Sturdy Mother or Broken Daughter

I didn’t know how to be the protective mom I was used to being and the grieving daughter I had never been before. How did these two core personas intermix? Where did responsibility to shelter and love my children above myself fit into the breakdown of fear and heartache when losing my father? What could I offer them when this tremendous loss was depleting my desire to breathe?

The three of them had walked into his hospital room as unprepared as I. What was racing through their minds as they came face to face with the blatant truth that their grandfather would soon die? I had not debriefed them for this moment. My mother had not informed me that it was here. We had walked unknowingly into the solid wall of reality, his sunken eyes, his empty expression, his hollow cheeks.

I don’t remember taking them into my arms. Maybe I did. I remember needing to sit down, needing to look away to hide the flow of my tears. I remember my mother’s arms wrapping around me, her comforting voice lilting in my ear as she let me sob into her chest. I remember feeling 100% like a little girl who was terrified of this dark and strange path in front of me.

My sisters’ presence confirmed the identity of three doting daughters in the midst of witnessing our daddy’s departure from this life. I felt a complex amnesia of the mother I was made to be as these child emotions took control of my heart.

Somehow I know that these children of mine that brought out the most raw and intense feelings of my soul, could be a catalyst for the undoing of all the strongholds I had worked so hard to erect. Being “mom” meant that I could shove my feelings aside and take care of them. At least that’s what it used to mean, that’s what I grew up witnessing. Here in this place where I was losing my daddy, I wondered if I could keep it all together. Or if the arms of my sons and daughter would shatter the barrier around my vulnerable defenses.

It’s strange to me, how little of the details I remember about where my kids were, of what they were doing during this time. I can somewhat excuse myself because I know the fragile state I was in. But it breaks my heart that I wasn’t more attuned to their needs.

I want to go back and notice they are losing their Papa. I want to give them space to feel their own sadness and express their own fear and grief. I want to hold them and tell them it will be alright, that I am hurting with them, that we will walk this together. I want to love them! Oh! I want to love them!

I wasn’t big enough to be both daughter and mother. No, I wasn’t brave enough! I didn’t realize that letting them see my brokenness was part of loving them. That they needed to see the freedom of my grief so that they could experience their own! I didn’t walk them through it. I hid from them and so taught them that the depths of grief that require release, groaning poured out like water, is unsafe and unwanted.

Each one said goodbye. Where was I when they bent over and kissed him? I watched them walk out the door, hugging each child I adored more than anything on earth, and then letting them go. I hoped that their father would be enough. I wonder if they talked or if they cried.

I know that it both hurt me and relieved me to see them head home. I thought it would be too much for them to be there when he died. I thought that it would be too much for me. I called their Aunt and asked her to go to the house when they arrived, to tell them that their Papa had left us just a few hours after they drove away, to offer her arms to them. She held them while they cried. She loved them. She took my place.

The day of the funeral came. I made rounds greeting, hugging, welcoming people to the service. Where were my children? I sat on the front pew with my sisters, mother, and aunt, while they sat three rows back with their dad… so far apart. We were always so far apart. Whether by miles, by rows, or just by the busyness provided to me by practicalities, we were always just far enough to be unable to reach each other. These are my children. And I wasn’t there for them. I was far apart.

When we finally got home, I went back to work. They went back to school. I cried when I was alone in my car. I ended up taking time off work and making several trips to be with my mom as she and I got used to this world without daddy in it. My children continued to go to school, do homework, and care for themselves. Their dad stepped up and took care of dinners and rides to school.

When did we say the words how much we missed him? When did we come together and weep over the loss of so great a man in our lives? When did we simply hold each other and mourn?
And I wonder now… is it too late? To bridge the distance, to crush every bit of unnecessary protection, and come together? Is it too late for it to be my arms to hold you, my voice to love you, my heart to weep with yours? I still don’t know how to be the protective mom and the daughter who lost the daddy she adored. But I want to be more for you and for me, for love.

My Daddy

The past few months, I have been surrounded by love and acceptance. I have been embraced and adored. Loneliness has been swallowed up in finally being known and understood. But the power of such emotions has opened a well of grief inside me for all the losses of my past. At the forefront of my mind has been the grief from losing my father three years ago and all of the torrential feelings that my world has been changed beyond recognition. I want to post some of that journey...

