Butterfly Chronicles: Divine Appointments - Please Pray for Maria

     Checking out at Walmart today, I met Maria, my cashier.  Somehow, we stumbled into a conversation about our kids being messy, and I shared Zach's situation and how it taught me only the living make messes and how most things in life aren't nearly the big deal I thought they were now that I've lived through the death of a kid.
    
      Immediately, she let me know I'd hit a nerve, "Thank you for sharing that.  My 15 year old daughter tried to do that 3 weeks ago," and the tears welled up threatening a break in the dam.  "I live my whole life trying to keep her alive now and trying to figure out what to do."  (Oh, Raeann, how very well we know the story of that life.)

     "Whatever it takes," I said.  "You do whatever it takes.  You sell your house.  You sell your car.  You give it all up to make sure she's okay, to make sure she's still alive in the morning."

     Nodding with conviction, she swiped at her tears whispering, "I know.  I know."

     At that moment, she opened her heart to me leaving me breathless, broken, and knowing God had arranged this meeting.

     "At 18 I had a child die," she shared, "issues with the pregnancy.  She was so small.  In my 20's another one died.  In my 30's another one."

     I could barely breathe.  "Dear God. I am so so very sorry."

     "It's why I know I will do anything to keep her alive. I keep checking on her during the night to make sure she's still alive in the morning."

     As we continued talking, I told her I know Zachery is in heaven and that I'll see him again, and we swapped God stories about how beauty really can come from ashes.  She ministered to me.  I ministered to her.

     I told her, "You understand faith.  You understand that you can still trust a God who allowed 3 babies to die and who didn't let your daughter die now.  It's a weird thing to be able to trust a God who allows this stuff, but you do trust Him.  And I trust Him."

     Then we talked beauty from ashes.  We compared notes on how even though we know the most horrific things do happen, have happened, we also know we wouldn't know God now the way we do if those very things had never happened.  God's economy is so different from man's.  His ways and thoughts are higher than ours.

     This beautiful God loving woman is named Maria.  I told her I would pray for her.  I told her I understand staying up all night to make sure a kid is still alive in the morning.  She brushed away more tears, and I brushed away mine.

    This was a Divine Appointment.  I needed Maria today and she needed me.  She needs you too.  Can you pray for her?  Pray for Maria and her daughter and her daughter's life.  His mercies are new every morning.  Great is Thy faithfulness.

     By the way, I'm keeping my great nephew today, and he has pointed out butterflies to me the whole time we have been together.  They still come every single day.

Butterfly Chronicles: Divine Delays

On our Stove Project trip to Guatemala, the butterflies were everywhere.  Several times, repeat visitors commented that they had never seen so many butterflies there – ever!  In trying to process the trip and discover the hierarchy of all the lessons God taught me, one keeps rising to the top.

Delay.  In the grocery line, at the doctor’s office, in traffic, at the car wash, at the bank.  Delay.  It’s as sure as death and taxes.

Delay.  Sometimes, it frustrates us.  But, I’ve worked really hard to re-attitude about it and wonder what God might be doing IN the delay.  This is the lesson from Guatemala.  Delay is often DIVINE.

It was our last day, and we were running errands – picking up freshly ground coffee from one villager and hand woven baskets from another.  While visiting with the basket maker and her family, an elderly woman came up and asked me for help.  I grabbed a translator and several of us followed this woman to her home where we met her daughter and her three grandchildren ages 7 mos, 2 years, and 10 years.  The 10 year old was sick – burning with fever, red-eyed, her tonsils almost touching and covered with puss. 

Delay.  I ran back to the bus to find the Stove Project's medicine woman.  Most of our group had already boarded and were waiting on us. Delay. They were delayed, and they didn’t know why.

For the sick 10 year old, our medicine lady did some doctoring and loving and then praying.  The prayer is what did it.  It’s the lesson. It’s not exactly verbatim, but here’s what was said to this sick little girl in prayer:

Jesus sees you.  He saw you and he saw that you were sick.  We didn’t know we were supposed to be here with you, but He did.  He sent us here - to you - because He loves you.  He sees you.  

