This Man

For 18 years today, he has committed himself to me and held up his end of the bargain to cherish me in sickness and in health, for better or worse, and it will most definitely be death that parts us and nothing else.

He is the stabilizer to my roller coaster. The laughter and final word in our family. He leads with humility and provides a multitude of character qualities by his example.

When God put the two of us together, when God chose him for me, God answered so many prayers I had prayed and had yet to pray. 

This man has been a conduit of Jesus in my life for feeling held, being seen, and being known.

This man has been the means through which God has fulfilled and continues to fulfill more than one childhood dream.

This man's goal in life, one of many but this one is near the top of the list, is to have a successful, thriving marriage. When this is your goal, you better believe I reap the benefits of his goal every day in ten million different ways.

He has hopped on red-eye flights to leave later and get home sooner for love of me and his family.

He has endured jumping through more travel hoops than I can name for the sake of getting home and being with us.

He plans almost-weekly date nights and has never stopped dating me, pursuing me, and trying to convince me I am the best thing since sliced bread in 18 years.

This man oggles over my beauty even though I only wear make-up and something other than yoga pants maybe five days out of the year.

He sees my heart, and he fights for me in prayer, in words of encouragement, and more recently in how he's grown three sizes in his ability and desire to empathize.

He's the only one that knows how to make my tea. Even I don't know.

He's the only one I've ever given my heart to, other than Jesus, that hasn't disappointed. (Well, when he has, he is always the first to apologize and make things right--I'm still learning this art from him.)

He's taught me how to be a better communicator and how to enjoy the ordinary and the extraordinary equally. He takes life as it comes and faces every challenge directly and with a steadfastness that is admirable.

He let's me see his soft side, and he's honest with our children about life and how it works.

Every day I wake up I love him more, and he still finds ways to impress me to love him more as well...not that he has to, but yet he still does. There's no doubt in my mind that our relationship is his top priority, which makes me one lucky girl, and the older I get and the more husband's I meet and wives I talk to, the more grateful I am for him and his commitment to our marriage and to our family and to the Lord.

Happy Anniversary, my Love. This girl still only has eyes for you, and you have my whole heart for my whole life. Promise.

There's A Tattoo On My Back

I know I write about grief a lot. After my last post, my husband gently questioned, "Is that really where you are all the time?" The truth is yes and no. Grief is funny that way. In this season of my life, it is also where the Lord continually shows up, proving Himself to me over and over again. 

But the truth lies in His presence being with me in the highs and the lows, a constant presence in the ordinary and the mundane as well.

The truth is I have experienced so much joy and beauty in the midst of my grief that it seems incongruent to be able to write about both. So, I put a tattoo on my back.

This piece of art was five years in the making. Veale's death had left me marked in such a way, it didn't seem honest to let that truth be only tattooed on my heart. But it took five years of prayer, Pinterest searching, Bible reading, and God bringing the right tattoo artist at the right place and time across my path to get it done.

You see, this is my daily reminder that joy and beauty are found all around me--in the midst of the pain and the hard and the sad, there is thrill, life abundant, adventure, and newness to be born and discovered every morning, around every corner. The common thread binding these two polar realities together? IN HIS PRESENCE.

In Jesus' presence, I experience peace, hope, comfort, joy, and a renewed love for His purpose for my life. This promise in psalms has been my anchor through the waves of grief and my reason for rejoicing at my highest highs......

Psalm 16:11 "You make known to me the path of life; 

                                       you will fill me with joy in your presence,

                                                                                                                            with eternal pleasures at your right hand." (NIV)

Savannah Veale had tattooed Job 33:4 across her rib cage as a reminder that regardless of her asthma and allergies and all the suffering they brought to her life, it was God who gave her the breath of life. It was for His glory and His purposes that she lived each day to the fullest. She was the literal, walking embodiment of joy in the midst of pain. Her tattoo was her reminder to herself that her life was not her own.....

