WAIT! WHAT??
Two years ago I began to share my heart and my struggles through my writing.
I have always loved to write for pleasure but after Chris died it became my lifeline as grief threatened to steal my joy and take me to the grave. A place my heart longed for for years after Chris died. A place, I wait expectantly for this side of heaven.
About two years into my healing journey I felt God’s nudge to share my story. Truthfully, I was terrified. We were already living in a nightmare created by the death of my son, but then added to that, we were sucker punched by greed, deception, manipulation and hearts that were ripe for evil instead of good. I begged God to reconsider. I did not want to open myself up to the criticism and ugliness of other people much less strangers.
I kept hearing God say...this is your story. I know it has been devastating. I have seen you laying in the floor begging for me to let you join Chris in heaven. I have seen you take those curves on those back roads at 130 miles an hour. I have seen you commit with good intentions and I have seen you cancel because you are weary. I have seen the lack of joy on your face and grief in your heart. I have seen the mountains of guilt you allow the devil to heap on your back. You are going to have to learn to trust me in a way you never have before.
Recently, I have been feeling this same way. It is like I am viewing my life through a foggy lens. I can’t quite make out the picture or purpose right now. My brain doesn’t seem to be connecting the dots and my lack of motivation is paralyzing. I vacillate between gratefulness and guilt. Grateful for the fact that we really are ok, in spite of this virus and quarantine and guilt that I just don’t “feel ok” and that I should feel more grateful because there are others who have it so much worse that we do. Who am I to complain when others are on the front line battling this silent killer, right?
The reality is friends…. It is ok to not be ok. If there is one thing I have learned through the hard times is that God is trustworthy. He can be trusted with my “not ok”. The pressure we put on ourselves to perform, perfect, run from laziness at the expense of our health is from the WORLD. It is not from God. We are not good at “wait”. We are not good at allowing ourselves the afternoon to curl up with our bible in our favorite spot and just be. In fact, we often times even allow our quiet time with God to turn into guilt. We set aside an hour on our calendar for quite time with God and if it runs over, we guilt, guilt, guilt ourselves. Then the conversation in our head begins to look like, I am so off schedule, I didn’t get “xwz” done. If I just had not run over on my time in my bible study this morning… Then the pendulum swings back to guilt over not recognizing that time as sacred and complaining about it.
We load up our calendars as if that validates our purpose and then heap unrealistic expectations on ourselves and feel like a failure as a parent, friend, daughter, sister, coworker, employee if we are not doing the “Christian thing” if we are not “doing something”
ALL-THE-TIME
Friend, I feel you and I feel the weight of that guilt. It threatened to consume me when I buried my first born baby. It threatened to consume me when I canceled that engagement I really had been looking forward to but when the day came, I just could not get out of bed. I did not have the energy to put on clothes, much less make up and a smile. I am so very grateful for the women in my life that did not give up on me! Guilt threatened to consume me when well meaning friends would say, “You need to be out serving others. It is how you will heal. When we serve others we get outside of ourselves.” Don’t get me wrong…serving others is viable to our health and well being as Christians, we are called to serve, but what I need you to hear is, I could barely get from the bed to the shower some days and that extra layer of guilt you unintentionally had for me was like weights around my ankles, not freedom for my heart to heal. Guilt threatened to consume me when my brain felt like it was in a fog, when I started a project with well intentions and could not complete it. I needed to be on the receiving end of that “Christian service” to heal.
AND THAT WAS OK!
If I am being honest, that is not a place I am comfortable in. I am a nurturer by nature. I am a giver. One of my greatest gifts is hospitality. I am suppose to be the fixer in my world, not need to be fixed. I don’t receive well. Well at least I didn’t. I do think I am getting better at it, but I would not be better at it had God not brought my world to a standstill.
That had me thinking, if I don’t receive well, does that mean I also was not open to receiving all God had for me in this hard season? I began to push the pause button on guilt. Instead of seeing myself as unproductive, lazy, not fulfilling my Christian duties to serve others, not keeping my word “this was a really hard learn for me!”, fluffy instead of fit, I leaned into God’s grace, started being gentle with myself and asking what God was trying to teach me in this season of life. Instead of leaning into the guilt the devil was whispering in my ear I leaned into the wait.
Wait! What??
Not the passive wait in the Dr’s office wait, but the leaning into active wait. I needed my strength renewed but I also did not want to come out of the other side with my heart misaligned and my focus on things that don’t matter. I knew God drew me to my knees for a reason and I didn’t want to miss it. I could not see a time in the future when I would mount up with wings like eagles, when I would run and not be weary, but I could draw on so many times in my life that God had brought me through the valley to the mountaintop.
Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
And the young men shall utterly fall,
But those who wait on the Lord
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:30-31
The word wait in Hebrew is קָוָה qâvâh, kaw-vaw’; a primitive root; to bind together (perhaps by twisting), i.e. collect; (figuratively) to expect:—gather (together), look, patiently, tarry, wait (for, on, upon).
It is not passive. It is saying when we “wait”, take the time to bind together with the Lord, our strength will be renewed. What this looked like for me during this season of my life was allowing my calendar to be filled with time with God not the guilt of what and how the world and well meaning friends/family and other Christians thought my grief/trauma journey should look like. I knew for me, busy was just going to prolong my healing. I could hide from the reality that my son was dead and we were in a battle like none I would have ever dreamed of, or I could lean into God’s trustworthiness in the wait by binding my heart to his promises.
I am not going to say this was easy. It was a minute by minute, sometimes second by second active stance of taking my thoughts captive and binding them to God’s promises. It was extremely difficult, but I needed to know how God could be good when my present circumstances did not feel good. How in the world could the death of my son at the young age of 25 possibly be to further the Kingdom of God? How could that be better than having him here on earth to marry his love and raise his son?
Most days, I could not even pray, but I could turn on my praise and worship music and turn my heart to God. When the words would not come, someone else’s words would gird me up. When I could not find the words to pray, my mother would remind me that God has raised up intercessors all over the world to pray for me. When I refused to answer the phone or crawl out from under the covers, God sent a friend that would take long walks with me through the forest.
When I laid in the bathroom floor in a puddle of snot begging God to let me join Chris in heaven, I could not bear another ounce of guilt. Well intentioned or not. I needed God to heal me as only he can and I needed his assurance that he would. I had to learn how to shake the guilt, push back the world’s expectations and learn to wait on the Lord. After the death of my husband, I had a good friend that said to me “Chrissy, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” These simple words gave me the freedom to listen to God’s voice above the noise when Chris died. What I knew for certain I did not want to do was miss whatever God was teaching me or calling me to in the midst of my suck. It could not be for nothing.
I had to figure out how to embrace my mess so I could begin to heal.
I climbed back up in my bed with my bible and my pen. I read, I journaled, I listened to worship music, I slept for days, maybe months. I jumped on my bike when I could muster the energy then most often went right back to bed. I bought a super fast car, drove like a mad woman, sang praise and worship at the top of my lungs, cried and wished for death. I drove myself to the cemetery to lay near by boys body. I hopped on airplanes to stand on mountaintops which provided a place for me to fully breathe God in. I jumped in the car and drove cross country to no where. I praised God and I lashed out in anger all in the same breath. I let go and suffocated my kids all in the space of an hour. I was grateful, thankful, jealous, numb, pissed off and so very heartbroken. I drank to much at times and ate too little. Other times I ate too much which again brought on a whole new set of guilt. The only time I felt anything other than grief and numbness was when I had my grandchildren with me. They still keep my heart very centered when the pit of grief raise its head. To this day, my husband can see it coming and he automatically says “I think it is time to see your grandchildren” or “I think it is time to hop a plane to see Jackson.”
Do you hear me friend? There is no right or wrong way to work through your heartache. God was still so very present in the wait.
Thank God for a husband that allowed me to heal by checking out of the natural and into the supernatural. He grocery shopped for us. Made meals. Ate crackers with avocado and cheese or yogurt more time than I can count for supper. Kept the house up. Poured me another glass of wine or ordered me another glass of whiskey even if he knew I would need to be carried to bed. He has held me and listened. He has never complained or chastised me for canceled plans. He has cried when I cry and laughed when I can muster a smile. He encouraged my writing and is the real life super hero, my super hero, that has held us together even when my hurt spilled out all over him.
Are you at a place in your own life when you can not see a time in the future where you will mount up with wings like eagles, where you will run and not be weary? I know from personal experience, this part of your journey has been H-A-R-D! It is HARD. What I want you to hear though is
it is ok to not be ok.
God can handle it. We all have a story to tell. If it helps just one, it is worth it. The wait is not a place of guilt but a place of strength. It is ok to acknowledge the hurt. It is ok to acknowledge the anger. It is ok to lean into it but it is dangerous friend if we don’t lean into what God has for us in the wait. If we don’t seek what is important in life. If we don’t let God peel back the layers and heal the hurt. If we don’t stand on his promises and grow. If we are not determined to rise from the ashes. If we don’t learn to receive as well as we give we run the risk of missing out on all that God has for us.
Wait! What??
Can I pray for you? I know what it is like not to have the words. Can I encourage you? I know what it is like to need someone to say it is ok not to be ok. Can I help you strip back the layers of guilt so you can lean into the wait? I know what it is like to feel the wait is passive not active.
God has you in the palm of his hand. He is trustworthy sweet friend. There is rest and freedom in the wait.
Bind yourself to God’s promises.
Be gentle with yourself.
Shake off the guilt.
Be Still and
WAIT.