A Place That He Has Made

Here's a poem that signified something for me. What does it for you?

Have you come to the Red Sea place in your life?
When, in spite of all you can do,
There is no way out, there is no way back.
Then wait upon the Lord with a trust serene
Till the night of your fear is gone.

He will send the wind, He will keep the floods,
When He says to your soul, "Move on."

And His hand will lead you through-clear through--
Ere the watery walls roll down,
No foe can reach you, no wave can touch,
No mightiest sea can drown,
The tossing billows may rear their crests,
Their foam at your feet may break,
But o'er the seabed you will walk dry ground
In the path that your Lord shall make.

In the morning watch, 'neath the lifted cloud
you will see but the Lord alone
When He leads you on from the place of the sea,
To a land that you have not known;
And your fears will pass as your foes have passed,
You will be no more afraid,
You will sing His praise in a better place,
A place that His hand has made.

Annie Johnson Flint (Streams in the Desert)

Thin threads

It has been some days now since I have not been in constant pain. Perhaps I am ending the mourning period in an unprecedented speed. Just like God to do that for me. His sparrows. I still have no joy however, but simple pleasures are beginning to return. I still spend an inordinate time online and watching movies or reading. My work suffers terribly. I work slowly on the taxes and pray that Uncle Sam understands grief with its highs and lows, no its lows and very lows.

There have been such odd things that have brought comfort to me in this period. I am beginning to think that I don't really know myself at all. I feel like I am in a straight jacket half the time and need to be spoon fed tiny bites of something called medicine. For example, yesterday I was reading about CS Lewis' life after his wife died. He never recovered from her loss. The author said that here was man that knew God and knew the ways of God and yet after her death, he never wrote again. He was effectively silenced and never again wrote another word. He also became an effective deist. I too have trouble trusting God now. I can't seem to muster up the faith walk again. He will have to carry me through until I can see the sunshine once again. I feel very much like the disciples on the road to Emmaus who were grief sticken, saying to the stranger who walked beside them, "We had hoped...."

It is a terrible moment when your hopes are lost. Hope is a priceless gift of salvation and for the first time I cannot see my future, nor could they. They were returning to the life they had known before. My problem is that I didn't have a life before that I can return too. But gladly, the disciples were not left in the dark, and rejoiced when  they recognized him in the breaking of the bread, which I hope soon, will happen to me.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have suspected I would end up on this barren island yet I am beginning to get used to the endless shores of what is before me. Nothing can separate me from the love of God, but it sure feels like the thread is very very thin.

Endings

It has been some days since I posted. Mostly because I have been flatlining in my emotional life. I have had neither bad days nor good ones. Though I am absorbed by finishing taxes and an endless supply of movies, my head has been clear of thoughts, heart freed from anguish. Yet my questions remain. I am only trodding now, hoping that putting one foot in front of another will lead me to where I want to go. Which is I don't know where. I wish we had a beach or an ocean or something cosmically grand to look upon. I am unable to see the big picture right now and I am sure that is what I lack. The other word of note is that I hear nothing from God, but the silence of the leaves falling outside my window as the wind does spring cleaning again and again. Even my flowers have died. The desert heat is too harsh for the tender flowers. But the pain is gone. I am not looking at pictures anymore. It is less painful than to remember. I am grateful to the a/c man that he solved a mystery to which Hans and I worked frantically to solve and never did. Sometimes only an expert can handle these things. Our knowledge is limited. I apply this principle to the mysterious ending of my life with Hans.

Morning shadows

The sun has chased away the shadows of evening. The moon long hidden in

the waves of light. So too my night of shadows has disappeared and only to be seen behind me every once in awhile. 

So many endless sunrises ahead of me. Hans dwells in a place where there is no night. 

How the wild the earth seems now, a wilderness indeed. Like Pilgrim’s wife, I travel alone with only my children in tow. Will they make it through the long dark night. Will I? 

Even in beauty there is a sting. 

We too are traveling to the celestial city. I know the way but not the perils therein. I embark upon my lonely boat with only the ghost of St. Brendan to guide me. I wonder what blue lagoons we will chance upon. Or see the marlins dance in yonder depths. 

Oh what I would give for a firm hand right now...one wearing the wedded ring of long ago that was lost in boughs of earth. Pictures make more sense than words. I pick up the oars of life and make my muscles strong...for someone did that once before me. But now it’s my turn at the helm. . . doesn’t matter that I am a woman, used to hiding in the curve of his hip. 

Long the road seems ahead to the horizon. A giant figure stands awaiting. 