There’s so much more to this story – the fact that the grandmother who has NOTHING – wanted to pay us, and the fact that there is so little we can do in terms of help for these people, but God showed up, shows up, and will always keep on showing up. His economy for us and His love for us is never wanting.  He shows up.

All those Stove Project peeps were waiting on us, delayed on the bus, delayed so God could show up and minister to a young girl in need in the middle of a mountain village in Guatemala. I was blessed to be part of what was delaying them and to watch God show up in our medicine woman and in our translator / prayer warrior.  In those moments, God was showing up for me too, teaching me and loving me and growing me. And that’s the lesson isn’t it?  Delay is DIVINE.  Sometimes I’m the one delayed, and I have no idea why or what God might be doing for someone in that delay. I’m just going to say thank you when the delays come because HE IS SHOWING UP SOMEWAY, SOMEHOW FOR SOMEONE! Sometimes He even uses us IN His delays, and that is truly divine! 

God is working all things together for good for those who love Him.  In our comings and goings and in our delays…God is working.  

 NOTE:  The sick little girl is in the first photo wearing the pink shoes.  The other photos show some of the other people we met - all of whom I want to go back and visit if God allows me to.

Butterfly Chronicles: It Just Gets Different

NOTE:  I wrote this on 2/17/17 after years of writing nothing.  I needed to write today - to talk about Joshua.  To vent.  But I read this first.  And it says what I feel today. Their gone-ness is big.

Our neighbor's daughter was killed on January 26, 2017.  They live directly across the street, and for the past week, we've relived our first, post-dead kid week. It sucks. It doesn't ever get better.  It just gets different.  There are days when it washes over me, and I believe in those moments I can't possibly survive the rest of my lifetime knowing this pain is there, always lurking because of the fall and because this is not the way God meant it to be. Thank you, God, that feelings pass...sometimes in moments, sometimes in days, but they pass for a while, and I can breathe again for a while.

I haven't published a blog for a long time.  Too many things have happened over the past 5 years since Zach died that don't completely belong to me, so I won't tell the stories or compromise anyone else's privacy.  It's been really, really hard on my whole family. Suicide. Don't do it, ever.  I have been to the breaking point, to the edge of the pit, to thoughts and desires of driving my car right over the curb and straight into a tree on Kingwood Drive, (I deal with depression anyway), and it is only because of God's grace that I haven't collapsed and ended up committed somewhere.  I will admit openly that I'm diabetes bound because rather than succumbing to quaaludes or xanax or valium or alcohol to survive, sugar has become my drug of choice, and I mean like alcoholic, DWI consumption levels of the stuff.  It's pathetic.  One day at a time, sweet Jesus.  One day at a time. Release me, dear Jesus.

I guess I'm writing this because someone (my sister) said she thinks I'm so strong and have so much faith.  Oh, dear sissy, if only it were true.  The reality is that I am just stubborn, a "type A," a first-born.  You see, if I am going to spout out all this stuff about Jesus and His love and faithfulness and grace and salvation, and read His Word, and watch sermon after sermon after sermon, and pray and cry out in the depression and desperation - what the hec!?!?...do I have any other choice than to get up and put one foot in front of the other?  If I don't, I'm a total fraud. My life is a total fraud. Jesus is just a delusion, and the butterflies that have come every single day for 5 years, 4 months, and 25 days are just a coincidence.   Yeah, right!  I don't believe in coincidences. And I know my Redeemer is real and true-blue and faithful and right here in the here and now.  Truly, even in the mess of me, I KNOW my redeemer lives.

In case there is any confusion, please know that we are surviving only because God really is who He says He is.  I watch the world around me and my heart breaks for those frantically seeking meaning and wholeness everywhere but the only place it can be found - which is in Jesus Christ only!  God is the I am, a very present help in trouble, the only one who will never leave or forsake or forget to be who He said He is.  I share my stuff because I want you to know Jesus doesn't care where you are on the journey or what you've done.  He just wants you.  Right where you are.  Right now.  We are all just a big pile of mess.  He loves us anyway.  We're full of shame and regret and issues.  He loves us anyway.  We've fallen short, messed up, gotten it all wrong.  He loves us anyway.  No one will EVER love us the way He does.  I just really want you to know that.  No matter what.  He loves you.  Don't give up.  Let Him pick you up.  It's not a magic pill and all won't suddenly be well, but HE'LL be with you in the mess of you, and you'll never be alone again.

