What It Looks Like to Process

It's been two days since his passing.

At this point, three years ago, in a similar situation, I was in a better place. I wrote words that I think I need to read again in about another week or so. If you're not angry still today, I'd recommend clicking on that link instead of reading this post.

Because after 48 hours of crying and inwardly seething, I woke up this morning still angry. Because this time, this death isn't necessarily closer to my heart (because it's equally close to my heart), but it is closer to my day to day life. My friend won't stop being my friend and part of my life because she lost her son.

But after venting with my mother this morning on the phone, she gently called a spade a spade. "Jennifer, is 48 hours enough pain? Do you need another 24? Aren't you glad God gives us that choice? that He doesn't demand us go to Him? Be obedient. Go sit down with God and let the healing begin." She said this in the most gently, most loving way possible. She wasn't giving advice or answers, she was meeting me right in the hard moment where I was treading water. She threw me a life preserver.

So, I went and sat down with God. I journal often. That's how God and I talk. I actually keep a journal written directly to my children, and I don't share excerpts from it often, but if my thought process can help anyone else drowning right now, then Jesus take the glory....

......

I'm so angry. I'm so angry for my friend. (I then proceed to list a long list of offenses on her behalf that she probably doesn't need to read right now.) 

I'm also selfishly, wrongly angry for myself. (I then list a long list of personal things that God and I need to hash out. Yes, I admit to the selfishness of this.) 

I'm angry at God--for all of this. I'm angry and silently, inwardly seething between clenched teeth, shaking metaphorical fists at God, borderline blasphemous in my thoughts and emotions, knowing the whole time that He sees and knows my heart, so I might as well be saying it all out loud. So here I am writing, because that's how I say all the things I think. I'm angry because I know all (ok, lots of) the truths of the Bible. I know God has His reasons. I know God is good. I know God was with my friend's son and is with him now and will continue to be with his family.

And therein is where the rubber meats the road and the inner war rages because I know God wants me to be right here, obediently coming to Him with my heart and my thoughts and all my feelings, but I. Don't. Want. To.

I want to sit in a corner and refuse to let Him touch me. I'm the strong-willed child or rebellious teen who thinks depriving God of my obedience will somehow hurt Him like He's hurt me. But there's no truth in that statement.

My anger, my desire to make God hurt, the idea that I can even hurt God--those are all wrong, sinful (borderline ridiculous) thoughts. It's ok to feel them, to have them, but eventually you have to call them what they are or you risk living in the middle of a lie to yourself. And as with all sin, I'm only choosing to hurt myself.

The idea that God allowed my friend's son to die to hurt me or even her, specifically, on purpose, is also absurd. I hope. To be brutally honest, I do believe that God does not intend to cause us pain, but I am also aware that because of a sinful and broken world full of pain, when God makes decisions for our lives, sometimes the only natural outcome will be pain.

Am I saying God killed her son? No. Not necessarily, but I do believe it didn't just happen without His knowledge. So that leaves me in a very uncomfortable gray space, and the answer in gray space always comes down to two paths--faith in God or disbelief in God.

God is not crystal clear to us. I don't think I ever want Him to be because then wouldn't He cease to be God? If I understood everything the way He does, wouldn't I be His equal, and therefore also bear the responsibility of the world and all its issues on my shoulders also? I definitely don't want that.

So if I'm okay with God being bigger and greater and mightier and more mysterious than me (which is good, because He is) then by default, I have to come to terms with not understanding how and why He chooses to work inside my life and the lives of those around me.

I have to choose faith or disbelief.

And when I choose faith, this rebellious child must also choose obedience. They kinda walk hand in hand. I must take the hand of my heavenly Father offering me His embrace and Presence and Comfort. I have to stop licking my own wounds and allow Jesus to be the Surgeon, the Painkiller, and the Bandage to my soul--all in one.

And I'm tired of crying and weeping. And part of me still doesn't want to collapse in His arms, giving Him the satisfaction of loving me, but then the truth is He's going to love me anyways, and really, loving Him is what fuels my life at this point, so without throwing an entire lifetime of experiences and relationship proofs out the window by choosing disbelief, I find I have to choose Jesus. Despite my rebellious anger, He is what my heart longs for. He is peace; therefore, He is where I will find my peace.

"Lord, forgive me for raging against You, for silently cursing how You choose to act in my life and the lives of others. Forgive me, Father, for wanting to hurt You, when all you desire is for me to draw near to You so You can minister to me. Father, forgive me for my anger, but thank you You allow me the choice to feel it and express it. Thank you that You are a Safe Harbor of understanding and grace and comfort. 

Lord, may Your Presence be tangible to my friend's family right now. And if they want to punch You too, I'm grateful You wrestle with us Lord. I'm also grateful You always win, but the freedom to process through to that conclusion as You wrestle with us is a gift. I love that you're never a spectator in our lives. I love you, Lord. Love on my friends for me."

