It seems I cried the entirety of last week! It started Monday with a wonderful group of hearts that allowed me to give them a glimpse of Grace. The tears continued….on and on….Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday was no exception. A dear friend and I travelled all over our great community Thursday promoting the Day of Grace and I had the pleasure to encounter many people who talked about our dear and beloved daughter.

The tears wanted to come but I tried my best to keep them away. I so desperately wanted to hear everything these dear fellow citizens had to say about Grace’s life and her impact on them personally.  Some talked openly with me. Some walked carefully and tenderly, not wanting to rush in and cause tears. Others wiped their eyes while I wiped mine. My cup was being filled up.

It is amazing how empty you can feel one moment. When I say empty, I mean that feeling of being utterly alone, feeling small, hollow and insignificant. Teetering on the brink of despair you draw yourself up into the furthermost corner of the darkened room of your soul, willing the thickened air to cover over and erase you like a hand wipes over a chalkboard and all memory of what once was there is not only forgotten but absolutely irretrievable.  Pain and tragedy can take a person to rooms like that.

But then, with something as simple as a smile or a kind word of another person, your spirit lifts.  When I say lifts, I mean the feeling of having a hundred pound weight cut loose from the ropes wound tightly around your chest, blood and life fills that hollow cavity of your chest once again and you experience the warm glow of the beat of hope. You actually feel the gentle breeze of the wing of a smile itching at the corners of your heart and slowly your mouth. And when you realize what that person has truly given you, you feel that smile dance and float its way to your eyes. That is when you know your soul has been released from that darkened prison and given permission to breath in the sweet air of freedom and you realize you have been given the honor of being truly touched by the kindness of another person.  

You have felt their impact and you become full again…your cup becomes full again.

To me that is what this week was all about. I am acutely aware with every fiber of my being of the loss of Grace. And still the pain of losing her is at times more than I can bear.   At the end of the day Thursday, after an emotional roller-coaster ride of a week, I came upon a poem that really summed up how I was feeling. I found it as I was sitting in the City Hall of Lumber City waiting to speak with the Mayor.

I was sitting there soaking up the stillness of the room and the lovely conversation I was having with my dear friend. During the quiet moments, I was rehearsing in my heart every word said to me that day, every hug offered to me, smile given, every tear shed. And it was like two tsunamis collided within my chest, heart and thoroughly throughout my being. The violent overwhelming sense of extreme loss and grief was met with the fierce force of human kindness, love and care. My cup was filled up. It is only after experiencing the deprivation of choice that you truly understand the value of freedom.

The same is true of inexplicable loss and grief. Anyone who has experienced disheartening tragedy knows the value of the hands that bring the fragrant ointment of comfort and healing.  I sat there feeling all these emotions and that is when I read the poem that brought pointed clarity to the churned mixture of memories new and old, notions that make my heart conflict with my head, and feelings that are too deep and sharp to fully comprehend. I understood that at the end of the day, after all is said and done, when my grief is weighed against my blessing, I can honestly say, “I am drinking from the saucer because my cup has overflowed!” **

There is no doubt true healing only comes from above. To experience the love of the Father, to know His love, fills the heart to overflowing and the soul can’t help but be glad. He made us and He knows exactly what we need, spirit, soul and body. As great as our God is I have come to realize, He is not enough. I know that sounds odd. Please bear with me.  He is God, our Father, and of course He is enough. But in His extreme love for us, His thought is MORE not just “enough”!  In His wisdom and perfection, He gave us the gift and light of each other.  His design is that we would not be alone.

His commandment was that He be FIRST! Not that He would be our all in all and not need one another. 

It is easy to get caught up in our everyday lives and forget the divine purpose placed within us. By God’s design we are needful to each other. The kind word spoken or the warm smile offered is no small thing. To the person dwelling in the dark corners, what may seem trivial and small is actually a window of light and hope. Within us is a contained treasure chest of wealth we cannot understand.
 
I look into the faces of strangers who are telling me about Grace, wiping their eyes and I know they cannot understand what they are giving me. It is a treasure more precious than gold. In that moment I am humbled by their kindness. My cup overflows. The light of their words and actions has pulled me up and out and I thank them, to the best of my ability.

I thank my Heavenly Father and I know I am now drinking from my saucer because my cup has overflowed.

