Life is a colorful journey to say the least, isn't it? The thing that has struck me as the most strange, though, is how some things, despite the record of chronology, seem to not just be timeless but transcend time. It is an idea so complex that men have devoted years of their lives to finding a way to quantify and understand exactly what "time" is. One of those people happens to be my husband.
The thing that I find most striking in its transcendence of time is the versions of ourselves. We are each one person - yes. But I have spoken in times past about performing a therapeutic exercise during which you intentionally mentally go back and revisit the "you" of a different time and lend something to that person. For me in the past, I went back to the "me of 11", and I comforted a very confused kid who felt alone while my poor grieving mom cradled her own mother's body while the soul left the body and my grandmother breathed her last. My grandmother held my mother when she breathed her first breath. My mother held her own mother when she breathed her last breath. What is more intensely beautiful and sorrowful all at the same time? That year was so difficult for me and parts of my soul got, understandably, lost in the shuffle. Well the shuffle didn't last forever. Life marched on and continued to change. I grieved hard for the loss of my grandmother, but it took me more than 20 years to realize that I had never grieved the loss of myself and that I needed to do that. So I wrote a letter. I still have it. That experience was insane, but it taught me how to do that for the "Sarahs" of the past.
I was able to go back and rescue and comfort the "Sarah" that got raped who felt she needed forgiveness for something that was never her fault. I learned a good skill that I have used to go back and wrap loving, now momma, arms around the versions of myself that happened in this weird thing of time that we use to measure our experiences. Let me just tell you, if you ever do this, you will understand what I mean when I describe it as transcendent. If you perform the exercise correctly....you guys...it's like you actually go back. I am not talking about some weird delusion of time travel or alter universe. I'm not implying something like Back to the Future. It's....it's its own thing, but know this. You can go back within your soul...and you can address things. So, under the watchful eye of a clinical therapist and my loving (then) fiance and with an attitude of prayer and protection, I have performed this exercise multiple times for several different versions of myself.
There are several versions representing several years to which I could not bring myself to go back. My (now) husband and a close friend trained in this field have encouraged me to do so.
I just couldn't....
until tonight.
There is something to say for relationships that are genuinely safe. You really don't ever get a whole bunch of those in life. Most relationships aren't bad - they just remain on the surface, and so they can't be described as a safe place or an emotional bunker. They're just repeated salutations and some shared experiences, but the other parties aren't ones that would offer sacrifice or safety. It's not that they're bad - they're just shallow. But then you find a few that are exactly what every heart needs. They are a harbor of protection and a bed of renewal. Those relationships are important. Those are the ones you hold onto. Those are the ones wherein is revealed the most truth. One of those relationships for me is with my husband. He has been a rock of truth and love for my heart since I was 20 years old, and that part of who he is has only grown more beautiful with time.
I spent some much needed time with him tonight. It was one of those evenings where you talk things out because you find yourselves being more and more in sync with each other rather than talking things out to clear air from a fight. It was a time of feeling like the thread that knit our hearts together got pulled a little tighter.
The safety.
Dan left the room, and I stayed just staring up at the ceiling...and then it happened. A "Sarah" from another year sprang to the front of my soul. A lot of "Sarahs" in my past have needed help because they have been very, very afraid. I spent more of my life than I care to admit feeling so horrified every day, and while this particular "Sarah" had also spent a lot of time feeling so scared, the thing she needed help with from "Sarah now" was because she was just heartbrokenly sad. Just so sad.
There were a few key points of loss for my story. I value my loves so fiercely that losing anyone is earth shattering to me. I have buried people in my immediate family. That loss is just awful...but then there are people who have not ceased to live. They walked away...sometimes with their feet and everytime with their hearts, and the "Sarah" that needed some loving arms tonight was sad over someone that walked away. After this person took their exit, life spun in circles so fast that I was just trying to survive, and their exit felt like such a slap-in-the-face betrayel that allowing myself to feel loss almost felt like I was extending a value to them that they didn't deserve. I never deserved to be emotionally abandoned by this person. I had tried to be their friend through thick and thin. They were important and absolutely precious to me, so their choice to betray what my heart offered was just excrutiating for me. And the interesting dynamic is when someone's heart leaves your heart, it doesn't always happen that they logistically leave your life. You may continue spending as much time around them as you always had. That was the case here. The regular life that had included both of us continued for a while, and, as there is in life, there was some frenzy at times that never allowed the "me" of then to ever just sit down and weep for what had just ripped out my heart.
