The Problem with Unexpected Loss

“Through the eyes of men, there is so much we have lost..”   L.Daigle

The problem with loss is that we see and judge it through our human eyes. We then seek and demand answers from God using those human eyes.

What if we judged God not by what our circumstances were but by His eternal attributes: Who we know Him to be?

What if we started with God’s character and worked back from there?

God is always good, ever loving, faithful, true, just… therefore, when difficult challenges come it isn’t a lack of God’s goodness,  love, faithfulness, truth or justice but rather a lack of our perspective or understanding of the immensity of God’s ways. What if we allowed the possibility that we might lack the depth of vision that God has? Surely it is better to believe a God Whose knowledge is far above our own instead of a god who is as impotent and acts according to our fears and lack of vision.

It is not so much a question of why God would do/allow this but rather a trusting that His goodness, love, faithfulness, truth and justice will be accomplished despite the horror of this challenge.

God did not ‘take’ Marcia but He did receive her. And though it may seem unjust and inconceivable to me, that is not Who my God is so there must be another answer that I cannot see.  

There’s a song by Amy Grant that carries me through my losses. She sings: “Somewhere down the road, there will be answers to my questions. Somewhere down the road though I cannot see it now. Somewhere down the road there will be mighty arms reaching for me and they will hold the answers at the end of the road.”

God does not let me down during my storms. He offers me Himself, the strength to trust, the freedom to grieve and the assurance there will be answers that I cannot see right now.

Isn’t far more likely a deficit in me and not in God? My inability to see/ understand rather than God’s inability to act appropriately according to what I would prefer?

It is too easy to blame God because the world is broken and far harder to trust He will make a way when we see no way with our human vision.

If God is Who He says He is, then He’s got this. My job is to trust that He does even when I cannot conceive of the how or why.

We truly do not know Who He is, the depth of His vision and grace, His powerful love and ……. Justice.  Though we cannot see it now… He is all of Who He says He is and more.

Through the eyes of man there is so much we have lost… But through the eyes of God… we can trust in the hope He promises.

June, 2018

AMRB

The Crying World

In Marcia-less Missouri

June, 2018

It is a drizzly, rainy day with distant rumblings of thunder. The greyness hangs heavy as if it is inexorably connected to the oppressing humidity. My lungs feel its presence and I remind myself to breathe deeply.

Arizonans typically revel in the washed, clean, freshness of rain but today I’d rather cry with the world. The oppressing loss of my cousin friend being worn by the world in the sometimes drenching, sometimes pitter patting with rumbles of deepness being expressed.

I sit still in the green lushness of the backyard forest and allow the drip-drip-pour to soothe my weary wanderings.  Grief is a process as the rains reminds me.

Later, It is a process, I find,  that does not spill from my eyes until I am sitting in the St. Louis airport on my way home.

I hadn’t actually cried, I realize. My tears ever present yet not unleashed; being always distracted from the shed.  It is an unexpected kindness by Erin, a Southwest employee, that unleashes the damn, (pun intended) connecting me to my gratitude and loss.

It is the one thing about grief that is freeing; the world gives you permission to weep and be exactly who you are in the moments that follow loss.

Marcia, you are my treasure and I miss you.

June, 13, 2018

AMRB

Redeeming the Moments

As I stand at work making another bed, I am cranky as I often am when I start at 0615.  My fatigue creeps into my attitude and my self talk deteriorates into complaining. I stop myself in my track, more of a rut really and declare that is not who I am, a tired complainer? No more!.  And so, I decide to redeem the moment with a line from a favorite e.e. Cummings poem: “Thank you, God, for this most amazing day!” As I shout it within, my fatigue and negativity are silenced. It becomes my bed making mantra.