Job 33:4 "The Spirit of God has made me;
                                                                                               the breath of the Almighty gives me life." (NIV)

And where have I found God's presence? Where have I not is a better question! My entire life I have seen Him in the artistry of His creation--every cell, every atom of matter, creature, weather movement, sunset, sunrise, mountain crag, ocean swell--in all of it, I see Jesus. I feel and experience His presence. I see God's brush strokes, His attention to detail, how the fires burn and life greens anew from the ashes, how the clouds roll in yet make for the most beautiful sunsets, how the climb is steep and jagged yet the view from the top is breathtaking. If you ever wonder why I love to travel, it's because I love to see the extent and glory of my Jesus in the world He created out of love for you and me. I can't get enough....

Psalm 19:1 "The heavens declare the glory of God,
                                                                                   and the sky above proclaims his handiwork." (ESV)

If you want to have your own personal worship experience with the Lord, find your favorite place to sit in His creation and meditate on the entirety of Psalm 19. See if He doesn't reveal Himself to you in a new way, a personal way.

And the last verse on the compass of my tattoo, well, this one was a personal call for me. I chose it because it's the verse in the Bible that comes to mind when you think of joy. The joy of the Lord is your strength, right? But when I went to look at the verse in its entirety, to make sure I wanted the context tattooed on me forever, this is what I found....

Nehemiah 8:10 "Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for                              the joy of the Lord is your strength.”(NIV)

Now, the context of the story in Nehemiah was God's children grieving as the Word of God was being read. Whether because of the realization of just how much of the law they had broken, were unable to keep, or from an overwhelming sense of unworthiness, I'm not sure, but the text is clear that they were grieved and weeping when they heard the words of the law. (Nehemiah 8:9b) But grief is grief. Why you grieve doesn't diminish the emotion or weight of grief. 

What I read here, what I heard God say to me in this verse was, "Jennifer, Go! Live your life. Enjoy what I have given you--food, health, friendships, children, marriage, ministry--Enjoy them! Share these with those around you, the ones who aren't experiencing these things, the ones who don't have Me to enjoy. Jennifer, stop grieving, for your strength to move forward, to live life, to enjoy life is found in Me. I AM the joy you so desperately seek and want to be consumed by."

And in the fullness of this verse, of which we so often only quote the last line, the Lord gave me permission, a commission even, to stop grieving and enjoy Him and share Him and give Him all the glory and all the credit for any strength or joy anyone may think I have.

And so as an obedient child, I do my best to enjoy Him and all He has given. Every chance I get. I endeavor to laugh as hard as I cry, to smile as often as I may have cause for concern, to celebrate as much as I mourn, and to be grateful even in the midst of loss. 

The beauty is one emotion does not matter more or outweigh the other. One emotion does not cancel out or diminish the importance or reality of the other. In Jesus' presence I am free to experience both fully, without fear or condemnation for He is Lord of it all.

Which is why in His presence is exactly where I aim to live my life because there is where I find everything I ever need.

You're Not Alone

Can I be honest?

I don't know how people grieve without Jesus in their lives. I don't know how they process all the questions, how they find hope for something new, how they vent, grow stronger, move forward.

Because I was reminded the other day, that every grief is deeply personal. As much as people tell you you are not alone, no one else had the relationship with the one you lost that you had. 

My therapist asked me to tell her about my relationship with Savannah Veale the other day. I didn't want to do it. It was so deeply personal to me--all the memories I have, conversations shared, life experiences digested, laughter, suffering, tears, stories, adventures. All the things about her life that Savannah shared with me are unique to only her and me. Even shared events with others, like family vacations, even though my family was there with us, sharing those memories with her and with me, we will all remember different pieces of time, different moments, different conversations from the same experiences. Not my husband nor my children had the same relationship with her that I did, not because any of us loved her more or less but because every single relationship between two people is unique to those two people.

