October 3, 2008
Seems like one would learn, after all these years, that if you “wait” until that perfect time, one would never get anything done. I wanted to “post” in order and add my “moments” from the beginning and so I waited…and I waited…and suddenly I realized that life was passing me by and by waiting for the “right” time, the “right” way, I was letting my ideas, once again, get in the way of God’s call. So, back I come, with so much in between. But time will take care of that which needs to be said.
There is a song, by Sara Groves, It Might be Hope. The first time I heard it, I was floored.
You do your work the best that you can
you put one foot in front of the other
life comes in waves and makes it's demands
you hold on as well as your able
You've been here for a long long time
Hope has a way of turning it's face to you
just when you least expect it
you walk in a room
you look out a window
and something there leaves you breathless
you say to yourself
it's been a while since I felt this
but it feels like it might be hope
Her words carried the depth of my soul. In the last few years it has been amazing how God has used music to encourage me along this journey. The list of songs is remarkable and each one has come into my life at just the right time. Sara Groves came into my life just as my heart was beginning to feel what I hadn’t felt “for a long, long time.”
Don’t get me wrong. I had hope. I just didn’t feel hope. And there is a big difference in those two. “Faith is believing in those things unseen,” and I was believing and holding on to hope with all I had. And God kept encouraging me along the way. He listened as I struggled and agonized over the crisis, trauma and grief period of the last seven years. And He gave me the strength to hang on and “put one foot in front of the other.”
Sara Edwards said it well when speaking of her son, Wade’s death. I don’t remember her words exactly, but she said something like this, “if I had lost a leg, no one would ask me if I was over it.” A visible part of you is gone and it’s obvious one would still be contending with the loss every day. Yet you learn to get around the loss. You would learn new ways to walk, new ways to cope and new ways to accommodate for the loss, while learning to live a full and meaningful life again. You look down and your leg is still gone, and there are times you get tired and frustrated and you wish your leg was there. You look back and remember what life was like before it was gone and wonder what it would be like if you never had lost it. Most people can understand that. They can see the missing part and be cognizant that you are still dealing with your loss.
When you lose a child, you lose a piece of your heart. You lose a part of your being. You lose hopes and dreams. Your family loses a “leg.” But that is really invisible to most. It is easy for others to put in the back of their minds, for whatever reason.
And then, as if that is not enough, you find yourself on the side of the road for two and a half hours, waiting, begging, screaming at God, at your deceased child, to send his girlfriend, Allison back, uttering in disbelief, that God would want to take, her and yet another child from us as you don’t know if your child will even make it. For two and a half hours, you pace, you shake, you scream, you moan, your body does all it can to cope as emergency personnel struggle to stabilize your child and come up with a plan to get him up the 130 foot embankment to the ambulance that will take him to the Life Flight helicopter waiting down the road. And for 23 days, you go from operation to operation, searching the faces of doctors, looking for a glimmer of hope, all the while hanging on to God’s WORD, because that’s all that’s left within you.
The loss, the horror, the surreal, has become your life and there is an overwhelming fear of what may be around the next corner. People, in their ignorance, say the most ungodly things. Others avoid you because they don’t know what to say. And you put it out there like that missing leg, because that’s life! You would give a leg or two, to have it all back, the way it was. Elliot and Allison, alive and working through what their relationship would be. The trauma of living on the brink of death and coming to at the bottom of the ravine and hearing that she is gone, erased from your surviving son’s memory. Yeah, you would give a leg or two, to have it all erased.
Yet you learn to get around the loss. You learn new ways to walk, new ways to cope and new ways to accommodate for the loss, while learning to live a full and meaningful life again. There are those who aren’t scared of the reality. They listen, they support, they “see” the missing pieces and they hang in there with you. And one day out of the blue:
Hope has a way of turning it's face to you
just when you least expect it
you walk in a room
you look out a window
and something there leaves you breathless
you say to yourself
it's been a while since I felt this
but it feels like it might be hope
It’s a little scary at first. It’s new. Hope. You feel it. It has been so long. You put one foot in front of the other, cautiously. And you wonder, “is it safe?” And it seems like a whole new feeling.