As I sit here now, going back over my entire week, Friday was just like Thursday. Another dear friend sent me a picture first thing Friday morning of our Trojan High School Football Team’s helmet. And there in a gold circle is the name of our Grace. The image of that golden circle with her name on it worn proudly by those players still reverberates in the depths my mind and heart. The dear friend and Coach both tell me the players are honored to wear her name. But it is I who am honored. So much love and kindness has been given to me and my family. My cup is filled up once again. Many tears run unchecked down my cheeks but these are not tears of grief but of genuine thankfulness. My cup is running over. The existence of my life has changed with the passing of our Grace. She taught me so much through her life and the ones around me have taught me so much through her death.  You have taught me the importance of kindness and the value of what our words and actions can do inside a person. Because of you I am humbled and honored to say,” I am drinking from the saucer because my cup overflows!”  **(Drinking from the Saucer Poem ~ Author Unknown)

Eric and I were talking the other day about our Grace being gone. It’s been 3 months since she transitioned from this life into the next. And we still can hardly comprehend it. “Our…. child…. died…. from…. cancer….” Still, as the words are forming in my mind and mouth I shake my head in disbelief. I told Eric as we were discussing our life together, “We have become one of those people”. You know the Ones, the ones whose lives have been altered by tragic events. We pray for them, grieve for them. Talk about how awful life can be from time to time. We stroke their pain from a far off, deep down admiring their strength, wondering at their loss and hoping we will never have to experience anything like that, EVER!. Those people were people from “over there”, cities and counties and states away. Now the realization has hit….and it hit hard. I am “one of those people”. I have come up close to what has always been so far away.  And I am still reeling from it.

Being at peace with your life is no small feat. I “bump” into people everyday who are discontent with their life. The bump isn’t always physical, but it is real just the same. You read the discontentment in blogs and status updates. You overhear it at restaurants and grocery stores. You see it in the eyes of the driver next to you as you are waiting at the light. Sometimes in those brief, deep glances through the windows to each other’s soul, I sigh and wonder. It’s like driving slowly down a dark street and you pass by houses with the lights on and the curtains open. It’s only a quick look, but you see the colors of the walls, pictures hung, style of furniture, or the lack there of. And briefly you know you’ve entered that secret, quiet place of another’s dwelling.  And then, just like that, with the blink of an eye, the curtains close and you drive on contemplating your own dreams, secrets and tragedies. Peace. There is no substitute for it. No counterfeit to take its place. Men have tried bottling it like it is something you can swallow, shoot up or snort. One of the biggest challenges I have found in my very short 44 years on the earth,  as I have observed my own life and listened to those around me, is the practicality of living and being ‘at peace’.

Is it that I am human? Do other nations struggle with discontentment as much as Americans? Is it the notion of the “American Dream” that has set us up for such failure? Or is it just the nature of the world around us that transcends culture, color, sex or age? As far as I can tell, very few people over the age of 25 have everything they dreamed of when they were younger. We envisioned glorious careers at our fingertips, lasting marriages filled with lingering kisses and affection, homes that survived any storm, relationships that were fun and stable and children that lived. We saw ourselves strong and able, overcoming burgeoning bad habits and weaknesses and wise beyond our years. Now what do I see when I look in the mirror? Discontentment, dark wild and unruly, stares back, searching out the deep places within me, the hidden places behind the curtains. Wow! Pretty depressing! Exactly! Life is, at times, depressing. And it sucks! (Please pardon my crude language.) This is evident by the words of our mouth at work and what we put on Facebook at home. We become “one of those people” and curl up into ourselves, blurring the edges of our reality, pulling the blanket of denial over our heads, just waiting and wanting it all to disappear. But that is wishing my life away! Being ‘at peace’ with my life makes me uncurl again, like a delicate bloom slowly unfurling in the hope and wonder of the wet morning sun. So, the road took a turn I wasn’t expecting or ready for. It doesn’t matter if I handled the curve with the grace of Jeff Gordon or fell off the tracks like a derailed Amtrak. This is my life, the only life I’m going to have here on this earth. There is no going back. Accept it. There is no changing what has passed.  Accept it. The only right response to life is to acknowledge the hurt and disappointment, deal with it, embrace my life and l…i…v…e.  To try to live from any other place than peace is to spread my misery and discontentment to others around me. And to me, that is not living. To live true, is to live in Peace. In the place of peace, I find contentment, even during the most of horrific circumstances, to love my life and those around me.

                                                                               

I have become, ‘one of those people’ and I am endeavoring to find the grace to be at peace with my “new” life.

In this life there are promises made, statements declared, love given and for a moment life is golden like the commitment of the sunrise to make it all come true. But at the end of the day when the moments have turned to hours, the gold has turned to dust, promises broken and forgotten and the night has constricted your heart and lungs and left you for dead, what do you do? You take the hand of the One who loves you. You stand with the ones who hold you. With peace in your heart, soul and mind, you choose to embrace and accept all the day has delivered. You count the stars and look for the sun to rise tomorrow.

There are those, nearby and far off, that count the blessings of their life. They open their curtains for all to see the warm glow of the color of their love, light and laughter. Their lives don’t look at all like they wanted or dreamed. But their hearts and faces are not hardened with bitterness or longing. Their tragic loss, grief or hurt is not hidden nor strewn about but rather put in its right place. In the diverse and ornate curio of their lives you see the barrenness of desolation but you also see the delicate bloom of hope, the gentle comfort of blessing and the fortress of peace.
 
Yes, I want to be “one of those people”.  