I am given many more opportunities to redeem the moments that day but none more powerful than this:

Early in my shift, a patient shared her outrageous story with me. Her Primary Provider’s Medical Assistant had called and told her flat out that she had cancer and needed to come in.  This, of course, devastated her and she went right in. Her provider, then, without a preamble, bluntly told her the same thing. It was the patient who needed to point out that the test results clearly said that she MIGHT have cancer and that further testing was needed.  She had come to us for that testing and left us with a clean bill of health: NO cancer. She was crying when she told me; so much relief falling from her eyes.

It was shocking to me that a caregiver could be so disconnected, uncompassionately clinical and wrong!  I felt her outrage.

Later, with the last patient of my long day, a similar outrage overtook me.  Our doctor had found what most likely would be a malignant tumor. Further testing would be needed.  My doc wrote this in his discharge instructions but did not tell her. He left that to me. I couldn’t not tell her and send her home to read the words for herself in isolation; that would be as outrageous as my morning patient’s story.

So I used my experience with the first to inform my thinking with the last.  I came alongside her, softly holding her hand, listening to her every question, affirming her strength of character, trying to be clear.  And I prayed that I would be enough.

She called me the next day at work.  She repeatedly mentioned my words to her.  How they had helped her to stay calm and seek out her support systems.  How she didn’t want to die but would use my words to keep herself fighting…

I stood amazed, mouth open.  How incredible is my God that He should use an outrageous patient story in the morning to inform my thinking with another in the afternoon.  Redeeming life’s moments. Reconnecting with my God in the moments that threaten to undo me. This is truly our life’s work.

2 Corinthians 10:5  Take every thought captive to honor Jesus.

AMRB

May, 2018

Observations across the Kitchen Table of Loss

June 6, 2018

What the HELL!  Have I gone insane?  How insensitive, shortsighted, mind blowingly stupid can I possibly be… completely out of touch with my reality.

The culture of our language is permeated with death references.  It is not until you face a death itself that it becomes so blatantly, horrifically evident.  Such language is so hard to avoid and it creeps in when we least expect it.

Innocently speaking of her housekeeping deficits, one says:  “Well, I guess no one has died because of them.” Innocuous in almost any other setting.

Another remarks, “Well, I guess we won’t starve to death”

There’s discussion about well worn shoes:  “Looks like you’ve worn them to death.”…

But the wingdinging daddy of them all:  Gathering at my cousin’s table, with relatives I don’t know well, I sought to normalize the gathering; to ease the pregnant silences with regular getting to know you conversation.  

“So what kind of medicine do you practice?” I say

Joe replies, “Emergency Medicine.”

I use this as a launching pad to talk about regular things, to put us all at ease, but am quickly aware of my mistake.  Our words devolve into what Emergency Medicine is about… saving lives…

My cousin’s widowed husband is sitting at the table and we are talking about cardiac arrest and CPR!  Truly: OMG! What is wrong with me? What I had intended as polite, ease giving words have made me shockingly aware of my undeniable fallibility.

Perhaps he did not hear them, I hope; perhaps he didn’t understand the implications, I fervently` wish; please, I implore, make it that he is full of grace, knowing, as he does, that  our hearts mean him no harm, I pray.

I am aghast, ashamed, saturated with my own inadequacy, unable  to take back the implications of my words. And I am undone, once again.  

Please, Lord, erase my unintentional mistake. Please, Lord, let me be a comforter, a come-alongsider.  Give my words and actions healing power and forgive me of my ridiculous imperfections…as You do, please empower me, then, to forgive myself.

Marcia’s Goodbye

I was at a birthday party when my mom called yesterday.  My breath catches just a moment and my pulse quickens every time I first hear my mom’s voice calling at an unexpected time. Who now? I whisper as my heart closes in on itself.  Many times it is a light call and I begin to breathe again, embarrassed by my conditioned response. This day, my back to the bathroom wall, I slid down into a tight ball on the floor.  Her words inconceivable to me as they have been too many times before in this wretched millenium.

