Endurance

This year has been arguably the most complex year of my life. It has been a year of extremes. Celebrating my girls and all their accomplishments, excited about them all being in high school together at the same time (a year we have talked about since Maya was born), my business exploding to the point I had to begin to turn down work because I wanted to stay balanced and present in these final years of my girls at home in school still, and a marriage of almost 20 years and the pride of weathering more storms than we could count and coming out stronger each time.

The other extreme though was this has been one the most difficult years of my life as the reality of the second year without Grace has beaten me into the ground more times than I care to admit. Trying to wrap my head around her being gone and the aftermath of that loss is something I grapple with daily. It is setting in in the most intense and real way while overlapping my mom in law dying in the late stages of Alzheimer's with no real clear understanding of how long this pain staking journey lasts for. It's watching my husband be the main care taker of her in this disease as it ravages her brain and steals her from us mentally while leaving her body still with us.

It's the year of extremes. Guilt and joy, anger and forgiveness, holding on to memories and letting go of those things that would hold me back. It's been the year where I have second guessed myself most. I have known what it felt like to sink and not catch my breath. I have understood peace when it didn't make sense. I have understood what it felt like to be misunderstood. To not be known. To be known. To be guarded. To be vulnerable. I've learned that I don't hate alcohol because of Christianity but hate it because of the industry and what it steals from families. I've learned about relationships and expectations. I've learned more about the Church. I've learned again the power of worship versus performance and what both can offer and take away. I've learned how to give up and how to get up and keep going. I've felt hopelessness, I've known hope, I've heard pain in voices, seen emptiness in eyes and felt strength in the middle of darkness. I've had moments when a myriad of emotions all co existed when "happy" events were taking place. I've felt the shame of trying to be happy yet feeling empty in the midst of an event for more reasons than I could articulate. But one theme has remained constant in my mind in this season. Endurance.

We live in an instant culture. In an age of apps. In a world where if we want a table in a restaurant we go on an app so we don't have to wait in line, if we need a license renewed with go online to get our number so we can walk in and not wait. Groceries? Click, pull up and they load it in (I do love that one ;). We want to talk without being talked to, we instantly snap, say what we want and leave it. We drive up and quickly drive through every part of our lives. We want things done instantly. My clients do this all the time. They ask can this whole job be done in two weeks. I smile and cautiously explain that big results are a process and take time to get. Yet, everything in this culture is expected to be accomplished quickly. But then something happens in our lives where we can't click an app and get it done or go through it immediately. We panic in this culture when we can't go through something quick enough. We get very uncomfortable with those around us who are taking too much time to process through anything really because it blatantly reminds us that there are still things in this life that can't be rushed or accomplished instantly.

The reality of the Gospel isn't how fast we run the race and get through each leg. The Gospel speaks more into how we run this race. God speaks more about the endurance then swiftness. More about the heart then the accomplishments. In this culture, we hate that idea though of taking time to go through something. We don't like endurance. It isn't enjoyable. It isn't, well...instant. What does the word endurance even mean?

Endurance:  to hold up under pressure, to power through and endure in unpleasant or difficult times and situations, the ability or strength to continue or last especially despite fatigue, stress or other adverse conditions; stamina

That does not sound pleasant or something we want to sign up for, right? Yet, it is the very thing our faith is built the most from. It's the very place where we are pressed to see what and who we really believe in. Endurance is what builds character (and hope) most in us yet it's the thing we try to brush off and not do. We want a quick fix instead and the Word of God says no. You can't build character quickly. You can't learn how to perservere and hold on unless you know how to endure. And so our circumstances, if we let them, will be our teacher

The Scripture I have used most this year is this:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, ² fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. ³ Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Hebrews 12: 1-3

I have grabbed onto a few facts from this life giving verse that have helped in my darkest moments this year:

• Jesus saw the joy set before him. He knew that that was past what He had to endure and so He endured the cross. I think that has been my key this year to not fully giving up and throwing in the towel and saying that's it...I quit, I'd like to trade in my life for somebody's much easier life. There is something that is past the enduring a difficult season part of our lives. There is a hope and a joy to hold onto. Something to look to. Someone to hold on to

• There are a huge amount of people (witnesses) surrounding us and cheering us on (I can hear my dad and Grace cheering)

• It's alright (and necessary at times) to throw off the things that weigh us down when we are in this mode of enduring through intense times. And that doesn't mean sin stuff (that's the second part of that sentence) that means maybe some of the stuff that is just hindering or pulling us down. Sometimes we just need to focus on enduring and not on a bunch of other stuff that may not have eternal value

• And run. Running is a process. It takes more time and effort than just clicking an app and immediately getting through it with immediate results. We know we are running towards something. We have the joy of knowing we are running towards our eternity with Him. Our eternity with those people in that great cloud of witnesses.

