Category Archives: Struggling Life

Moving On or Moving Forward

Mike and I moved many times through the years of our marriage (read about that here).

Whenever we relocated we left houses and some unnecessary things behind and carried many possessions with us to the next destination.

Such is the nature of life. Change comes and we have to decide what to carry with us and what to leave behind. It’s rarely an all or nothing proposition, but a mix of both.

Since the death of my husband, a little more than year ago, I’ve learned the pervasive thought of modern western culture is to grieve on a linear path of stages for a while, get through it, get over it and finally move on to a happy, contented new life.

Grief is a problem to be ‘fixed’ rather than an experience to be acknowledged.

Our culture doesn’t deal well with death, pain, suffering or grief. We personally avoid these at all costs and we often don’t know what to do with those who are experiencing them. Our convenience loving, pleasure seeking, short attention span, hurry-up-and-make-bad-stuff-go-away culture, often and unintentionally places grieving people in a position of pretending to be alright or having to defend their sorrow, eventually forcing them into suffocating silence.

Moving on implies leaving everything behind. To not speak of our dead loved one again, acting as if they never existed, if not ridiculous, is at the very least, unfair and a dishonor to our departed and the love we shared with them.

The truth is, our love for a person doesn’t die with them. We never ‘get over’ it, because their life and death are ingrained into our experience and become an integral part of who we are. As long as I breathe, I will carry Mike’s life and death forward into the future I learn to live without him.

Recently someone was brave enough to tell me they had heard about Mike’s death and said,

“That must be so difficult.” This was an acknowledgement of the pain.

“Tell me about him. What was he like?” This was an honoring of his existence.

They didn’t dance around the reality of his life or death and what I was going through. They didn’t assume I didn’t want to talk about it. They didn’t offer cliches or platitudes. And they weren’t afraid of my sadness or tears. They entered into the loss with me.

It was a beautiful thing and something we all need to practice as we enter into one another’s pain and suffering. When we do we are mirroring God’s heart for the broken.

He didn’t avoid our pain and suffering or run from it. He put on a suit of skin and entered totally into the experience of humanity. The blessings, fear, joy, sadness, laughter, tears and darkness.

God chose and still chooses to be with us in all of it. He doesn’t pretend to make the hard stuff go away but enters into it with us.

He promises to be Emanuel. God With Us!

And moving forward, especially during the sadness of another Christmas season, I can be thankful for this, even when it’s difficult to be thankful for anything else.

One Year Later

One year ago today my husband and I woke up and went about business as usual with no hint of what the day would bring.

By it’s end, Mike was gone, instantly and without warning. Death came calling and the life we had together, the one I had known for so long, suddenly evaporated.

“Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.” Proverbs 27:1

Honestly, it’s been my worst (and there’s been some tough ones) year ever. It feels like yesterday, still so fresh in my mind and heart. I still can’t believe he’s really gone.

The gnawing sadness and giant void that replaced what Mike’s existence once filled, remains. I wonder if it always will. I miss him constantly. I miss all that was us.

This year my faith has been severely tested. The past twelve months have been a season of grasping, clawing, failing, falling, leaning and learning. I’ve taken some steps forward and just as many backward.

I’m learning how to make decisions and handle situations on my own and deal with emotions never experienced before. There are still nights of fear and anxiety and days when giving up seems to be a better option than moving forward.

A year ago, I could never have imagined a life without Mike in it. When I think I won’t make it through another day God, who is The More I desperately need, is patiently guiding me on a growing faith journey like none I‘ve walked before.

Today is a day of remembering and sadness. But also a day of thankfulness because I’ve survived. I didn’t know I could at first. Didn’t think I would, especially in those early days when just continuing to breathe seemed impossible.

So I take time today to thank God for being More. More grace, More comfort. More peace, More strength. More provision. More faithfulness. More mercy. More love. More trust.

More of everything I am not, without Him. And More of all there is the possibility of becoming because of Him.

“God has the power to provide you with more than enough of every kind of grace. That way, you will have everything you need always and in everything..” 2 Corinthians 9:8

Let Me See

Job 23:2 “My complaint is bitter again today. I try hard to control my sighing.”

I’ve read the book of Job many times through the years, but reading it with a grieving heart is eye opening. I completely relate to all the raw, brutal emotion, the questioning, flailing and anxiety of humanity displayed there; a cacophony of thoughts and words flowing from a broken heart. Tossing, turning, struggling with answers to a deluge of why questions.

I admit to finding consolation in the story of Job, since some of his experience is also mine. I am not unlike him. Desperate prayers and pleas erupt from a mind, that is often a tornado of chaotic thoughts. Fear, insecurity and desperation leer in the background of my days. The battle is real.

