This...kind of changes everything.

 

Something happened...something good. 

Just as, in the writing world, they say that you write from scars, not bleeding wounds, I wanted to sit with this good, and rather big, thing for a bit. I wanted to live with it; to let it season, to see if it...lasts.

I started counseling recently (long overdue, I'm sure) and have not been sure what I think about it. The big thing didn't happen through anything the counselor said, but in talking to her, I heard myself say something that resonated like a bronze bell. It was something I have known, that saved my sanity six years ago, but I hadn't thought to apply it to one particular point of pain. 

In trying to describe my inner emotional state to people, in the wake of our son Michael's suicide, I have often used two metaphors.

I speak of being strongly compartmentalized; of how Kristie was here, speaking to you and going about daily life, while Michael's mom dealt with the awful, relentlessly practical details of after-death, and Michael's mommy was sheltered tenderly behind a closed door, huddled on the floor, wailing. We check in on her, and care for her very, very gently. Kristie is able to function because Michael's mom and his mommy were given space to experience their own parts of this awful reality. Once in a while, they all collide in an eruption of tears and raw pain, as they should. This has felt like the healthiest, most functional way for me to live with these conflicting realities. I mean...I have to go about daily life, and I'm not especially fond of melting down in a grieving puddle in public. By giving that lava-river of pain a private, separate place to exist, I've been able to carry on and do the rest.

I also say that some part of me, one-fourth of my mama-heart, has been pinned to the moment we heard the awful news of his death. That is a good descriptor...pinned. As I went about my day recently, I delved deeper into that idea and realized how very apt it is. Some part of my beating, bleeding heart has been impaled to that moment like a moth to a collector's board. This part of me has been spiked there, writhing, gasping for air, neither healing nor breaking free, for nearly six years. 

Two things occurred to me, and they have changed my inner world rather dramatically. Interestingly, the first major part of this shift came only twelve days after my most recent post; the one where I spoke of the relentless cost of not crying, and how I could, legitimately, break down and weep at any given time.

The past year has been especially hard and heavy. On the last day of January, last year, a memory surfaced, related to Michael's death, that leveled me. Emotionally, I was almost back to where I was in the weeks just after we got the news of his death. This emotional devastation brought on some health issues that plagued me for several months. While those physical symptoms eventually eased, the emotional weight continued to press me down and down and down. I wasn't depressed, really, but...crushed. I could apply all the logic and self-compassion to this memory, but the hard fact of it could not be swept away. It was like swallowing a shard of glass, and having it get stuck halfway down my throat, and finding there was nothing that could be done to shift it.

Just a week and a half after sharing that post, something changed. 

I spoke earlier about remembering something I knew. It was something my friend's husband told me- the life-ring he threw me- when I was agonizing over my mistakes as a parent, after Michael died. [Not that I blame myself for his death- we all make mistakes as parents, because we're fallible human beings. Those regrets just become blinding in the wake of a child's suicide!] When I shared this, this friend said, "I'm so glad God has mercy on our failures." Those words of hope were the first true light shined into a hard, dark place. Others had tried to help, but these were the words that helped. I have spoken often of how life-giving they were. They helped me find sanity in the unbearable reality of my loss. 

I never forgot those words, but, in the struggle of last year, I forgot to apply them to this, too.

They're just as true, and just as life-giving now as they were six years ago.

At my most recent counseling appointment, as I tried to explain why this helped, I had an epiphany. This understanding flashed through my mind, and I said:

"When God said he would carry my pain, he meant all of it!"

I heard myself say those words, and it truly felt as if the God of the universe was saying them straight into my brain and out of my mouth! 

It was a holy, healing, glory-filled, beautiful moment, and I think I'll never be quite the same. 

This was the vital thing that I had failed to understand.

While Michael's death, and every painful thing around it, is horribly true and there's no brushing away or softening or sweetening any part of it....I don't have to carry it alone!

This is not denial. This is not pretending it's not true. I will never, for a single moment of the rest of my life, be anything less than fully aware that my son is not alive, but (and this is one of those earth-shaking, Jesus-sized, holy "buts") ...the truth of it may be unavoidable, but the crushing, soul-sucking, awful weight of it...is not mine to carry!

It was the crushing, devastating weight of the pain that took me down last year.

I forgot, and I hope now that I see it, I will never forget again, that the weight of my suffering is not mine to carry. 

When God said he would carry my pain, he meant all of it. Truly.

"Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows..."Isaiah 53:4-5

"Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens." psalm 68:19

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." Matthew 11:28

"You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?" Psalms 56:8

"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Psalm 34:18

~~~

This moment of clarity was absolutely revolutionary for me.

I also did not immediately run around telling everyone.

Why?

I've mentioned that I have a monthly cycle of emotional capacity, mental health and physical energy. It took me a year or two to figure this out, but it's proven true. The low point of all these facets of my life falls on the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth of every month. Michael died on the 24th of June, and we found out the next day. I did not decide that these days would be extra hard every month; they just were, and over time I noticed the pattern. Just as with all bell curves and pendulum swings and dives into deep water, where there is a low point, there is a corresponding high point. At the other end of my monthly swing, at my high point, I am much happier and energetic and able to accomplish more. 

The day this reality-altering light dawned on me was the tenth of April, firmly in the sweet spot of the "high" between my monthly lows. Because of my nearly six years of experience with this cycle, I wanted to see how this change would weather through the coming down-swing. 

My heart has been through too much to casually bank on an insight caught during a sparkling high-point.

I treasured my epiphany. I gazed at it in tingly wonder. I breathed grateful prayers to the God Who Sees Me. I sank into the rest of its truth and started to heal. But I still kept this beautiful card close to my chest.

A week or two later, I had a whole new, beautiful realization.

Remember Michael's mommy, in her tender, safe little room, clutching her head in her hands and wailing? I suddenly realized...she's not alone! All this time, with all the tender love and care, I've pictured her there alone. Not lonely or forgotten; always held with tender awareness, but just...alone in a loving, private space. The other day, I suddenly had a whole new picture, and even typing these words, my eyes well with wondering tears. I saw Jesus walk softly into that room, gather Michael's mommy tenderly onto his lap, and cradle her close to his heart. He doesn't shush her, but, with such precious compassion, he holds her close and warms her, and tears trickle down his own cheeks.

She is not alone.

The One who wept with Mary and Martha, even when he knew that in like five minutes, he'd have their beloved brother walking back out of that tomb...weeps with me, gently, and with such compassion. My wait will be longer than theirs was, before I see my beloved son, but while I'm waiting and hurting, my Jesus holds me close...and he weeps with me.

~~~~

Here I am, more than a month later, still in wide-eyed wonder at this beautiful, heart-rescuing gift of mercy. I have come through the next low in my patterned swing, and...I felt okay. I felt better than okay. On the morning of the twenty-fifth last month, I checked in with the state of my heart and I felt... light-hearted!!!  For nearly six years, even in moments of sweetest, most fully-celebrated joy, there was a background weight on my heart. I have not felt light-hearted, whimsical, playful or silly... for almost six years. I have fun clothes it would not have occurred to me to wear, because they're playful and whimsical, and that part of me felt...dead. But now...that whole part of me feels alive again! 

It's not even as if nothing hard has happened, to challenge this resurrected life in my heart. I recently went through a rough week, when I felt battered and bleeding by ways other people chose to handle problems with me. I was tied up in knots, unable to sleep at first. It was painful and hard. I was angry. I was very hurt. And still...that weight that had pressed me down for so long...was still gone.

That spike that pinned my suffering heart to that devastating moment at 6:30 PM on June 25th, 2018... is gone. My Jesus has taken every facet of the crushing devastation I carried...and he's holding it for me. The compassion of Jesus is different from how humans, even the best, most loving humans, try to help. He never once dismissed or diminished the reality of my pain and the reasons for it. He doesn't try to change how I feel or convince me to believe an alternate reality. He sees all of it, with the truest of eyes, comes alongside me and says, "I'd like to carry that for you. Will you let me?" And then he keeps walking alongside me, in compassionate togetherness, radiating the most tender love, as he carries all my heavy things. All of this is another facet of the comprehensive, beautiful love he wants to pour out on every one of us. It is there, for every person on earth, if we'll just open the door and invite him in.

He comes alongside us, with such tender strength and says, "Lay your heavy cares on me, let me carry them for you, because I love you." 

That's my personal paraphrase of 1 Peter 5:7, which says, "...casting all your care upon him, for he cares for you."  

(Yes, the apostle Peter wrote those words, but God prompted him to write them, because they're a truth that we need.)

As I have experienced recently, he actually meant what he said. He will do it! 

He's doing it for me.

And now, for the first time in nearly six years, I feel light-hearted.

I feel alive!

Why God did not answer our prayers for peace

 We prayed. Oh, how we prayed.

When my dear husband came to me in October of 2017 and told me that his job was killing him, and suggested a complete upending of our lives, I went into high-level stress. I was appalled at the idea of leaving our home of over twenty years, our lives in the wonderful small town where we'd raised our four kids, our son who still lived in town, and our daughters and other son who were a short day's drive away- the youngest still in college and coming home for summer and winter breaks, my work in ministry at our church, and my community of wonderful friends- women who were true sisters of the heart. I had a whole rich, rooted life there; a life of connection and purpose. I was known and loved and welcomed there. I had not imagined we would ever leave. I pictured growing old together in that same house with its worn-out carpet and its view of sunsets over the western hills. I could not fathom leaving all this, but when my husband asked me to consider it, I said that I would. I committed to praying about it. I believe that my exact words were, "I can't leave my whole life because you're having a bad day at work...(what a sweet, compassionate, loving response, right?)...but if God tells me to, I will and I'll do it without complaining." That was my bottom line: if this was God's plan, not just my husband's, I would agree and I would not fight it or complain about it. I had learned to trust God, at least that much.

Thus began months of intense prayer. I could see how the unbearable stress of the job was tearing my husband to pieces. I also hated the idea of leaving. I pounded on the floor of heaven, begging God for peace for him, for wisdom and strength to endure; for the godly character to persevere in a challenging situation.

It didn't come.