• And that, when we focus and keep our eyes on who Jesus is and what He went through, that gives us hope that we, too, can endure this life no matter what it looks like or what it throws at us

The First5 app, has been doing a study on the book of Job. I cannot even begin to tell you how much it has helped me this month in understanding what it looks like to endure and what God does in the middle of it.  That even when Job is mad, depressed, at the point of giving up...he doesn't. He holds on and endures through all that is thrown at him. He at the end realizes God is bigger than all his pain and heartache but more importantly, God is with him. He is close and He cares. That is profound. He is enduring the worst types of hardship but God never left his side. God listened. He was present.

I'm learning. I'm accepting that this leg of my race isn't instant app worthy. I can't click and get through it quickly. I can't order endurance and pick it up in an hour and be done with this part of the journey. But I can, through this, learn what it means to focus on the joy ahead of me. I can learn that when I fix my eyes on Jesus, I am strengthened by the fact that He won't leave my side.

Maybe, I can encourage a few people along the way, that it's alright in this culture to still understand what it means to hold on unswervingly to our faith despite our circumstances. Maybe I can learn and in turn, help others learn too what it means to endure in a culture that wants immediate results. What it means to not give up hope no matter how dark our night gets or how long it takes. My focus is growing closer to God in the midst of this all and hearing His voice as I learn how to endure.

And who knows, maybe even one day He will even bring purpose from this leg of the race. I heard He does things like that

New Life, Parkway and Soccer #5

I’m not sure if this is important to anyone or if this is just me that needs to write this to get it out...but here it goes. An explanation the best way I know how. In written form.

Parenting decisions can be tough. Right? So many variables and each child is so different and what they each need can be so different. I will try to make this as short and succinct as I can without getting too wordy. Well, I will at least try :)

7 years ago when my dad died, my husband felt very strongly that it would be the best choice for our girls to send them to the school where their cousins were so, we as a family, could be together. He thought it would be a good idea for me to be close to my sister during our grief and well beyond and for our girls to be with their cousins. I fought him. I fought him tooth and nail. I begged to not send me back to where I grew up. I’m not a country girl. I never was but there I sat with a decision to be made to go back to where I came from. 

Do I say yes to take the girls out of their school and place them up with their cousins and me with my sister (which that part I loved...it was the drive and disconnect from my life down here that I didn’t want to leave) or keep them where they were. Jim was very adamant about this decision to send the girls up to the school with their cousins at New Life. I finally acquiesced. 

For the first few years I begged him to let us go back to Parkway. Not for any other reason other than the fact that I knew the area around New Life wasn’t our community we were living in. We were so far away. I watched the girls build friendships and fit the best we good despite that though. Great school. Great people. It just always came back to the distance and how far removed from the community up there we were but everyone was so awesome at including the girls despite that distance.

The summer of 2015 before the 2015/16 school year began, maybe Jim got tired of me begging him to lessen our drive and let us go back to Parkway or maybe it was just coincidence that the subject came up again one summer night that we take them back to Parkway. I think the thought of driving that far weighed on us all as we looked to start that upcoming school year. Truth be told, at that point, I had settled into the fact that this is where the girls were going to stay. I had realized that it wasn’t about me it was about them anyways. I had begun to make a few friends and the girls were doing well so quite honestly I had given up asking him for us to go back.  The subject, however, came up that summer night that what if they went back to Parkway. We talked about our community and how our church and a lot of the people there overlapped into Parkway. The girls still had friends there and the drive was much less. We discussed that option as we talked about sports and events just being closer and friends being significantly closer and us not being so far removed from a community of people like we were up at New Life. Emma, however, was adamant though that we stay one more year for Grace’s senior year.  We all agreed that that was the best choice. We decided to re visit the option of leaving after Grace graduated in 2016.  A decision I would later come to realize was the most profound and necessary decision of Emma’s life to date. So we stayed.