Waiting for the Third Day

He descended 

The days have been flat without life. No metaphors, no pictures, just endless amount of hours. No voice of God either, just silence. Am I being tested? Am I being watched? By the powers and principalities as well? I am sure of it. A Christian does not live alone on the stage of life. There is the cloud of witnesses. They witness our lives as we make choices. I don’t even have any decent choices to make. That is the predicament. I am adrift in a sea of nothingness. I have no internal energy to make things happen. I feel dead myself. Although I embody the living dead. Hans at least is fully alive, even without his body. I on the other hand just exist. 

This is a dangerous time for me, for the powers know that I cannot live without life, psychologically or emotionally. But that is the path that has been chosen for me at this time. I must travail in it. The valley of nothing. 

Why this path?  No stimulation. No nothing. Not even pain anymore. Just days. Well, I will make not make my bed here. I will wait until He comes and rescues me from this place of dark and gloomy walls. 

And on the third day....




He visited His people. 


Of course you realize that all righteous actions or inspirations come from God. So I can do nothing until He calls me forth. This is the Lazarus principle. I am dead dead dead until He indicates otherwise. Then I have the opportunity to respond. So here I lay...resting.  I can look upon this as God's kindness, but of course that would be stretching me. . . so I rest and stretch and rest and stretch. I am anxious in my grave. Death, death, death, to the visionary within.  I only expect a few of you to understand this process. But that's ok, what is a pioneer for anyway? 

Hands

I am here at a Loss and Grief Seminar in Scottsdale AZ. There are varied internal reactions within. I only trust abut half of them. I have come to the place where I know that I am human and not everything I call myself is under my own control. Things happen to people. We wish they didn't, but they do. We don't mind it when they are pleasant surprises, but negative heart breaking things are not friends and yet they happen to us anyway. What occurred to me this morning, is that there are many things going on in grieving, mourning, etc., whatever you want to call it. The breaking of attachments, soul ties untying, role redefinition and a bunch of other things which are all unnerving. But I guess the only way to describe the final outcome is trauma. It leaves a mark on you forever and we will never be the same. More than anything,  it means  our worldview is changed and in so many directions at once that we suffer an internal destabilization that we call grief.

One visceral reaction I had this morning was when we were called to place our beloved's picture on a table. I just couldn't place his picture up there. All the photos were of people who had died. I was not able to let go of him as "living." To me he still lives, though not with me. It took 8 hours for me to finally relinquish one picture to the mound. I knew that this was an exceedingly important moment in my healing process. I guess I finally admitted it. But it is a realization that only stays a moment and then leaves me. To me he is alive for it is still unbearable to not think so.

Reality knocks. We grow soberminded and realize that we realize something new. A place. A new truth. Life knocks something out of you, and something new comes to you. I don't know if I will ever be the same again and so I have to ask myself, what and who am I now? What does it mean to be me? I can't go back anymore to the old place, I am catapulted into some other place.

I think the reason why the picture on the left is so comforting is because visually we are still connected. I see and can almost feel his hand holding mine. I wish it were flesh and blood but it's not anymore. Now bonds which were made in the heavens are all I have. And it is a lot. I am sure of that. This hand will carry me through the rough times ahead as I make this journey of self discovery.

I also love this picture. I think that Hans will look like this when we see each other again. I will recognize his hands immediately. They were so important to me. Hands say so much about a human being. I am beginning to heal or grow some how. 


Blessings to you in El Paso. What does the Lord have in store for our city in 2011/12?

The Terrible Days of Summer

Yesterday was the most terrible of all the days so far. I don't know why or what triggered it. I sympathized with the "fish out of water" thing. That's how I felt—thrashing for air. Jules suggested I see myself as a pioneer woman who lost her husband on the wagon train. No room for self pity. You had to keep going. I asked her if we had guns. She said, "Of course!" I said, "Gimme one. I'm going to blow out my brains." She didn't look pleased. Later on I watched 6 episodes of Jerry Seinfeld and I didn't laugh once. That's serious. 


My insanity is over now and life has resumed back to "normal." Normal for me means I can work, read, laugh, and think about the future with hope and excitement. Yesterday, everything caused heartache. Is grief a chemical thing? Who knows. I hope to get some answers from the Grief and Loss Seminar I am attending this weekend. I am going back to Scottsdale where some "experts" are helping people who need this kind of help. If real grief is like yesterday then we dozen of these kinds of clinics.


Today I tried setting up the pool for the kids. It was pitiful. But I am not giving up. I will wrestle with the instructions, opening sealed boxes and spreading out the rubber flooring. I don't like this part of widowhood. It's too hard and it makes me think a nice condo would be better than a house or a ranch. I need to learn to get the older kids involved.


The air conditioner problem is fixed in the back apartment. A simple suggestion solved two years worth of struggles. Wrap the down draft! Wow. Nice cold air.