Butterfly Chronicles - Volume 90: What if?

It's been 1,166 days. 

I WANT CHRIST TO COME NOW.

Wise beyond her years from the way grief sculpts and warps and reorganizes a life, Madison pragmatically stated, "It comes in waves."

Like saying God is love and He could be contained within the four square walls of that word, Madison's is a hyperbolic understatement.  Waves? It comes in tsunamis.  Hurricane force.  The perfect storm.

We face new family dynamics daily.  We struggle emotionally, physically, and mentally with the grief.  It takes a toll which has made us all different.

Fantasies about what Zach's life would be like now - I imagine.  I see him sometimes - in the face of a blonde boy toddler.  In the flip of a fishing rod, line sailing over pond, boy hope reeling, innocent anticipation for the bite, the fish.

I wonder: when did Zach get so unhappy, and why didn't we know? Oh my God in heaven, whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy.  The answer is silence.  What that silence means to me? God is reminding me He is God; I am not God.  You are not God, Beth Sinclair.  He reminds me of His love letter and the words he says in His Isaiah book:

"Good people pass away; the Godly often die before their time. But no one seems to care or wonder why. No one seems to understand that God is protecting them from the evil to come."

God, I care.  I wonder.  You send butterflies.  You warp and mold and razor blade skin me alive changing me into someone I don't know.  My family - those within our four walls - we are islands, alone, lonely in a grief no one can understand unless they've survived it.  It's lonely.  When I am weak, and I am so weak, HE is strong.  Have you ever been so alone in a situation where the ONLY one you can call on is God?  We're more than 3 years in and still trying to learn how to talk about the suicide. The elephant in the room trumpets, and we shove in earplugs.

The most frustrating feeling that has grown in me since Zach's suicide is the finiteness of our Christian trust in God.  Christians, including me, moan and cry and wail and worry and shake their fists over sin.

Our words focus on sin...ON SIN. We waste time debating modesty, politics, abortion, the death penalty, Isis, the economy, who's right, who's wrong, etc.

Why aren't we moaning and crying and wailing IN JOY over the ANSWER TO SIN?  With all the worry and fret and disaster and evil that filters through our conversations as we discuss the world around us, WHAT UNBELIEVER WOULD WANT TO JOIN THE GOD CLUB?  Do we speak with the mind of Christ?  I'm disgustingly guilty of NOT.  I decide today to change.

What if in answer to every sin I see out there, and in me, I were to rejoice AND SPEAK ALOUD that Christ has overcome rather than being distracted from Christ's face BY the sin?  What if I refused to EVER discuss the sin, but ONLY discussed how sin isn't the issue?  What if I told everyone around me that God loves them no matter what?  What if I could stand patiently in the 20 item lane behind a basket so full it is taller than me...what if I took that time God was giving to tell that basket pusher about Christ rather than being pissed that someone might be wasting my time?

What if wherever I found myself, no matter what, I SPOKE JESUS CHRIST?!?!?

What if in answer to President Obama and all those politicians and political decisions being made which don't honor the Lord...what if, instead of complaining and acting shocked by them, I made it my purpose to rejoice and SPEAK ALOUD that GOD ALONE seats and unseats rulers and that Obama and all those others can't do one thing that doesn't march by God for HIS approval.  What if I SPOKE ALOUD in AWE at how God is using our government for HIS PURPOSES?  What if I spoke about how great God is instead of how bad they are?!?!?  WHAT IF I GAVE THANKS FOR HIS PLAN AND BLINDLY TRUSTED WITHOUT FEAR THAT HE TRULY WORKS ALL THINGS TOGETHER FOR GOOD AND FOR HIS GLORY!?!?!?  What if?!?!!?