That which you waited for, seven years earlier, has finally come to being. A new church home, a job, a movement towards a meaningful future, the soul-satisfaction of hearing true happiness in your child’s voice, not just once, but each time you hear it across the distance, and you suddenly realize that, yes! It is hope that you feel.
No, you never get over the loss. It is such a major part of you…gone. But you learn to accommodate it and live a life of fullness, knowing the losses and the trauma will always be a part of who you are. That those who are gone, will never leave you. Yes, it makes you different, but our God is a loving and faithful God. He is faithful! And in the moment that the hope you have been believing for, hits you in the heart…oh what an awesome, incredible , and faithful God who loves us! He IS Hope!
To God be the glory!
Lynn
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Abide in Me...
On April 6, 2008, I wrote:
It is amazing what happens when we begin to be obedient to what God calls us to do. This has been a busy week in the gratitude department and now I am faced with the task of exactly what God wants me to share.
It amazes me, and I still don’t know why I get so amazed, it’s God’s way, that you can read a piece of scripture time and time again and then one day, you read the same passage you are so familiar with and the words become alive in you in ways they never have before. That happened with me this week with John 15: 1-17. “I am the vine and my Father is the gardener…” I don’t know how many times I have read that this week and I just feel God calling me to absorb it, own it and let it be written on my heart. And for two days, I left the TV off and went about my days as I let the word of God soak into my being.
It hasn’t been an easy week. But it has been a God week. We were so eager for life to get back to some sense of normalcy following the accident and we were so concerned about our son’s mental well-being that we tried to push him to talk about it. And we finally had to let go and give up on it. But this week, he began to ask questions and the answers brought back memories that had been buried…some very painful. A very dear friend who was dealing with her own trauma was having a particularly low week and we talked for hours. And we have faced yet another “loss” in life, as we have known it, as our living situation changed. And then there was the death of a friend…not just any friend but one of those people who were the hands, heart and feet of Jesus when there was no one else around. He was buried just yesterday.
And God said, “Abide in me.” And those words kept lying as a gentle reminder all week. And as I reflected on the conversation with our son, I heard God say, “See,
We can find God in the most unexpected places. This friend, on the exterior would not fit into “religion’s” picture of a Christian. Many were offended by his way of telling you what he thought and then some. I liked knowing where I always stood. Many were offended by his language and brash ways. I sometimes cringed but then I also saw beyond that and saw the diamond at the heart of the man. You see, when we were strangers in this town (which we still are), he reached out to us, he made a point to make us feel welcome and a part. When Elliot died, I remember seeing him as we arrived at the cemetery, standing away from the crowd, in a way that forever said, “I’m here for you.” After the funeral, many times he would call and come by, just to see how we were. Our son worked for their family one summer and when he had his accident, although his health did not allow our friend the freedom to get around, he called and he called, to check on him and on us. As we left the church yesterday, our son said, “He even called me when he could barely talk, just to see how I was doing.” That is what he did for us. But there were many who were hungry, he gave food to. There were many who needed a ride, he would transport. He was the kind, when he saw a need, he filled it. No hoop-a-la, no questions, no fanfare. He just did it. He loved God, he loved his church, he loved his family, and he loved people. Yet many stayed away from him because he did let you know where he stood (and then some), his language could be a little rough and his ways a little brash, but those people were the ones who were cheated, because they missed the blessing of seeing the hands and feet…the heart of Jesus in action. We never know where, we never know when, we never know in what form, we may see God revealed.
“Abide in me…” My Father the gardener is still pruning me and it is not a painless process but by abiding in Him, he has given me the gift of revelation along the way that fills me with awe and wonderment and amazement at His abiding love and amazing grace and His most perfect timing. “Abide in me…Abide in me…Abide in me…”
To GOD be the glory!
Forty years later and the Purple Flower Man
On March 30, 2008, I wrote:
Our home is built in the middle of a pasture and our “lawn” is nothing more than pasture growth cut down to lawn height. So we have a varied mix of grasses and weeds (mostly the latter).
