Day 3,652. Or, waking up ugly and still being desired

     We woke up this morning, or through the night, you and I - as is our lot these days. Three boys that have bad dreams or fall out of bed or have to pee or leak or sleep walk or just need a snuggle. A full night's solid sleep is a dream for both of us.. a faint memory of a time gone by. Like the linger of someone's perfume long after they've left the room (you know who I'm talking about). And we go to bed too late, maybe watching Fallon, or reading or wasting energy on our phones, or trying to recapture the magic of our honeymoon (or show our younger selves how it's really done). And the boys wake too early. Always too early. We creak out of bed... moaning and groaning of another day in crazytown with our little superheroes. We love them and we love each other and it's been 2,526 days since we were allowed to wake up when we wanted (work excepted), read when we wanted, poop when we wanted, make love when we wanted, and eat whatever we wanted for meals. We had dates with no thought of sitters or curfews and we both worked and met for lunch if it lined up or we went out for lingering breakfasts or you would go for a swim and I would go for a run and no one was trying to hold onto our legs.

     We stretch our joints to the bathroom, yes our joints are there, and if we're lucky we can conserve some water ;) .  We have learned a lot in 10 years, not as much as 25 or 50 but for 10 years we have learned a few things. And the importance of water conservation is right up there. We have learned that sometimes it IS ok to let the sun go down on your rage because sometimes the rage is like flaming arrows and would burn too deep. We have learned that as much as we know each other there is still so much to learn. We have learned Grace in all it's forms (so far) and that love is a verb (hella DCTalk).

     I have learned that I "moi?" am not perfect. Hard to believe, I know. But neither are you. Thanks be to God because how would you live with perfection. We were told by friends, as we planned our wedding, that we were planning a marriage and that sometimes marriage sucks. We knew it, but we have learned it in the last ten years. How could it not? Two imperfect people trying to join lives.

     We have learned that life is full of surprises and is always changing. Sounds sooo cliche but it's true. Who could have predicted our journey together. The bumps, meadows, crevices, beaches, mountains, valleys, twists, straight and fast highways, loop-de-loops and park benches. We've shared tears and rum and cokes, laughter... so much laughter. You have seen me at my ultimate worst, physically, emotionally and spiritually, and you have given me space to breathe, think, question and process, you have loved me through and never left my side.

     You have given me the trust to ask you tough questions. The kind that can't be answered right away, or even in a day... or a week. But you have never shut down my pursuit of your best, our pursuit of growth, our reach for the Holy, and sacred. And we have seen that Holy and sacred show itself in the darkest places. We didn't always see it at the time but when we look back it still lights our way.

     We have, by God's grace, created "Strong Warrior" and "Small Champion" and "Comfort-Rest" and "Yahweh is Gracious". Our Strong Warrior paved the way and made space and protection for his brothers and we weep at his life less lived but we share the joy of seeing him again.

     We have delighted and stressed at our lively tribe. We look at each other and try not to laugh or we lay a hand on each other to keep a grip of ourselves. I am often exhausted in wonder at the three of them, that they are part of us yet so different. That they can simultaneously make our cups to runneth over and empty out those same cups. We have learned that we aren't completely the parents we thought we would be, but that they have made us better. They have showed us where we were wrong and have taught us about grace, and redemption, and forgiveness and how the Father sees us.

     You have taught me that I am so much more than I thought I was. Capable of more love, and grace, and fun, and crazy.... and crazy

And I hope I have taught you the same.

     I pray that ten years from now... in another 3,652 days we will have learned more, loved more, forgiven more, tried more, failed more, hugged more, kissed more, saved more water....

 Basically, I don't want the ride to stop. Thank you, man of my dreams, for ten years.. a continuing story so unique that it could only be ours.

still alive..

21 Jesus got into the boat again and went back to the other side of the lake, where a large crowd gathered around him on the shore. 22 Then a leader of the local synagogue, whose name was Jairus, arrived. When he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet, 23 pleading fervently with him. “My little daughter is dying,” he said. “Please come and lay your hands on her; heal her so she can live.”

24 Jesus went with him, and all the people followed, crowding around him. 25 A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding. 26 She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had gotten worse. 27 She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe. 28 For she thought to herself, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition.

30 Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my robe?”

31 His disciples said to him, “Look at this crowd pressing around you. How can you ask, ‘Who touched me?’”

32 But he kept on looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell to her knees in front of him and told him what she had done. 34 And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over.”