My Grief

(written March 2009)
We knew months in advance that it was creeping towards us, but still, the hollowness of his eyes and the gauntness of his face overwhelmed me with the reality of how soon. I felt swallowed in the intense grief that I was losing my dad. He was the first man I ever loved, the first man I relished attention and adoration from, the man no other could compare to. He was the daddy who brought me complete security and acceptance for who I was and who, no matter what my mistakes were, loved me with a deep, unconditional love. It was December 27th, 2008, and it was nearing time to say good bye.

My mother held me close as I sobbed quietly. Her soft hand stroked my hair as her own tears fell. My husband and children stood around the hospital bed trying to take it all in themselves and I felt the weight of needing to be strong for them too, needing to be sturdy mom instead of broken daughter. I just couldn’t get past his beautiful face fading right in front of me. His incredible smile diminishing, his mind crippled by the cancer’s theft of the nutrition he needed. His eyes seemed to search for sense in where he was and who he was with, Momma’s face being the only constant source of comfort and recognition. I couldn’t bear to look at him without tears forming and falling down my face.

A few months before, I had been praying about this impending grief, sharing with God the fear that was inside me at the complete newness of the experience. He laid on my heart the story of Mary and Martha, and their brother Lazarus, who laid buried in a tomb for three days before Jesus arrived. The Bible says that “Jesus wept” as he stood at the grave of his dear friend. I had heard sermons pronouncing His tears to be sadness from his disappointment in Mary and Martha’s lack of faith. But in this quiet moment alone with God, He communicated to my heart that it was so much more than that.

Jesus wept for the loss these precious women were experiencing. His compassion was great and He felt their grief fully. He loved them and ached for their broken hearts. He sympathized and cried right along with them.

Last night, our assistant pastor told a story during his sermon of his wife’s failed back surgery and the long term pain she had went through as a result. He shared an intimate conversation they had had sitting on the edge of their bed.

“Are you praying?” She had asked in the middle of her hopelessness.

“Yes,” He told her, willing to firmly assure her need.

“Why isn’t God doing anything then?” Oh, the question everyone of us will beg an answer for sometime in our lives! Where is He? Why isn’t He doing something to help me? This is too much for me to handle! Right? Haven’t we all fell into that question?
“He is doing something Randee.” Pastor Jones started. “I believe He’s sitting right here on the bed with us, crying tears right along with ours.”

We face so much heartache and questionable, blank futures in this existence. We hit times where we wonder if the joy is worth the pain. We find losses too great to bear and troubles that completely overwhelm the small amount of strength we carry. And we wonder where God is. Jesus told me, in that moment of prayer, that He was right there, crying tears that mingled with my own. I knew that He was standing beside me in my night of mourning, feeling my pain, and being greatly affected because of His great love for me.

As I walked through the hospital corridors, heading back up to my father’s room after dinner, I shared the Mary and Martha moment I had with God with my mom and my eldest sister, Tina. We all three stood silently in the elevator with the mixed comfort and pain from the words spoken out loud, the admission that we would soon be facing our own loss.

My Persistent Accuser

Jesus,
I need your embrace. To heal this persistent accuser, I need your comforting presence. I need your encompassing power to infuse the space I’m in. For years now this voice has crippled my ability to stand, to jump with excitement, to laugh in abandon. It screams at me and I take it in, adopting responsibility. Shame coils in my gut and disgust crawls along my skin. I toss in bed at night, writhing with the severity of physical revulsion, battling the guilt stamped on my forehead.

“You didn’t do enough. You should’ve given more. You have failed to protect, and failed to restore. You are unwilling to give what they need because you are selfish, flawed, and worthless. You are not enough! Do more! Do! Do! Do!”


How long will these attacks ravish my spirit? Since I was a little girl, I have fought stomach aches, nightmares, and sleepless nights from this insistence to do more. How much longer will this message have control over me? How long will it demand audience? Will I continue to attend every time the lights go down?

