The internet says you’re supposed to have a message to share, a lesson learned, or a moral to the story. I don’t have those right now so I will just tell you what happened.
On a Wednesday I jumped up to save my daughter from falling, and my legs abruptly stopped working.
One minute I was her mother, capable and in control, and the next I was lying on the floor, my legs in spasms of pain and unable to move. Thankfully she tumbled backwards into her crib, startled but not hurt. Meanwhile I lay there and whispered for someone to help me, because I knew even if I screamed to my empty house no one could hear.
Eventually my children came home and I was able to regain some movement. The following several days held pain, tiny shuffling steps, more pain, and doctor’s visits.
The doctors told me I was dehydrated. My body was so parched that when I jumped to help her my muscles cramped and then tore. I had been so busy watering everyone and everything else that I hadn’t noticed I was draining dry. Or maybe I had noticed. I had been stretched thin out of love and necessity while my husband is deployed – doing all the things, driving to all the places, and saying “I’m doing good” with a smile whenever anyone asked how I was. Because I didn’t have words to tell them that it felt like the ground might just fall out from under me, and anyways that’s not a polite thing to say in passing.
So I tried to be happy.
Almost sixteen years ago I graduated college and married my sweetheart, fifteen years ago I quit my job and embarked on the uncertain whirlwind that would be military life, fourteen years ago I became a mother. And then each year, each child, each loss, each challenge stretched me just a bit more until I felt so thin I was afraid I couldn’t see myself anymore.
So when summer came and carpools, homeschool, and sport practices stopped, I decided to be me again. I decided to enjoy being alone like I had as a little girl playing in the backyard.
I bought huge bags of soil and flowers from the clearance rack at Lowes. When the baby woke every morning at 5:30am we went outside and dug, weeded, built, painted and planted. I ran until my post-baby body enjoyed it again. I read, wrote, and rolled on the floor with my daughter. We took long walks; with each step I listened to God and waited for echoes of me.
I began to hear myself again.
And then my legs stopped working and after two days of wincing through the pain I ended up in the hospital, my body sick with complications from torn muscles. I ended up in the hospital very much alone, IV’s dripping into my body as doctor after doctor came to see why my right leg had gotten better and my left leg had stopped moving at all. They said a lot of scary things and lots of tests were done, but eventually the doctors with kind eyes sent me home telling me to wait for my leg to work again.
I went home to find I wasn’t alone – people ran to my house to care for my kids, they brought meals and groceries and came over just to sit in the backyard and keep me company. I was broken and people were so very beautiful.
Then two weeks later I awoke to find that I was beginning to be able to move my leg again. That meant to me it was time for a game-plan. I could stop worrying and could instead schedule PT to become strong and capable again. But no sooner did I get my hopes up and shuffle around the backyard with my daughter than my leg was deadweight again. After phone calls, appointments, referrals and frustration my doctor informed me I am still broken, injured, sick, and if I do not rest and let myself be watered this will not get better. So there are no PT appointments on the horizon yet, and my days have shrunk to the couch.
I should be ok with this, and I am grateful that in the grand scheme of things this is not that serious.
But I had been happy and hearing myself again, and maybe if you have travelled far from your youth and have a lot depending on you – maybe you know that is no small thing.
So I went to my counselor and tried to tell him all of this with sighs and tears and general whining and confusion. I asked him what to do when I wake up and sit on the couch all day and even the written word that I love so much isn’t working because the muse does not seem to like to sit still with me.
He said to listen to God in the stillness. I did not like this answer.
Because I do. I listen while I am planting rosebushes, and I listen while I am playing with my daughter, and I listen while I am walking at sundown. And then I write down what I hear, and sometimes I share it.
But my counselor said to listen to God not just in the quiet – in the literal still-ness while I feel broken, incapable, embarassed, overwhelmed, in pain, frustrated, disappointed, and very very tired.
So I did, and God simply said “I love you.”
Update on the Gently + Quietly project – Part 2 . You can read Part 1 here
I had just carved out some time to myself. The baby was asleep, and I tentatively pulled out watercolors and a Derwent HB pencil, opened a new guided sketchbook, and hesitantly began to scratch out marks, dabbing them with splashes of paint.