I feel our Christian culture in America has become so spoiled that we mistake moaning and whining and worrying and complaining for thanksgiving.  Oh, I want to spend EVERY SINGLE SECOND singing the praises of my God in every situation.

What if in EVERY WAY ON EVERY DAY I pulled every thought into captivity for Christ...what if?!?!  What if I stopped being afraid?  What if the ONLY WORDS OUT OF MY MOUTH WERE A REPEAT OF GOD'S LOVE LETTER TO ME??  What if?

Love is patient.  Love is kind.  Fear not.  God is love.  Be anxious for nothing.  Love your neighbor. Do all things as unto the Lord.  WHO WOULD I BE THEN?  Am I brave enough to find out?  He is my Way.  My Truth. My Light.  He is the Word.  He is God. Do I speak and live that way? What if...what if I kept my eyes on HIS FACE AND CHOSE TO SEE EVERYTHING THROUGH HIS EYES? What if?

God, make me strong enough and courageous enough to blindly accept whatever you have for me.

 What if?

Butterfly Chronicles Volume 89: Am I Alone? Life is Too Loud...

God, quiet this too loud life with your still small voice, the gentle whisper of Your infinite being and presence and love and power.

Am I alone - reverberating a discordant BONG----BONG----BONG----GONG echoing in bones and brain.  Too loud.  Am I alone?

Grief turned up the bass and volume of my life's stereo.  Life is too loud, hits too hard, seizes reason, rattles and rolls me.  Grief steals patience, hates excuses, molds guilt, despises injustice, and screams. Too loud. Pain.

Am I alone?















An island?  Is this the "About Us" link for the Dead Kid Club Dead Marriage Club Dead Relationship Club Dead Fallen World Club?

Is this too loud life the new-normal, grief life?  Or is this just life?

Am I alone?

Is this life too loud what's left for me to live?

Satan labored and birthed grief, formed from the egg and sperm of His "I wills."  Evil.  Satan metamorphosed in the black hole of his pride from God's perfect creation into abomination.  God didn't make grief. It's ugly. Relentless. The hissing snake.

Am I alone?  

Are you alone?

Do you live this gonging, too loud, living, too fast, too much, too long?

Does The Fall's dead, decaying animal stench of grief and regret and 

guilt hit you sometimes so hard you want to die?

Are we alone?

I don't want to be alone.

I don't want us to be alone.

They keep saying I have to talk about it. NONONONONONONONONONONO.  

Who will understand my grief truth, and how could I talk about it to the ones I love whose eyes are bloodshot and purple shadowed in their own fight of the stink?  Are their lives too loud? 

Savagely cloak them, us, me in Your grace, Jesus.

Quiet. Quiet. Quiet. Everything.

Whisper us free with your still small voice.

The stench is evil. 

Are we alone?  

Do you talk about it?

Do you fight it until you're empty and numb and so heavy you can't get up?

Jesus, you know the words we need to say. 

Hear them for us; pour them out; wipe us white as snow.

I give up. Take me up.

Come, soon.  Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.

This isn't how it's supposed to be. Life and grief are too loud.  

With Your still, small, whisper, turn down the stereo.

We are not alone.

Thank you for butterflies.

Thank you for butterflies.

Thank you for butterflies.

 We are not alone, Jesus.

We are not alone.

Butterfly Chronicles Volume 88: I'm Wondering How Long is this Gonna Last?

The sneaking up of this stabbing grief brings waves of devastation.  It hits like a perfect storm that no radar can predict. I don't write because I don't want to tell the truth.  

Never has there been a day without butterflies.  Not one.  But the suck of this grief still vacuums the air out of my lungs and like a movie in slow motion I watch it chip away the marble of who we used to be and morph us into people we don't know. Normal is elusive, a fantasy, a joke.  I am not full but hope-less and less.  Zach is everywhere and nowhere.  I give up every day.  The shrink says we are living a fake life - not dealing with it.  Uhhh, has your kid killed himself?  So easy for him to say words he hasn't lived.

I'm wondering how long is this gonna last?  I know The Fight has already been won, or I'd be dead.  I'm not who I used to be.  I am redeemed.  But I don't know who I am.  "I'm a creep.  I'm a weirdo. What the hell am I doing here? I don't belong here."