I felt like a character in a horror movie who having just escaped the monster turns a corner to be face to face with it again…

My precious, priceless foundationally essential cousin Marcia, gone in a flash on a Sunday; too soon; too abruptly; too maniacally wrongly.  The tearing of the sacred jaggedly cutting it’s swath across my heart. How can this be? How? How? How?

I fell asleep that night in a numb haze of disbelief and unwilling sorrow.

The next day, I woke up with an unformed song on repeat in my head. I knew the tune but couldn’t quite remember the words.  Google helped and it turned out to be “I AM” by Crowder:

“I am holding onto you. I am holding onto you.  

In the middle of the storm, I am holding onto you.”

“There’s no space that His love can’t reach

There’s no place where we can’t find peace.

There’s no end to amazing grace.

Take me in with Your arms spread wide.

Take me in like an orphan child

Never let go, never leave my side.”

In my sorrow, I was given a song from somewhere in my past, loud and clear to help me navigate in my present.  A gift simply there when I awoke.

The journey of grief is a sticky, painful mess. Death smacks of the wrongness in the world but the sweet gift of a song encouraged and bolstered my quaking self.  I AM is holding onto me in the middle of this storm. The whirling dervishes of my panic are slowing with that truth. Perhaps, now I can begin to do some holding myself.

The Fairyland Convocation

The victory of endurance accomplished yesterday spurs me on to walk amid the wonders of Bryce Canyon’s Fairyland trail.  It is a trail of undeniable delights and the undulating ups and downs of the path.

We begin in the muddy, snow scattered trail above the valley of wonders and I begin with the gratitude.  Gratitude for the richness of the view and company but, also, for a knee, still healing from an injury, yet able to traverse the towering tops of Zion Canyon.  I feel wary but strong and follow our crew into the mud.

As I descend, the burn of my lungs yesterday is replaced by the burn in my calves. The sun is up in the valley, warming the juniper and releasing its fresh, well loved smell.  It beckons me downward.  The sky is once again a brilliant blue, the canyon in shades of reds and whites, I revel in the attitude of gratitude that fills my senses with God’s vast display of His handiwork.  I think of Romans 1:19-20, “Since what may be known about God is plain to them because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities: His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made…”  I am more than content as I allow the beauty of this place sink into my bones.

There are cathedral walls of narrow rock with random windows worn through by weather, gatherings of  the rich hues of red and yellow pinnacles seemingly calling the congregation of hikers to worship.  These are framed by the sometimes white dotted azure skies of the Southwest that penetrate to my very center.  God’s Word echoing His invisible qualities.  I walk in complete awe and amazement.

After several miles, I begin to feel an ache in my good knee.  I am not surprised because of course I have been favoring it.  I stretch and move it to work out the cramping and marvel at the tenacity of the other one.  It soon becomes evident, however, that no amount of stretching is making a difference.  It slows me as each step becomes more tenuous, requiring more and more effort.  Joe finds me a tree root which he manages, with help, to extricate from a withered tree.  It makes a light yet sturdy walking stick and empowers my ascent to the top.  I use the sleeve of my coat to soften the sharpness of its edge and off I go.

I send my friends ahead acknowledging that my pace is intolerable to those such as Joe.  They will retrieve the car and meet me at the top.  As my friends disappear beyond my sight so does the sun in its path behind the clouds.  I am left in the silence of the Fairyland.

My steps become a burden to me and I must stop every few of them to rest.  When my grip on the walking stick causes my hand to tingle and hurt, I realize my attention has focused away from the wonder and onto the effort it takes to negotiate the pain. I have been trying to will myself up the hill.  It is then I hear the echoes of the canyon calling me to pray, to refocus on He Who sustains me.

I am surprised as I look up to the stately sight of the castle like towering parapets.  It is the Fairyland Convocation gathering before me to render wisdom and encouragement for my journey.  They speak together in one booming voice.

“We have called you here today,” the fairyland towers exclaim, “to tell you of God and His glory.”

Each grand spire in turn imparting a piece of the story.  Their voices lyrical and melodious yet different from each other.