.......

And there it is. In writing, a journey from anger to acceptance. I'm no fool. Small parts of me, I think, will still feel angry in moments. This is a heart-work in process, an on-going process. I have no idea where my friend is on this journey right now, and I do not expect everyone who reads this to process in the same way or in the same amount of time. This is only the beginning. Everything changes as each day passes. And Lord knows I'm going to stand by her side and cry and rage and sit silently for as many days, weeks, months, years as it takes. 

But her journey is not mine, and I would be foolish to overlap our two in any way. Hers is much more difficult.

In this moment, right now, I feel calm and tired and at peace for the first time in 48 hours. Her son is still gone. There are still tears to be shed. Life will be altered and forever changed in a new trajectory now, but maybe now, I can focus on truly loving her with God's love and stop imposing my self-righteous love on her. "Lord help, me."

JOURNAL FOUND!!!:How to Eat Humble Pie

So, exactly thirteen days ago, at around 1am in the morning, after a whirlwind of a house-hunting trip in California, I went to finally turn the light out on my nightstand after a day of unpacking, laundering and re-packing for our much needed lake getaway in just a few more hours.  In that moment, I realized my journal was not in its normal bedside location.  In that moment, I had a terrifying, paralyzing realization that I had left my journal in the seat pocket in front of me on our flight to California the previous Saturday.

Mind you, I saw the journal in the seat back pocket in front of me.  The picture was there in my mind. Right there in seat 23B on flight 1251, sandwiched between a pile of magazines and other reading entertainment for the five hour flight from Atlanta.  That is visually, in my mind's eye, the last place I remembered seeing my journal, the last place I remembered touching it to put it in the seat-back pocket.

The next 96 hours of house-hunting are a blur.  So many tough decisions in such a short period of time. But at 1am, five days later, I knew I had left my journal on that airplane, and the gasp of realizing I had just absent-mindedly forgotten seven years of letters to my children almost took the oxygen out of the room and scared my husband to death.  I was nauseated thinking that journal might be lost.  I wanted to call everyone, someone, anyone on that plane!  But it was 1am, and so I had to file my first lost and found claim #243324, and try to sleep.  All I could think was, "Dear God please give me back my journal." Over and over and over, over the next three days, this is the only prayer I could think to pray.

I was desperate. Frantic, fearful, and yet oddly hopeful all at the same time.

I wrote a letter that I not only posted on Facebook for the whole world to see and share, but I then mailed and faxed hard copies of that letter to every person and entity within Delta and local news stations as well.  I contacted cleaning crew companies with which Delta contracts.  I Facebook messaged with over 30 strangers in regards to accessing information about my flight and where it had been and gone.  I emailed with probably 30 additional strangers over the past 13 days, piecing together the puzzle of the path my journal must have taken.

I was a VERY squeaky wheel, and I made quite an online ruckus.  I even had a reporter in Australia publish the story in an online news magazine!  Australia of all places!!  That published article prompted a personal phone call from a Delta higher-up assuring me that Delta was doing everything in their power to find my journal.

Well, I found my journal.  I should say the Holy Spirit found my journal.

About four days ago, I had this nudging in my spirit, "Why don't you call the hotel where you stayed?"

What?  Why don't I call the hotel where I stayed?  That's silly.  I vividly remember seeing that journal in the back seat pocket of the plane.  I have a visual memory of it.  I have no memories whatsoever of ever putting my hands on that journal after that moment.

"But it was a very emotional, very busy, very in-and-out-on-the-go trip.  You even switched rooms after the first night in the hotel." The Voice in my spirit wouldn't let up.

No way.  There's no way that journal is in the hotel.  But what if it is?  What if I just made a giant fool of myself in front of the entire Delta community?  What if I just caused a big, gigantic hoopla for Delta over nothing?  All those wonderful people who helped.  All those employees who have felt bad for not seeing it or not knowing, who I hope didn't, but may have caught some flack for this?  If it's at that hotel, how do I eat crow in front of what I've been told is THOUSANDS of people at this point in time?

My pride almost never made the call.  I was almost willing to lose my journal over a matter of pride.  If the hotel had my journal, I didn't want to humble myself in front of thousands of people and apologize for making your lives more difficult, more frustrating, more annoying in any way.

But I wanted to find my journal more.

So I texted my husband, who was on a business trip in California this week, and told him, just on a whim to check with the hotel we stayed at.  It was a whim.  NOT.  I should have known.  You'd think after almost 30 years of walking with the Lord I'd recognize His voice by now.  Nope.  Silly me, blinded by pride and fear, it took me four days of hearing His still small voice to finally ask my husband to just check with the hotel to be sure.