Zach,

The other night at work, Jordan met a man. The man wanted to die. We know how he feels, Zach.  We've said it out loud - your family has. We get it. It would be so much easier, but we keep living.

Voices seducing this man to suicide had delivered him to Jordan's ambulance, and they rode a long road to a psych ward.  Jordan listened.  Heart breaking were this man's broken heart stories. Jordan listened. They rode. Jordan listened.

Jordan talked.  Jordan told how your 13 year, life story ended, Zach.  Suicide.  Dead.  He told Taylor's now story.  And our now story.  He told the man the truth.  He told the man the after suicide stories.  

He told that man, if there is anyone here that you love, don't do it.  I know how it hurts people. I've seen what it does.  If you love anyone, don't do it.

Maybe because he told your story, Zach, maybe Jordan saved that man. God's mustard seeds floated on the in and out breaths of Jordan's words. Planting and listening and riding with that heartbroken man, God was there and poured out of Jordan. God. That man saw Jordan's Jesus and can seek and find grace and follow the seeds to the only name - Jesus Christ - who can finally and forever save him - no matter how his life story here ends after that.  God goes before and in and during and after and all around - everywhere.  He spoke through Jordan - and the man has a choice and makes a choice, and another, and hopefully lives for another and another because he loves someone, anyone, Jesus.

Life is hard. Hope is less.  I'm wondering how long is this gonna last?

Zach, I wish I had been given the chance to say don't do it. I wish I had spoken Jordan's words - if you love anyone, don't do it.  You do love us. My beautiful boy, you didn't know the after suicide stories.

I see your last face; I stroke your dead cheek and your lifeless hair, willing your eyes to open, running through an empty, dark, nowhere infinity to find the exit from the nightmare, and my heart breaks again. There's no exit door, Zach. We live the after stories.  I'm wondering how long is this gonna last?

Psychs and counselors surround my wagon with burning arrows screaming 

TALKABOUTITTALKABOUTITTALKABOUTIT. 

Fear inhales me and spits me backwards in time to that night.  I will disappear if I talk about.  It will swallow me up. It will kill me.  Talking about it makes it real.  I can wall it out.  I can seal the lid.  I can runandrunandrun.  My imagination won't even peek around that corner.  There's only panic. I'm exploding.  I'm wondering how long is this gonna last???

It's for your girls, your husband, your life, they say.  I'm drowning; it's lead weights.  Bar the door.  Run. 

Jordan is right.  If you love anyone, don't do it - suicide - don't do it.  

Zach, it's unbearable.  The never knowing when it's gonna hit me.  And I can't breathe.  I'm wondering how long is this gonna last? How do I ever stop the overwhelming pain of missing of you?  It doesn't get better.

God, shake off these heavy chains, wipe away every stain, unshackle me from my failures and the ghosts from my past.  I give up.  Again. Set me free. Like a butterfly.

http://youtu.be/VzGAYNKDyIU I Am Redeemed

Butterfly Chronicles Volume 88: Are You Free to Fly?

"Sweet freedom whispered in 
my ear you're a butterfly, 
and butterflies are free to fly.

Fly away, high away, bye bye."

God gives them wings. They're not flying solo.

If only I could tell you every butterfly story...

I hugged my daughter desperately hard last night.  She's off to Florida for spring break.  Yeah.  I know all about Florida and spring break.  I went to Florida during spring break for a wedding. A girl jumped into our car and flashed her naked boobs at us. Yeah. Florida for spring break. We could've said no. Or, we can believe in the ways we've trained her up and trust God for His best for her. Zach's dead. Control freaking didn't save his life. What would you do?  I'm like an Olympics ping pong ball ricocheting back and forth over the net between panic and peace. He's either big enough or He's not.  Right?

So much bad news lately - back and forth over that panic-peace net.  Pain. Suffering. Wailing. Dementia, death, divorce, alcoholism, my own pathetic, pitiful failings, and more moms joining the suicide club.  From every freakin' direction.  All the time. I'm wearing a deep trail on both sides of that net.

