Alisha Hope

 

Hard to believe it was nineteen years ago today that Alisha Hope made her entrance into the world. Before her birth, baby girl attire adorned the closet of her room from all the shopping my mom and I did while waiting. I knew she was coming. Little girl thoughts danced in my head. I couldn't wait.

It was all far different though than I dreamed of. Quite honestly it was nothing of what I dreamed of. The news of being told your baby has brain damage, may not live long, so just love her is not exactly a trade-off.

For many birthdays I grieved. I wanted to be celebrating milestones. At age one I wanted to celebrate my baby walking, at two spoken words, at three baking a cake together. Instead I was swimming in doctor appointments, getting her fitted for hearing aids, and trying multiple medications to control seizures. I would think about who she would have been if this evil virus had not attacked her brain.

Then one day, I can't pinpoint when. but I stopped thinking about who she could have been and who I wanted her to be and started thinking about who she was. It was hard because it meant I had to begin the painful process of abandoning the dreams I had had and embracing, dreaming of new ones, very out-of-the box ones.

Somewhere in the craziness of doctor appointments, therapies, special education, and hospitalizations a tone of peace settled into my heart. Mostly I think it was from God taking my grief, my sadness, as I gave it to Him. He transformed it into contentment and joy.

 

He worked that through me just the way you would think God works, through His gifts. Alisha really is a gift to me. Her total dependence on me daily reminds me of how I must look to God in my need. I don't think Alisha has any idea how much she needs me and really I don't think I have any idea of how much I really need God. But He cares for both of us.

 

So today as I celebrate this beautiful gift of life, I think about who she is; a young woman who is content right where she's at (not a worry for the next moment), a girl who still loves to look at wrist rattles and adores that silly purple dinosaur, Barney (simple is enough), a sugar-muffin, as her dad would say, who smiles larger than the sun when she sees the faces of those who love her (joyful & grateful), who hates having her teeth brushed, her face washed, and having to wear hand splints (strong-will), who stares deep into your eyes (mystery), whose hand sometimes gently reaches out to touch us (concern and care for us) and who has survived near death encounters (sustained by her maker).

 

I love her and who God made her to be. Happy Birthday Alisha Hope!

 

 

 

Yet to Come

A few weeks ago Caleb said to me with a gasp, "Mom guess what we forgot to do at Christmas?" I expected him to say something like, "We didn't make homemade sugar cookies" or "Go see Santa". Really I knew it wasn't Santa (Caleb thinks Santa is too intrusive, making naughty/nice lists) but I couldn't imagine what childhood treasured memory I had left out. I stiffened, waiting..."The EGGS!" he said emphatically.

He was referring to our Resurrection Eggs. Each egg has a symbol of the Easter Story with a bible verse to read with the kids a couple weeks before Easter. I told him not to worry, it was yet to come!

Easter, a time to stop pensively at the cross. I see the invitation of one with His arms outstretched and His body writhing to give me a second chance to be free from my own desolation and begin again with God. It is only part of the story.

After I see my great need for this sacrifice of incredible love, I can not stop there. The arms are still open wide while the debris in my thought life, the hurtful deeds and words of my past, and my future are transferred to the Son. The Son who removes my guilt forever from the Father's check list. And still the story is not over.

I see the arms still open. I crawl to be nearer. The closer I get to the open arms the safer I feel from myself. From the world. I sense the new life in store for me. The mystery of it awakens me and I know the arms have wrapped snug around me.

Secure. Nothing can snatch me from these hands. It is in this moment I ask to be let go. The arms gently let me down. Without the constant nearness, doubts try to sneak in and troubles try to shake me.

It is always there though. The Cross. The open arms. I creep back to them. To Him. There I am reassurred of the hope now and the yet to come.

Looking forward to Resurrection Eggs and the yet to come!

Freeing

This past summer I read a book called, "She's Got Issues" by Nicole Unice with some
"mommy" friends in the neighborhood. We all agreed the book took us to a new level of awareness of our personal barriers to living a more free life with Jesus as the center. This book did something no self-help book had ever done, change me. I guess it's a little different when Jesus is the one actually helping us rather than ourselves.

A new assignment had begun in my heart, which I must admit was not completely welcome. Who wants to admit they have anger issues, fear issues, control issues... Acknowledging these uncomfortable and disturbing parts of myself seemed a little freeing. I wondered where else I could go.

Later in the summer I was reading Caleb a story about the famous biblical character Joseph. I love Joseph's story of God's preservation and redemption in his life. Oddly though the story took a twist for me when I got to the part where Joseph's brothers, desperate to find food during a famine, make a journey to Egypt. Joseph, who unbeknowest to them was now in charge of Pharoah's land, tells them they will be given what they need after they bring their youngest brother, Ben, back to him. They return to their father Jacob, requesting that Jacob allow them to take his beloved son back to Egypt to prove their identity and credibility. The brothers were left in the dark that Joseph was their long, presumed dead brother they sold into slavery many years before. They had hated Joseph but God used their plan for evil for good. Such good was now going to save their sorry lives.

