Tag: Isla

The Blessing and Curse of Memory

A few years back, I wrote a series of posts about my May memories related to my call to ministry, including our move from Indiana to Tennessee, my ordination at Grandview Christian Church, and my call to serve at Christ Community Church. #MayMinistryMemory. Those memories are a blessing, to be sure, and they remind me that God is still working in me and through me, even during times of discouragement.

I’m also reminded regularly on Facebook of some delightful memories in July. Often a vacation month, I’ve seen photos this month from trips to the Wisconsin Dells in 2022, Yellowstone and the Tetons in 2021, Peru in 2018, and Colorado in 2010. Our cross-country moves happened in mid-summer as well – we spent the summer of 2012 celebrating a bucket list of fun in Indiana before we moved to Tennessee, and the move to Omaha in 2018 included a #WestwardHo trip visiting friends and family through Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. We love to travel, and seeing these photo memories pop up brings a lot of joy.

That’s what social media thrives on. We tend to post the most enjoyable moments of our lives – the celebrations, the trips, the friends, the reunions, the restaurants. It’s great to enjoy the trips again through photos saved in a digital format. We don’t always share the less enjoyable moments. But they fill our memories and, even when unposted, show up at inopportune moments, or even manifest themselves in physical ways.

As we’ve learned, The Body Keeps the Score.

July is a hard month for me. It begins a series of memories from an excruciating era for our family between July 2019-August 2020.
– the midnight phone call about Isla’s diagnosis
– the first of many trips to Children’s Hospital in Milwaukee
– the death of my dad in November
– wondering if every holiday would be Isla’s last
– the short-lived June celebration of Isla’s improvement in a Chicago drug trial
– and the news “there was nothing else the doctors can do”
– the week both my mom and Isla entered hospice care
– Living in Milwaukee and clinging to the last two weeks of Isla’s life
– Isla’s death, and her celebration of life service in August
– the death of my mom in September

July begins this march toward Christmas for me in which every month has another reminder of those losses, a reminder of someone who is missing from the family photos this year.

The trip to the orchard. The birthday party. Thanksgiving dinners. Christmas gifts.

In July of 2021 (the first anniversary of these memories after Isla died), I noticed often I was physically tense and struggling to breathe. Not full-blown panic attacks, but almost-daily memories that surfaced in the form of bodily symptoms. As if those memories were struggling to get out and my body was fighting to keep them in check. Remembering those last two weeks. Even when my mind didn’t want to go there, my body remembered how the waiting felt like walking on eggshells – waiting for the news, holding myself together, fixing what I could, and realizing what I couldn’t.

The physical symptoms have lessened over the years, but the memories are still there. The blessing, of course, is that we took many pictures, especially of the good times. But we’ve tried to be honest about the hard times as well. Both Autumn and I wrote quite a bit about our family’s difficult season.

And I guess if you’ve taken the time to read this far, my encouragement to you is this:

Pay attention to the people around you. Be sensitive to the fact that on any given day, someone around you is struggling. On the outside, it may seem like everything is fine. But on the inside, they may be struggling with unanswered questions, unfulfilled expectations, or unspoken anger.

We need to be able to enter into one another’s pain. We need to allow the reality of our memories – both good and bad – to be brought to the surface. When we share lament with others, we draw more fully into the presence of God and one another. Even in our pain, we can see what God has done, and trust what God will do. Even when life is hard, we keep following God anyway.

I shared a prayer of lament with our church this past weekend and it starts around the 27 minute mark here.

March Madness, Social Distance, and Doubting God.*

It’s been nearly nine months since a blog post.

It could be that the job I started in July has kept me pretty busy. (It has.)
It could be that an academic presentation eclipsed my blog writing. (It did.)
It could be that after waiting so long, it seems trivial to write when the world is turning upside down. (It does, and it is.)

But here we are.

Last year, friends told us 2018-19 was one of the hardest, longest, snowiest winters ever in Omaha. This year’s weather pales in comparison to last year’s. But oh my goodness, how long the winter has seemed. Not because there was a ton of snow, but because we’ve been counting hospital stays, logging miles, and waiting for test results for our granddaughter, Isla. And now, on top of our family struggles, the world’s gone mad about COVID-19, social distancing, and self-quarantine.
Uncertain times indeed.

We’re longing for spring…aching for the promise of Easter.

While our life has had twists and turns, it’s been pretty easy overall. Except for one scary car accident where both of our kids needed stitches, parenting was a cake walk for us. We always had a comfortable home, plenty to eat, and jobs we enjoyed. You know, it’s easy to be faithful and obedient when things go well. It’s easy to be lulled into complacency when life is easy. It’s easy to fall for a“good life” prosperity gospel when everything is going your way. Our first 34 years of marriage and parenting were pretty great.

And being a grandparent is even better. As Nana and Pops, we have the unique blessing of enjoying all the fun and little of the day to day stress. It’s easy to think that our good fortune is somehow related to our good behavior. Even the Psalmist agrees, saying “the Lord’s love for those who respect him continues forever and ever, and his goodness continues to their grandchildren” (103) Obviously, according to this author, God blesses those who obey the rules.

But last July we found out that our 3 year old granddaughter had cancer – Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Nothing really prepares you for news like that. It’s been hard to put words to my feelings over these past several months (another reason for not writing, perhaps). But I found some words now.

Anger. Confusion. Denial. Frustration. Doubt. Sadness. Despair. Uncertainty.

Obviously, this diagnosis either did not align with the Psalmist’s theology, or someone in my family must not be living right for this horrible thing to happen. How in the world could this be? Why my kids? Why my grandkid? Who wants to live in a world where 3 year olds get leukemia?

Job had some questions like that for God. In his response to unhelpful friends, he cries out  (Job 29:2) –  “I long for the months gone by, for the days when God watched over me…for the days when the Almighty was still with me and my children were around me”  

Like Job, I didn’t just feel like God was inattentive. I felt like God was absent.

Life was much simpler when our kids were little and the biggest problem we had was trying to get them to eat their broccoli at the dinner table. But as the song Here Again reminds us, we can’t go back to the beginning. And we can’t control what tomorrow will bring. But we can choose to trust God’s presence in the middle of the pain, in the middle of the doubt, in the middle of the suffering. 

We can choose to “let God’s love rise above every fear”.

Yet every day, if I’m honest with you, can feel like a battle. So many unanswered questions. So many unknowns. So many medications and treatments. I think of the verse in 2 Chronicles 20 where they cry – “We have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We don’t know what to do but our eyes are on you.”

We don’t know what type of treatment to choose,
but our eyes are on you, God.
We don’t know what the outcome of this battle will be,
but our eyes are on you, God.
We don’t know how to navigate this uncertainty,
but our eyes are on you, God.

When I think about this battle (against time, against leukemia, against doubt, against pandemic) I’m thankful for the God who goes before us and stands behind us. The song Defender begins with the line “You go before I know that you’ve even gone to win my war.”  Our eyes are on the God who is already there in the hospital, already there in the chemo in her bloodstream, already there in the room where a doctor will report her prognosis. Like Moses reminded the Israelites at the Red Sea, “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

Be still.

“God is our refuge and our strength, an ever present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear…The Lord says – “Be still and know that I am God…” (Psalm 46)

The Lord Almighty is with us.

*I shared a version of this post as a worship testimony at our Mar 1st Access service at CCC (starts around 17 minutes in).