I read a blog recently about a family pet that wandered off and broke the heart of the young daughter which in turn broke the heart of the whole family. There was one portion of the story that caught my attention and brought my still healing heart to a sudden standstill.

The pet had been missing for a few days and while the mother clutched her child close to her breast, their hearts beating as one, the little girl lets it out, “God does loves us, doesn’t He, Mama?” (When you just want God to show up and answer your prayers by Ann Voskamp)

And I sat there holding my breath and gulped. What this young girl breathed from her innermost being from the place of her utmost pain, is what I believe we all question time to time. I noticed it was a question the young girl asked, not a statement she made. Oh, the goodness and innocence of the young heart. She did not state, “God does not love us Mama!” She did not place a judgment on God but rather revealed a vital component of our fragile heart and human condition. She wondered, am I lovable? Do I matter at all to God? Does He see me and my broken heart? I certainly have pondered this very sentiment. And, I have uttered this very question, many times, after Grace left us to be with her Lord and Savior. “God, do you love me? Because at this moment I do not feel loved at all.”

I read the next few words of the blog very slowly. Sure this sensitive, deep and discerning mother had just the right words to comfort her child’s broken yet hopeful heart. And maybe give me a glimpse or spark synapses of understanding to give vision and light into the fathoms of darkness I can’t seem to navigate or comprehend.  I am glad for the happy ending of the pet’s return and the little girl’s experience of God’s love for her, her family and pet, but what about when the end can’t be deemed “happy” in human terms?  What about when the answer to our deepest question, “Does God love me?” seems to be, “No”? “No” and your pet dies, “No” and you lose your job, your health, the relationship. “No” and you lose your spouse, parent, grandchild….or daughter. “No, and you lose your faith and trust in a God you cannot see or touch. What happens when there isn’t a bow at the end of your story but only weeping, darkness and a heart shattered on the floor?

This is when knowing the answer is different than understanding the answer. Of course we know the answer is always a loud and emphatic, “YES!” “Yes, God loves me!” Those of us who have tasted of His goodness and made to be partakers of His divine nature understand who He is. He, the creator of the Heavens and Earth and everything good in it, is Love. He doesn’t just love. He IS love. Understanding, not just knowing the answer is vital if I am to make it through the seasons of “No, you will not get what you are asking but Yes, I DO STILL LOVE YOU!”

Eric and I purposed in our hearts after Grace died not to ask why. But, ‘Why’ stayed at the forefront of my brain anyway. I kept ignoring it and stepping over it like a dirty penny in a parking lot. With resilience that dirty thought kept turning up so I kept looking the other way. When I contemplated asking “why?” to God, the only thought that kept resounding in my head was the memory of sitting down at the table trying to reason with my 14 year old upon hearing, “No, you can’t have that or do that”. I know firsthand what it is like to have your heart and motives challenged and questioned. I just refused go there with God. I understand from my time of being a parent that if someone or God Himself, sat at my dining room table, and tried to give me the answer of why, it would be like listening to someone speaking in a different language or listening to words that can only be heard at a certain decibel. And I would sit there, my head cocked to the side, trying to understand the foreign language but instead only howling at the unheard and misunderstood syllables that pierced my aching ears but did nothing for my aching heart.

No child likes to hear the words, “You will understand when you are older.” But, as adults, we know there is fundamental truth to those words. Sometimes the answers to our deepest questions cannot be contained in one tiny fragment of space and time, no matter how big it seems at the time. No matter how badly we want the answer…plead for it. Not surprisingly, it is the best of answers that unfold themselves, quietly and gently, mending our hearts as we walk with the ones we trust, the One in whom we trust, the One who loves us most.

Understanding the love God has for me has helped my navigation through the dark seasons of not feeling His love for me. Even when the answer is “No” I understand it is for my good and I choose trust. I do not walk away from the conversation like a rebellious teenager to go my own way, but rather sit at the table and commune, not asking why, but simply waiting and yielding my way to His way and His timing. Knowing His love is good. Understanding His love is better and has helped to conquer the very real but temporary feelings of my fragile heart.

Walking through this season, I have come to understand looking for answers to my deepest questions is like trying to find tiny pearl beads that have scattered from a very long but broken necklace- which at times resembles my broken life. The pieces have hit the ground, bounced and disappeared. And there I am, scurrying about trying to put it back together again, hoping nothing is lost. Searching and asking, crying or angry as I look underneath furniture and lift up rugs.  Frantically scouring the dark and dusty corners as I try not to lose the tiny beads I have found and gathered.   In those mired and tiresome moments I have forgotten there are not multiple answers to my multiple questions. And I certainly will not find them looking down or around. There is but one answer. And He is not as fragile as my beaded necklace nor broken life. Neither is He as complicated. He is simple. He is beautiful. Grace died and I did not get the answer I wanted and the feeling of God’s love for me shattered to jeweled bits as my heart was crushed with the weight of losing her. Regardless of the multitude of questions I could ask, I do not go to Him for the answers, I have come to understand through His love and grace, He is “The Answer”.