The twisty part happened when I started to feel deep in my gut the pain of Jacob, the aged father of all these boys. Jacob was paralyzed at the prospect of letting Ben go. The emotions of fear and control over-took him in such a way it was as though it had just been the week prior that he lost Joseph forever. Joseph's brothers act of selling Joseph into slavery had remained an evil secret from Jacob. He had been told his son was viciously attacked and killed by wild animals. So when asked to release his baby boy out into the scary unknown, he acted out of un-resolved anger. And his failure to re-new trust in God from an incident thirty years ago was out in the open. Here he was now confronted with all of the "stuff" he stuffed for thirty years. I wonder how everyone in Jacob's life treated his tendency toward mistrust. Did they grant him permission to be like this because after all his son Joseph died? Did his other sons accept this in their father due to their own issues of guilt and lies? Once Jacob released his grip on Ben, he experienced the redeeming power of a gracious God by being reunited with his presumed dead son Joseph. Freeing.

So at this point I almost froze. There it was. My choice. Years of anger, fear, control and lack of trust issues or life free to be in the moment, to offer my trust even if it's wobbly, and to embrace God. I know I do not want to live an entire life of these issues! It is all too easy to give permission when circumstances have shaken our world. When externals, out of our control move us from a place of cozy to a place of vulnerability and even assault us, it is easy to give ourselves permission to stay guarded. Controlling. Safe. Angry.

Eventually life has a way of causing us to come back to the unaddressed, open wounds in our hearts. It might take thirty years but all the fear, all the pain, all the misery re-surface to reveal the thing we've tried too hard on our own to control, to conceal. The trust issue. And when it all comes up and out, the whispers are not "I give you permission to remain fearful, in false control, anxiety-ridden". No, the whisper is "This is not good for you. You are not well. I know how you got here but you can have a better life. Please let me."

The first step was awareness which I visited many years ago, "I know it makes sense that I have anxiety when my kids get sick, but it is not good for me." The next step I took years later was, "God I believe, help my unbelief." And the place I am in now is "Everyday I take what comes and then hand it over to let Him". Little bits of my heart at a time.

Perfection is not the result. Sometimes I squeeze extra long and extra tight before I let Him. Other times I stay with my back to Him while I configure the outcome before I turn and let Him. Moving toward trust is still the desire because I want to experience the next thirty years tasting what He offers not what I offer.

Holding back our trust from Him says we are still angry. We still live in false-control. We are still not well. Straining. Gripping. Restless.Tireless work. When I willingly "let Him" my yoke becomes easy, my burden light. Release. Rest. Ready. It is not work at all to trust. Freeing.

From My Heart

Many of you know one of the things that I have a heart for is grieving people. I am drawn to their pain and great need for hope. But just as fervently I am drawn to opportunity to teach others about that pain. The former passion comes from my own deep waters and the latter from a place of frustration.

Today my frustration mounted stirring me to share some important thoughts. I hope what I am doing is using my frustration to give birth to creativity. Enlightenment. Perspective. Writing for me is how I create. So I'll share...

A friend told me this morning how disturbed she was to hear another church-goer talking the most ugly words one can hear about a young person they both knew. The words would be ugly enough if this young person was living, able to be the receiver of such cruelty. But they are not. They are dead.

The grotesque words implied the parents had not done enough to ensure their child developed healthy. They implied the worst accusation a person can make, this family lost their child by their own actions or lack thereof.

Anger bubbled up in me when I heard this. How does someone say they follow Christ, the most compassionate being who ever lived, and miss His glaring example of love and compassion?

I think I partly know. For one, people think they're more in control then they are. If we think for a second that we can arrange our lives to be insulated from bad things than we live as fools. Jesus did not blame the blind man or his parents for his blindness. What He did instead was explain all suffering can have purpose. Suffering, imperfections, crisis, are permitted to give us an invitation to lean on and in and sometimes under the grace of God.

Secondly, people deflect pain away from themselves because it takes risk, becoming vulnerable and doing some self-examination. When we refuse to meet a broken-up human being in their nakedness it is because we are the problem not them and their brokenness. Being still in the presence of pain is very difficult for us prideful, self-reliant humans. We would rather work at fixing, disappearing or in this extreme case deflecting hate-filled lies.

People who dig their heels in to resist such a sacred place do not see Jesus as I do. Jesus showed up at the grave of Lazarus and simply wept. He made space to meet Mary and Martha in their pain and He, who would actually restore their brother did not rush them past the pain to the place of healing. That my friends says that meeting people in their pain matters. Something of great worth happens in that place. We would be wise to stop and take notice.