Honestly, time marched on.
Part of me remained stuck there with that poor "Sarah" of that time crumpled in a heap on my bed trying to make myself cry but not being able to. I had children at that point so laying in bed for days to actually grieve wasn't realistic. So that "Sarah about to cry" stayed right there....until tonight.
I have no idea what the catalyst was that pulled this "Sarah" to the front of my soul, but as I lay in this house on this night, she came to "me" and the tears just started to well up in my eyes. I guess I feel like maybe it was the growing feeling of safety in the arms and heart of my husband that made both of us "Sarahs" feel like we would be safe enough to be vulnerable in our heartbreak. "You know....I never even just let myself feel sad about that..." and as soon as my brain silently spoke the words, my heart gave both of us "Sarahs" permission to go ahead and "drown".
I use drowning as an analogy because if someone is in distress in a body of water, the rescue personnel will not offer them aid while they are still flailing their arms or forcing their body up into the air with every bit of strength they have remaining. The reason the rescuer waits is because the victim can actually continue to damage themselves and the rescue effort can be fruitless and catastrophic. It is only when the victim - the hurting, scared person - loses all strength of their own and has no way to fight that the rescuer can reach down and scoop them up to safety. It is, in fact, the letting go and abandoning the effort to someone else that results in the actual rescue. You sacrifice all control. You relinquish it.
That is what the "Sarah" of now did as I went back with the "Sarah" of then, and "we" (you guys, I know it was not two people but two VERSIONS of the same) just sat and wept together as our collective heart ached for the loss of the one who walked away. The one we loved and valued and rooted for and placed as precious. We let go of all the hurt from the one who walked away and then abandoned the vigilance over my soul that kept me forcing myself to just take the next step during what has now become years of sort of robotic persistence to survive. We two "Sarahs" cried all the tears my heart needed to cry, and "we" embraced the sorrow into every corner of my soul that needed to light of the truth that it really existed.
And then it was done.
Here's the weird thing I have had happen. My brain thinks of everything as metaphorical or analogous so as I think about these previous versions of me that are still in distress for their various reason, I mentally picture them as crying or wringing their hands or with a frightened look on their faces upon every remembrance I have of them. But when I go back to them and sit and embrace them and offer them hope and comfort, all that distress ceases to exist.
It. Is. Finished.
They are permanently rescued. That happened for this "Sarah" from that time - that one particular time. That happened for her tonight. So she's never again the crying, broken hearted one. I have laid her down with her puffy eyes and wet cheeks, and I have smoothed her hair back off of her face so that she can now rest. Forever.
That "Sarah" is now laid to rest.
And this "Sarah" - the "Sarah" of now - gets to live.
There are a few more "Sarahs". I nearly see them with my mind's eye waiting their turn in a spiritual line.
I'm coming girls. Just let me catch my breath.
Monday, April 24, 2017
Friday, April 14, 2017
On What To Do With All The Hurt
There are hateful things that happen in life. There just are. I felt another blow against the jaw of my spirit tonight. There are people in the world that don't like me. There are people in the world that actually delight in my pain, and you know what? Every single time they shoot an arrow of hate into my world, it causes me pain. People like that tend to learn to get really good at inflicting pain. They hone their skills until they know their darts are going to hit just the right spot. I have some people in my world like that just like I'm sure you do too. It's just....
"What do I do with the hurt though?" I asked my husband. I continued "Do I get mad and yell? Do I counter attack? Do I just fall in a heap and cry?"
What do you do....with all the hurt?
I am a Christ follower. When I was a little girl, I watched my mom's prayers be answered and my dad's life change. I watched my brother get baptized in a church because, as I'd been told, he had chosen to give the debt that he could not meet himself to the God Who promised to do it. It piqued my interest, and I started really listening. It did not take long at all for me to decide as a little girl that I wanted Jesus. I remember little else except that I knew I needed Jesus and I wanted Him. So I went to Him. I gave my whole everything to a One I had never seen because I knew to my very depths that He was the author of things and the One that loved me the most. I knew it then. I knew even in my funny little honest heart that there was already just enough imperfection in my life that would be enough to taint the beauty of who He was, and I knew that He was the only One that COULD erase the stains and He promised that He WOULD do it, and I believed Him. I know thinking about a sinful 6 year old seems a bit weird, but the sin that can stain a heart can be one maliciuos or dishonest thought. We don't go around accusing little kids of trying to harness the power of Satan. One little tiny stain can mar the appearance of the whitest, most beautiful, precious fabric. One thing can cause it to lose the "qualification" of "mint condition". Now, the point at which a human actually chooses wrong and creates that stain is something that God does not even offer us with a specific number. There are little sweet children who get diseases through no fault of their own and their life is snuffed out. Do I think that, just because my heart realized at 6 that I wanted and needed God that every 6 year old (or even children older) also have that ability and would be sent to a damned hell? No. I don't. I know a God that loves children and would not be so cruel to cast away a one whose heart never knew they betrayed Him in the first place. If you want to know what age a person needs to be when God decides it's okay to damn a soul to hell, I think you and I need to talk further about the Daddy I know. Either way, for whatever reason, at 6, I knew I wanted this Abba, and I accepted Him.
