vacantuterus

A more beautiful me

They swirl and flutter around me, bright as birds, their words coming at me from every direction. My nickname echoes down the hallway, shouted exuberantly.

"You look hot, Flicks!"

"I love that skirt! You made it? That's awesome!"

"You're so talented."

I watch them, fascinated. They are tall and small, short hair and long, curls and heavy flowing strands, pale skin with blue eyes, darker with glowing brown, and a fascinating green thrown into the mix. Every one of them captures me, takes my breath away. That they love me, that they want to hang out with me and run to hug me and love my baby makes me astonished. My girls, that's how I think of them.

I'm not a natural with teenagers, ask anyone. I wasn't a graceful teen myself, in any sense of the word. I grew too fast to achieve any sort of comfort with my body; for years I was all gangly arms and legs, forever tripping over any random thing. My figure developed fast but late. And my beliefs were never compatible with a high school environment. So, scarred by high school, I found myself intimidated by teenagers for years regardless of the fact that I was older, more confident in my identity and had fought much bigger battles.

Until now. Until these girls. I don't know how it happened, exactly. Suddenly one day they were there, a beautiful part of my life. Suddenly I was privileged to hear their secrets and dreams, share in their hopes for the future. Suddenly their parents were thanking me for "spending time" with their kids. I always find myself mumbling something about "my pleasure" when that happens but what I really want to say is:

"Are you kidding me? I am SO getting the better end of the deal here."

"Your daughter is a treasure."

"Her heart is amazing. I am humbled."

"I love every minute of time I spend with her."

I can never get myself together enough to articulate that but that's what I want to say.

I often fall asleep at night with my girls on my mind. I think of all the challenges they face in life. Being a teen girl is different now than it was when I was younger. Some of these girls are handling things that blow my mind. I have no idea what to say to them half the time and I pray for wisdom on the fly, that what I say would build them up, that I would root them in a foundation that is firm, that they would know their incredible value, worth and beauty. Because this is what I hear from their lips, the regugurgitation of what the world is telling them:

"I'm too thin. I don't have enough of a shape."

"I need to lose weight. But at least I know if a guy likes me now, before I change, he likes me for who I am and not how I look."

"My hair is too curly. I wish it was straight."

"I'm too short."

"I'm a giant!"

It makes me want to cry. I wish I could show them how I see them in my mind, peacock-bright, shining like stars, each of them unique and amazing. I see their beautiful hearts, each one so gifted in a different way. They are passionate and quiet, strong and gentle, caring and intelligent, clever and funny, and all of them are incredibly generous in spirit. They enrich the fabric of my life; I cannot remember how it was before I recieved random text messages from them throughout the day, before they saved my life some Sunday afternoons by helping me take care of Sam, before they barreled down the hallways Sunday morning, shouting my nickname, to hug me passionately. 

If all that were not enough, they have given me one last gift, one which is truly priceless. I can finally look back and see myself at 13, 14, 15, 16 and se the girl I was then. We haven't ever been at peace, that girl and I. She said all the same things these girls say to me now. But here in the present I can be kinder to my teenage self and I can see her for who she was; a girl on the verge, someone just becoming. The seeds of Flicka. I can see a more beautiful me. And I feel at peace.

One year ago today

...this happened.

And life was never the same again.

 

 

 

 

Thank God.

I love you, Samster Hamster.

Mental

Jack was 22 when I first met him. He walked with his shoulders hunched downward, a scowl on his face and he was always going fast, like a juggernaut that wouldn't be stopped. He wasn't a small guy and his message was clear: "Get out of my way or I will move you." He was labeled "difficult" and "troubled" and I could clearly see why. Jack wouldn't do a thing he didn't want to, regardless of whether it was in his best interest or not. He was always nice to me, though. And in the rare moments that he was in a bad mood when we saw each other, sometimes I was able to help. He trusted me because I wasn't a nurse, wasn't on staff in any capacity. I was Sarge's wife, just a visitor. But I came every day.

I met Jack and Steve and Jeff and Reggie and many others in Omaha's main civilian hospital. Sarge spent many weeks of our first year of marriage there but there was one long stretch of almost three weeks where I got to know almost everyone on that small, locked ward. It was one of the best places he stayed and I really feel he got the best care there. But as good a facility as it was, it was still an institution. The nurses were still overworked and underpaid. Everyone was still a patient. It was still so clearly a hopsital. And so clearly a place that lacked hope.