Hockey Blues

My family is suffering the blues. Hockey blues. Almost my entire married life has had a huge element of hockey in it. Not always to my liking. My husband has played. My kids have played, minus Alisha but put a hockey game on for her to watch and her legs begin to kick wildly while she bubbles up with smiles and bursts of laughter. I often wonder what's wrong with them or for a different perspective, what's wrong with me.

A little bit of hockey would have been one thing. I have been energized more then once rooting for the Red Wings or Whalers. If it was my kids playing, the intensity escalated and I felt their triumphs and their disappointment because I love them fiercely. Hockey edged it's way into our lives more than a little. From homemade ice rinks in the back yard to hockey tape as the most used adhesive in the house, hockey became our landscape. The chill of rinks, the late night games or early morning practices, the sacrifice of gobs of money, and precious family time have not always led me to a song of rejoicing. I lament that.

Why? Because now it is all gone. There is no more hockey in this family. Yes, we will watch it on t.v. but it is not the landscape anymore. Caleb chose to not play this year and Hannah had some severe injuries this fall that removed her completely from the game. In the beginning I rejoiced that our family would have more time together, be able to do other things.

It has not quite worked out like I thought it would. The empty place where hockey was has not been filled for them. They are sad. At first, honestly, I wanted to fill the empty space so we could close this chapter of our lives. I tried.

It may seem, as did to me at first, that in the economy of loss, this is minor. It's not for them. When I've been the recipient of forced healing, it hasn't worked. I needed to process my loss. Someone else can not do this vital work for another.

As I sat with my sobbing daughter one night, I said, "If I could make this outcome different I would. If it were up to me you would be back on that ice doing what you love." I meant it because I love her and I miss watching her do what she loved. I would have never wanted to say "goodbye" to hockey like this.

It is not in my power though. It is in His. If it were up to me my children would never suffer a day. They would never be sick. They would never be sad or angry for that matter. They would never have to endure the cruel words of another or the disappointment of losing anything. Anything.

This is why it is not up to me, I told Hannah. My love is not perfect. His is. Suffering makes me depend. It molds my thoughts and my heart-strings to long for something more. Without the brokenness I would believe in myself more than I should. No, perfect love allows for brokenness.

It's not just about coming out the other side. It will be better than that. It will be transformative. I know that because the deepest of pains have never been wasted. Only a Perfect Father could take the worst, ache with us, and then work through us. Rejoice.

Mystery

Walking the halls at University of Michigan Hospital yesterday for Alisha's doctor appointment gave cause for some reflection. It was almost a year ago we were residence there for almost three weeks, in the i.c.u.

There is much mystery surrounding the events that took place during those weeks. We never did get resolve as to why Alisha became as sick as she did as fast as she did. Her blood pressure tanked and she went into cardiac arrest. I can still see my husband's tears running down his cheeks as he clearly understood we were loosing our daughter. I did not understand. It all happened so fast.

Being whisked away to a waiting room I did understand. I had done that several times before. We sat in that room in the middle of the night praying, pleading it was not her time. And it wasn't. God is so good.

By the time we received news of her condition it came with little answers and a lot of wait-and-see prognosis. Going back to see her attached to life support confirmed their slicing words of worry. Our daughter looked like she had met the enemy.

As I glided down those halls yesterday, I asked myself what I had processed from now the "balcony" view.  I know when I was on the "dance floor" it was hard to see something bigger at work. I wrestled with my lack of trust in God's plans. I sought stability of my spirit in the moments of watching erratic machines and hanging on the oscillating coat tails of doctors' input and theories. There was a lot of wrestling going on.

When Alisha recovered it was about as quick as her descent. Within in a few days of coming home one would have never known the battle she had just won. My battle didn't end as quick. Months to follow I was fatigued both physically as well as emotionally. I spent a lot of time seeking answers to what "that" had been all about. Nothing became clear. I left the answers alone. I surrendered the wrestle.

None of this should surprise me. So much of Alisha's life has involved dangling questions...mystery. My relationship with her revolves around it. She always give me just enough to make me keep wanting more. The "wanting" is more like an irresistible invitation to enter into relationship where I find out more about myself and the desire to be complete to another person. It is this desire... love...that draws me deeper and deeper to seek, to find, to knock.

If there is one word I would use to describe the great journey I have been on with Alisha it would be "mystery". Recieved answers only seem to give way to more questions. The unanswered humble me, spurring me to lean on other...God... more than myself.

God is mystery to me too. I know Him. A little. The longer I know Him I find myself needing, desiring, loving to know more. His ways are not always my ways. Perhaps, not knowing... mystery... is the remarkable blessing I truly seek.