The first is a soft, giggling whisper, “You would not be here today had not your leg slowed you and called you to prayer.”

The next, an older, deeper resonant bass, “Step by step as endurance forms, you reveal His Glory, evidence of Who God is, within you, put there by God Himself.”  

And then a soft spoken Grandmotherly reminder, “Just as these canyons reveal the magnificent layering of time and beauty so do the steps of your life.”

“Each sometimes painful step, a reminder that the staff you lean upon guides and comforts you on the journey toward the infinite, displayed all around you here,” adds the next with a sturdy, firm authority.

“You are not alone though your friends have gone ahead,” says one with a bit of a squeak and is interrupted by another who, with childlike wonder, as if telling a just remembered secret, chimes in, “You are in the very double grip of your God like it says in John 10: 27-30.”

The last to speak seems to hush the rest.  “He has made this wondrous place to echo His truths into your heart and mind and soul. These pinnacles, parapets, cathedral walls, and all, are messages to you.”  

He pauses and is joined by the others: “God can be known.  He is Infinite: without limit/impossible to measure.  He is Eternal: existing without beginning or end.  He is Incomprehensible and though He cannot be fully known, still He seeks to be known.  He transcends all space, filling all space with His entire being:  His goodness, love, power, grace and kindness.”  “Look to the hills from whence comes your Help,  for He is calling out to you this very moment.”

As they fall silent, their message reverberating in the canyon, I feel the words of the Psalmist emerge within me.  How can this be true? How is it that this great place saturated with  beauty, majesty and immensity,  where I am small and hobbling, no more than speck in the canyon,  unseen from the heights, how is it that these walls talk to me?

My answer begins as a low hum, all around me but crescendos, building in intensity until its melody is clear and resonant.  It is the Fairyland Convocation singing: 

“To God be the glory, great things He hath done,

So loved He the world that He gave us His Son,

Who yielded His life our redemption to win,

And opened the life-gate that all may go in.

Come to the Father, through Jesus, His Son

and give Him the glory great things He has done.”

Ahh, I say with understanding is the love of Jesus which compels the rocks to sing.  Some do not hear them, others refuse to recieve their message but for some, small and hobbling, His message among the rocks is loud and beautiful.

He is mindful of me because He wants to be.  He wants to be known by me and though God cannot be fully known, still His truest desire is to be known.  He has gone to great lengths to get my attention.  He wants your attention too.  Will you choose to hear Him?

The Ascent of the Angels
Zion National Park

The canyon is chilled in the shadows of the morning. The sun rays warming the tips of the Patriarch Rocks towering above and surrounding me.

I am already winded and warming myself as I sit on a sandstone bench for a moment of praising God in this, a glimpse of His Magnificence.

The river falls away into the distant valley as I pause to remove my jacket. The wind is crisp yet the climb is elevating my temperature as each step does my body.

It is my breathing and not my knee that slows me today, yet a sudden flattening of the trail renews my strength.

I read from Oswald Chamber’s “My Utmost for His Highest”. A fitting title for such a day hike as this. He writes about the uncontainable love of God. How He loves me recklessly, abundantly, colorfully with unfathomable immensity. I see this reflected in every step I take.

I meet my lifelong friend Kate on the trail. “It is an easy hike except for the elevation,” she tells me on her way back down. The heights and sheer drops prompt me to consider how true this is for loving as well.

It is an easy path to love those who love you but it is a perilous cliff at times to love with the uncontainable, reckless, no barrier love of God, Jesus tells us, though I paraphrase His words.

The challenges of loving with God’s love can pull me down just as gravity pulls at my legs as the climb steepens. I begin to realize that I am fixated on my feet as I work to breathe and become suddenly aware of the closeness of the precarious edge. I become momentarily dizzy from the sheerness of the drop until I look up and the sight steadies me. I am held steady and securely by the towering wall beside me on which I rest my hand.