When I speak of that time in our lives, I have had people respond in ways that disparage the character, strength, or faith of my husband. That makes me so angry. Anyone who was not actually inside that situation has no idea what it was like. He did, and does, have strong faith. He diligently sought God, prayed earnestly, and continued to show up faithfully to this job that was destroying him. There were a number of fine people in that place, who were good to work with. He was just put in a position where it was nearly impossible to do his job, based on decisions made by other people. He cared deeply about the well-being of those who depended on his role, and having his hands tied so he could not do what was needed...was unbearable. His integrity was the very thing that made it so hard.

We had more than one conversation about the tension of not knowing whether he needed to dig deep into God for the grace to carry on, or whether God was using the stress as a sharp stick to prod us out of our nest. For those first months, we honestly didn't know which it was.

Years ago, my childhood pastor told a story about how eagles will line their nests with down from their own bodies to make it soft and warm and safe for their babies. As the chicks grow, and the time approaches for them to leave, the parent starts removing that comforting fluff. Soon, sharp ends and elbows of sticks emerge, making it less and less comfortable to sit in the nest. Only this discomfort could get the babies to leave their life of ease and comfy provision and embark on their adult lives.

Now, I don't know if what I've remembered is ornithological fact, but the framework of the story has stayed with me and it came back to me in those months of desperate seeking. Did my husband just need to take it to Jesus and trust him more? Or was God really using this intense discomfort to pry us out of our settled rut and move us in a new direction?

A few months into this ongoing conversation, two things happened that gave me great clarity. First, my husband told me that he'd started having chest pains every morning before work. This was a classic symptom of heart attack and it scared me. He went to our doctor and had a thorough work-up. The conclusion? There was no sign of heart disease. It was "just" stress. The stress of his job had become that unbearable. The second turning point was when I realized that my appalled horror at the idea had faded away and I had peace about it. I had exactly zero desire to agree to any of this. When I realized that I, rather suddenly, felt a measure of peace about it...I knew that was the work of God on my heart.

 Why did God not answer my desperate prayers for peace and all the other things my husband needed, in order to survive his job? Well...because him staying in the job was no longer God's plan. He allowed it to become aggressively uncomfortable for my husband, to prod him in a new direction. He allowed the stress to have a serious effect on my husband's health, to move my heart out of its selfish clutching of the familiar and comfortable, to a place of willingness. For the first few months after he shared his idea with me, I raged against it in my heart. I was resentful and very scared. We had told very few people, only our kids and a few others, what we were considering. Of course, there were lots of thoughts and feelings about it, and I was the one having all those conversations. It was hard. There I was, trying to find answers to questions about something I had no desire to do or to defend. 

When I learned that not only was my dear husband feeling the pain of a heart attack every morning, but that it was tied directly to his job stress, my own heart changed abruptly. I contacted our kids, told them what was happening, and said, "I care very much about how this change affects all of us, but Dad just shot to the top of the list. I will do whatever it takes for him to be okay." Of course they agreed, because they love their dad. We talked about how our family is one that makes sacrifices for one another; about how their dad had stayed in the same place and the same job, even through times when it was the last thing he wanted to do, solely for their sake. We both wanted them to get to grow up in one town, not having to move around and be the new kids in new schools, trying to find new friends and places to belong. He did that for them. He gave twenty-four years of his life so they could have that stability. As I said to the kids, "It's his turn."

As my heart changed, we moved forward with our plans. It was still hard, and scary, and full of blistering unknowns, but at least I now believed it was, somehow, God's plan for us. We got our house ready and listed it for sale. We moved ahead with research and plans for the new shape our life would take. 

This is the year in which we lost our older son. In the midst of unbearable stress and immense change, we got the news that he had taken his life. The timing made it, yet again, abundantly clear that this new plan was God's doing. We got this devastating news four days before my husband had planned to give his notice at work. Basically, after we were leveled by the nuclear bomb of this heart-breaking loss, my husband never had to go back to that job. He did go in a few times, and tied up the necessary loose ends, but that road came to an abrupt end. All those months of discussion and earnest prayer and slow acceptance and preparation led to this great mercy- him not having to go back to work after our hearts shattered.

In the five years since that time, I have thought that God did not answer my prayers for my husband. I knew God used those unanswered prayers, and the extreme discomfort, to pry us out and move us in this new direction. I thought that his answer had been productive silence.

Suddenly, this morning, the lights dawned. Actually...God did answer my prayers!!!!

I begged God for his protection and help for my husband; for wisdom and safety and peace and integrity and direction. I thought God didn't answer my prayers...because I was looking for the answers in the wrong place! I kept looking at our current situation, expecting God to pour his provision into it and fix everything!

As I thought about it this morning, I realized that God did answer every single one of my prayers. The provision of peace and wisdom and every other thing I begged God for did come. It came when I asked, but it came where I wasn't looking. It came on the new road, poured out to carry us well in the new direction God had given us.

I picture me, standing at a Y in a gravel road. My back is turned to the intersection, and I'm staring back the way I've come, yelling at God, "Where are you??!!!" Behind me, standing on the new road that branches off of the old, stands God, smiling with gentle love, "I'm right here," he says.