In remembrance of my son....

In remembrance....

There we were.....on a movie date. It doesn't happen often so we reveled at the opportunity. And when you're a half an hour early for a movie, you get to enjoy the bazillion previews and pretty lame advertisements.

Then it happened. There was a preview/commercial of a dad camping out with
his son. They hiked, played hide and seek, explored, set up their tent, and built a fire.  The boy laughed while the dad told jokes, they read together and gazed up at the stars.  In the end, the camera shot pans out to reveal that they were in his backyard all along, just spending some quality time with each other and the....iPad.

Well, it wasn't the product they were advertising that got me....it was
the concept. It hit me as each scene unfolded....welling up in my
chest like a summer storm.....Jerry will never experience this with our boy.  I tried to
push it away because it felt silly crying over an iPad commercial but I was no match for the tears.  They started to stream down my face. When it ended, I knew I had to reveal
my vulnerability to my husband. After all I was grieving a moment HE
will never have. As I looked over we locked eyes and he knew,
understood, and felt the same way. He also knew to not take me over
the edge to the bawling phase (which I appreciated).....So he squeezed
my hand and held it tight as we gazed forward at the huge screen. I still proceeded to cry through the next two preview as the residual ache resided.

Although this emotion, grief, and sorrow took me by surprise, I was honestly OK with
it.  They say, "time heals all wounds"....but there are just some wounds
that I don't want healed.  I WANT to always remember my son, even if it's
through an iPad.  Just like when I shed tears at the Disneyland parades
when the princesses wave to my girls or Mickey blows them a kiss, so too I want to shed tears over the memories that will never be made.

Even though I feel grief over what would have been.... it still brings me to
a place of honor and love for my boy and all that he was going to be.  I will remember what was, and what could be.....I love you son.

Thriving Valleys

Thriving Valleys

We were driving up the San Bernardino Mountains recently and I decided to focus on the outside of the car for once.  Staring out the window, I could see the crevices of each mountain peak.  Being in the middle of summer, the tops of the mountains were brown and dry.  But within the crevices, the cracks, the valleys, the foliage was green and lush.  The contrast of the green and the brown was unmistakable.  It was like a piece of rainforest amongst the desert.  I stared and noticed the same thing with every passing peak.....green, lush, thriving valleys.

I began to ponder why this was.....perhaps it is because the valleys are the only path of water.  When it rains, water accumulates and funnels down these crevices.  When it snows, the melting water flows for months.  When the sun shines, these valleys are  shadowed, protected from the oppressive heat.  And so......there is growth.

Then it dawned on me how much it sucks being in the valley. Sure it's all green and healthy now but what about during those treacherous storms?  Imagine the animals, the insects, the little seedling struggling to hold on as the flow of the water rushes over them? When they are barely staying above water in order to survive during the deepest of storms?  How about the freezing melting snow that continually flows for months at a time? Or the periods of darkness when no sunlight shines upon them?

Consider the seedling that is continually drowned, tossed and enduring the wind. In this moment it's our tendency to say, "don't worry seedling, you will be the strongest and greenest on the entire mountainside. This is for the best, you see....you're getting the most water than anyone......you will be blessed!" Or, "I know you haven't seen the light of day in weeks but you will grow so tall, you will be swaying and dancing in it everyday."  How about, "this is meant to be.....this is Gods design."

But the seedling can't hear you amongst the treacherous conditions.  It just wants to hold on, keep its head above water and..... survive.

It truly is in the valleys where our soil gets washed away, drenched yet also nourished.  One day when the sun is hot and dry, the mountaintop will go bare and it's in those valleys where we will flourish, grow, endure.  The soil will be toiled, churned, and beaten down.  Roots grow deep, strong, and sturdy.  The raging swift rivers dwindle down to a trickle and the coolness of the shadows are welcomed offering soothing whispers in the heat of the day.