There is nothing like the first signs of Spring. The first displays of color are exciting to me, even if it does mean that the workload is about to double with outside chores. One of the first colors to appear in our yard is purple. And the first sprouts of purple bring a glimpse of what is yet to come. I start to pay attention to all the new signs of Spring as the birds search for places to nest and the flowers and trees begin to bud with new growth and then…aargh…the purple flowers, I have been told are called “hen bit,” are now these huge dark clumps all over my yard, interspersed with big clumps of green against the backdrop of what has not yet greened out.
What, just a few weeks ago I saw as a sign of new life springing forth, I now saw as an unsightly mess that needed to be cleaned up. And so with excitement, I began, what would soon become the dreaded chore and what has become equal to the season of Spring…"mowing season." I wanted to clean up the mess.
But under the “mess” would lay a very special surprise. Under the hen bit were the tiniest of delicate purple flowers. They, too, are probably considered a weed in these parts, but to this old soul, they are a reminder of God’s wooing grace.
I was about ten and a child who lived in a world where few had the time of day to give to me. I had been sent to camp for a week, much to my lonely and antisocial dismay. There was a scavenger hunt and off I went, alone, with my list, searching for the items. On the list was “a purple flower.” I had found everything on the list except for that and was wandering along a path when an old man (he was probably about my age, now) with gray hair came up to me and asked how I was doing. I explained that I had it all but the purple flower, knowing, from all of my other life experiences, that it probably wasn’t important to him. But what happened next would leave a forever mark on my heart.
I remember him and me; down on our knees as he raked the leaves back with his hands and revealed a tiny delicate purple flower. He looked up at me and smiled as if he had found life’s greatest treasure and said to me, “they didn’t say how big it had to be, did they?”
In that moment, I experienced, in a powerful way, what I would come to know, to be God’s grace. Someone took the time, cared enough to stop along the way, to help me, insignificant me, find a purple flower. And it wasn’t even easy to do.
Sometimes we never know how the smallest of actions or a few minutes of our time, stopping along the way, can impact a person. I’m sure the man whom I only remember as “the purple flower man” never dreamed that in that small instant of time he would make such a huge impact on that young girl. Time was something that too few could give. When I picture God’s wooing grace in my life, the purple flower man is one of the first pictures that come to mind. You see, he gave me something I had not experienced. He took the time to care and walk with me along the way. He got his hands dirty to help me find the hidden treasure.
Is that not what happens with God’s grace in our lives? It gives us an example, a reason to take the time to care, to walk with others along the way, to sometimes get our hands dirty to help others find the hidden treasure of God buried underneath the filth?
As I mowed, more and more of the tiny purple flowers came to light and it seemed as if the yard was carpeted with them. And my heart was filled with a deep sense of joy as I thought back to the purple flower man. I felt a deep sense of wonder as I saw the multitude of the tiny purple flowers. They were such a blessing to my soul. Sometimes, we never really know if we make a difference in people’s lives. I’m sure the purple flower man didn’t know what a powerful symbol of God’s grace he would become to me and that over 40 years later I would still have that moment etched in my heart.
Sometimes we walk with Jesus, unaware and other times we are the hands, feet and heart of Jesus, unaware. A simple flower, a simple act, a lifetime of influence. For those who stop along the way and give the time of simple acts of kindness filled with God’s grace…those are God’s glory! God give me the wisdom to be more like them!
Chaos, Shamrocks and Easter
On March 23, 2008, I wrote:
Sometimes it can get quite lonely up on this beautiful hill. It is a child’s playground and was intended as such, but the events of the last few years have changed our dreams. Tragedy struck, but also, adulthood came for the boys we had built our lives around. One moved toCalifornia
Sometimes it can get quite lonely up on this beautiful hill. It is a child’s playground and was intended as such, but the events of the last few years have changed our dreams. Tragedy struck, but also, adulthood came for the boys we had built our lives around. One moved to
They were a tight group of kids in high school. Their weekends were spent in the woods or working on cars or just being boys. Our door was a revolving door and when there was nothing to do, it was done at our house. They were an interesting, odd bunch, but they were so tight. And as normally expected, they all sort of did their own thing after high school but, they would regularly come back together and it was as if nothing had ever changed. They picked up where they left off.
When Elliot died, they were all right there for my husband and I while our other son was out of the country. And when he came home, they were at the farm for him, every time he came, so he wouldn’t have to be alone. Friends like that are rare in life. But when Allison died, it seemed the farm took on a spirit of sadness and the trips subsided somewhat.