I revert to my foot fixation and catch my breath, climbing onward. My son, Joe, is far ahead of me on the path. I fear for his wildness and consider how his exuberance may cause his ‘downfall’ yet soon am reminded of the proper role of gravity. It will weigh him down with the steepness as it does me. Even youth’s folly is subject to the gravity of the steep.

A welcomed, joyous reprieve surprises me as the path turns unexpectedly level into a shaded slice between two towering sentinels of red rock, forest between. The nooks and crannies and mysteriously lighted from above caves within the canyon walls present a light show. Every turn, step and view offering a different textured pattern of light and color. It is cool in its embrace and my steps lighten as well.

The beauty of this almost slot canyon gives way to the steepness of the switchbacks cut from the rock. It is a winding (curving) and winding (breathy) adventure in endurance. My mind stops writing and becomes wholly immersed in the climb.

There is a wide gathering place atop the switchbacks before the last grueling climb to the summit. This trail provides rails of chain to assist in the final assault up the slippery sandstone trail. I choose a tree half way up to sit and consider my knees and the path to come. It is growing right out of the side of the incline but provides shade and security and a lovely waiting place for those already above me.

I breathe in the pure blue sky and immensity around me. As my words return, I rest immersed in the sweetness of endurance accomplished. So close in proximity to the heavenlies and in the refreshment of God’s step by step presence realized.

*

Christmas, 2017

“As a child I asked the man in red

‘Hey, Santa, what’s your Christmas wish?’

And this is what he said:

‘I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.

I’d like to hold it in my arms and keep it company

I’d like to see the world for once all standing hand in hand

And hear them echo through the hills for peace throughout the land.’”

~The Tenors’ “Santa’s Wish”~

Anne’s Wish

Twas the months before Christmas and all through the house,

There were struggles with Shingles and knee cysts and flu,

And a sadness that pervaded right down to my shoes.

~~

Then, one night, sitting down alone with my Pap,

We had just settled down for an early night’s nap

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,

We sprang from our chairs to see what was the matter.

~~

Away to the window I flew like a flash

To find both my cars taken out in a crash.

And what to my wondering eyes should appear,

But a drunk driver, unconscious and in need of repair.

~~

I knew in a moment I must call 911

For her door was smashed in and she was undone.

More rapid than eagles their coursers they came

As we whistled and shouted and called them by name:

~~

“Now, Coppers, now, Medics, now Tow truck please come.”

We have a great mess and we are now, the undone!

~~

It was there in the stillness that followed the crash

That my heart began crying with over-reacting abash.

Why was I so sullen, so bothered by this?

I wondered and muddled, for an answer I wished.

~~

As my red car was towed and drove out of sight

I began to understand it was about more than this blight.

It was about my friend Paula who had given the car

And each of the others who have left for the stars.

It was about Lettie and Ross and the rest

Who I no longer see but hold close to my breast.

~~

And then it came upon the midnight clearly

The answer I was longing for so dearly

As I heard the Tenors sing

And re-imagined the message they bring.

~~

The reason for this whole Christmas thing:

It’s about Jesus and the hope He brings

As from His promises, these words He sings:

~~

“I want to teach the world to sing

in perfect harmony

To hold it in my arms

And keep it company.
~~

I want to see the world for once

All standing hand in hand

And hear them echo through the hills

For peace throughout the land.”

~~

It’s why He came one Christmas morn

So that hope might spring from my own mourning

He has come into my neighborhood

To bring from harm, all that is His Good.

~~

He sits beside me in my troubled estate

And holds me through the sadness it creates

Because, you see, it’s not Santa’s wish

but rather Jesus’ Promises

He is the reason for the season

Even when life holds no rhyme or reason.

~~

One day the world will learn His song

And sing in perfect harmony

In the meantime, He will hold us in His arms

And keep us company.

~~

May He keep you company this Merry Christmas.

Love, Anne and boys

Sunday, November 19

I open to Psalms 19:1-2

“The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky proclaims the work of His hands. Day after day they pour out speech; night after night they communicate knowledge.”

