The Gift of Remembering

Yesterday was a regular day around here; Dr. appointment, kids playing, chores, and school work. I'm trying desperately to wrap my brain around computery things and discovering that most how-to's and tutorials assume a level of prior knowledge that I do not have, so I spent hours studying/working and have very little show for it.

At some point I logged on to the breastfeeding support group that I help run and found that one of our mamas had experienced the unimaginable, the loss of her 10 month old baby. That kept me preoccupied for much of the rest of the day. Not actually doing anything, but thinking about it extensively, considered ways to reach out, and yes, crying for this dear mama.

Josie often climbs into our "remembering spot" and looks through photo albums of Mom, but yesterday it just caught me in the gut. I'm getting to that grief stage where it is not constant, but when it occurs it is very forceful. And so, I sat with her, held my child, and remembered.

So between the frustration of hitting brick walls in my studying, having a grief day in our home, and the loss of this baby being on the forefront of my mind, it was a rather topsy-turvy day, emotionally speaking. Last night after a grocery run and picking up the kids from VBS, I sat down again to quickly check in on FB before bed. There was the little red flag notice that I had a message and it said a friend had sent a photo. I opened it and saw the beautiful photo I've shared here. 

Back story - after mom passed away, I was struggling with how to talk to the kids about the fact that her body was not going to be interred in a casket the way they may have seen in movies or shows. I spoke about this with a friend who I just think the world of. He has a way with words and a way of viewing things that I often haven't considered. He did help me out by talking through this and giving me some ideas. A few days later, he wrote to tell me that as they worked in their yard this spring, his family had planted a sunflower in honor of my mother. Yesterday it bloomed and he sent me this photo.

As I sat and cried, cried for this mama who is just crushed with grief, cried for myself and our family as we experience this very different kind of grief and trying to figure out our new normal, I also cried over this gift of love and friendship. This gift of their family remembering and honoring someone they've never met.

At the end of the day, we want to know that our loved one mattered, that their life meant something, that someone else in this world is holding space for them. We need to know that our loved one's life had meaning, and of course by extension, that our lives have meaning. Let me be clear, I believe in eternity and heaven, but for now, I'm a temporal being in a temporal world and the here and now is what really resonates with me.

We each need to know that we matter, that someone would miss us if we were gone. Struggling hearts often express, “no one would miss me if I weren't here, so what is there to live for?” And on some level we all wonder that. Will there even be a hole when I am gone?  We recognize that we are but a speck in the vast universe, but we have this immense need to know that our speck matters. That the speck of those whom we loved, matters.

One of the greatest gifts you can give to a person who is grieving is the gift of remembering their loved one-and letting them know that you do. So every February, I think of Ellen and remember her loss. Every July, I reach out to Belinda as she grieves her husband. Every time I see a giraffe, I think of Ruth's mom.

Tim has passed this gift to me. That sunflower is going to complete its bloom, the seeds will feed birds and some will drop (or be collected) and re-grow next year. And thus, in a yard, 3,000 miles away, my mother's memory is nurtured. Her speck is enlarged. My heart is healed.

the Hope of Christmas

This time of year there is a huge emphasis on being “merry and bright.” In church the atmosphere is one of celebration, of glitz and light and joyful music, of triumph. Merriment and pageantry, festivity abounds.  And so it should!  We are celebrating God come to earth, the culmination of a promise given at the beginning of time.  The tree and the lights and the music and dance and drama and gifts have become part of the celebration, to the point of extravagance—and again, I am not finding fault, after all, how extravagant is it for the God of eternity, the Creator of the universe, to join his creatures for the sole purpose of death and resurrection and redemption?

My thoughts are simply this; to those who are bent and weary with burdens that simply won’t let up, those for whom grief and pain are constant companions, those who are quite simply, spent. The thought of needing to put on a façade of “merry and bright” can be overwhelming.  For them, the expectation of festivity is not a preparation for joyful ceremony, but rather one more task on hearts already so very taxed.  May I say that the degree of celebration is not a marker as to how much you love Jesus and appreciate the gift of his coming to earth?

I submit that it is every bit as worshipful, every bit as appropriate and genuine to lay aside some of the frolic and simply dwell on the Hope.  Jesus birth did not signal the prompt end of oppression. His coming did not bring immediate ease, the suffering of Israel did not cease.  In fact there were many more long years of war and turmoil, of persecution and tumult and being scattered. 

Jesus’ birth was the declaration of Hope.  Hope that in the midst of suffering God had not forgotten or abandoned.  Hope that God was not merely enthroned on high, but was present, he was now, he was sharing the pain, the hurt, the grief.  Jesus’ coming meant that there was Hope that the current circumstance was not all there is, the promise still stood. 

