Category: Relationships

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Spilling Out

There was an article on Facebook a week ago, written by a nurse who watched parents bring their children into the PICU (Pediatric ICU). There was a pattern to the process of a beginning, during and after phase which paralleled what we’re going through currently under COVID restrictions. The start of the process, the beginning phase we are looking the situation head on, dealing with the immediate, the panic, the crisis reaction of radical change to life patterns, processes and realities. A shift of thinking about priorities and, well, everything.

The “During” phase is where we are now. During is full of unknowns. The end is unknown. What will happen “during” is unknown. Who will make it through to the end is unknown. Will I catch this? Will someone I care about? What do you mean now my pet could catch this? My neighbour? How will I shop safely? Can I just go for a walk?…

The underlying stress and anxiety of the during phase colours everything like an abstract sort of  baseline onto which everything else piles. The Everything else includes general life – groceries, work, school for the kids, music lessons, pet care, putting in the garden, running a business, [insert usual activity here]. Each of these things has a coating, a wrapper of added time, considerations and sanitizing called “COVID-19” increasing the time each things takes and increasing the level of stress each thing induces.

It’s this during phase where who we are starts to show more clearly. How anxiety and stress play out in our behaviour becomes quicker to surface. 

As Jesus often does, this coincidentally came in my feed:

For some, this is tears, others, sharp tones, others try to take control of anything and everything, some turn daily living into check lists, others hide in video games or literature, others lash out at everyone around them. Yet others still smile, still show grace. There is love and lightness in their words, their eyes and their activities. What is inside of us is what splashes out when we are bumped.

Jesus, I bring my heart and my mind to you. I offer you my self, this vessel that you have built. Holy Spirit, will you show me, in a picture, a word, a memory, or in scripture, what is in me that is spilling out? Lord show me the good things as well as those I need to change. I especially ask you to show me where my sins, where my habits or thought processes are discouraging or hurtful to those around me. Now, please show me the things that are godly, the gifts of the Spirit that you are growing in me. 

Lord Jesus you are my example. Show me how to grow these blessings that they are the things that splash out in this time. The things that are jostled out onto others that bring joy, peace, love and hope.

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Settle

(A Five Minute Friday Post)

Why do I settle? Why do I put up with the crap, the pressure, the ignorance, all those things that people foist upon me? I settle for their indifference, for their distain, their inability to see truth or even acknowledge the presence of someone they don’t understand. I settle for this bad form of attention because at least it’s attention? Any attention is good attention I guess. And yet rarely was it even attention. A shrug a nod if I’m lucky. 

I settle for non-existent praise

I settle for misplaced affection

I settle for doing the best I can because it’s the best I can.

My presence there wasn’t for them. It wasn’t about settling for them it was about settling for me. For what I can do. For what God asked me to do. 

The father had very specific instructions for me. Settling for that truth was motivational. inspiring. About following, serving, living life to the fullest. Being who Jesus wanted me to be. Wants me to be. I settled for relationships that were convenient and tried to make them richer. Tried to make them what they needed to be for me but I settled for what they were. I SHOULD have made them what I needed them to be for me. My brain doesn’t work that way. It filters, processes, finds excuses for why others are how they are and how I can and should adapt rather than expect better, ask for better, create better. No more will I settle. No more will I settle for lack of thanks. For lack of acknowledgement for lack of tact or for the lack of gender. I no longer will change who I am for others to settle for what they expect but will push for what I expect. want. Need to thrive. It is my time. 

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Grief is not linear

There is no straight line from loss to what we’ll call recovery. I’d like to say “all my life I thought…” but truth is, I never even thought about grief, about loss, about what it means for everyday, what that loss does to the light, to time, to joy, to the very act of breathing, getting up in the morning, going to bed at night, how things look, feel, sound, taste.

While I have lost family members, it never occurred to me that grief as a journey isn’t a straight line. The direct loss wasn’t mine. My heart ached for the spouses left behind. Still aches for them. But it wasn’t until an entirely different circumstance introduced me to grief directly that I began to see it for what it is.

Grief stripped me of all that I thought I knew. It ripped me to the core of my being. It flipped upside down everything I thought I knew about life and loss, living and dying.

In my current journey of loss, the most recent lesson is that it is not linear. One doesn’t simply and gradually “get over it” like walking up a gradual incline. There are days when getting out of bed is an achievement. When emptying the dishwasher counts as a productive day. And while I can look back on the months between impact and today and see how things have gotten less painful, how things have changed and, for lack of better words, gotten better, I then had an experience that put me so far back on the path to healed that I’m not sure the end exists. The proverbial “two steps forward three steps back”.

In this particular case, words spoken in support and hope created turmoil. They were intended to heal, to soften a moment of history yet had the unintended result of ripping open a carefully stitched wound. To be clear, I do not hold the source responsible for the outcome. My reaction is on me alone and I hold no malice, anger or disappointment.

The results though tell the state of my heart and stage of my journey. The imagery that comes to mind is that I had just climbed out of a deep chasm. Rocky walls, damp, rough, the only way out going up, through the pain. And, standing on the edge, finally out of the depths and face turned to the light and warmth, to then have words blindside me back over the edge back into the hole like a wrecking ball into the side of a building.

My choice, once again, to remain in the pit or work, inch by inch, memory by memory, hurt by hurt back up the edge. Jesus on belay, me searching for toe holds through the threat of tears.

Grief doesn’t travel a straight line. It weaves and ducks, it leads then follows, strangles then caresses. It sneaks up like a storm on a sunny day. The tiniest scent, a flash of memory, a habitual motion, phrase or task brings a sweeping wave wiping out all forward progress, sets back days, weeks, miles, back to the bottom of the pit.