35 While he was still speaking to her, messengers arrived from the home of Jairus, the leader of the synagogue. They told him, “Your daughter is dead. There’s no use troubling the Teacher now.”

36 But Jesus overheard them and said to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid. Just have faith.”

37 Then Jesus stopped the crowd and wouldn’t let anyone go with him except Peter, James, and John (the brother of James). 38 When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw much commotion and weeping and wailing. 39 He went inside and asked, “Why all this commotion and weeping? The child isn’t dead; she’s only asleep.”

40 The crowd laughed at him. But he made them all leave, and he took the girl’s father and mother and his three disciples into the room where the girl was lying. 41 Holding her hand, he said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means “Little girl, get up!” 42 And the girl, who was twelve years old, immediately stood up and walked around! They were overwhelmed and totally amazed. 43 Jesus gave them strict orders not to tell anyone what had happened, and then he told them to give her something to eat.

Mark 5:21-44 Jesus heals in response to faith

The woman with the issue of blood

The little girl who was “just asleep”

The woman with the issue of blood is like the wounded of the church. They have been bleeding for so long they couldn’t even tell you exactly when or how it started. They are bleeding out their faith, sometimes quietly, sometimes loud but, nobody wants to hear about it or know its happening. Like the woman was treated, 

“Let’s just pretend she’s not there, we’ll ignore her and her issue and maybe she and it will go away” 

and this makes the wounding all the worse.

And the divide deepens but they long to come back and so they cling to the faith they have. 

“I believe LORD, help me in my unbelief”

The woman reaches out tired of bleeding out for so many years, tired of the stench, the cultural invisibility.

“Just to touch his robe” she thinks. Grasping at straws, what will happen if I pull on this thread? Will it be my life line? or will it reveal it all to be for naught.

Have you ever been there? Events have left you so in doubt of your faith that you just don’t know any more? And you try to talk to people about it but instead of encouragement and support they look at you like you’re terminally ill, or worse, a stranger? So you withdraw and hide your struggle, or you become like the little girl who was “just asleep”

I had a friend who believed that God will put people, churches “on the shelf”. That if someone was not honouring Him, he would just put them there almost a “time out” so to speak. In my spiritual youth that sort of made sense to me. I understood rebellion and privileges being taken away. 

“Clean your room or no tv”

“Stop hitting or I will take away your toys”

“Keep your grades up or we take away the car”

I don’t think that is really the case but, I think she believed that so she could explain the seasons of wilderness. She would never admit to being in her own wilderness because she had, unintentionally, cultivated for herself an image of a strong godly woman. Everyone saw her that way. She worked hard at her relationship with God, at the discipline of that relationship. She made a point of saying,

“Devotions should be done in the morning as soon as you wake up” and, 

“Everything in life can be counted against scripture”

Several years ago I ran into her and she was struggling with loneliness and connection. She confessed to the cold feeling of being alone in the evening and would grab a shot of something adult and strong to warm her on the inside before bed. This was not the woman I had known. That woman, in her loneliness, would have cried out praise of the Lord. She would have recited scripture and prayed till the tears dried up the pools of sorrow. As I watched her laugh to herself about her new pattern my heart cried for her in her wilderness. But she wouldn’t admit that God had shelved her, that is for other people. But, I imagined in her mind, that is what she was feeling. And in that my heart breaks for her, she is limiting her God.

I’m often afraid to quantify God in any sense as it so often puts a period at the end and then keeps us in that statement. We have not words enough to explain or praise enough to reveal the complexities of our Lord and yet we try, just so we can have a glimpse of comprehension. I have wandered a few wildernesses in my life to date, the most recent being these last three years. But never once had I felt God had put me on a shelf.

Nine years ago my faith entered into a shaky journey. I had gone through a personal loss then, a year later, as my husband and I welcomed the birth of our son, our church was crumbling around us and it was crumbling because people I had known my whole life were tearing it apart almost with their bare hands. People I had grown up calling auntie and uncle, people that had been instrumental in my spiritual growth were doing things I didn’t think were possible. The hurt that was caused felt insurmountable. People that had been there for an age were leaving, so finally done with the fighting and the hurts. The chaos reigned for a year and the carnage was devastating. The only reason I kept going was because my husband was a pastor there and we were unequivocally called to serve there. Neither of us wanted to stay. In fact, I wanted to run. The place I had considered home for ten years was no more. I was angry and questioned God about everything. But we could not deny his call on us at that time and so we stayed and we barely kept our head above water. We witness healing and growth, but I lost my capacity for trust. Church never looked the same after that. God didn’t look, feel, sound, touch the same after that. 