And there it was.  My journal!!!!!  Safe and sound and in the hands of my husband, heading back home to me in just a few short days!

And in a space in time when I should have felt ecstatic, relieved, over-the-top happy, I suddenly felt very, very ashamed and stupid and impetuous for involving the whole, wide world before thinking to check everywhere I'd been and not just the airplane.  All feelings that I very rarely feel because I'm not typically this frantic, bothered, panicked or thoughtless.  Not typically brave enough to ask for help or draw this much attention to myself either. (So many lessons learned....)

Why did we never check with the hotel to begin with?  Because I faultily, vividly remembered leaving it on the plane.

I checked with everyone else on the face of the planet, why not the hotel just to be sure?  I don't have an answer for that one.  Other than I thought I was right.  I thought my memory was right.  Turns out I was very, VERY wrong. (And my husband is now doing a little happy jig somewhere because that is something I hardly never admit to--being wrong.)

But this time I was wrong.  VERY wrong.  And in being wrong, because of social media, I effected more lives in probably a negative way than I intended.  I tried to stay gracious and understanding and grateful to everyone, so I pray that no one was offended, and when you read this, I pray you try not to roll your eyes too hard into the back of your heads.  But let's be honest, if it was me, I'd be shaking my head and saying, "Geez. This lady is out of it."  A good ole' southern "bless her heart" is definitely appropriate here.

I hope that none of you think, 'Well that's the last time I ever take something like this seriously again!' Please don't!  It was an honest mistake on my part, and people, your encouraging words and all the help all of you provided in every way is what kept me from sinking into a bigger pit than I was already starting to dig for myself.

I would be about to cry and a complete stranger would send a Facebook message to me saying they were still praying my journal would be found.  I would be about to throw in the towel and give up hope, when I'd get a follow up email from someone I don't even know who cared enough to check in because they were still hoping I'd find the journal.  And it was strangers who kept reminding me that my hope is rooted in a big God who loves ALL of us, who died for ALL of us, who has the power to return that journal to me.

Just your encouraging words and willingness to do the little things you could to help made a HUGE impact in my life.  It left an impression.

So the next time a desperate cry for anything comes across your Facebook page, please don't look the other way.  Please don't become cynical and uncaring because this Mama made a horribly annoying mistake.  Just clicking the 'Share' button is enough to pay it forward, to have a small ripple effect in the life of one person who feels a little lost in that particular moment of their life.

If social media is ironically beginning to isolate us from each other, this is one way to use it to try and truly connect in a meaningful way.

So here I am, eating a giant slice of humble pie, asking for your forgiveness for any bother I've caused in your lives, and hoping you'll agree we all do stupid things sometimes.

So a BIG THANK YOU goes out to the Delta airlines community.  A HUGE, GIGANTIC round of applause.  Once my message broke the automated wall, the people inside were understanding, considerate, empathetic, helpful, and proactive.  Every email was professional.  Every person was encouraging and spoke very highly of their colleagues.  Different employees throughout the company assured me that the cleaners, airline attendants, and gate agents were all very capable and more than willing to do a thorough job of trying to find my journal.  They all spoke so highly of each other, never bad mouthing anyone from within the company, never being discouraging in any way.  They all truly thought they could help me find the journal in their own ways.  Even Roger Salz, a higher-up from within the Atlanta Delta system, was very kind to call me personally and assure me that they had found all kinds of items for passengers in the past, and he would notify everyone he could to make sure this item was found as well.

Delta, thank you.  Thank you for your time and energy.  Forgive me for being what has turned out to be a nuisance with my online plea.  It's safe to say, you have a customer for life, and I will throw as much grace your way in my future travels as you have thrown at me over this whole journal debacle.  I really can't say thank you enough.

Thank you to everyone.  To each of you that prayed.  To each of you that encouraged.  To each of you that spared a moment to help a little.  Thank you.

Ultimately, it was God who found my journal.  Who prompted me to swallow my pride and make the call to the hotel.  Why He didn't give me that idea 13 days ago I cannot answer, but it was definitely His voice that made that thought take root.  Not one person had ever suggested I try calling the hotel we stayed in.  Not one.  Only Him.  Only my Jesus who knew exactly where it was the whole time, Who just needed me to experience some massive online humbling for some reason He has in His plan and His purpose for my life.  Time will tell.

But for now, I am grateful for many people I do not know.  Grateful for people who still pray for strangers.  Grateful that not all big, monster corporations are uncaring, inefficient, and unresponsive. Grateful for a God who saw fit to let me see all these people--the crowd of the unknown--in a different light. Grateful He used His presence, His Word (Micah 7:7), and the people in this world He created to never let me give up hope, even when I was tempted the most to do so.

Grateful to have my journal back, home safe--with a new label of my contact information freshly printed on the inside cover.