In his suffering, Job exhausts himself further, trying to reach God, trying to understand why he has been targeted for such loss and pain. We don’t know how long it took Job to reach the other side of his grief. The story is read in forty two chapters so we assume it’s short, but I doubt that, because grief never is. Could have been months, even years. What I do know is, though he never seemed to find the answers he was searching for, in the end he found a clearer revelation of God.

Job finally tells God, “You asked why I talk so much when I know so little. I have talked about things that are far beyond my understanding. You told me to listen and answer your questions. I heard about you from others but now I have seen you with my own eyes,” Job 42:2-5.

Grief and loss have a way of knocking the props out from under us, forcing us to re-prioritize, re-think, re-evaluate everything we thought we believed. I pray I eventually emerge on the other side of this season with a broader sense of how great God is and how deeply He loves, especially when nothing makes sense.

‘Well, you were a pastor’s wife, you should already know such things,’ some may think. No. Regardless of expectations or ‘titles’, my limited lens on life and it’s purpose will never measure up to God’s panoramic view.

Relationships are in a continuous tension between struggle and growth. God created us for relationship. In the pleasant and hard places, God longs to be up close and personal. He only waits for the invitation that my hurting heart delivers.

I want to be able to say with Job, “In all my days up until this, I had ‘heard about you from others but now I have seen you with my own eyes.’ He can still be trusted. He is still worthy to be known.”

In my struggle, let me SEE you, Lord.

Butter in the Jelly Jar

For years, butter globs coexisted with the jelly in my refrigerator.

Mike made toast, buttered it and used the same knife to spread the jelly, leaving butter globs in the jar.

Our son, David and I commented to him repeatedly, how gross it was to open a jar of jelly and see butter all through it. He would smile and say, “You’re gonna’ butter your bread first anyway so what’s the problem. This way it’s all done for you.”

We could never get Mike to stop and for years it annoyed me.

Today should have been our forty-third wedding anniversary. One more special day in my year of ‘without him firsts’. A day filled with longing and tidal waves of sorrow crashing against my heart. I wonder how long it will take for me to stop feeling like I’m still married to him. I also wonder why I was so irritated about such trivial things such as butter in the jelly jar.

As I made Jon a peanut butter sandwich a few days ago, I realized I would give anything to open that jar and see those butter globs all over the jelly again. I desperately miss all the things I loved about Mike and surprisingly, even the things I didn’t.

Everyone we love annoys us in some way. And we annoy them. Socks on the floor, toothpaste tops left off, toilet paper rolls facing the ‘wrong way’, crumbs in the kitchen, a glass left out of the dishwasher, shirts hung crooked on the hanger; these are signs of life, and validation that someone you care about is still here.

So don’t dwell on the petty, the insignificant, making constant mountains out of anthills. Let it go. Laugh. Love. Serve. Forgive.

Believe me when I tell you how much you’ll miss the butter globs in the jelly jar and the one who once put them there.

Ephesians 4:2 (NLT) “Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.”

Colossians 3:13 (NLT) “Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.”

Out of Sync

Two grandfather clocks stood side by side, polished wood grain gleaming in the dim light. They were beautifully ornate without being gaudy. It was obvious much care had been taken to keep them in good working order.

Their pendulums swinging in perfect synchronization created volume louder than normal as they chimed in harmony. Then suddenly, one stopped ticking, it’s pendulum coming to an abrupt halt, hanging motionless from the clock face.

In my dream I panicked. Terror ripping through me in disbelief. The sight and sound of the silent clock, sent waves of shock and sorrow deep into my soul. This couldn’t be happening! It can’t be real! But it was. It is.

God ordained for man and woman to become one in marriage. It doesn’t happen all at once but with the slow steady pattern of learning one another over many years. A rhythm develops, a synchronized ticking of two hearts, minds and souls. At some point you know each other so well, in many ways, you become one another.

When one clock stops, the loss of rhythm, identity and certainty is large. There’s no desire at first to continue keeping time on your own. Time becomes irrelevant, a matter of annoyance. Caught in this moment between the past and the future, you’re now faced with the great challenge of learning how to keep going on alone, resetting the clock to a solitary rhythm.

Ironically time is the healer of this unsettling dilemma and though there’s no end to missing the heart that beat with our own, I’m told eventually there will be release from this purgatory of in-betweenness. It can neither come fast enough or be hurried. I must be patient, let the process play out. Once again time is the Master and I am subject to it’s whims.

But Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells me God has written eternity on the human heart; that there is more than what I feel, more than what I see. Believing there is satisfaction above what this transient world provides, is comforting.

I’m thankful for the knowledge that God, who created time, also lives outside of it. My husband ticks on in eternity away from the time limitations of this earth. He’s already knows what I have yet to experience.

“Brothers and sisters, we want you to know about people who have died so that you won’t mourn like others who don’t have any hope. Since we believe that Jesus died and rose, so we also believe that God will bring with Him those who have died in Jesus,” 1Thessalonians 4:13-14.

The day will come when time no longer holds us in it’s greedy grasp. Such a wonderful hope in the depths of great sorrow.

“..and the two shall become one flesh So they are no longer two but one flesh,” Mark 10:8.

“He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end,” Ecclesiastes 3:11.

Broken Birthday

Jon’s birthday was a few weeks ago. May 4th actually, and birthdays have always been a big deal around here. Mike made sure of that.

He believed if God took the time to make you and put you here on this ball we call Earth, you mattered. You were valuable, thus birthdays were cause for celebration.

“No one should have to work or go to school on their birthday,” he’d tell me every year, the little scowl line erupting between his eyes over the unfairness of it all. “It’s a holiday. In fact you should have your whole birthday week off!”

Who could disagree with that? Mike would buy a cake, candles, balloons and ask the birthday person in advance, “What would you like for your birthday? Where do you want to go?” Then he’d make it happen. And he loved it.

I went to the store the day before Jon’s birthday. Bought a cake and candles and made sure he had a few gifts to open. I asked him where he would like to go, what he’d like to do, and made a few suggestions.

Before I went to bed that evening I reminded him, “Don’t forget to think about what you want to do tomorrow Jon. It’s your birthday.”

He was standing in the kitchen and turned to look at me. “I don’t care,” he said and my heart broke into a zillion pieces. Again.

I went to bed that night, cried into my pillow and cried out to my Heavenly Dad. “Help us please! We are so wounded. Heal us. Bring us to a place of new joy.”

“Hear me, Lord, and have mercy on me. Help me, O Lord.“ Psalm 30:10

Jon didn’t leave his room on his birthday and we never went out. It was the first time in 38 years he didn’t want to hear the happy birthday song or burn the candles down to the frosting before he blew them out. Several days later that unopened package of candles was tucked away in a drawer, when I finally cut the cake and gave him a piece with his dinner.

Right now, the loss of Jon’s father in his everyday life, turns every special occasion into pain. The events we usually celebrate become mile markers for what is missing. Reminders of what was. This is the nature of grief.

Choking back tears, I gently replied, “It’s OK Jon. I understand. Maybe your next birthday will be better. Maybe next year both of us will care again. Let’s just keep asking Jesus to help us with that.”

Maybe by next year or the one after we will celebrate.

Maybe then we will say, “You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy, that I might sing praises to you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever!” Psalm 30:11-12

Please Lord, let it be so.

Hope Floats

There was water all around. No land in sight on any horizon.

So small and insignificant in the sea, the cork was lost and floating aimlessly. Disconnected from her original purpose. Identity gone. Afraid. Alone. Without hope of rescue.

Suddenly a wall of water loomed in the distance, racing forward, a formidable tsunami wave that would certainly be the end of it all.

The force of the wave shoved the cork, flipping and swirling, to the bottom of the ocean and the overwhelming despair and fear accompanying it became far greater than the violence of the water itself. Instant panic seized her. She could never survive. Not this time.

The swirling current subsided and the cork drifted to the top, exhausted and disoriented. Just when a moment of relief came to the great sea, another wall of water appeared, sending her to the bottom of fear and loss again, this cycle continuing in never ending successions.

In slow agonizing increments, the waves eventually pushed the cork toward shore. She tumbled back and forth in the swirling breakers until she was finally left lying for days, with little energy to care, in the sand.

On a bright sunny day a woman and her child walked the beach looking for treasures to fill their plastic pail. They found the cork, took her home, washed her and made her part of a useful and beautiful display in their home. The cork had come through the deep, dark waters and found purpose. New, different, even foreign, but a purpose just the same.

In my deepest despair I asked God for something, anything, to reassure me I would survive the devastating death of my husband. He gave me this dream.

I am the cork.

Can new life be restored after such loss? Can the thing meant to destroy, become the catalyst for rescue and new meaning? Can the waters of dark despair bring forth renewed hope?

God promises I will not drown. Hope, like a cork, rises again.

It’s true, life will never go back to what it was. I will never be the same. There are moments, hours, days, nights when I hate the reality of this truth, but I long for the time when I‘m excited about living, when I finally wash up on the shore of hope and find new joy, new purpose.