Fast track five years to this same church we were leaving and I had never resolved my trust and because things didn’t end the way I wanted, and God called us to a place I didn’t want to go I felt lost and I was angry and spiritually tired and I turned my back on him. 

Hah! How does one even do that to an omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent  God? 

Well? 

You hurt, you bleed, you weep, you seek help in all the wrong places and it all gets worse. You try to fix the bleeding on your own and you just make it messier. Then you find yourself on your knees, trying to stay invisible so no one sees you hurting but trying to reach out to him who you don’t even feel worthy of thinking of because of all the time you spent being angry with him. 

I had turned my back on him, and I sunk into my anger. I fell into depression and finding joy was next to impossible. Was that God removing his blessing from me? No, I don’t think he’s into that kind of exchange in our relationship. It is our own fault if we live in the void when we choose to separate ourselves from him. We live in our grief, our hurt. We pick at our wounds in fascination and pride of them. How can we possibly feel his comfort when we choose to be angry, when we withdraw, when we are hurt and are doubtful?

I have a two year old. A very strong willed two year old and he hates getting upset. He gets angry when he cries and he would rather sit and be angry about his lot than let mommy or daddy comfort him. It is the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen from a toddler. But it shines a light on our own behaviour. I am constantly reaching out to my son in his hurt. Even though he is pushing me away, I continue to pursue him.

Jesus is always ALWAYS reaching out to us. We are the ones turning away and yet he still pursues us.

I have lived in the anger, doubt, pain, loss, fear. I am still on the fringe of that season. I am the woman with the issue of blood. I am tired of the loneliness, the separation from God, I can carry the anger no longer. I am in the process of going to him, to reaching just for the hem of his robe. I even feel as though if I could just touch the dirt he just stepped on, his footprint, I would be healed. But there is a crowd in my way. I can’t get through all the people that have hurt me, disregarded me, misunderstood me, abandoned me. The same people that walk beside him, my brothers and sisters in him. They love him, I know, but why are they blocking my reach to him? Haven’t we all experienced doubt in some area of our lives? Don’t we all know that ground crumbling feeling? So, shouldn’t we all be there help clear a path to Jesus?  Or throw out a rope to catch? 

You may not be ready to climb it my friend but you can hang on to your end and I promise I won’t let go of mine. And I will help you be like the little girl. She was not dead, only asleep. I will clear the path for you help you reach Him. And when Jesus wakes you and shows everyone that you are alive… even while you were sleeping, you were alive.

the winds of change..

     So.

     Here we are.

     At the start of another school year. I'm not ready for it. The boys have had their moments over the summer but, for the most part, they have had a great summer. But, here we are none the less. Summer break is over and it's back to schedules and Carlon is in grade 2 and we are sending Noah to preschool, which goes against all that is in me - and yet we are doing it because we all need for mommy to not have a breakdown.

     I am on the cusp of an empty daytime house and with all the parts of me that get driven crazy by the stage that we are at, the thought of going all or nothing almost overnight is too much to bear. Yes it is a full year before Noah goes off to kindergarten and yes, it is a full two years before it's Iain's turn but, it is there, looming like this big boulder from Raiders of the Lost Ark and I feel like I'm at that moment that is almost paused in the movie; Indy hears something coming and he sees the boulder rolling towards him and there is this gasp.

     *gasp*

I am in the gasp. And while I am not running through a booby trapped cave I have come to realize I have no route to run. In an odd way, that boulder represents the freedom I have been longing for since Carlon forced me onto bedrest at 27 weeks. You come to recognize some things as you step into the thresh-hold of motherhood; you lose, you labour, you give until you are fully spent and then you lose, labour and give some more.
   
     Blessed are the mothers for they can not just up and go and do whatever they want whenever they want.

     I live with four other people and the majority of my daily life for the last 7 years has gone into their needs, leaving little left for me but then I check myself and remember that motherhood was never about "what's in it for me". However, here I am on the verge of gaining back hours to my days and, know what to do with it, I do not! I am entertaining all kinds of options as I try to make a plan, figure out my route, but none of them give me a certainty of what I should do.

     In the midst of my calling as mommy I have lost my calling as Colleen, child of Christ. I am in the cloud of looking for my specific call. I see images but it's all blurred by a haze.

     Any suggestions? Any insights?