God’s general revelation goes out to all the earth.  The heavens declare His glory, the sky proclaims the work of His hand.  Their message has gone out to all the earth as God says:  “I am here!  See Me!  Know Me! Pick Me!”

These are the same words He puts in us, every one of us, from the Haitian child waving from the road, to the witch doctor sitting for prayer, to the team member wanting to serve.  “I am here!  See me!”, we cry, “know me, love me!”  All that we are cries out to be seen, acknowledged, loved…

His desire to have us know Him is the same desire He has put in us to be known. What a wondrous thing.  God, Himself, longs for us to know Him and will stop at nothing to get us what we need to accomplish His task.  Romans 1:20 comes to life.  

I leave Haiti feeling known and knowing.  He continues to proclaim the work of His hands and woos us, everyone.  

He’s wooing you, even now.  Will you listen?

Saturday, November 18

Clinic has come to another end.  We saw roughly 600 people and I stand amazed knowing that means each provider saw 100 patients each.  I do not typically like to cite numbers but something my Pastor said before we left has me rethinking it.

“Every number has a face; Every face has a name; Every names has a story;  And every story matters to God.”    ~Des Wadsworth~

Every one of us matter to God and He, in His wonder, sent the 10 of us to make sure the 600 and all those involved and watching, including the team, could see His Truth in action.

How cool is that?

____________

It is a holiday in Haiti commemorating a famous battle in the fight for Independance.  We leave early for Port au Prince (PAP) to avoid the rallies, protests and crowds that might complicate our journey.  We arrive easily and without delay.

The Palm Inn is a sweet, little, gated  hideaway off a nondescript rocky road.  There are idyllic trees and a lovely pool and patio with sitting areas and peacefulness.

Some of the team decide to soak up the loveliness, while the rest go out into the city in the van to explore.  

We stop at the site of the Presidential palace that was eminent in my memories after the earthquake with its sunken, smashed edifice.  I, not realizing we are there, look all over to find it to see how they have rebuilt.  I am puzzled when I do not see it but find out later that it has been demolished because of the damage and not yet rebuilt.  

Next, we have a visit to the Hotel Oloffson.  It is an historic hotel from yesteryear where all the famous and dignified have stayed and movies have been made.  It is a grand, white wooden porched hotel with the flavor of a French Quarter or Casablanca beauty.  We sit on high backed chairs under the iconic ceiling fans and are treated to tea and coffee on the veranda.  The towering, flowering trees and palms in all their splendor redeem the raucous and creepy Voodoo art and statues that fill the garden and hallways.  

It is a holiday so many of our intended stops are not open but we manage to fill the morning with interesting history and shopping.  Haitian coffee, Rum and chocolate are on most everyone’s list and we accomplish this in the local grocery store:  The Caribbean, before going up the mountain to lunch.

We drive a narrow, winding road up, up, up out of PAP.  It is like the road to Flagstaff on a summer weekend, crowded and traffic jammy.  Lush, tropical glory falling away sharply into valleys with abrupt inclines on their other sides and crazy housing on the edges.  It is a marvel that there is any room for air on some of the curves.

At 1500 feet, we eat lunch at a restaurant on one of the more stable edges: The Observatoire.  It is owned by a friend of Suzette’s and has a breathtaking view of the city by the sea.  It is breathtaking in its beauty, not in its edgyness.

From a distance it all looks so blue and green with soft whisps of clouds blowing in from below.  Enormous freighters can be seen at the docks and the mountains of my heart rising from the plain just beyond the airport.

We have been in the mud and details and now we see it from above in its purity and beauty.  It gives me a bit of a glimpse of what it might have been like for Jesus.   Jesus saw the view from Heaven and chose to come down to the mud and details and mix it up with the locals. It makes me smile that the dust from which God made man has become the mud of life in the trenches and yet Jesus chose us any way.