In January, two of the group flew to
It wasn’t until this past weekend that it finally was able to happen. Some even rearranged work schedules. One gave up, one last weekend, with a close friend that was moving away. I spent my Friday cleaning, forgoing the mopped floor, because I had been here before…it was senseless to mop BEFORE they came. And after work, two by two, they began to trickle in. Family came to see them all and food was plenty. Bonfires, pasture rides, four-wheeling, target practice and playing Wii. The house was alive again with a group of boys …hummm…men…acting as if no time had ever passed from those days long ago in their hometown. The four wheelers and one truck were muddy and they came back to get the other truck so they could get it muddy as well! I watched as they included the new wife and the “California girl” learned what one did without shopping malls and Starbucks. And she loved it! They wallowed on the furniture, left dirty clothes everywhere, ate everything in sight, looked for opportunities to aggravate “Momma Lynn” and turned our home into total chaos.
Saturday night, as I cooked their favorite meal, I stood at the stove and, in my heart, I felt the deepest sense of gratitude as the chaos around me felt so much like home. It had been a long time since it had felt this alive! And it felt like Elliot was right here with us!
Sunday, we returned from church to a house full, playing Wii. Our son came in from being out on the four wheeler…”You bunch of losers, it’s a beautiful day outside and y’all are in here playing video games.” The game was over and off they went for one last romp in the four wheelers and trucks. I stood on the hill and listened and watched and it seemed that all was right with the world.
Elliot had a shamrock tattoo. Why would I tell you that now? After all had left and I swept the horrifically dirty floor, I, wisely, chose not to mop, I looked down in the rubble of the weekend to find in the midst of the pile…a shamrock.
Today, we celebrate emptiness, we celebrate the unknown, the unexpected, the chaos of not knowing…don’t you think that is some of what Jesus’ followers were feeling many years ago following his brutal death? And then they discover an empty grave? Someone stole his body? Now that is insult to injury!
But then they turn around and he is there…He is ALIVE! It had to be as difficult to comprehend then as it is now. But HE LIVES! HE LIVES! And because HE LIVES we can celebrate the new life he brings to our emptiness, the anticipation of new life in the unknown, the warmth, the joy, the gratitude in the unexpected and the peace He brings in the chaos.
Last weekend, I got to experience Easter! To GOD be the Glory!
Saturday, June 28, 2008
My Story - Bad "B" Movie- Part 2
Four years into my plan, nothing resembled what I had envisioned. But I was still working on keeping my plan alive. The legal process came to a conclusion in July of ’06 after my graduation from seminary and I decided I would go back to work following Christmas. First, I would take some time to rest and clear my head a little.
Our oldest son had graduated Christmas '05 and this year, just before Christmas '06, he had secured the “perfect” job for him. We were all so excited. It was like things were beginning to come together for us. I was eager to get on with my “own” life.
Elliot’s girlfriend was now dating our other son’s very best friend. They had our blessing (“as long as neither one of you hurts the other”). They had come for the weekend. It was a 74 degree January Sunday and they hopped in Elliot’s Jeep, with the top down (something which made them all feel closer to E), to come meet us for lunch, following church. As we pulled in the parking lot of the restaurant, we received a phone call. There had been an accident. We would later find out, they had been run off the road and went down a 130 foot embankment. The man left the scene, stopped to change his flat a few miles down the road, told an officer there had been an accident and was never charged. The DA made that decision...more forgiveness to work on.
Two were life-flighted to the closest trauma center and our precious Allison had not made it. Our son’s friend walked out of the hospital the next day but we would remain there for twenty three days and over 11 surgeries (we lost count at some point). Here it was, January, and I was once again caught in the midst of a horrific, traumatic event. Talk about the walking numb! I kept telling people, we were walking around in a bad “B” movie which no one could ever even think of to write! Twenty three days later, we left the Trauma Burn Unit and brought our son home. Within a few weeks, he had learned to change his own bandages, drive, moved into his own apartment, and was back at work. He was a miracle!
I was done with planning to go back to work. It seemed like every goal I set for returning, something traumatic would get in the way.