Jesus, I am trembling here with my helplessness. You are already present with my thirty nine year old story. You have walked it with me. I want to surrender to your loving embrace and give to you control. Hold me here in this broken place. I’m exposing what you already have witnessed, admitting what you have already graced. Wrap me in your strength. Calm the anxiety racing through me.

I am yours. You have claimed me as your own. My identity rests securely in your love. Who I am is precious enough that you would give your life. I am adored and pursued by you. I am whole, in the middle of this infinitely tattered world, in my deeply torn story. I am accepted, beloved, forgiven, and free.

The idea of doing enough means that I am somewhat in control. That I have the power to make things better or worse. That I hold influence, that I made the difference, that I am needed and important.

Though it’s true that my choices hold influence, I do not have the power to make or break a life, my own or another’s. I am a product of the Fall, wanting to be in control, wanting to declare myself to be powerful. Truth is, I’ve done what I could with what I was given. And you know I’ve hurt others and myself along the way.

It is not the final word. Thankfully, I am not in control. This is part of letting go and falling back into your arms. Knowing that you will make all things good in your time. That you will take my mistakes, my regrets, my deficiencies, and make them work towards the growth and good of us all.

Today, I can raise my head knowing that who I am is enough. I don’t have to earn status by my efforts. I am enough, accepted, beloved. I can relinquish the inauthentic control I wrestle with, and watch the guilt for not doing or being enough slip away. I can feel the solidity of being important enough to you that you would create, free, pursue, and heal me, preparing my heart to be united with yours. And I can trust that you will keep your promise, taking my failures and showing your grace through them all.


Hold me close in this truth and let it permeate every fear. Lord, soak me in your adoration. Show me it is who I am: your creation, your child, your daughter, that is gloriously enough. Wash away the lies that destroy and teach me again that it isn’t what I’ve done, what I’m doing, or what I will do. It is who I am, the core of me belonging to you, inhabited by your Spirit, justified by your love.

I am enough. You are Protector, Restorer, Deliverer. You are all they need. All I need. I am authentic, healed, worthwhile. I am enough right here, right now. I am free to be! Be! Be! Be!

The Meeting by Peter Young

My Heart ignites, leaps, both prey and beast as she enters the room; sweeping waves of joy and craving are centered on her, beneath The Seeing Eye.

My Eyes, impressed, reply to every detail, seeing the world, her single form of visual explosion. Such beauty, deilcacy, shape, grace- Will they ever recover?- beneath The Seeing Eye.

My Ears resound, shaken, moved by silence and symphony as she moves through space. I am sense, receiving every part of her, recording this moment alone, beneath The Seeing Eye.

My Mind anticipates her approach, alerted, focused and spinning as she challenges the mazes of my soul. I submit to an intimacy never known before, but desired beneath The Seeing Eye.

My Hands, touched and touching, a vision of thier own, caress a softness they've yearned for, graze a delicateness, fondle the parts of passion, stroking with hunger, appetite beneath The Seeing Eye.

I must breathe- What! a fragrance, redolence, an aromatic universe hypnotizes me, mesmerizes, swimming in scent, sensual and arousing, and a colliding of it all beneath The Seeing Eye.

And in His Seeing, He enjoys us, relishes the reflection of Love, Him, knowing what He has always known about the excruciating beauty of us.

Confessions

In just a few months, I will be getting married. This man that God has brought into my life will take my hand and I will take his name. My grateful heart feels the exquisite joy of such a precious gift, this godly man who continuously adores me and tenderly cares for me, the overflowing love I am abundantly free to feel and show. I want to spend my life growing with him, cultivating our love, excluding anything that tries to come between us, and learning everyday the new wonders that consummate love can bring.

There’s a deep fear in my heart, a feeling of inadequacy rising up and squeezing my throat. I wonder if I can love him like he deserves, if when things get tough, I will make the choice to honor him anyway. I’m afraid that my selfishness will take over, that I’ll hold on to old habits, rolling my eyes at annoyances, disregarding his feelings. I’m afraid that I will fail him, and myself by allowing destructive voices to speak, by giving room to negativity.