Obviously, you know the rest of the story. Grace’s accident happened 3 weeks into the new year of 2016 and changed the trajectory of our entire lives and will for the remainder of all our lives I'm sure. 

We grappled with, what I felt was the worst decision of my entire life, as we began to watch grief unfold in my girls. I had told my sister that we had wanted to send the girls back to Parkway after Grace had graduated but said after the accident that we would stay at the school for them as long as needed instead now. 

Like I said though I began to watch grief unfold for our girls and, for more reasons then I could write or even articulate at this point, it began to be very very clear that we were to take them out of New Life and send them back to Parkway. Reasons, that I told several people from New Life, were beyond what I could explain. It was more of a just ‘knowing’ that they needed to live out the rest of their schooling in a building that was separate from a reminder around every corner of Grace.

We wanted the girls to all grieve at their own pace without being thrust into or forced into talking about or facing every detail constantly but rather give them the ability to process their own grief at their own pace apart from everyone watching them. We wanted them to be able to cycle through it without onlookers.

This is where the parenting decision making is tough. I told a mom at New Life, that nobody pulls you to the side when you have a baby and gives you a handbook on how to raise kids in the event of extreme, untimely and tragic death. Nobody told us how to do this. We just were two parents, praying and trying our best to protect our kids and guide them through extreme loss when even we were turned upside down in shock and grief. We also knew that you were not suppose to make big life decisions that first year of grief. We fully believe that God, in His mercy and wisdom, went ahead of us and the day before the accident we went to a Parkway open house so that God could remind me that we made the decision apart from and before our intense grief not in the midst of it. God was so faithful to do this for us.

It was the worst decision for me personally though because I felt like I had to choose between staying and supporting my sister or leaving and choosing my girls (which I later realized was not the case bc I found out I could choose both her and them but be in a different place but felt like it during that season). My decision was excrutiating though and one that I did not take lightly. I prayed and prayed for guidance to know what was the right decision. Jim and I finally had peace and knew we were suppose to take the girls out and send them back to Parkway. 

We knew that people were going to ask questions, we knew people were going to question how I could leave my sister at a time like this (I had one mom tell me she would fill in for me as the sister roll to Sara if I left...that felt wonderful), we knew it wasn’t going to make sense to most people, heck, it wasn’t fully making sense to us either. We just knew we had a peace knowing that this was the very right decision for our girls. We went forward with our decision. Bumpy. Haphazard. Not perfect. But sincerely and genuinly about the well being of our girls. Maybe not a choice everyone would have chosen but again each child needs different things and each family is responsible to God for the kids they have been entrusted to by him and Jim and I take this responsibility very very seriously.

And so they started back at Parkway for the 2016/17 school year. Confirmation was given with every step that this was exactly the perfect decision for all 3 of our girls. And with each confirmation, I would point out to the girls how God has confirmed over and over again that we have them in the exact right place for them.

A few months ago, as the girls and I were driving home, I off handedly made a comment that we wasted the last 5 years of our lives driving up so far to New Life and should have just stayed put at Parkway. There was a long pause from all 3 of them (they all looked at each other as if they had talked about that subject many many times before without me....sisters do that kind of stuff) and they slowly proceeded and said mom, can you promise us that you will never say that those 5 years were wasted ever again? I paused because they were all very serious and honestly we are never that serious so I was stopped cold....I slowly asked why, girls? With tears in one of their eyes, they slowly said it wasn’t a mistake to be up there....it was an act of God. They proceeded to tell me that He directed our steps to that school for the last 5 years of Graces life for them to spend every moment of every day with their beautiful cousin. To make every memory possible, to be in every event so closely with her that they would have all those precious moments to cherish now for the rest of their lives that they now have to live without her.  At that point, I had to pull over because I was crying so hard. I realized that, while Jim pushed so so hard to send us up there and I complained about that decision for probably the first few years constantly I, at that moment, realized that God so clearly ordered our steps to New Life for that reason alone. Grace. To be with Grace for her final years and to build a strong relationship with Evelyn that would help carry us through this very deep valley. That realization in that moment of God's bigger picture than I could see, was one of the most profound moments of my entire life.

