sure why anymore. I just know at some point, it changed. At some point, he began yelling my name across the street and waving as I would walk by with my little ones up the front steps. At some point the guard came down a little.

So when he walked in our front door and filled up the washing machine with his things, it didn't feel odd to have him in the house. I know it probably seemed a little odd for him, but he is loved by the people who live here.

Tony and I, we slipped out for a quick dinner and while we were gone, he must have slipped out too, promising to be back to finish up the wash.

Only we got home first, and I still had laundry to finish while his last load spun 'round and 'round in the dryer.

He kept telling me that he could do his own laundry, switch the loads and put it away - but he wasn't here and I stood in my laundry room completely unsure what to do. Not wanting to do the wrong thing, or offend in any way.

There's a sign just above the washing machine that a friend made for me in Canada that traveled with us here and that just keeps getting hung back up wherever I find myself washing clothes - a reminder of what I'm actually doing when I'm bent over those tubs and filling with soap or changing loads...I'm not sure if he saw it, but the words, "Blessing Room" stop me each time I take the time to read them and so that is why I did what I did.


Because folding his clothes was no different than folding the clothes of my own children - praying over him as the stacks grew taller was just as natural as praying over the piles for each of my four. One doesn't have to bear the title of "son" to be loved like one. Loving others takes place in the mundane and quiet moments - and sometimes actions are the only way to show the truth of it.


I had to run home the next morning before we headed out of town and away from wifi for the week to rescue a blanket a certain 3 year old had forgotten, and as I jumped out of my car the first yellow bus drove by and his face looking out at me from near the back windows beamed with a joy I rarely see.

And I have to ask myself why I am so often afraid to be bold enough to love? A woman who sits regularly under the shade of a tree across the street wanders by our front gate tonight while I sit on the porch reading and as she gets to the end of our property line, she begins to jerk around erratically. By the time she crosses the street, she is having a full on conversation with the air and the man in the blue house sits calmly and watches with his cowboy hat pulled low while he brushes his dog. When she double-backs 20 minutes later, she is calmer, her walking smoother and I keep rocking in my chair.

And I think, "Water. Why didn't I offer her water?" If I am to love like Jesus, offering water should be a natural thing.

I don't even know how to pray.

Neighbourhood kids leave our yard half an hour later and as we are cleaning up the last of the mess, Olivia whispers to Tony and I, "I think the lady in that car is dead".

Tony's eyes meet mine and he quietly walks out the gate towards the Suzuki that's been parked by our house for the last 2 days. Windows are rolled down, and that's when I see her face, mouth open, eyes closed.

"She's breathing", Tony calls to me and as everyone heads to the door he leans close and says, "I think you should give her some water".

And that fear settles in as I walk to the end of the kitchen and pull down that mason jar and fill it with water, as I reach for the biscuits Liv had made for dinner...the ones that were in the shape of a heart.

And Tony and I, we go to the passenger window and 3 minutes feel like an eternity when you are trying to wake someone up you don't know and as she's jolting awake, she's trying to convince us she's fine, even though we all know she isn't.

But she takes the water. And she takes the bread baked into a heart.

And as I mopped up the water spilled on the kitchen floor later, I *know* that could have been me. It could have been me just as easily strung out and asleep in a car with the windows duct tapped together, I know the wickedness of my heart and where I could have followed it to.

Moving down to 4th Street was nothing heroic or grand on our part - as Tony said this past week at camp, "There's no good or bad parts of town - they are all bad apart from Christ. Our sinfulness is just expressed differently in different ways and places".

My sinfulness is exposed more here than maybe anywhere else - but the beauty of Christ's grace is that He allows me to see it so much faster and He gives me opportunities to try again in ways that I can easily recognize.


I picked raspberries in the garden of a dear friend while she was out of town at the beginning of the month and at first, I found it hard to know where to begin. It wasn't until a cat brushed against my legs and I looked down that I found the heaviest and sweetest fruit was hidden under the leaves and branches near the bottom.

And it's true here...and there...bending low in service, worship, and love - it can be difficult - it can be hard and hurt deeply, but in the quiet, in the Shadow of the Almighty, we can find the sweetest Peace and Joy.

For the Ones Who Call Me Mama

I opened my eyes in the morning light of my tenth Mother's Day to find the littlest one had crawled into our bed in the early hours of the night and curled up into the curve of my hip with a sleep-clenched hand resting on my face.

Lyla, she turned 10 just a few short months ago - went and spun my heart in bewildered circles with how fast time really does go.