As each reoccurring wave continues to bury me in the depths, I hang on to Jesus, my life preserver.

Until hope floats again.

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you, I have called you by name; you are Mine! When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overflow you.” Isaiah 43:1-2

“And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you.” Psalm 39:7

When I Am Afraid

I explained to Jon on the way to the hospital the doctor was going to give him some medicine to help him take a nap and would go inside him with a tiny, tiny camera to look around. I didn’t give him the medical term. Bladder Cystoscopy.

After we arrived, nurses moved in an out of the blue curtains of the outpatient operating room waiting area. All of them pleasant, helpful and patient.

“Here Jon, take off all your clothes. Put on this gown.”

“Get in the bed, Jon.”

“We need to put these stickers on your chest so we can check your heart.”

“Is it OK if we put this blood pressure cuff on your arm now?”

“You need this oxygen clip on your finger.”

“It’s time to put the IV in. Can you give me your arm?”

So many instructions. So much to process. The expressions rolling across Jon’s face like a fast forwarded movie, told me he was confused by it all.

Our friend Judy, who came to be backup support, had quietly explained to several of the nurses, out of Jon’s hearing, that his father died recently and I knew Jon was thinking about that right now. No one else would know it but me. I saw the fear in his eyes.

He walked to me, closer than usual and stared into my eyes. I asked him very quietly, “Are you afraid Jon?” He put his forehead against mine and answered, “I‘m going to be just like Dad.”

I grabbed him close to me and started to cry. “Oh no Jon. You are not. You’re going to be OK, Honey. Dad didn’t die in the hospital. I know you still think he did but that’s not true. These doctors and nurses will take very good care of you and you will be just fine. And Judy and I will be here to take you home when you wake up.”

I hugged him so hard and he didn’t resist, this son of mine who rarely wants to be touched, who usually flinches or shrugs my touch away.

I heard nurses sniffling behind us.

I‘ve yet to tell Jon how and where his father died. How do you tell this guy, “Your dad died in the front yard while he was home alone with you. While you were watching a movie in your room your dad went to be with Jesus.” How do you say that to him?

What and how much to say about the traumas of life is always a challenge with Jon. He understands way more than people realize. Anyone who hangs out with him for long figures this out. But he has a hard time expressing what he’s thinking. The thoughts and words are stuck somewhere inside him and no one knows more than those who have gone through this incredible grief how healing it is to be able to say exactly what you’re feeling all the time. It’s part of the moving forward process.

Does Jon need to know his dad died right here at home? Will that knowledge make him afraid of his home, the one place of safety he has in the world? And if he knows it, how will he ever be able to process it?

These questions and uncertainties roll around in my mind at night and spring from me in the form of tears and prayers.

I’ve asked Jon several times over the past few months if he wants me to tell him what happened to his father. So far he’s given no indication he wants to know the truth so until he does I guess I‘ll keep it at that. Maybe it’s better this way for both of us. I don’t know.

For now I’ll keep asking God for wisdom. Discernment to understand my son’s heart and patience to deal with whatever arises with another sun. I‘ll keep reminding my son his dad may not be here with us anymore but Jesus is still and we’re going to be OK.

Even when we’re afraid of all these new unknowns, even when it doesn’t feel good or safe, we can lean our forehead on His. We can tell our Savior, “I‘m afraid.”

He will wrap us in His arms and reassure us, “I’m here. It’s going to be OK.”

Psalm 56:3-4 “Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You. In God (I will praise His word), In God I have put my trust; I will not fear.”

Seismic Shift Dreams

In October 2017, when my husband died, this sudden, life altering earthquake shook me to my core. Everything that was secure, safe and predictable took a seismic shift. I feel as if I‘m clinging to the edge of open ground, trying not to fall into the deep chasm it has created. If I‘m honest, I have no dreams right now and many moments I struggle to have hope. It’s daily survival mode around here.

So where do I go from here? I’m still taking care of an adult disabled son who needs me and there are so many complicated layers to this dynamic I’m often at a loss to explain. Jon requires most of my breathing hours.

I’ve heard I should have dreams, goals. I should allow God to resurrect them. I should go back to where they died and bring them back to life. But how? Where? When? At this point I can’t even recall any. My life has been spent supporting my husband and taking care of my children. There’s been very little of it that’s been about me and I’m not one bit sorry for it.

My youngest son is grown and on his own now and my husband is gone. He’s not coming back. There’s no resurrecting that!

As I talked to my Heavenly Dad about it this morning He spoke quietly to my heart.