Last night, was the sports banquet and as Brooke’s new soccer coach spoke about Brooke and seeing her play for New Life last year and how she was excited about Brooke coming back to Parkway to play soccer I smiled through my glassy eyes. Brooke was suppose to be given the #6 jersey like she had at New Life but that was taken so they gave her #5. I'm sure they didn't realize this but 5 in Biblical terms is the number of Grace. Brooke played all year with jersey #5. Pretty significant to us. My heart was again reminded last night that our choice to move them was the most perfect decision we could have every made for them. But, as tears streamed down my face, I thought 99% of the people in that room last night had no idea of what the weight of that decision to move them back held for me and how excruciating it felt to feel the guilt of seeming to choose my girls over my sister. Or the overwhelming fear I had of losing my relationship with my sister if Jim and I made that decision to move them back. Now, after the fact, I have realized that I can have both. I can love both Sara and my girls and we can still be close... it's just not at the same school. I realized again, that it was the right choice. I realized a few months ago when talking to the girls in the car that day, that moving them to New Life was also the right choice 6 years ago where they got to spend every waking moment possible with their cousins. And it was the right choice to move them back to Parkway again. All those steps were ordered by God.

Sometimes, life doesn’t make sense when you’re in the moment. Sometimes, you can’t understand if you’re going forwards or backwards. We’re not given a handbook for the exact right paths for each of our kids. We are given the Word of God to raise them up to love and follow Him but the details on what school, team, college, car, etc etc are not laid out clearly all the time for us. That’s where trust and peace come into play. All our decisions might not make sense to everyone around us. That’s alright. They don’t need to. They didn’t make sense to me 6 years ago. Now they do and I trust that God will keep ordering our steps like He always has. He is faithful to do that always and will continue.  He knows all along what He's doing. We just need to listen and follow even when it doesn't make sense.

I encourage you to do the same with your kids. Give them to God, they are a gift from Him anyways, pray for wisdom on how to raise them, where to send them and what to do. The answers might be surprising sometimes and there might be years that go by when you think, what am I doing? Is this right? Do I have the wrong direction? Then God pulls it all together and lets you know He’s had a plan all along and whispers gently to you at a sports banquet that you’re doing alright and you’re listening to Him. Just keep going because I'm confident that He’s ordering your steps, too.

And for the record, Jim was right to move them. There I admitted he was right in written form! It's a happy day for him ;)

A Father's Love

When I was 17 I had this short lived boyfriend for a few months my junior year. It was the only time in high school I had a boyfriend. I didn't date much in high school and if you knew me back then, you would know that I wasn't into anything seriously and especially not relationships I felt would hold me back. I was never the girl growing up dreaming of marriage and kids. I knew I wanted to grow up, spread my wings, travel and see the world and then eventually marry...maybe, but had a long list of things I wanted to do first. So, this short lived boyfriend confirmed that feeling of not wanting to settle down anytime soon and here's why.

His name was Matt and we dated right around my 17th birthday and into the spring. It was prom season and I had an automatic date which I thought was pretty cool. At the time we both worked at Kmart in Richmond with a bunch of our other friends. One Friday night he drove me home from work and said he was going home too. The next day I was at work and my best friend, Susan, sat down with me at lunch and said she had something she needed to tell me. She proceeded to tell me that after Matt dropped me off the night before, our common friend told her she saw him parked for the night at another girls home from school. I sat there stunned. Mad. But even deeper, I was hurt. I confronted him. Asked him why his car was parked at Dana's house for the night and he fumbled over his words as he struggled to find the right words to say to give an excuse as to why he was there. The gist of the story was, I wasn't sleeping with him and he needed that from me so went to Dana instead. He cheated on me. He said he could still take me to prom, to which my response was, nah, don't do me any favors. He ended up taking Dana to prom that year, in the limo (with a few of my other friends). I know this is all high school drama and not really considered cheating when it was only a 3 month relationship but it stung. My heart had been hurt and my parents hurt over my pain, too.

