Blessed are the Cheerleaders

After spending the last six and a half months walking through the valley of grief, I need to give a shout out to my cheering section. There are days when life seems to be pretty normal. There are days when hiccups hit me out of nowhere and make me lose my balance. Or there are days when huge waves of grief return to crash on my shores and I’m left soaking wet and feeling lost.

Since the first moments of my nightmare I have not been alone. Yes, I know that God was here. I know without any doubt Jesus walked that dark day with me. But He also sent me others, so many others.

As the weeks and months passed, there have been many who have promised me they are not going anywhere. And they didn’t. That’s an incredible credit to the people I have chosen as friends and the family God gave me. Many people dealing with grief seem to sense that everyone in their support circles vanishes after a few months. I’ve heard of those who feel an expectation to just let it go already, hasn’t it been long enough?

I have received none of that from anyone but myself.

One of my biggest cheerleaders in this process started cheering me on 20 years ago. Kraig said he saw in me the strength he wanted in a wife. His greatest fear was that he would die, leaving his wife and children as his own father had. He wanted to be wise and choose a wife with the strength to keep going, keep living. I am and I will.

The Bible paints a picture in the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 12 that has always made me smile. “For we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses….” The image of the giants of the faith and loved ones who have gone before encouraging us to keep going, cheering us on in our faith, is one that makes me smile. But I think I’m also blessed with my own cloud of witnesses here, now, as I have struggled to tackle the unexpected and keep moving forward.

When those bumps in the journey have arisen, I have been blessed with some of the most encouraging words from several friends and family. Words like:

You are doing amazing!

There is nothing wrong at all with how you are handling this.

Now (months later) is when you need us to still be here.

You are not alone. What can I do?

Of course you can always call me/text me.

I’m so proud of you.

That last one is my favorite. I guess the pat on the back in those words is sometimes all I need to keep moving forward. When I have no idea if I’m making the right parenting decision, I sometimes need to hear that it’s OK. When I’m having a good day but one of my kids gets hit by grief, I need to know I can call someone or text someone and tell them this stinks without being a burden. When I start feeling as if I am a burden to my friends because it’s a bad day, I need to hear this is in my head. I am not forgotten.

I do not spend my days wallowing in a dark room. I do not spend my time lost in grief and unable to function. That’s not the woman my husband married. That’s not the mother my kids deserve. Maybe that’s why it’s easier for my friends to be here and cheer me on. I’m not lost in a morose world looking for others to pull in. I spend my days asking God to lead my steps and making sure I’m still taking steps forward. When grief hits, I let it but only for a while. It does not own me. It is my temporary traveling companion and once it has done its work to help me heal, I will send it on its way. But it does not determine where I go. It is along for this small portion of my journey as I follow Jesus.

So thanks to my cheerleaders. And if you aren’t one of mine and you are reading this, be one for someone else going through grief. Give them time to mourn and encouragement to keep attempting to live life at the same time. Help them find the joy in the everyday and let them weep when they must.

Blessed are the cheerleaders for they are being used by God to help me keep moving forward.

Roller Coaster Week

This has been a roller coaster week for me. I’ve felt amazing hope that I have God’s next step for me in the form of the She Speaks Conference I am attending in North Carolina this summer. It was an answer to the prayer, “What next?” that has been ringing in my soul for a while now. It seemed the breath of fresh air in the musty chambers of a heart that’s been walking through grief.

Then the coaster headed down as one of my sons virtually collapsed under the weight of grief and school problems and faith issues and just the weight of the world. He’s such a good kid. My heart broke that he was struggling. But I know this is part of the journey of grief. It is affecting each of my kids differently as it is me. So we dealt with what we could deal with and I went to bat with him at school. I encountered fantastic support there. Things started to look up.

Then came another day of God’s magnificent provision. In one day I was given two financial gifts. One friend had been negotiating a used car for my son to drive with someone in her Bible study. When she told the lady my situation, the negotiation stopped. She wanted to give me the car for free. Jaime, the friend who had been searching for the car, wept. And then she called me. As a fantastic bonus, the man who has be the mechanic for this car offered to help teach Jarod how to do any repairs that should arise. Amazing.

In that same day I had the privilege of hanging out with a new friend. I shared with her more about my conference and why I was so excited that this was God opening a door for me to pursue my dreams of writing and speaking professionally. She was excited for me. She said she felt certain God was going to us me, use my story to glorify Him and to encourage and bless others. Later I received a text from her telling me she was so sure that God was behind this that she and her husband had decided to pay for my plane ticket.

The roller coaster went on.

So as the weekend arrived, I felt a little weary from all these ups and downs. It had been a long week. I decided to do more research online to help me prepare the proposals for my writing ideas for the conference. I get to meet, one-on-one, with a publisher and I need to be professional and have my stuff ready to sell. So I headed to Google to try and figure out how I would package the two books I’ve got almost finished and the two I have ideas for.

Google can be very discouraging. Google tells me it is going to be pretty impossible to get a publisher to buy my book. It tells me that the style of two of my books are what every writer tries first and pretty much unless I’m a survivor of a tsunami followed by alien abduction or the Queen of Quite a Lot, no one is going to pay me for it. It tells me that I’d better try my talent at a few other styles or just make a nice, self-published couple of books to give my grandkids someday and move along so the better writers can be seen. Ok, so that last one may be a bit of an exaggeration. But it’s close.

I spent the day trying to go back to the drawing board. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Starting fresh can lead to new angles, new ideas, and sometimes new ways of telling stories so the audience is captivated. But when I was feeling like I’d failed before I’d even started, back to the drawing board was not any of those amazing things. It was defeating. It was exhausting. It was unproductive. After a while I realized I was writing stuff so boring I was getting sleepy.

And then I glanced at Facebook tonight. What I found was a post by Lysa TerKeurst, founder of the very conference I’m so excited to be attending. Here’s what she posted:

Over the years, I've come to a realization - I can rest in the assurance that if something is meant to be, it isn’t up to me. It’s up to God. I give what I can give. And then wait for Him to give what only He can give. So, if He makes it happen without all my chaotic self-effort, then I will know it is His best. And if it doesn’t happen, I will praise Him for saving me from myself. 

And just like that the roller coaster leveled out. It’s not up to me to figure it all out from here. It’s up to me to do my best with what God has given me and take the next step in the direction He provides. The rest is up to Him. And His plans are always good ones.

So I’m headed to bed. I’m exhausted and we all lose an hour of sleep tonight. I’m going to take to heart the words from Psalm 4:8, “I will lie down and sleep in peace for you, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.” God is faithful to care for me. He will direct my paths when I let him. It’s up to me to do my best and follow His leading. He will take care of the details.

I think I’ll try to exit this coaster now.