No sooner had I battled the urge to get up and do something “productive” like laundry… No sooner had the house grown quiet, and I began to allow myself to enjoy this glorious waste of time, than David (the son who called me the Hulk earlier that week) ran in and coming to a halt near my desk exclaimed, “Oh, you’re painting!”
I immediately felt like a schoolgirl caught doodling when I should have been taking a test. I instantly knew this was foolishness to think I could grab an afternoon of quiet to refuel my soul and rest my body.
But then he surprised me with arms thrown around me in an uncommon preteen embrace. “Mom, I’m so glad you’re painting again.”
Seven words, and they shook me.
Seven words that stopped and explained everything.
Where amidst dishes, dinner, laundry and carpool did I forget to paint?
When did I decide that the only way I could serve was through building a platform, writing posts, speaking to crowds, and juggling my children’s schedule and schooling?
Why did I no longer believe painting is prayer?
I’m sure there is a book I could read to relearn what I knew when I was five, but it wouldn’t have been as immediate, simple, and fresh as my son’s seven words.
He is glad, that I am painting. Again.
Because he paid attention and remembers that when I paint my soul is fuller and his is quieter.
He does not need to argue or persuade. When you are twelve you just know that it is the correct thing to paint. It is a very essential and important thing.
Two and twelve year olds know this. I had forgotten.
So this is part two of my update about this gently and quietly journey, and this is something I have learned or been reminded of…
In order to not be the Hulk, one must feed one’s soul. One must sit quietly and waste time, pick up a paintbrush, or dig your hands into dirt because…
There is no way to become who you are meant to be without doing what you love.
You must do what you love in order to become who you are meant to be.
For me that means painting tiny teacups on a white page, and planting bright flowers all in a row.
These are the simple things I have to share – picking up a paintbrush might help you not turn green.
Tell me, what silly thing do you love to do?
What have you set down silently out of shame, thinking it is not needed in this world – thinking it is not an efficient use of time?
What might prompt your child to wrap arms around you and say, “Mom, I’m so glad you’re _______________, again!”
Update on the Gently + Quietly Project – Part 1
I sat down to write about where my gently + quietly journey has taken me, because some things feel as if they are finally formed and ready to be birthed, and I realized it has been nine months and almost two weeks since I made my original resolution and shared that I would complete a year of not raising my voice.
How fitting – I am full-term and slightly overdue to birth this next beginning…
I’m thankful for this subtle reminder that what I have to share today is not a failure and it doesn’t have to be fully developed, because birth is messy and it’s only the very first meeting of something that you will grow to know, love and understand.
. . .
My second son and I were curled up on his bed; his twelve-year-old-ness won’t often let me wrap my arms around him, so I rub his neck and tickle his side. We talk about sports, and why I won’t let him blow off schoolwork and chores. I praise him for listening to Jesus and ask for his input on some attitude issues. I tell him I love him and that I’m trying my best while his dad is gone, but that I know I fail often.
He says he loves me too… I see the “but” in his eyes.
“You can say anything David, I won’t be angry, I won’t be hurt.”
With his sly sideways grin, the boy I birthed answers, “I love you, but sometimes you’re kind of like the Hulk.”
We both laugh, and again I apologize, asking him if he thinks he is ever the thing that causes me to turn green. His answer is quick and certain, “Yes, but I’m not perfect.”
And there it is.
Neither am I, but this is my time to be more than I am. To be what I am meant to become.
He asks me who my favorite Marvel character is. I tell him I am not joking, it really is the Hulk. More than any of the other characters I am enthralled with who the Hulk is when he is not green. I understand his fear, and I see that sometimes his fierceness is needed to help others. He laughs, “Yeah I like him, but Iron Man is way better.”
I am not Iron Man. Not by a long shot.
This week I was hit hard by words from Lauren Winner, “I am beginning to see what this anxiety is about, to see its lineaments: it has something to do with being left alone to handle a situation I am not competent to handle; it has something to do with being known and unknown, with the sense that I go through life hidden, masked.”
Yes that is what the anxiety was about when I would curl up in the bedroom, a new bride, searching her Bible for peace because I had no idea how to live this new role. Being left alone to handle a situation I am not competent to handle is what the anxiety was about when I would look out my kitchen window each morning in North Carolina with babies at my feet and my husband at war, wishing I could see the trees and sun outside without always feeling a pang of fear. It’s what the anxiousness was about when I rocked sick toddlers to sleep while he was worlds away and dug my hands down deep in dirt hoping to make a lonely, foreign town feel a bit more like home.