Over the course of my life, just like all of you, I have encountered pain that is bringing tears stinging into my eyes right at this moment. I have a catch in my throat right now as my brain rattles off a portion of the list my brain can't help but remember of the times my heart broke as part of it was ripped away or buried in the ground. Hurt changes us. Sometimes we make poor decisions, and we hurt as a result, but I'm really talking here of the hurts we don't deserve:
"We did everything we could"
"He....he passed away"
"It's cancer"
"There's someone else"
"It's gone...it's all gone"
That list. The stuff you never asked for and you know you didn't deserve. I can't even find a way to articulate the level of absolute anguish...the hurt.
It's so nearly impossible to figure out what to do with the hurt because I just feel so annoyed every single time I see someone go through something and decide to slap some stale smile on their face saying it's all going to work out while they walk around like they're in some barbituate induced haze.
No. I want to know what I'm supposed to DO...with this. After that initial trust fall into the world of being a little Christ - a kid of God's, the whole blind faith thing was never my dig. I'm going to be straight up with you. I do not take much of anything at face value. I'm going to need to see some goods.
That's...just not always a favor life lends, I'm afraid. Instead of being given a plan of attack leaked from the camp of my enemy, my life has reflected more that I would need to learn how to heal quickly and be better ready and less vulnerable for the next time some force in life charged towards me. This is what we all TRY to do, but, as I listed above, there are things that rain down over your life that can in no way be anticipated. The crash down like an avalanche of boulders and leave what looks like nothing but a pile of crumbs. And you had absolutely no way to know it was coming, and you in no way deserved it. It just came and took away so, so much...and it hurts.
So then what? I believe - my personal belief - is that my Abba, my heavenly Daddy, is watching. He is watching, and not passively. He is involved. There are things He sends my way for my benefit, and there are times He decides that there is something beautiful that can grow if He allows something to cause me pain. No. That is not cruel, and no that is not twisted. I let my 15 month old baby fall...all..the...time. She actually does it less and less now, but there are still times when I choose to stay seated as I watch her take a step that is unsure me knowing the whole time that her effort is going to result in pain. Her little legs are going to plop right down onto the edge of the step she was trying to conquer. Why do I do that? Because if I didn't, she never would learn how much it actually takes to conquer that little step in her journey. Because I let her experience temporary pain that makes my heart hurt and I audibly cringe, I know that the next time she faces that step, she's going to know better what to do. I don't shield her from growing stronger. It's so hard. I wish I could scoop her up and swaddle her in her ring sling and nurse her away from all of the hard things...and she would become weak and intolerable.
I am God's girl.
Now let's get one thing straight here. If Audrey loses her footing and falls as I illustrated above, I will let her learn. It will make me sad, but I will let her do that. I will not sabotage her growth. But you best believe that if I watch something or someone come slithering her way to do her harm, their freedom to move in her life is going to be extremely limited. I may watch as someone gives her an ill-deserved shove or steals a treasure from her chubby little hands...but not for long. They don't get endless chances...I'm watching. You can ask my older kids - I am that momma who is NOT afraid to march right up to a playground bully that I've watched terrorize the swings and monkey bars for a time and say to them "You need to keep your hands to yourself and leave my child alone. It's time for you to find you mommy or daddy or whomever brought you to this facility". This action, however, is reserved for use for times when I can see that someone has intent to cause my child harm or damage. God is the same. I am His kid. God does not have patience for evil. It may seem like the right people never actually have to answer for the way they damage others, but my God Daddy is a just God. He is watching His babies.