Yesterday, as I was driving, I had time to listen to some music. A few songs had been sent to me from friends and so I listened. A couple of lines though in both songs stood out to me that I had to really think about it. A sort of theme that got me really thinking.

The one song had a bridge that went like this speaking of God and where He is at:

Here in the middle of the lonely night
Here in the middle of the losing fight, You're
Here in the middle of the deep regret
Here when the healing hasn't happened yet
Here in the middle of the desert place
Here in the middle when I cannot see Your face
Here in the middle with Your outstretched arms
You can see my pain and it breaks Your heart

The other song said such similar words but just a different melody. But same concept of God being here in the midst of pain, brokeness and sees our pain and it breaks His heart.

The line that jumped out the most was 'you see my pain and it breaks your heart' as I began to process my life and how it is that our situation in life 'breaks God's heart', I asked God, how does this all break your heart when you knew what was going to happen? I know we are broken but how does your heart, God get broken? I told Jim that sometimes I feel like I'm sinking in the middle of an ocean and there are people all around but most can't see that I'm hurting still. That I'm still processing through so much of my own brokeness. That I don't feel like moving on much these days but know I have to so that's what people see...they see me moving on and doing life because what other option do I have but in my heart I feel numb, sinking and aching with pain.

As I was asking God about the accident and about Grace and the pain which is happening simultaneously with my mother in law dying in the late stages of Alzheimers. I said to God this is all too much, how do you fit into all of this?  He reminded me of the Matt story. Odd timing right? Why would that memory be called up to focus on in a time like this? These two life events are as polar opposite as can be and one was just a silly high school event while this current life situation as changed the trajectory of our entire lives.

And God spoke gently to my heart. Your earthly father adored you. He did. My dad loved us girls fiercely. I never ever had to question my dad's love for me. His love always made understanding my Heavenly Father's love easy to get. I knew my sisters and I were loved by Pete Pochodaj as completely as an imperfect daddy could love a daughter and, in turn, I've always known my perfect Heavenly Father loved me but in an even more complete way then my Earthly father did (Matthew 7:11) yet yesterday God spoke a different nuance of that love to me.

As, I remember how my dad's heart was broken over my pain and what that guy had done to me, I remember feeling my dad's anger towards him too...it was palatable. So much so that during the summer following my junior year I guess my dad saw him in a store and cornered him to 'discuss' what he had done to his daughter. My dad was an ex marine, vietnam vet so you can imagine the terror this 17 year old kid had when he was met with an angry father over what was done to one of his daughters but beyond my dad's imperfect anger was his pain over my broken heart.

My dad loved me and so does God but I never connected that with that depth of love often times comes a broken heart. My dad's heart broke from my pain because he couldn't stop this guy from doing something dumb. Matt made a stupid decision and it affected me and in turn broke my dad's heart.

Cut to, January 25, 2016, and an entirely different stupid choice was made and with far deeper consequences. A stupid man made an awful and life altering decision to get in a car while drinking and drove recklessly into my beautiful niece's car stealing her life. It broke God's heart because He loves us and out of that love, He feels our intense pain and hurt and He hurts over this for us and with us. That's the depth of love He has for us, that our pain is His pain. Like a good Earthly father hates when something hurts their child, how much more does God, our Heavenly Father ache over what happens to us? Because of that stupid man's free will, our lives have been set forevermore in a different direction without Grace....but not without God.

This thought revolutionized the way I looked at it. I have always known God is our strength in this, our peace and our comfort but to know that He grieves with us and it breaks His heart? That somehow oddly helps me a little bit more in this journey. He's not some God up there doing stuff to us to teach us a lesson (I've never believed that) and I've always known His love but I have never taken it one step further that out of His great love for us, He also feels our pain and it breaks His heart. And for some reason today that gives me comfort. He is right by our side and sees our pain and comforts us. Just like a good Earthly dad would sit on the edge of a bed and wipe away your tears, God too, catches our tears Psalm 56:8, aches over our pain Psalm 34:18 and wants nothing more than to bring comfort to our weary and aching hearts. But unlike an Earthly dad, our Heavenly Father does this in the most perfect and complete way possible.

That's true love.