Therefore, when you grieve your loss, you ultimately grieve it alone because the only other person you shared that same relationship with is gone. It is this reality, the loneliness of grief, that can be so hard to understand and so impossible for those watching to step into.

But for God. Except for Jesus. He knew....knows her! He knows me. He knew....knows the meaningfulness of our relationship, the depth, the importance.

And He has never left my side. He has taken the brunt of my anger and tongue lashings. He has stood with me, never flinching, and let me beat on His chest and sob and ask why over and over and over again until I can't ask why anymore.

Not once has His presence left me. He rubs my back and rocks and holds me when I cry, catching all the tears in His bottles, never letting one go unseen. Even in my hardness of heart, when I turn to hide from hope, when I want to numb out of life and not feel anymore, even in those pits, He stays with me. He crawls inside and whispers He is there. I am not alone. He sees me. He sees my pain, and He knows why I hurt. so. much.

Only He heard all the prayers I prayed over Savannah's health and safety for years. Only He had sat in that room with  just the two of us every week for a year, trying to find joy in her circumstances. Only He saw me stand alone in the hallway at the hospital, not family, not friend, but somewhere in no man's land. Only He saw me break down, utterly and completely, mourn and weep outside the hospital, alone. He saw me gasp for breath through the tears. He saw my body shake and heave in the overwhelming tidal wave of her death. Only He knows how often I relive that day and that experience and my relationship with her over and over again in my mind.

And while I can share these things now, I can reveal details of my love and my pain to try and help you understand, to help me process, the truth is, no one actually ever will understand except my Jesus. Because He saw us both, and He saw it all.

Yes, He has been the one I've blamed the most. He has been the one I've wrestled for answers, but He has also been the One who is faithful to show up and be present and Who knows how I personally struggle with all of it. No matter how angry I have become at Him for taking her, He is ultimately the only one who knew why it hurt me so much to lose her. So in the end, when I need to talk to someone who knew her and knew me and knew our relationship, I end up talking to Him.

People, friends, can step into this arena of pain and understanding only from the perspective of a loving, sideline fan. The ones who have stepped into the pain with me, have tried to wade in the waters with me, they are life preservers that I appreciate and cling to and need, but Jesus is the breath that keeps me breathing. He is solid ground when grief quakes. 

Because He knows us both. He knows it all. Intimately. He was there when we said all the things and did all the things and made all the memories. He was there too.

So for those that grieve without Jesus, I pray for you. If you know someone who's grieving without Jesus in their life, go BE Jesus to them because they won't make it without Him. I'm convinced of this. People who are grieving feel deeply, personally alone in their grief at any given moment for reasons I've tried to explain above. 

Another person will never be able to meet anyone in their grief completely, and as a minister of compassion, I've learned to accept this hard truth. But Jesus! Jesus can meet them right where they are and understand every hard feeling, rough edge, and deep wound because He knows it all! Take your grieving person to Jesus in whatever way that looks like. Grab the corners of their mat, cut a hole in the ceiling, and lower them down right in front of Him. (Luke 5:17-39) This looks like a lot of prayer, a lot of silent sitting, encouraging notes, long hugs, smiles with lots of eye contact. This looks like any number of small things and big things. Make them laugh, let them cry, send that text, plan that coffee.

Jesus knows how to reach the hurting because He knows their hurts intimately, and He uses His children to be His hands and feet to a hurting world (Matthew 25:40-45), and we don't have to understand or have a personal stake in their loss to be a conduit for His love. 

If this journey of grief has taught me anything, it's taught me that I don't have to understand or relate to anything about someone's situation to bring Jesus to them in the middle of it. And Jesus rarely looks like the right words. Jesus is a presence in the dark. He simply let's you know you're not alone. That's a message I can whisper in the dark to someone too.

You're not alone. 

Who in your life needs to hear those words today? How can you whisper it today? Stop wanting someone to whisper it to you, and go whisper it to someone else because Jesus is always whispering it to your heart, all the time, if you'll stop long enough to listen.