Our Stories, Our Healing

Grief and Loss

The loss of a loved one is never easy.  The journey from grief to healing can encompass a range of emotions, conflicting at times, triggered by seemingly random occurrences and unavoidable no matter how hard or many times we try to bypass them.

Our Stories, Our Healing

Have you experienced a significant loss in your life?  Where are you in your journey from grief to healing?  Are you ready to share your story?  By telling your story you may be able to help someone else and perhaps support your own healing.

The Project
This project sets out to explore the grief journeys of several individuals.  The stories of the characters are inspired by real-life individuals and their experiences with grief, resulting from the death of a loved one. Woven together, it will reveal stories of trauma, heartache, loneliness and despair that begin to transition into those of healing, resilience and celebration.  

By sharing your story, others will be helped and supported in their own healing.  Not only ushering in healing for others, it will expose the often silent pain and lonely journeys many of us undertake as we process the death of a loved one- allowing them to know, they are not alone. 

If you are interested in being a part of this project by sharing your story, please complete the questionnaire here.  You will then be contacted with specific details about your participation in this project.

The Invitation of "His Yoke"

^28-30 “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”  Matthew 11:28-30 MSG

When you spoke this, you were (and still are) inviting each of us into a real, loving and liberated relationship with you.  For, man has identified and skewed what it means to be “good”, “holy” or “Christian” with rigid rules and distorted expectations.  For some time I’ve been involved in activities that are helping me re-frame my understanding of what you require. 

You invite me to come to you.  You invite me to follow you – the truth.  Not some human’s interpretation of your truth, which can vary and be misinterpreted based upon a false understanding.  You tell me “come right to the source and learn from me, the Truth”.  So, I come.  I want to live my life fully, in and through you.  I want rest from struggle – struggle of trying to measure up to rules, laws and guidelines rooted in shame and condemnation and ones that I am unsuccessful at trying to keep in my own might. 

The rhythms of grace you speak of - they sound like freedom, surrender, a departure from self and identifying only as the child of the king.  I can be encouraged by the fact that your yoke, your ways/thoughts/model for living, although not without some level of work, is freeing.  Freedom is there because you have already paid the price.  Freedom is there because that rhythm you speak of empowers, takes on the struggle, burdens and weight.  Your yoke is light because you have done the heavy lifting on the cross and provided us a gift of salvation.  You continue doing the heavy lifting, working on my behalf, providing, protecting, leading, teaching, fighting my battles.

All you ask is that I come, follow, learn and co-labor with you.  I recommit to you – yes, I will follow you!

Amen.

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Embrace uncertainty.  

Some of the most beautiful chapters 

in our lives won’t have a title until much later.

-Bob Goff

As a 23-year old, fresh out of grad school, I was certain of one thing.  I was going to be a teacher.  My entire career.  Nothing but the classroom for me.  Although developing curriculum and supporting other teachers were options for later in my career, really all I wanted to do for the next 30+ years was to be in the classroom.  Even after a few years of educating elementary school children under my belt, I dismissed the promptings of my colleagues to pursue administration.  No, the classroom was where I wanted to be!

Fast-forward 14 years and ask me how that worked out for me!  Often in life, I look back at my younger self and just laugh.  I realize, the things that I was so certain about at the time, I had no clue!  Despite the definitive claims I made about what I was (or was not) going to do, life had other plans.

Now that I am a bit wiser (the product of some unexpected starts, stops, detours and bumps along the way) there is one thing that is clear.  The only thing that is certain in life is uncertainty.  Even with the most careful of plans, laid out and calculated to the most minute detail, the unexpected is bound to happen.  Understanding that fact is okay.  Embracing that fact, well that makes life a little more interesting! 

When 10 years ago, my desire for a life-long career in the classroom took an unexpected turn in a completely opposite direction, surprisingly I was filled with excitement and anticipation as I stepped out on faith.  Although I missed the classroom, I found a new career that brought just as much joy and engaged a different part of my diverse skill-set.

My life is beginning to veer in a new direction again.  I have no idea where my current passions and enhanced capabilities will lead me.  But I am looking forward to the journey.  What a marvel it will be when in 3, 5, 15 or more years I look back on this present season of my life.  At that time, I will be able to celebrate the beauty of what was uncovered by accepting the invitation into the unknown.

8.24

Tonight I wrote a poem.

Yes.  It was a love poem.

Those are always the best kind.

But not gushy and sweet,

like the ones I write when he gives me butterflies 

with just one gaze from across a crowded room.

No, this poem that I wrote does not dwell on that.

Instead, tonight I wrote a poem about a love lost.

Not one where I’m jaded and my words are laced with bitterness and despair because his heart now longs for another.

The poem, it tells of a different love story,

that one day will yield a happier ending.

The words weave a picture of a deep abiding love,

that a child has for her mother.

Although old enough to now bear my own children,

I still long for the warmth of my own mother’s hug.

Which is no longer possible.

For, she’s gone.

Well, not fully. 

The soft kiss that was planted on my forehead

right before she left to start her day,

even now I can faintly feel it.

The spiced, citrus-y scent that followed her effortlessly

(when inhaled today)

immediately conjures an image of her beauty.

Tonight’s reflection is based upon today.

August 24^th.

1948.  

The day of her birth.

And today, I celebrate.

Even though she’s gone.

Years pass so swiftly – but 12 feels the same as 1, as 50.

The void that this loss leaves behind is just sneaky like that.

“Happy Birthday” I write with joy.

And the next moment my pen shifts,

words filled with a longing,

sadness of what now exists only in my memory.

1987.  

A day we celebrated, in our new home, our new life.

In just a few short days, we learned devastating news.

As we sang, ate cake and laughed,

my new friend’s world crumbled,

due to a loss I didn’t understand then.

But do now.

All too well.

Too young to be without her father.

But he was gone.

And, as months and years passed,

during those moments when reality interrupted the continuation of one’s life,

She, cried.

Her mother, wept.

Her sister, sobbed.

At that time I was moved by sympathy because of their pain.

Tonight, I wrote because I know what those tears meant.

Longing. Sadness.  Hurt.  A plea for relieve.

And so, I wrote a poem.

2017.  

My two hearts reclaim my attention.

Each embarking on a new journey in their young lives. 

Middle school and Pre-K. 

And I feel my heart expand with pride, anticipation, and hope. 

As I wrote a love poem tonight,

recalling my mother.

A woman I love.

Admire.

Miss and cherish.

I write of the loves that remain. 

They are a continuation of the joy she was.

Earlier today,

my youngest love asked if we could go to where Grandma Nancy is 

to give her a birthday cookie.

Her mother reassured her, she already knows we’re celebrating her today.

We can’t go to her today.

But, one day we will.

Tonight I wrote a poem. 

A poem about love. 

My love. 

My mom.