I am not more competent now, but I know the One who is a bit better, and the fear has subsided somewhat. Still I am surprised when it rears its head so I go through so much of life masked as the one who absolutely can do all the things – homeschool, carpool, single parent, church, work – because I don’t want to be a bother or maybe I’m just so scared that if I’m known I will be unloved.
But then the keys are lost at a track meet in Los Angeles, the baby is screaming, the kids are tired, it is getting dark and I have to ask for help from teammates we barely know, “Can someone drive us, does anyone have room for a stroller and all our stuff?”
I can’t wait in this parking lot alone – I am not equipped to handle this.
I think maybe they are annoyed, or maybe they are just kind and helpful. I am not sure. What I am certain of is that I am not Iron Man, and these are the moments that break me. These and the little words that cut me to the quick, and a million more things.
When my son says, “Mom sometimes you’re like the Hulk,” I can hear him, and it’s ok. Because he is mine and there is no mask between us.
. . .
What I realized quickly about the gently + quietly project was that it is much more about intention and confession than about perfection. Brother Lawrence said of a nun who perplexed him that, “She seems to me full of good will, but she would go faster than grace. One does not become holy all at once.”
Maybe I was full of good will, but went a bit faster than grace and was discouraged when I did not become holy all at once.
Then I became overwhelmed because so many people wanted to know how, and I was just trying to learn myself. I am not a writer full of formulas. I have only the stories of my stumbling, sometimes surprised by victory, always carried by grace.
Brian Zahnd writes that, ” Christianity is a confession, not an explanation. We will attempt to explain what we legitimately can, but we will always confess more than we can explain.”
So I am off the hook. The problem is that I am also learning that Christ meant confession to happen within community. He never asked us to assume the rending naked vulnerability that confessing outside of those we have deep fellowship with requires.
I paused blogging about this gentle, quite journey because it has not sounded so gentle or quiet as I have hoped, and because each time I would read a comment by some well-meaning soul that said they “have never been a yeller” or “used to be a yeller,” I felt labeled and misunderstood. I wanted again to be hidden and masked. Maybe this is you too? Because outside of relationship no one knows the words others hurl, the unfair hurts, the chaos, or the ridiculous situations that we just don’t feel we can possibly live up to.
But Christ does, and He draws us close to each other in the communion of saints. So when my son who knows much of me says that he loves me, but not when I’m green – I can listen, I can let grace change me, and I don’t have to hide in shame. Because he isn’t perfect, and he knows I know all the ways he isn’t and that I still love him with all I have.
So what does that mean for this project, this journey – this sanctification?
I will continue to confess to those close to me (and on this blog when the Spirit moves me to), and I will continue to seek a gentle, quiet, fierce strength in the Lord.
And along way as I discover pearls of wisdom, I will share some explanation here in hopes it can benefit another traveller, another anxious superhero living broken and heroically.
. . .
p.s. It’s hard to believe this little charmer is ever difficult to parent right? 😉
It is almost summer and the sun is shining. This is not the time to write about grief, but in California the sun is always shining so I have learned to mourn when it is needed not just when the seasons dictate.
I have been carrying these words in my heart for weeks, and today I shyly write them in the dust for one person whose heart just split open – because loss never picks a time you would expect. Or I write them for the one who is carrying quiet years’ old memorials that few speak of anymore. I write for you both and for you all. I write for just one heart that needs to know they aren’t alone.
I’m writing these words because one thing I have found walking through many kinds of loss – babies come and gone too soon, relationships broken, dreams dissapointed, husband sent off to war, moving away from loved ones and places – through all these I have found one unfortunate truth…
We will grieve alone.
Yes casseroles will be brought, cards sent, and prayers said, but there will come a time where you sink into the depths and feel utterly, completely alone.
There are many reasons you will grieve alone…
Your loss is not an understood, accepted, or acknowledged loss. Others won’t call what you’re experiencing grief. Instead they will say you’re going through a “transition” or some other such word that does not give you freedom to simply grieve. They will attribute doing words to the state of being that you are in.
Our world is busy, churches are big, our phones are talking to us of widespread problems, and that makes it hard to notice when individual hearts are breaking. What more can I say? I think it used be different, but how can I be sure? I have only lived in a post-modern age.