So there is a way to process how going through horrible things brings me to a place of growth, but that wasn't my question to my husband. My question was "What do I do with the hurt?" What do I do with the welted, red skin of where someone just slapped their way around my life? What do I do with what feels like a broken bone or a bloody bruise in my spirit from where life circumstances or someone's evil heart decided they'd just smack me around or snap things in two? What do I do while it still hurts?
You know the only answer I have? Cry.
There is a vast gulf fixed between wallowing in self pity or bitterness and just crying because things still hurt where the damage occurred.
If it hurts, cry. Literally or figuratively.
Audrey does. And if she falls or someone is awful to her or anything in this cruel, broken world causes her pain and she DOES cry, I don't look at her and say "Welp, guess THAT one's done in. Well THAT one probably won't be good for much" and then walk away. Sometimes, I scoop her up and hold her close. For this hard-headed kid though, a lot of times, I watch. I let her cry out and make her voice loud if she needs to. I let her squeeze out a few tears. I don't ever tell any of my children not to cry if something hurts. I make effort to never dismiss a hurt of their hearts, minds or bodies. I engage it. I let them utter their pain in the way that their life needs while the pain is still happening from what hurt them. And then we begin again the whole process of taking more steps in this journey.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry I don't have a more magic answer. I'm sorry that beyong the knowledge that most adult people have that hard things help you grow, I don't have much for while the hurt still...hurts. But I feel comfortable in telling you that the choice I have made for this time while my own hurts are hurting, I cried. I'm going to do some more crying probably, and I may cry about this particular thing at different points all throughout my life. Like it may actually make me hurt in the future.
So while we know that we will be given something good in exchange for the wrending apart of our hearts, when it comes to while you're still hurting, I say....just go ahead and cry.
"What do I do with the hurt though?" I asked my husband. I continued "Do I get mad and yell? Do I counter attack? Do I just fall in a heap and cry?"
What do you do....with all the hurt?
I am a Christ follower. When I was a little girl, I watched my mom's prayers be answered and my dad's life change. I watched my brother get baptized in a church because, as I'd been told, he had chosen to give the debt that he could not meet himself to the God Who promised to do it. It piqued my interest, and I started really listening. It did not take long at all for me to decide as a little girl that I wanted Jesus. I remember little else except that I knew I needed Jesus and I wanted Him. So I went to Him. I gave my whole everything to a One I had never seen because I knew to my very depths that He was the author of things and the One that loved me the most. I knew it then. I knew even in my funny little honest heart that there was already just enough imperfection in my life that would be enough to taint the beauty of who He was, and I knew that He was the only One that COULD erase the stains and He promised that He WOULD do it, and I believed Him. I know thinking about a sinful 6 year old seems a bit weird, but the sin that can stain a heart can be one maliciuos or dishonest thought. We don't go around accusing little kids of trying to harness the power of Satan. One little tiny stain can mar the appearance of the whitest, most beautiful, precious fabric. One thing can cause it to lose the "qualification" of "mint condition". Now, the point at which a human actually chooses wrong and creates that stain is something that God does not even offer us with a specific number. There are little sweet children who get diseases through no fault of their own and their life is snuffed out. Do I think that, just because my heart realized at 6 that I wanted and needed God that every 6 year old (or even children older) also have that ability and would be sent to a damned hell? No. I don't. I know a God that loves children and would not be so cruel to cast away a one whose heart never knew they betrayed Him in the first place. If you want to know what age a person needs to be when God decides it's okay to damn a soul to hell, I think you and I need to talk further about the Daddy I know. Either way, for whatever reason, at 6, I knew I wanted this Abba, and I accepted Him.
Over the course of my life, just like all of you, I have encountered pain that is bringing tears stinging into my eyes right at this moment. I have a catch in my throat right now as my brain rattles off a portion of the list my brain can't help but remember of the times my heart broke as part of it was ripped away or buried in the ground. Hurt changes us. Sometimes we make poor decisions, and we hurt as a result, but I'm really talking here of the hurts we don't deserve:
"We did everything we could"
"He....he passed away"
"It's cancer"
"There's someone else"
"It's gone...it's all gone"
That list. The stuff you never asked for and you know you didn't deserve. I can't even find a way to articulate the level of absolute anguish...the hurt.
It's so nearly impossible to figure out what to do with the hurt because I just feel so annoyed every single time I see someone go through something and decide to slap some stale smile on their face saying it's all going to work out while they walk around like they're in some barbituate induced haze.