I’m terrified that unspoken words will gain power and begin to erode what I so desperately want to protect. That resentments will build, that scripts from our pasts will demand rehearsal. I’m afraid that I’m not good enough, not whole enough to be all I want to be. That I will damage him by making petty complaints to friends, or slight him with careless humor, or push him away with the protective walls I’ve worked so hard to tear down. I don’t want to fail here. I don’t want to ruin this.

God whispers to me, telling me that perfect love casts out fear. That this love He has given is patient and kind and healing. That His never failing strength is made perfect in my always present weakness. That He has me safe and secure in His arms and that nothing can separate me from His love. He tells me that He is bigger than my fears.

But I know my past, and I know that my new husband and I will make mistakes. I know that we will fail each other. And what I fear is that we will allow those failures to erode the priceless intimacy we have created.

We’ve found such acceptance in each other’s arms, such honesty and love. We have witnessed each other’s struggles with these human bonds, with scars and wounds that want attention. We have heard the stories of betrayals and heartaches from our pasts. And yet, we’ve been given this time where positive illusions have wrapped us in a cocoon of safety. We have listened attentively and felt the inexplicable sorrow of one another. Validation has been offered with passionate gifts of connection and the joy and vulnerability of being known so fully.

What happens if that stops? What happens when the betrayals are to one another and the heartaches are crashing in our safe place? What happens when we’re too busy to hear, to see? When daily life whittles down the energy it takes to love attentively?

Is it possible to preserve what we’ve found, to continue welcoming God between us in prayer and worship so that He can hold us in the safety of His abiding love? Are we capable of stepping back when things get rough and making conscious choices to love anyway? To accept in spite of the disappointments? To honor regardless of frustration? To offer ourselves no matter the risks, to love no matter the costs?

I stand before my God, witnessing the infinite glory of His purity and holiness, the shining beauty of His majestic being. I stand before Him breathless, awestruck by His blinding righteousness, His consuming power, His encompassing presence. My omniscient God, my ever-present Father, the Almighty Creator looks directly at me and knows.

I crumble at His feet, ashamed and disgusted. He knows my heart, every thought, vile and wicked, every action, desperate and dirty. He sees everything I’ve tried to hide, every fallen choice that has damaged, every decision that has desecrated. His eyes penetrate and the utter shame I’m faced with consumes me. My trembling hands cover my face as my head bows to the ground, desiring to disappear, to hide my humiliation. My knees buckle with the grief of my failure, the complete recognition of the darkness, the dirtiness of who I am. Fingers grasp my hair, pulling, fists slam my chest, beating, tears fall down my face, mourning. I despise the sinfulness I cannot deny, the blackness that oozes from my pores. I am nothing. I am worse than nothing as I lie broken before my Holy God.

I cower beneath the tender touch that suddenly appears from behind me, nail-scarred hands grasping my arms, pulling me into His embrace. Undeserving and unworthy, a part of me wants to resist this excruciating love. I feel the solidness of His chest as He wraps Himself around my brokenness. The warmth of His adoration comforts my shaken, frightened heart. His robes enfold me, covering my exposed sin, sheltering my stained soul, healing my scorched flesh. I feel His lips brush my cheeks, wiping the tears from my face as He whispers grace over me.

“I’ve got you.” My muscles instantly release the tension and shame. The strength of His voice permeates and banishes the darkness. “You are mine, Beloved.” His words illuminate the purity He offers me, the cleansing power of His blood infusing my soul. Comfort engulfs my spirit, soothing every fear. The demands of doubt and shame cannot form words any longer. Efforts made to pronounce my self hate are swallowed up in His beauty. Arguments lost the ability to be voiced with the Master’s gentle touch.

I kneel before my God, held up by the arms of my Savior. Looking in His glorious face, I see His knowing eyes once again. This time I take in His whole, radiant face, and am in awe of the smile beginning to spread. His wisdom shines. He knows my struggle. Oh, He sees it all, the weight of shame that collapses, the totality of grief that envelops, and the finality of His Son’s sacrifice that annihilates the darkness. Love, pierces through humanity and fills the atmosphere with healing grace.

I stand before my God, made whole by the precious blood of Jesus, by His gift of righteousness, by salvation’s grace filled plan.
I am His Beloved.
And He is mine.