You are not something we know what to do with. There is no formula for grief and so it makes people nervous.
Your loss is considered too common, too small, or far too large. We know what to do with grandparents’ passing on, but what of babies that no one knew or tragedy so drastic that to think of it makes us horribly afraid?
Our culture does not teach us of lament. We know how to sign petition lists, raise funds and share inspiring quotes, but we are not practiced in sitting shiva. We do not know how to sit low, we do not slow down and wait for the pain to do its work.
You are a man. And men in our culture are not allowed to grieve. This shouldn’t be, but it is an unspoken expectation so deeply ingrained that even when men think they are grieving they are often holding so much in to “be the strong one.”
We are human. Our emotions and thoughts lie deep within our own hearts, and bridging the gap is so very hard. We are human, and so we let each other down.
We do not know how to sit low. We do not slow down and wait for the pain to do its work, and so collectively we miss the healing.
So what can be done?
Wait in hope.
Wait in hope because there is a second truth I have learned from experience.
Redemption will come.
When you feel alone – wait – press into Christ. Know that He will never leave you even if you are angry with him. Wait and He will send respite and encouragement.
A friend will come who has prayed and wrap their arms around you.
A book will be found that speaks the words your heart needs to hear.
A ray of sunlight will fall on a leaf, a child will laugh, and you will know we are all living and grieving together – we are just not very good at it.
I saw my friend’s new baby this morning. When I am honest with myself, I know I will never see and rejoice in a new little life without feeling the ache of holding my stillborn child. Friend, I know you have these memorials buried deep or newly erected.
But there is a third thing that I can see now that I am not enveloped wholly in grief.
It was a sweet time – the grief. It was the hardest time and the sweetest time all rolled into one.
And there was never a time I was less alone, because Christ bent down to carry me. When I saw him in grief he was ever looking up at me. Him at my feet, reaching up to wipe my tears.
I’m thankful to be able to see the sunlight again, but now that I am busy, moving forward – I miss Him. I miss the way He held me even when I wrestled against his embrace.
“I lay myself across your memory.”
Let’s feel it all friends. Let’s draw near and not be afraid of the joy and pain mixed together. Let’s pray so God can show us just one thing to do for another who is grieving.
And if you feel alone in your loss, if you wonder if your loss is even worthy of being called that, if you can’t express your grief, because you can’t handle one more person telling you to look on the bright side – then I hope these words serve as a memorial.
I lay myself with you across the memory. The memory of every sweet and difficult thing that we must say goodbye to, and I pray for this journey to always lead you home. Always lead you into embrace.
. . .
– the above quote was from the hauntingly beautiful new song Goodbye from my friend’s group Sister Sinjin. I can’t wait to share more about her project with you soon…
Did your newly grieving or waiting mama heart brave all the happy families this Mother’s Day? Or did pain from old wounds surprise you like a shockwave while you sat in the midst of a church service?
As you sat in what should be a place of understanding and solace did your waiting or grief go unacknowledged? As you gathered with the Body of Christ this Mother’s Day did your little ones who are with Jesus go uncelebrated?
Let’s first give space to our own need. I have sat in those services, and I am sorry. I want you to know your heart is seen today. But let’s also be gentle with the Church because we are all growing up in a culture that holds little place for lament. We do not weep and wail on the street corners – there are few practiced rituals other than flowers and casseroles and getting back to “normal”. We are uninformed on the ways of grief.
Maybe they didn’t completely ignore the wounds. Maybe they tried to acknowledge, but the words weren’t enough or echoed with more hurt than healing. Again can we blame them when the pain this day holds is so intermingled with joy and so various? There are new mamas, expectant mamas, waiting mamas, bereaved mamas, adoptive mamas, foster mamas, tired mamas, sick mamas, estranged mamas, widowed mamas, and the list goes on… What words suffice for wounds so deep that speech fails? How can words serve us when mourning and dancing, ashes and joy are woven right together in a mystery that was never meant to be fully unraveled earthside?
Maybe you heard some oversimplified theology, some concrete platitudes – God’s will and all that. And maybe those words brought you right back up against the raging “Why?” and all your doubt and anger. Because if God knows, if God is the one who gives and takes away, then how can we trust Him with our grieving hearts and come to Him for comfort?