I am in fog these days and so my posts are dismal. It is representative of where I live these days. My usual colorful mind is asleep and doesn't want to wake up. I think it is a form of dissociation..? Nothing but God brings comfort. 


Come fall and winter,  come soon.

"It's the little things that count!"

Received a card from Hospice today, again sending their condolences along with a message of hope and instruction regarding grief. I was surprised at some of the things they listed. The obvious are sadness, anger, guilt, relief, but others are emancipation, yearning, anxiety, shock, fatigue, loneliness and helplessness. Even the body reacts to loss in hollowness in the stomach, tightness in throat, oversensitivity to noise, shortness of breath, weakness in muscles, dry mouth, sleep disturbances, crying and headaches. Sometimes I experience one, sometimes all. 

As I reflect on the state of our family today, I see that all of us are pretty destroyed by Hans' loss. He was so so important to us, to me, his wife, especially his daughters but also his sons. Frankly we are all devastated by his loss. He was just SO important to us. He was, as I have said, bedrock. And it does feel like the floor has been pulled out from beneath you and suddenly you find yourself on the floor wondering what happened! But because of his faithfulness, I think I often took Hans for granted. It wasn't like he was the center of our lives, or that all of life revolved around him in some narcissistic way, it was that we were secure in his presence and his ability to keep us from harm.  It never occurred to me that he would not be here. Unthinkable. Although we joked about it often. I would say, "What do I do about this when you're gone?" But that wasn't a serious question. He was a foundations guy, he would always be with us.


I think of a lot of really good husbands get taken for granted. A sort of "Dad will always be there..." And they tend to get marginalized in the fracas of life. Especially when the Dads are quiet and uninvolved. We think they are not involved, but nothing could be further from the truth. Dad's "Presence" is involved in a way that makes everyone brave enough to launch forward in new ventures and ideas. Dad's presence is not like Mom's. These are so totally different that their importance can be overlooked. But just ask a single mother what it's like, they feel the absence of weight (presence) every day. 

I was thinking that Hans' presence was very much like Jesus presence, someone who is always there for us. It's the same kind of security. And we just assume that Jesus will always be there. But the Scripture says to seek Him while He may be found. There will be a time when He can no longer be found. I know what that feels like first hand. But another thing even more potent is this issue of taking Him for granted.We can live with Jesus in the background while we run around and live our lives without him.


If I have any regrets it is that I didn't do enough for Hans. I was too busy, consumed with pulling the barge of ministry. Both of us were so fully engaged in it that we ignored the smaller less obvious things in life. I would have paid more attention to him. But I am struck with how similar this is to my relationship with Jesus. I need to talk more, think more about what Jesus wants and less of my own needs. Sometimes we are so consumed with the issues of life that we ignore Him—because He will always be there.  

I remember one time, I looked at his key ring. It was just a bunch of old keys on a string.  I remember thinking, "These keys are pitiful."  That day I went to the bookstore and bought him a beautiful key ring.   He was genuinely pleased with the gift and was so proud of his new key ring. Of course, later one, he lost his keys. But hey, the point was that a lot of our life was like that—no time for anything personal—our minds on the work of God and on his people. Of course I do not regret our service, that's the eternal stuff of which only God knows and rewards.  But it is a point of regret here, because these are the ways that we show we love a person. The small things count.


And I wonder if we need to rethink the hundreds of small things we can do for Jesus. He says that when "you do these things for the least of these my brethren, you do them unto me." This does not refer to the general poor of the earth, it refers to the poor of the Kingdom, the least in the kingdom, the humble ones, the meek. The ones that are overlooked in the kingdom, because they are not the talented, beautiful princes that everyone follows and wants to befriend.  The "least" are the "little ones" who angels always face the Lord.  

There were hundreds of things I could have done for Hans that I didn't do. I regret those things so much. Not exactly guilt, but love in retrospect. I wonder if we all don't take our relationships for granted? The one thing I did do in the last year of his life, I made sure not to ask him to move any furniture for me. Although we did move a lot of stuff!  I gave him hours of uninterrupted time to study and write. I gave him some really great meals and trips to the outback. But most of all, hours and hours of uninterrupted time to read his beloved bible and to pray. And I gave him a beautiful pair of boots which he wore all the time to please me. See...the small things count. It was a small act but it made me so happy. I wonder if we can do more for Jesus like this? For our lives really are to revolve around Him and we must not take Him for granted and sadly I think we so often do.

Birds of Paradise

Today is Saturday. A week ago I was at a renewal center is Scottsdale taking in the opulent but natural environment of the west. I felt hopeful for the future, that something would happen to our nation and our meager little existence. I was made for big dreaming, none of this small time stuff for me. But El Paso is a country under the spirit of apathy and tradition. We are in a rut, and need a powerhouse leader to take us out of this, to wake us up out of our million year sleep. We need a messiah to transform our place of residence. We have no vision and without it we perish. 