How many times, in the last seven years, have I cried out to God, “What do you want from me?” “What is your will for me?” I’ve screamed. I’ve wept. I’ve stomped my feet. I’ve read Job over and over again. But that hasn’t been the sum of my existence!
I have laughed. I have sung. I have rejoiced. I have been encouraged. I have been filled with His love and grace in ways too numerous to count. I have heard over and over, “Be still and know that I am God.”
Today, I’m not making plans to go back to work. I am making myself available. I worry about money, there are things we would like to do that we can’t. Building a house is expensive, but couple that with trauma and sound decision making goes out the window! I would be remiss, if I didn’t say, God has provided all that we have needed when we have needed it throughout the process! Yes, even forgiveness for the one who took my son’s life, realization that had we built our home as scheduled, our son would have lived in it and it would have been a sad reminder of what was lost as opposed to a place of healing, and so, so much more.
As we excitedly prepare for our son, to move , as his career progresses and he begins a new and fresh chapter of his life, we look towards that still small voice that is saying, “you are getting to the other side of this.” I have begun to do small things, small things that He has called me to do. Not my plans, but His plans. My heart begins to lift and there is an excitement brewing. Where it leads, I have no idea, but through it all, I have learned one thing loud and clear, it’s not about what I want, or my plans. It is about listening, depending and obedience. I used to think that was a scary way to live. But the one thing this “bad B movie” has taught me…it’s the only way to live. There are some redeeming qualities to bad "B" movies!
And as always…to GOD be the glory!
My Story - Bad "B" Movie- Part 1
Six years ago, I was preparing for our move out of state to the farm which had been in my husband’s family for over 100 years. I had it all planned. I would start seminary in September, we would start construction on our home in January and then in September, once the house was completed, I would return to work. Sounds like a good responsible plan, right? But guess what…those were my plans. There was a whole different plan coming down the pike and I was already on a journey of learning what it is to truly rely on God. We had lost our community of fourteen years because I had not listened when God spoke to me and warned me that there was something unsavory going on and in September, the previous year, I was blindsided by the unsavory shenanigans of church leaders who had more than God’s agenda at heart. The ending result was a year of devastating darkness and pain, not only for me, but for my family.
I was eager to start anew. I knew God had great things in store for me. Once we had settled in and had been living in a tiny rental house for a few months, we began the task of preparing to build. A misreading of the lease on the property where we were to build left us with the shock that the lease was not to end for another year. We went to the lessee and he agreed to sign a release for us to begin. We were rocking along and then two weeks before the bulldozer was to arrive, we get a call. He refused to sign the release. I remember sitting on the sofa, looking out the window, devastated. Tears were streaming down my face as I felt I had been dealt another blow. But I remember saying to my husband, “God has His reasons. We just have to believe it is for the best. But I sure don’t understand.” I felt like we had already been through enough! Little did I know what was to come.
We waited the year and the following January, we celebrated and had a ground breaking. Our time had come. In February, the first earthmover appeared and the process began. It was an exciting time for our entire family. I readjusted my plans a little bit and moved my “back to work” date to the following September.
Elliot was struggling a little bit, wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with life, nor who he was. He was floundering and searching for meaning (so much like his mother). He decided to come home from school after finals in the Spring, to spend time at the farm, helping me paint the house and getting his head straight.
I spent my drive time to school each day, praying for my two boys. I remember one day, as I was driving in, saying to God, “Lord, I have a peace about my oldest, but I just can’t get a peace about Elliot. PLEASE, give me some peace.” It would be two weeks later, the morning after his 21st birthday, forty five minutes after I had an overwhelming peace in my heart about Elliot, that I would find out he had been shot in the head by a friend of his, someone we had all loved. The day he was to come home, we brought him “home” in the back of a hearse.
Needless to say, my plans were totally disrupted. Plans? What are plans? It was a matter of just trying to get up every day and put one foot in front of the other. There is a whole section of life – survival – that I have little memory of. I do remember vividly, that God called me to forgive the one who did this. That wasn’t part of my plan. I begged Him to not make me. My spirit knew I had to.
I went back to school in the Fall because that was really all I knew to do. I remember wanting to give up and hearing Elliot saying, as only he could, “don’t do it Mom. Don’t do it.” And so I continued. The school was a loving and supportive community.