I have heard all the explanations. Free choice and sovereignty play a complicated game, and it is the enemy who comes to steal, kill and destroy. We are not living as we were designed to be or where we were intended to be, and so blood spills and bodies break.
But when you boil it down, if God knows all, then He knew when He spoke into being that the story would contain your moment of heartbreak, trauma, loneliness, despair. He knew all these ragged edges would come with the drama.
Sometimes salvation feels less like being forgiven and more like forgiving Him.
I can grieve with hope because it makes sense that we are meant for more and better than here. I want to hold my children flown to heaven, but I can’t begrudge them the Life they are already drinking.
Where I stumble is in the how they got there – it’s the trauma that takes my breath and belief away. Because when blood spills and bodies break it’s ugly.
We are right to dress tidy and beautiful on Mother’s Day, eat, laugh and revel in the living and growing that this world gives. But in this loveliness how can it also be possible that cars smash, relationships crumble, our skin tears so fragile, and longed for children just wash away in an angry rain of crimson?
I do not know.
I do not know why. If I could tell you, then maybe I would not have actually been to the depths of pain. But I have held death in the tiniest body, and that does not give me room for an easy why.
So on Mother’s Day amidst the Body of Christ I take the bread and dip it in the wine. It stains purple red, and Jesus whispers to me, “This is my blood spilt, my body broken. This is humanness. This is divine.”
And that is all the answer and all the words I need. I do not know why, but this human story – every bit of this ragged, traumatic, beautiful drama – is needed.
He holds my little ones grown strong and alive the instant they travelled to Him. They dance together and He tells me that together they wait for me to eat. While we journey here, they are not idle. A feast is being prepared, because we are human and we are eternal.
We take bread and wine and put it in our mouths.
We eat and sleep and break and dream.
So if this Sunday your heart wept quiet and your wounds felt unseen or even slighted, there is something that I hope you do…
Gather your little ones, loved ones or even just one other believer and take bread, a cracker, or a tortilla if that’s all that’s in your fridge. Dip it in wine, juice, something…
Touch it to your lips. This is how humanly Christ came.
He knows of blood being spilt and bodies broken, and He tells us there is meaning, purpose, hope, redemption. He promises us that our little ones are as real as this bread brushed against our lips and taken into our bodies.
They are alive, and one day we will feast.
Until then there are small pieces of bread dipped crimson, deep wounds, and sunny Sunday mornings.
* Last week I shared some free, printable cards for you to share with grieving or waiting mamas. It’s never to late to download these right HERE and share with a friend that needs some extra love and support!
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Colleen - Beautiful. It is carrying out crosses that we depend on Our Lord more!! 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏for you.
sharon - So true and thank you! xo
Kimbery - “I was broken and people were so very beautiful.”
While reading this post I was wondering, “Why do I care so much and tenderly for Sharon? I barely know her. We met once in Jessica’s kitchen, but I barely know her?”
I think I care about you and your family because your mother was that person for me. She was the one I could call when I felt terrified. She was a picture to me of a freely-giving, strong-and-vulnerable, honest, beautiful, loving what’s worth loving kind of woman. I took her friendship for granted until I moved away and realized what a gift it was to know her. She taught me to surrender when I had no intention of doing so. She taught be to grieve without being filled with bitterness. How could I not love her daughter, too?
I’ll be praying for you Sharon. I hope you feel held by God as others hold you. Love, Kimberly Locke
sharon - Aw thank you Kimberly. Thank you for writing these beautiful words about my mama, they are so true and I’m glad that you were able to experience this with her. Sending much love and appreciating your prayers xoxo
Sarah Damm - Wow. This is just so beautiful. I am sorry you are going through this, especially with your husband deployed. In many ways I could relate to what led up to your hospitalization.
“And then each year, each child, each loss, each challenge stretched me just a bit more until I felt so thin I was afraid I couldn’t see myself anymore. ”
I have chronic illness in the form of an autoimmune disease. It’s invisible, but it causes a lot of problems. It slows me down, and I think I’ve forgotten what it’s like to truly be ME.
I will pray for you, Sharon. That you may rest in the stillness, in the arms of your Savior, as He whispers His love to you.
sharon - Thank you Sarah for your sweet words and your powerful prayer. I’m praying for you as well! xoxo