That promise stands today. He remembers the frailty of humanity. He knows, not simply as one who has seen, but as one who has borne, the fragility of our spirit and emotion.  And he does not merely remember!  He does not share our burden as one who can only sympathize.  Christ Jesus is unique in that he not only knows our infirmity, he has the power to carry us through it.  This is the Hope of Christmas. 

I invite you to lay aside the guilt of “not doing enough for Christmas” and focus on the Hope. The Hope that although suffering may not cease immediately, that you are not left alone in it. The Hope that though the burden is so very great, you are not alone in carrying it.  The promise that although your Christmas may not be filled with lights and pageantry and spectacle, your Hope is just as real; for does not a candle shine most brightly in the darkness? 

Can a Mother Forget Her Baby?

This week has been filled with bits of news that have simply broken my mommy-heart. 

The young son of friends in Florida was in a freak household accident that resulted in gravely life-threatening skull fratures.  For many hours he was hanging by a thread between life and death, there has been a roller coaster ride of improvements and setbacks, and though we are trusting for it,  there is a long way to go for full recovery. 

I heard the heartbreaking news that the toddler of a friend in North Carolina has gone to be held in the arms Jesus, forever safe now in the hands that formed him.  He was born very ill and the fact that he lived until almost 3 years is amazing in itself.  Although I would never wish him away from the perfect life he now has, my heart aches and aches for my friends who are experiencing this loss.

Another friend is going through the valley of watching her child suffer extreme physical pain and knowing that there is really nothing she can do to ease it.  So many decsions to be made as the next two years of a long, slow, and painful recovery looms ahead. Oh how she longs to remove that pain and place it on herself!

Last night I got word that friends in Illinois who were joyfully anticipating the birth of their 4th child have gone from excitement to terror.  She is only 24 weeks along and for some reason, the baby is trying to come now.  Dialation, contractions, and water breaking; and now the moment by moment wait to see if all the powers of medicine can deny the body's urge to give birth has given way to the moment by moment wait to see what this tiny body can withstand here on the outside.

Dear Lord, what is going on?  All of these families love you and serve you.  Why do  these things happen to your people?    And what seems most unfair is that they are all children!

The thing I have learned since becoming a mother is that the one sure way to pierce the heart of a parent to to have harm done to their child.  Seeing your child hurt takes the reaction beyond mere sympathy or an emotional response and turns it quite literally into a gut-wrenching, physical pain.  

I can truly say that my understanding of love deepened a hundred-fold when I had children.  

I am not saying that the love for parents, for siblings, or even for spouse is somehow less, but it is certainly different. 

As a mother I can truly say that I would lay down my life for one of my children!

And yet, that is exactly what God did for us. How deep the Father's love for us!  God calls himself our father over and over in the scripture, for he truly is our leader and protector. He also  likens his love for us to that of a mother, nurturing, kind, and life-giving. 

 In Isaiah 49 God is telling the prophet how he will raise his people up. How he will feed them and guide then and how he has compassion on his afflicted ones.   The prophet replies and says that "The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me." 

To which God utters some of the most beautiful promises in scripture, Isaiah 49:15-16,"

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast 

   and have no compassion on the child she has borne? 

Though she may forget, 

   I will not forget you! 

16 See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; 

   your walls are ever before me. 

Oh what comfort I find here!  As much as we humanly love our children and ache for them, the Lord's covering of love over us is even more, deeper, stronger, everlasting, eternal, and oh, how much more potent!  For though we parents long to take our childrens hurts onto us, though we would be willing to do anything to remove their pain, we are, in our human state, helpless to do very much at all.  Would it be wrong to say that the depth of our pain during these times can serve as a reminder of how much God cares as well?  

God is not bound by our frailties, we serve an amazing God, the one who spoke our entire universe into being is the same  one who wept at the loss of his friend (John 11:35).

The rest of Isaiah 49 talks about how the Lord will cause Kings and Queens to be foster parents and nurse-maids to our children when our own resources aren't enough. 

God will indeed prove himself and show us

"Then you will know that I am the LORD; 

   those who hope in me will not be disappointed.” Isaiah 49:23b

It is what it is.

It is what it is. We are who we are. We do what we do.  (via Facebook status shuffle)

Well if this isn’t just about the saddest thing I’ve ever read, I don’t know what is. 

What’s worse, it was categorized under “wisdom.”  Ok, so I wasn’t expecting Solomon-esque utterances, but wow.

Thing is, people believe this and live by it.  

Life without hope; no hope of change, no hope of becoming better, of growing in grace and love, wretched in the knowledge that we are who and what we are, and that simply isn’t good enough.

Day after day, not expecting anything different, resigned to the fact that “it is what it is.”

Oh to tell them all that Jesus came precisely so that this would NOT be true!

He broke the curse.

We can be born again.

We are no longer chained by sin.

We can be filled with his spirit.

Our minds can be renewed.

We can be transformed.

He brings new life...

And it is Abundant life.

John 10:10 I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.