We had to go through a trial. It was a two year and two month grueling process, but law enforcement where he was shot, were absolutely wonderful to us. Nothing was done or decided without our input. We had homeowners insurance to deal with and because the family of this young man would not cooperate, we had to take legal action, something we did not want to deal with. But in the process, the steps we had to go through, life narratives, photo narratives and letters from people who knew him, as painful as it was, revealed the beauty of the man and the life we were privileged to share with him.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
The Beginning...March 9th 2008
If you live long enough and pay attention, you will begin to see that there are “seasons” in life. You find yourself talking about things in reference to a particular “season” in life, “that was when the boys were young,” or “when Momma was sick,” or “when I was in school,” etc. It seems we best remember events in life around other life events. Sometimes that is good and sometimes those past events and memories seem to have a negative effect on the present. And if we are not careful, we can let the past infect the present and miss some very special blessings, gifts from God.
I imagine that my family will define these past seven years as the “season” of loss. What started with a loss of community has spiraled into the loss of an adult child, and later his girlfriend in an accident that led to the close call on the life of our other adult child. There have been so many other losses along the way, minor in comparison, yet magnified because of the long string of significant losses. As the collection grows, you begin to wonder if your heart is growing hard as you mentally toss another loss into the “basket of losses,” just chalking it up as another one, all the while wondering, just what is God doing here?
Saturday night was a night much like the night before the accident that would take Allison’s life and leave our remaining son’s life hanging in the balance. My husband and I sat around the bonfire we had built, the first one of its type since the accident, and I looked up at the stars as I so often do. It was unseasonable weather, much like that time a little over a year ago and the full raw emotion of the season of loss came flooding back in.
Our son’s four wheeler lives at our house and so I knew he would be going four wheeling the next day and I felt the fullness of the fear of what could be around the next corner. The floodgates of the sadness and the fear of all that had been and all that could be, came flying open and I was once again reduced to the deepest, rawest, body shaking kind of sobbing pain.
My husband said in the most compassionate way, as he had so many times heard me “preach” to him, “
I went to sleep that night, fearful that it would be another restless one, filled with dreams of those things that were past. I knew the routine. But it wouldn't be my dream that night that would speak to me. It would be my husband’s. And in his dream was something important, and it was something called “Moments of Gratitude.”
I fearfully went to church on the Sunday that was so much like the day of the accident making sure I didn’t wear the same pants I wore the day of the accident(how God must laugh at some of the idiotic things we do). I forced myself to try and live in the moment. The fear and pain of that day a little over a year ago, stayed with me all day as I pushed through it, talking to God and trying to dismiss it as the foolishness I wanted to believe it was.
Dark had settled in and I was back in the bonfire business and as I tended the fire, I just kept asking God to bring my son back safe from the day of trail riding. And then... I heard from the distance, “I see lights on the driveway” and my heart took a deep sigh of relief. He was back. He had made it. I had made it. It was a day so like another, YET, it was so very different. Moments of gratitude…an unseasonably warm day, bonfires and the gift of the presence of two of my three favorite men. And God carried me through these moments.
They weren’t my only gift that day…words spoken by God to me through a friend, and a time in worship to hear God speak…Moments of Gratitude…Moments of Gratitude. And on that day, as I struggled to stay in the present and fought off the infection of the past, a call was born to share with you all, my “Moments of Gratitude.”
“A season of loss” may be what we recall as its name, but we are moving towards the remembrance of another great season of loss, the loss of what people in His day thought was their Savior, only to see Him ridiculed, mocked, beaten and killed as the worst of criminals. How dark that “Friday” must have been for no one knew what was to come. All they knew was that their hope was gone.
And look what happened in what seemed to be the darkest of moments! He lives! Yes, even in what seems so dark and so ordinary…He lives! And, that, my dear friends, is why, even in our own pain and depths of despair we can always find “moments of gratitude” and light in our darkness!
Join me as I live each day, expecting the moments that I see God in all His wonderful glory and am able to take that deep sigh of gratitude. He reveals Himself in the most unexpected places and in the most unexpected ways! And always…
To God be the Glory!
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