No. I want to know what I'm supposed to DO...with this. After that initial trust fall into the world of being a little Christ - a kid of God's, the whole blind faith thing was never my dig. I'm going to be straight up with you. I do not take much of anything at face value. I'm going to need to see some goods.
That's...just not always a favor life lends, I'm afraid. Instead of being given a plan of attack leaked from the camp of my enemy, my life has reflected more that I would need to learn how to heal quickly and be better ready and less vulnerable for the next time some force in life charged towards me. This is what we all TRY to do, but, as I listed above, there are things that rain down over your life that can in no way be anticipated. The crash down like an avalanche of boulders and leave what looks like nothing but a pile of crumbs. And you had absolutely no way to know it was coming, and you in no way deserved it. It just came and took away so, so much...and it hurts.
So then what? I believe - my personal belief - is that my Abba, my heavenly Daddy, is watching. He is watching, and not passively. He is involved. There are things He sends my way for my benefit, and there are times He decides that there is something beautiful that can grow if He allows something to cause me pain. No. That is not cruel, and no that is not twisted. I let my 15 month old baby fall...all..the...time. She actually does it less and less now, but there are still times when I choose to stay seated as I watch her take a step that is unsure me knowing the whole time that her effort is going to result in pain. Her little legs are going to plop right down onto the edge of the step she was trying to conquer. Why do I do that? Because if I didn't, she never would learn how much it actually takes to conquer that little step in her journey. Because I let her experience temporary pain that makes my heart hurt and I audibly cringe, I know that the next time she faces that step, she's going to know better what to do. I don't shield her from growing stronger. It's so hard. I wish I could scoop her up and swaddle her in her ring sling and nurse her away from all of the hard things...and she would become weak and intolerable.
I am God's girl.
Now let's get one thing straight here. If Audrey loses her footing and falls as I illustrated above, I will let her learn. It will make me sad, but I will let her do that. I will not sabotage her growth. But you best believe that if I watch something or someone come slithering her way to do her harm, their freedom to move in her life is going to be extremely limited. I may watch as someone gives her an ill-deserved shove or steals a treasure from her chubby little hands...but not for long. They don't get endless chances...I'm watching. You can ask my older kids - I am that momma who is NOT afraid to march right up to a playground bully that I've watched terrorize the swings and monkey bars for a time and say to them "You need to keep your hands to yourself and leave my child alone. It's time for you to find you mommy or daddy or whomever brought you to this facility". This action, however, is reserved for use for times when I can see that someone has intent to cause my child harm or damage. God is the same. I am His kid. God does not have patience for evil. It may seem like the right people never actually have to answer for the way they damage others, but my God Daddy is a just God. He is watching His babies.
So there is a way to process how going through horrible things brings me to a place of growth, but that wasn't my question to my husband. My question was "What do I do with the hurt?" What do I do with the welted, red skin of where someone just slapped their way around my life? What do I do with what feels like a broken bone or a bloody bruise in my spirit from where life circumstances or someone's evil heart decided they'd just smack me around or snap things in two? What do I do while it still hurts?
You know the only answer I have? Cry.
There is a vast gulf fixed between wallowing in self pity or bitterness and just crying because things still hurt where the damage occurred.
If it hurts, cry. Literally or figuratively.
Audrey does. And if she falls or someone is awful to her or anything in this cruel, broken world causes her pain and she DOES cry, I don't look at her and say "Welp, guess THAT one's done in. Well THAT one probably won't be good for much" and then walk away. Sometimes, I scoop her up and hold her close. For this hard-headed kid though, a lot of times, I watch. I let her cry out and make her voice loud if she needs to. I let her squeeze out a few tears. I don't ever tell any of my children not to cry if something hurts. I make effort to never dismiss a hurt of their hearts, minds or bodies. I engage it. I let them utter their pain in the way that their life needs while the pain is still happening from what hurt them. And then we begin again the whole process of taking more steps in this journey.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry I don't have a more magic answer. I'm sorry that beyong the knowledge that most adult people have that hard things help you grow, I don't have much for while the hurt still...hurts. But I feel comfortable in telling you that the choice I have made for this time while my own hurts are hurting, I cried. I'm going to do some more crying probably, and I may cry about this particular thing at different points all throughout my life. Like it may actually make me hurt in the future.
So while we know that we will be given something good in exchange for the wrending apart of our hearts, when it comes to while you're still hurting, I say....just go ahead and cry.
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