She laughs when I ask her to stop growing, to become small again. 

I look back onto the very first post I ever put on the internet, the one where she is only 4 months old and still able to be held, all curled up in my arms and my brain can't fathom at how all those fully lived days have become wispy and faint memories. 

Our lives looked so different - he and I were so different.

We were at the very tender beginning, still wondering how many babies we would have, still figuring out how to relate to one another as husband and wife now that we were also Daddy and Mama.

Our families, both immediate and extended looked so different - I never could have imagined the great gaps that would be left where people should have been.

I thought mothering would look like the ideal picture in my mind that had grown large since I was small - 

but that's just it...my picture of mothering was based on my own ideals and dreams.

 

There's a little one who pulls up her chair beside me in the tutoring room Monday-Thursday. She always has something left over from lunch, and as she pulls out her sheets of homework, she'll pull out something to nibble on too.

She has my heart - I'm sure she doesn't realize this,

her mothering hasn't turned out the way she thought it would either.

This small one, she had curled up beside her mama just a few short years ago, curled up for a nap in the early afternoon pressed up against the one whose heartbeat she had known since her very beginning...but when she woke up, her mama didn't.

Medications were unknowingly mixed and turned lethal.

And this daughter was left without a mother.


She came in one afternoon a few months ago and plopped her backpack right beside my feet. Started pulling out her homework and as she laid it on the table, she turned her eyes on me and asked,

Can I call you Mom?


My own four had been running in and out of the room, homework done and freedom calling and shouting my name over every little thing.


The juxtaposition of both situations made my breath catch.


When was the last time she had even said the word, Mom? And here were my children yelling it freely and without thought.

I wrapped my arm around her and told her how much I loved her - how much I wished that she could. I told her how everyday I looked forward to her showing up, how my day was that much brighter when she came around the corner and sat down beside me.

I told her that I could never be her mama, but that I could always be her friend.


It made me think of my own family, my own small four - how where there has been lack, God has always been so faithful to provide.

It may not look like what I imagined and dreamed about all of those years ago, before there was Tony and the life that we've made...but we have never lacked love.

A decade into this journey where all four of my children are under my roof and I don't know what the future will look like for all of us.

I know what my dreams and my hopes are for each one -

I know that I hope they will always love and follow Jesus, that their faith will be strong and grow...

that, should they become mamas and a daddy themselves, that their marriages will be ones that are grounded in the beauty of the gospel...their love for the other would be deep and faithful and lasting.

That the faith that we are sharing with them now would be passed on to the next generation of grands that we don't yet know.


I can hope these things and pray for these things,

but I can't guarantee it.

The world around me, with all of it's statistics and foreboding predictions would have me believe that hoping for good is foolish, to prepare for the worst instead.

But just when I begin to worry, just when I begin to think that maybe the darkness will win out in the end over my children, I am reminded of the verse that begins the recounting of those before me who had faith and hope in the sovereignty of God alone:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Hebrews 11:1

The further in to the chapter one gets, the more it becomes apparent that faith *doesn't* guarantee all we hope for and dream about...the final verses of the chapter talk about their successes and victories, yes, but just as quickly we read about mocking, flogging, imprisonment, torture...

What I need to be reminded is that hope should lift our eyes off of ourselves and what is right in front of us and cause us to realize that what, or really, Who we are hoping and longing for is Jesus. What pushed all of these men and women listed in the 11th chapter of Hebrews to remain faithful to God?

It was the promise of Christ.

My heart that loves my children fiercely is slowly learning to see their hardship and struggle in a different light. 

Learning that when my heart breaks over their pain, that this is a tender mercy as well. That here, when everything feels like it is falling apart around them, that Jesus is showing Himself to be all that they need. That He is greater than this moment, this temporal pain...and He is even greater than the joy that threatens to overwhelm.

So, for the ones who made me a Mama,

May you know how deeply you are loved, despite my daily failings and fumblings.

May we enter into these days together firstly and fully recognizing that this is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!

May you be bold and courageous when others are mean and unkind and when you hear gun shots across the street, because sweet ones, the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

May you face the future with hope and joy regardless of what the outside circumstances are, because in Christ, God always leads us in triumph.

The four of you are the joy of my heart, even on the days when I feel so overwhelmed...over and over you point me back to the feet of Jesus and make me see my deep need for Him and feel such deep love for each one of you.

As we press into each other learning from and growing through the good and bad, may we be found pressing into Christ together, for He is our refuge and our strength.

With all of my love, always,

Mama