Tis the Season

I opened an envelope from the mailbox today - a stunning foiled gold Christmas card with a picture perfect family that I know and love dearly. I smiled, feeling the children’s contagious joy emanating from the photo. I sighed, realizing how grown they each look and wondering how another year has already passed. I felt gratitude for the adults in the photo - good friends of mine who I am so lucky to look up to. But then, as I hung the photo proudly on the fridge, I was surprised to feel the sting of tears on my cheeks.

In an instant, the weight of the season and its loneliness came crashing down on me. They say “ ‘tis the season “ for things like… taking family photos, sending christmas cards, visiting Santa, baking the cookies, hosting the parties, and hanging the lights.

But it truly is also the season of grief, of loneliness, of longing, and of hurt for so many. The weight of the wondering, waiting, and wishing is somehow magnified under the soft glow of the Christmas lights. Through the familiar and comforting hum of Christmas carols, the voices in the back of your head still echo, unwanted and unwelcome.

It’s “the magic of the season” but what if you don’t feel it? What if, after the initial smile at each card you receive, you find yourself wondering if it will ever be your turn - if you’ll ever have a husband to argue with about matching outfits for the photos. If you’ll ever have to diffuse a meltdown over a now-crumbled gingerbread house, or have kids bounding in to your room at 5am to exclaim “MOM! Santa came!” A simple phrase, but one I’ve dreamed of hearing for longer than I can remember.

If for you this season is a complicated mix of joy and sadness, of gratitude and grief, of love and of longing, just know that you are never alone. Christmas & the holiday season is magic and all things merry and bright and cheerful - but it hurts sometimes too. Behind the instagram-worthy dinner tables, beyond the picture-perfect Christmas haul, past the Pinterest-inspired photoshoot, I think there’s a piece of each of us that feels the weight of the what-ifs a little bit more this time of year.

Xoxo, Love You

Grief is so complicated, so messy, so intricately intertwined in daily life that it it sometimes sneaks up on you and catches you off guard. 

Like today - driving to work on a plain ole normal Thursday morning. A brief thought of Valentine’s Day was all it took to make me think of you. I glanced down at your handwriting on my wrist and smiled - and quickly melted into a puddle of tears that were hard to overcome.

I thought after 11 years, it would get easier, less emotional, but I think it’s the opposite - now I just desperately grasp at any reminder or memory of the time we did get. Every year seems to carry more weight and more complicated emotions than the one before. 

I can picture it all - the exact place I was in when I got the phone call, the drive up to Osborn that evening to see you, and the sleepless night that followed.

I’ve really never *not* thought of you. I still wear your red t-shirt to bed more nights than not. It’s been 11 years but sometimes I swear I can still feel you here. A lot of things remind me of you - like drinking coffee, seeing ride-on lawn mowers, and anything Swedish. I have your signature embedded in my skin and your memory implanted in my brain - but my soul still longs for more.

You loved Jesus and you loved His people so intentionally and SO well. I have an entire box of cards from you - from Halloween to Easter and everything in between, you never passed up on an opportunity to send well wishes & love (and probably a 5 dollar bill!), even when we couldn’t be together.

So it was fitting, then, that after you died on February 13, we found a signed and sealed Valentine’s Day card all ready to go  on your kitchen counter - one last reminder of how thoughtful you were and how much you loved - well, love. 

It is impossible to fathom that someday I will realize I’ve lived as many years without you as the 16 we spent together. It’s hard not to be bitter that I lost you so young. I thought I was grown up at the time but gosh, how much of life I’ve lived wishing I could pick up the phone and call you or sit on your lap and hear you say “what’s up little squirt?!” one more time.

I wonder what you’d think of this adult life I’ve made for myself. Your friends all told me you were so excited to watch me graduate high school & spent a lot of time talking about staying in Arizona to be there for the occasion. I know you were proud of me then, I can’t imagine what you’d say now, if I could tell you everything. Like the fact that I now work in an emergency room just down the street from the one where you spent your last day. It warms my heart to wonder if some of my now coworkers were there that day with you in the trauma bay - I like to think that they were.

I want to hate Valentine’s Day for opening my scars every year, but I’m trying to be thankful for any reason to feel closer to you. Happy Valentine’s Day, Morfar. 

Xoxo,

Love you ❤️

Way Maker ; Miracle Worker; Promise Keeper

Y’all, anytime I start to doubt gods faithfulness and goodness, I want you to point me to this moment. January 26, 2020. In my favorite place on earth (hillsong phoenix) worshipping alongside Jenna and literally weeping hand in hand as Lisa Harper spoke truth and revival into our lives. To the outside world, it probably looked like two friends with broken and weary hearts coming together to worship - or maybe it even looked so ordinary that it didn’t look like anything at all.

To me, it looked like something else entirely. 

You see, leading up to my port placement last year I prayed a lot of prayers. I prayed for miraculous healing, for something radical to happen so that I didn’t have to get the port. I didn’t want it. I didn’t want to be sick anymore. And I didn’t know what else to do, so I prayed. And in desperation I prayed, lord, if this is your will, please just bring me peace about it. 

And I know now that this is exactly the miracle I had been praying for during those weeks. If you had told me almost a year ago that the randomly assigned IR nurse who I interacted with for no less than 1 hour would later be one of my best friends and personal hype squad, I never would have believed you. I couldn’t have predicted we’d be growing in faith together. But here we are, doing the damn thing. 

God didn’t mean for any of us to do it alone. He didn’t mean for us to struggle in silence or to filter our lives and only give the best versions of ourselves. 

We all say “god gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers” and honestly I’ve always taken issue with the phrase. Because I’m NOT that girl. I’m not strong. I’m not even a soldier! 

Then last night as we learned about Job and how he was stripped to nothing, publicly acknowledged his grief, and then WORSHIPPED- I realized it. Maybe god doesn’t give his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers. Maybe he gives them to those who will survive them (messily, raw, and real) and STILL continue to point to Him. 

So yes, looking back, on the day of port placement, I felt that God hadn’t listened. He hadn’t answered my bold prayers. I wasn’t healed. My physical health was a mess. And I didn’t even feel that the Hail Mary prayer was answer: I didn’t feel any peace at all over my decision. And even though it hurt, I continued to praise Him. I praised Him for the things I could see but also for the things I never would.

But in the palpable, faith filled room last night, I just knew it. This is the miracle. This is the answer to all those prayers that I thought had gone unnoticed.

This freeze frame moment in a 93 year old historic church - if it’s not an example of Gods redemptive grace, I don’t know what  is. If I could bottle up the feeling and revisit it as needed, I would. So I’m writing it here, for myself, to cement it in my memory. Hopefully forever. 

“Even when I can’t see it you’re working. Even when I don’t feel it you’re working. You are way maker, miracle worker, promise keeper, light in the darkness”