It is then and only then the seedling will see the light.......the light that was kept from it for so long.......it all makes sense now......finally it dances and sways in the delicate warm breeze. And when the next season of storms come, it will endure again this time with deeper roots and all the while knowing, the light may not be shining on you.....but it's always there.

Christ as a Cover-up

Christ as a cover-up

Well this one is a tough one.  I've been feeling about writing this entry for awhile and just didn't want to.  But here it goes.

Some of you are Christians and clicked on this link out of curiosity on why I would ever say something like this.  Whereas some of you aren't.....but you probably know exactly what I'm going to talk about.

I believe that Christians (myself included) can be the most inauthentic people out there.   I don't think we try to or think that we are....it just happens.  Going on this horrific journey has sometimes saddened me with this reality.  It makes me wonder why 70% of people who are raised in the church leave it.  I feel this may be a big part of that.

As I've gone through shame and how we hide it, it is clear we set up many things to avoid dealing with it.  Losing my son made it impossible for me to hide my shame anymore.  It exposed all those areas where I put on a mask in order to not be vulnerable, in order to be super human.....perfect.  Even in the Christian world we play this game.  Who can be the "perfect" Christian?

Of course it is a silent game.  We aren't aware of it, we are in competition with getting Christ out to a broken world....so it makes it OK.  We are utilizing a "good" thing to infiltrate our lives......but are we really dealing?

I struggled with this so much.  Many hours of "I should" be OK because I have God.  I thought that's what everyone says.....that,"God does everything for a reason.". I had verse after verse given to me, people telling me they will pray for me and honestly A LOT of people just ignoring it altogether.  All of which did NOT help me and made me feel painfully alone through the process.  I kept envisioning those amazing speakers who had horrific stories but always said amazing things about how awesome they were because of God.  I struggled with why I didn't have that story.  Maybe I wasn't the "perfect" Christian.

But we know where this is going.....there is no such thing as a "perfect" Christian and quite honestly it was those imperfect people that I adored (and still do) through this whole thing.  I believe that once we use God as hope instead of a mask, we can really meet people where they are at.  The problem is we use God; for a mask, for good, for our selfish ends...we use God.  Or I should say, we try to use God.  We fool ourselves.

Point is we can't use God.  He is unusable!  And that, in our western
American consumer oriented frame of mind, is where we get the most of
everything upside down.  God is not "out there" to be used like a tool or a
credit card or fire insurance.  If we stop using God as a mask, then we may
see the opportunity to stop trying to "use" him...and simply be available.  Hurting with them, in the trenches, the mud, the madness.....meet them in their warped perspective instead of trying to change it.  You see, when we "can't" identify with someone's pain.....we tend to use the "God card" to meet our Christian quota.....or just avoid it altogether.

I wonder what God is thinking when we use the verses, the rhetoric, the religion as a device to cover rather than dealing with our deepest darkest pain.  It just isn't realistic.  I think that so any people leave because they can't keep up with the charade and it's easier to not believe than to not be real.

Here's the truth.  You can love God with all your heart, soul, and mind and be unimaginably angry with Him.  You can be messy, disgusting, and skip a quiet time and still have an awesome relationship with Him.  You can be painfully imperfect and graphically ugly and still sing His praises.  He is hope and life and he understands darkness more than anyone.

I have wrestled with God and been through my valleys.  I knew during these moments that I was distinctly inauthentic in my relationship with Him more than any other relationship I had.......because I wore Him as a mask.  Being a Christian helped my "perfect" and warped image that I had to uphold.

So..... I wrote a blog on imperfection, authenticity, and vulnerability.  Even though posting this makes me want to throw-up, I know it's an epidemic.  We are losing the fight with this and it is so important to be imperfect and not to shove Christ out there as a cover-up but as a means to our fractured end.

To end, I want to first apologize to those of you reading this that know me and have seen this in me.  Then I want to challenge you.....is your religion/ relationship with God a mask?