Since Zach died, this has been the theme song of our lives. I'm talking about an avalanche of individual, REAL, in this very moment, people kind of suffering - up close and in my face, personal kind of suffering. The kind that humps my shoulders and makes me want to give up. The kind I can't fix. And don't we want to? Don't we want to fix the fall?

I know I don't have any right to answers or to even ask questions, but why?  Why did Peter M.D. tell me about the other mom who joined the club - a year ago - her son "suicided."  She came to see Peter the day before he saw me this week.  Why now?  Why this week? Peter told her about me. With her permission, he gave me her name.  He gave me her number. He said maybe our club could have coffee. He knows our club is small. Is God bringing this she to me or me to this she?  What is The Holy Weaver weaving?

News about my kids' piano teacher hit us this week too: diabetes, coma, ventilator, toes amputated.  A beautiful, sweet Christian - and her family gets this dance card. God allowed the orchestration of this grand ball for them to waltz in the company of Job. My God. My Savior. My Jesus. Gives permission.  And I am supposed to submit to this will that I don't understand while I fight the gurgles of panic, bitterness, bile, burning burps from my throat.  The only Pepto Bismal balm lives in His word.  I gulp it in great, gasping heaves.

Why is the news overwhelmingly ugly and sad?  I am not strong enough or brave enough or smart enough or Christian enough or faith-filled enough to carry these burdens, this flow of despair.  I am a GREATGREATGREAT sinner - negative, bitchy, doubting, judgmental, stubborn, hard headed and hard hearted, outspoken, filter-less.  I make excuses. I get so much of it so wrong.

     I'm saved.

Somehow He works all these things - the stuff of the fall, our failings, tragedy, and despair - somehow He works all these together for HIS glory.  His 2 plus 2 doesn't equal 4, but ALWAYS equals infinitely more.

There are brief glimpses of a flying, free freedom in the midst of the darkest dark.  Letting go.  Casting it all, each disaster, hurt, pain, one by one written, recorded on butterfly paper and buried in a box - the prayers. Not reliving them over and over by praying and taking them back and praying and taking them back, but giving them all at once to Him.  Relinquishing the cares to HIM - the problems cast on The Problem Solver. He doesn't need to be told twice. I write them down. I drop them in the box.  I'm soaring free in a moment of absolute faith, full of that supernatural peace which passes understanding. Fleeting. My faith muscles quiver and fail; I crash land.

But for a moment, a soul freedom sighs as I place the box top over the needs and prayers.  The freedom is in a kind of unadulterated innocence, a simple, child-like trusting that once I cast it, I need not take it back. He makes it easy. "Cast your cares." It's so easy - it's easy to forget how easy it is.  I cast those cares then act The Fisherman reeling them all back in to DO the doing rather than trusting in His doing of what needs to be done.

God pours this freedom on us telling us to go boldly to the throne of grace. Boldly:
* not hesitating or fearful in the face of actual or possible danger or rebuff; 
courageous and daring:
* not hesitating to break the rules of propriety; forward; impudent: 
*necessitating courage and daring; challenging: 
*beyond the usual limits of conventional thought or action; imaginative
Boldly!

Go boldly to freedom.  We wash freedom off, turn our backs, hold on tightly to our problems and live faithless - arrogant in the belief that our worry and fretting and doing can do the fixing. God, grow me in stamina to boldly leave what I've left at your throne - with You.  You are the Author and Finisher of our freedom, and You alone are The Fall Fixer.  God call to my mind the bold doing I'm supposed to do.


BELIEVE
      BE strong.
            BE courageous.
                  BE still.
                        BE a caster of cares.
                              BE FREE.
                                   BE JOY - FULL!
                                   

 Without Christ I am nothing.  With Christ I am only something when I give the doing over to Him - when I don't fly solo - when I put on His wings.  I pray you have Jesus.  I pray you find those moments when you've cast the care and are flying free on His wings. I believe in the God who has given Zach wings like eagles.  I long to soar with The Son and my son. We Christians are free to crash or to take full advantage of this life's flying lessons.  Every day with butterflies He reminds me I have His wings, and I am free to fly.  Fly away. High away.