I know of no other city like this. A city recently voted the most dangerous border town in the USA. Can you beat that? How can we be the beautiful in the midst of this pool of criminals and hotheads? This should be our joint prayer. "God, turn us into the springs of hope and make us birds of paradise."

EJPieker, Nature Photographer

I remember coming home from Pasadena in 1992 fresh from seminary. I was pumped with ideas. But withn a year I was the same lethargic soul I had encountered in every place along the road. What is it about the desert landscape that scorches life. The sun becomes our enemy, its blazing arms preventing us from creating anything, except on an individual level—each man doing what is right in his own eyes.

Three years ago, I had a vision of the El Paso valley. It was scorched black, nary a tree was standing, but charred broken limbs. The spirit of God asked, "So do you really think that the seed you've sown can grow here?" I feel mildly rebuked. It would take a miracle to grow this seed. It would also take on the attributes of its soil and become another individualistic tree in the desert of limbo. I wondered what had scorched the land? Violence? Abortion? Some kind of darkness had come over the land and had burned it beyond recognition.

This is where I live. Live? This is where I exist from day to day, fighting off this spirit of malaise. The oppostite spirit is hope, renewal and prophecy. This is what the weapons of our warfare are in this desert nightmare.

I sound pessimistic, but I am not. I am committed to this battle of discipling the nations. We must know our enemy and he is death, loss and fatalism, brought in by the immigrants of a war torn nation beside us. It will cause us to be stronger in the end.

Friday I went to the cemetery and we had lunch with Hans—peanut butter sandwiches and grapes. Emmie wanted to know if Grandpa eats in heaven. How can one eat when one is full? Not possible. We are the only hungry ones. I find that I am hungry all the time since Hans died. I am not eating at all, my appetite has vanished. But internally there is a deep emptiness that feels like an unbearable monster...(that's the wound). I wasn't very good with heartbreak as a young woman, I am even worse now that I am old. The young have the future, we have only the now. Of course these are just "feelings" and must still be judged by the light of day, which is coming soon.

On a different note, I am looking for a movie called "Pope Joan". Has anyone access to this movie or know of its whereabouts? It is a remarkable movie about a brilliant young scholar born in the wrong time in the wrong gender. Please let me know.

Have a good hot day and for all you "foreigners" who live in the forest, pray for us.

Not Moving Forward....

I want to go on living my old life. I just want to resume what we were doing before Hans' dying. In this way, he continues to live, through me, and through the vision and the dream. Does that sound wrong? i know they say that you have to find a new normal, but is that right? Must everything change because of this? I can't bear more loss. . . I think I will go crazy if too many things change. Even throwing away stuff and de-cluttering feels like more loss.

Julianne says the only way she can cope is to talk about H. in the present tense. He likes this, likes that..etc., since he is alive, why not? If he is alive, shall I put back my wedding rings?  But I don't want to deceive myself.The  grief manual says that this stage is difficult and comes in three phases. First is denial, he's not dead! Did he really die? I can't believe it! It seems unreal. Part of this expecting the person to walk in the room, or come back like from a long trip. Or even to tell someone "its time for the joke to end." The second phase is beginning to believe that he really is dead. I fluctuate between these two. When I believe that he really is dead and never coming back then i completely fall apart. In this phase everything is a sad reminder of his demise. Lately his glasses and watch make me incredibly sad. I can't bear to see them. Pictures, always have the same effect-bad. I had a very bad meltdown on Tuesday afternoon. It was good to cry, although it didn't really "heal" me. 

But then there many many hours that I do not think of him at all if I am busy or writing.  I always feel better with people around. While he was alive it was the other way around. I only wanted to be alone just the two of us. I find that grief does not make sense. Everything is out of kilter and there is no rhyme or reason to anything. 

In watching Harry Potter this evening, Doby dies and Harry has to bury him. I found myself crying. Doby's last words were "Harry Potter." Last words?  He's an elf, what do we expect? 

Next week I am going to a "grief and loss" retreat in "Scottsdale Az. By the way, I didn't have to show my passport anywhere. BTW Just discovering the beauty of Arizona. It is filled with all kinds of natural wonders. I need natural wonders right now...I am in need of anything beautiful.

Quite frankly, I feel like a woman with a bramble bush in her hair. It's messy and pokey and not very attractive. I don't blame anyone for staying away. One day up the next down. One day sane and energetic, the next day sad and faithless. I am continuing to learn however, new books came in the mail this week. I wonder what God is up to.