“Daughter, This is not complicated. YOU are MY dream. I AM your goal. Your dream should be to know you are LOVED by ME. Your dream should be to KNOW ME. Every other thing you do, have, want and become will flow from there. Walk with ME through the Valley of the Shadow of Death and Darkness. Don’t struggle so much to figure it out. Trust MY LOVE FOR YOU and let your dream and purpose unfold as we travel this road together.”

I‘m not very good at this yet and I ‘m struggling to trust Him in this new, hard place. I have neither the energy or faith to dream but He has all the strength and faith I need. HE is my faith. HE is my source. HE is the wellspring of my life.

Dreams that never existed can’t be resurrected BUT could it be, God can create brand new ones after everything inside me has died?
For those of us who feel like it’s over and there’s nothing left to resurrect – Yes!! He can make all things new! Even ME.

Maybe someday I‘ll dream again. That’s all I got for now and what I’m holding on to.

Revelation 21:5 “And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

Life Under Construction

In March of 2017, Mike and I went on a seven day cruise with our son, David and our daughter in law, Clara. Finding someone to stay with Jon that long is rare, but our good friends, Lou and Thelma, graciously offered to hold down the home front for us.

It wasn’t so much about where we went and what we did, but the opportunity to unwind and be uninterrupted together. It took Mike about four days to leave the weight of his many responsibilities behind. I watched his shoulders relax, the worry lines across his forehead fade, saw his dry wit and easy laughter return. And the fun of cruising got us talking seriously about his retirement when he turned sixty five, still five years away.

Retirement seemed like a mute point to him without us having freedom to come and go. We needed a solution for Jon if we were going to be able to travel and do some of the things we’ve always wanted to do. On Friday of cruise week, he sat us all down at lunch, excited about a great idea he had. He wanted to build a caregiver house on our property and have someone live there to help with Jon. It would be a one time expenditure, something we could pay off, unlike life long residential care, and would provide a long term solution to our retirement challenge.

The four of us agreed it was a good idea if we could convince the code and permitting powers that be, to approve it. In Mike’s typical get-on-it, gotta’-fix-it-now style, he started in as soon as we arrived home. Checking out tiny house architectural designs, taking out a loan, calling the city, arguing with permitting, lining up the general contractor, surveyor and land clearing. As usual, he began moving through the process methodically, with the weight of a freight train and the efficiency of an ant army.

Before the concrete slab was poured, he was craigslist surfing and sale shopping, buying appliances, flooring, paint, sinks, faucets, lighting, a hot water tank and AC unit. All of which are still piled in packing boxes in the garage.

Things propelled into fast forward and we were excited to see block walls going up. The project was scheduled to be completed by the end of December. Then, in early October, my husband died. I put the project on hold, seriously considering bulldozing the whole thing down. Why care about retirement now? And why would would I want to travel or do anything without him? This was his dream for our future and he literally died at the door of it. That is where I found him when I came home that evening, leaving our future in ruins at my feet.

This little house had suddenly become a reminder of all that was not to be and a barely completed weight added to the many new responsibilities I now had to carry alone. Every time I looked at it, it reminded me of life in my sorrow-filled season: sad, empty, incomplete, uncertain and burdensome. I began to hate that house, but realized God knew the timing of all this. It had been constructed far enough for me to see the foolishness and waste of tearing it down. So I resolved to finish it.

After four months it is back under construction (along with a new roof going on the house we live in, another project landing in my lap when Mike exited). My property is swarming with construction people this week. It is anything but peaceful here.

Life is always under construction. Change comes. Ripping down. Rebuilding. Clearing away the old. Making space for something new. Some construction we look forward to and just as often, are the times we would never choose the abrupt, difficult and complete re-structuring we find ourselves in.

Construction is loud, messy, noisy, annoying and feels endlessly incomplete. But it’s goal is for a finished product. A purpose. Something useful up ahead. Though I don’t see it, can’t feel it, and hate the place I’m in, I must believe God has my best at heart. Only He can complete me.

“And so I am sure that God, who began this good work in you, will carry it on until it is finished on the day of Christ Jesus,” Philippians 1:6.

My entire life is currently under construction. Fortunately, God is a patient master builder. He leaves nothing undone. While everything feels chaotic and uncertain, I’m hanging on to the hope of a finished product that glorifies Him and the promise of a future that looks to Jesus, ‘the author and finisher of my faith’ (Hebrews 12:2). And I pray something beautiful will rise up from the dust of this unwanted situation.

“Come let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up” Hosea 6:1

“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain..” Psalm 127:1

A Place Called Special

a look inside a special life