Admitting to the dark places

A few days back one of my sweet cousins texted me in panic. "Pray", she wrote, "My friend has a history of pain and depression and he's missing. They can't find him." I immediately responded that I would, even though God and I were having a little bit of a spat and I didn't feel like talking to Him (well I was spatting, God was doing whatever it is God does when I am being ridiculous).

Shortly after receiving the text, I was in my car on my way home from work; sunglasses on, breeze on my face, sweating hamstrings sticking to the leather seats of my RAV4. I was very aware of all of my senses; the fact that I was alive, experiencing so many things all around me. So many things in life are beautiful.

But sometimes life is too much. I think of my cousin's dear friend. Ive known that feeling all too well in my lifetime. Sometimes life is too much. Sometimes there seems like no way to escape the aches that settle deep within ourselves. The ache to run away is strong, urgent, unwavering. Sometimes it feels like there is no other option. 

For those of us who carry the burdens of the world like an infant at our chest, life is never easy. When we are not carrying our own burdens, we are limping with the weight of someone else's. We are overwhelmed with joys, and crushed with pains. We live life in extremes that both energize and unravel us. A gift that can be hard to navigate.

I cannot stop thinking about my cousin's friend. The loneliness he must feel navigating a world that doesn't see everything that he sees, or feel everything he feels. I know that loneliness, as many of us do. What if he knew that? What if he knew he isn't alone.

I love raw vulnerability. It's like water for my soul. But it is terrifying when it's your own raw vulnerability, your story out in the world for everyone to see, your heart strung out on the clothesline.

But this is important friends. We don't need to tidy up our lives, we need to bring them messy. Come as we are. 

Earlier today my cousin texted me that her friend had been found. He had checked himself into a hospital to get help for his depression. I don't even know him, but I am so proud of him. So proud of his rawness, his strength, his acceptance of who he is. "Tell him that he's not alone," I texted my cousin, "make sure he knows that he is not alone." 

sitting on the lost side of loss

Loss is excruciating.

Loss of life, loss of love, loss of job, loss of dreams.

Loss doubles us over, knocks us down, and sits on our hearts.

It follows us into every corner of our lives, every crevice of our hearts, never-ceasing, never resting.


It's not something that you fight. there's no winning such a battle.

It's something that is thrown at you with such force that you have no choice but to catch it.


A lot of people that I love very much are struggling with loss right now. And so, I too, am struggling as I mourn for them and with them. There are no magic words to heal or comfort,  no wand to wave it all away.

 I do believe there is something important for all of us in the midst of loss,  gifts of sorts that we can grab ahold of. We cannot always bear to look for them right away as we are trying so hard to just survive. But as the raw baby skin on our hearts begins to flesh over, we start to see the little gifts we received along the way.

Last night I lay in bed, surrounded by my bible, my journal, and two devotional books. I was looking for comfort, for answers, for peace. I cam across this quote, chicken scratched onto a tiny piece of paper, and pressed into the the pages of Job:

"Knowing that God suffers with us doesn't make our pain disappear or explain the enigma of suffering, but it does enable us to keep trusting God and believing in His goodness, even in the midst of the inexplicable. We may not be able to trace God's hand in what has happened, but we can still trust God's heart. And trusting God's heart encourages us to turn toward Him, instead of away from Him, to turn toward the cross and the road we must travel to get there."

{Stephen Seamands in Wounds that Heal}

I often feel abandoned by God in seasons of pain and loss. When I see others walk through it, I am angry at God for abandoning them. I forget over and over again that He is near us always and that nothing can separate us from His love. How quick I am to doubt His goodness, His sovereignty. I forget that He lived a life of alienation, carried His own cross, gasped for breath mounted to its splintering wood, wore a crown of thorns dripping with His own blood, drank vinegar from a nasty sponge. He suffered big time, more than the Bible could even describe.

He gets it.

So I sit here cross-legged on the rug, contemplating loss and the pain that it brings, I am humbled once again by how much I try to understand and how little I actually need to understand.

Though we may suffer, He is present. Though He may feel so far away, He is near.

giving power to our expectations-we need to stop.

I've been wondering for years now why I am so often caught off guard by things that happen in my life. How I am so often outraged when things don't go exactly as I had planned.

A few weeks ago I turned 25, a quarter of a century. When I opened my eyes to my birthday, I sat up in expectation of feeling a maturity and wisdom I had not known as a 24 year old. I rubbed my eyes, stretched, looked around me...nothing. Eric was still asleep, and feeling as if this mini birthday crisis did not concern him, I sat on the edge of the bed alone with my thoughts.

Many years ago 25 seemed so old. By twenty-five I would have two kids, and maybe have written a book, and been to Africa, and have found my niche in life.  I would of course no longer be suffering from anxiety and vicious panic attacks. By twenty-five everything would be all smoothed out. And if not by twenty-five, probably by the time I'm thirty...Right?

We put so much power on our expectations.

Right now there is so much power in my expectation that I'll be alive tomorrow.

Not only do I desire to be alive tomorrow, but I expect to be.

I also expect that Eric and I will be able to have children when that time comes. And I expect those children to be healthy and to outlive both me and him.

We seem to have these assumptions or expectations for our lives and if things don't end up that way, we are devastated.

They may be social norms that we have adopted, or things that are hearts deeply desire, or expectations we feel have been put on us by loved ones.

Being healthy, graduating college, getting married, having kids, living until we're of a ripe old age, having a good job, having a comfortable amount of money, being happy.

Just a few of these expectations that I hold for myself, and many of you may hold for yourselves as well.

Is this why we are so often disappointed? Is this why we are outraged when somehow our own plans are thwarted? Is this why we have mini adult temper tantrums when anything feels out of our control?

We need to let go of some of our expectations. We need to keep things in perspective.

The gift of these lives we are living are nothing short of that; a gift.

There is no guarantee that any of those expectations that we have for our life will happen for us.

NO GUARANTEE.

But that is okay.

GOD IS STILL IN CONTROL.

When our lives are crumbling to bits and pieces. When we have lost a loved one, are dying ourselves, are parenting a troubled child, fighting a mental illness, fighting the mundane of our everyday lives...God is in control.

Last week I finished a book I was reading about a little girl in Haiti. It was a fictional story, but written by a Haitian woman. She described gang violence and government corruption, poverty, and simplicity. It got me thinking about my expectations. How entitled they are. How entitled I feel to a life of health, happiness; to any life at all.

I was humbled. And continue to be humbled.

God is still good when our expectations are not met. God is still in control

And maybe...just maybe, having less of them will give us the peace we have been searching for.

Maybe if we expect less we will not spend so much time being disappointed and angry.

Maybe we will experience more joy, accepting life with open hands; ready to accept and let go as we are asked to.

Let's open our hands, friends, and keep them open through all the ebbs and flows of our lives.