Jack caused a lot of trouble. He was frequently belligerent, refusing to get dressed and sometimes he was even combative. The nurses restricted his smoke breaks in futile attempts to control him. He would periodically refuse to attend the 12-step meetings that were mandatory as part of his admission. Anyone could see that Jack was in a lot of pain. He had no visitors.

I came every day to see Sarge. It was part of my unspoken promise to him: I would walk down every road with that I could, as long as I could. The hours at this hospital were among the most open of any we'd ever been to so I came from 5-8PM on weekdays and 1-8PM on weekends. They allowed me to bring in food for Sarge so I cooked dinner at home as usual and then boxed it up and drove it 45 minutes north to the hospital and ate it with him. After a while I started bringing enough for Jack too.

I learned that Jack had married young and that soon after his wedding his wife had died of cancer. He showed me her picture, creased and battered. The source of his depression and addiction was suddenly very clear to me. He told me about his childhood (rocky) and about the love and stability he found in his wife. As young as Sarge and I were to be going through our own heartbreak, I thought Jack was even younger and had a much harder struggle. At least Sarge and I had each other.

During the middle of Sarge's stay, Jack celebrated his 23rd birthday. I made a chocolate cake from scratch using my grandmother's recipe for Devil's food and frosted it. Chocolate was Jack's favorite. Fire was clearly out on a ward like this but I stuck two unlit "2" and "3" candles on top of the cake anyway. Plastic knives and forks were okay. I gathered everyone around, nurses included, and we sang "Happy Birthday" to Jack. He was embarassed and thrilled at the same time. I gave him the first slice of cake, making sure it was enormous.

By now my visits were somewhat like Family Home Time. Toward the end of Sarge's time there I was making dinner for everyone. Mostly it was something crockpot-ish like stew and biscuits. We'd jam as many chairs around a table in the common area as we could and eat together like a huge family, talking about whatever came up. Reggie was really fond of the Chicken Holiday so one day I brought Chicken Holiday for everyone. Some people, like Steve, weren't crazy about big groups and so they orbited around the edges, feeling skittish and bolting for the corners if any attention was shown to them. That was okay too. I'd find Steve later and ask him how it was going. He'd never say more than a sentence or two but I'd pat his shoulder and move on, knowing he'd look for me tomorrow. I colored with my new friends. I put my visitor sticker on the bottom of my shirt instead of on my shoulder and relaxed in front of the TV with them, blending in. I felt like I belonged, like I was accepted.

That was important to me, that feeling of belonging. Each one of the people I spoke to each day had a family somewhere. Jeff, who shared his name with my husband, struggled with addiction. He had a three year old son who he was trying to get sober for. His fiancee would visit him and when everyone was in group she would sit with me, sometimes sobbing, so frustrated and heartbroken, not knowing what to do. All I could do was hand her tissues and listen. Jack was somebody's son. Steve was someone's husband once. All of them had mothers and fathers, siblings, children, someone who cared, out there. They were more than a collection of diagnoses, more than an odd assortment of people who deviated from the societal norm. They were valuable, important. Each one was so unique. I wanted them to know that, to truly understand how special they were despite all the noise they were hearing inside their own heads that said things to the contrary. "You are a gift!" I wanted to say. "Do you know how wonderful it is that you are alive?"

All of their faces came back to me tonight in a rush as I watched the pilot of "Mental." When Vince, the schizophrenic artist character, told the doctor that he "couldn't do both" I immediately knew what he meant. I remember my own husband, so adept at numbers, breaking codes, mathematics of any sort, coming home from his first hospital visit drugged up and suddenly unable to do the simplest logic problem. We sat at the kitchen table "playing" a game and I remember the frustration on his face, the way his fists clenched against the glass of the tabletop and the explosive way he said "I can't DO it!!" I excused myself to the bathroom so I could cry.

For a long time, and even now to an awful lot of people, my husband is viewed like anyone else on medication that affects the brain: just another problem, just another person to be managed. I look at him and see all the facets of who he is, the way the individual parts of his personality come together until he shines. A problem? Someone to be managed? Oh, no. An asset. Someone to call in an emergency. Someone I lean on, depend on, someone who knows my story the way no one else does. Someone with a strength that I cannot fathom.

I don't know what happened to any of the people I met in that Omaha hospital. When Sarge checked out after that three week stay, it was for the last time at that facility. I never saw any of them again. I pray they found recovery, health, good lives. I pray that the three weeks we all had each other, the three weeks of "camp" (as we called it then) was enough to give them hope and a sense of their own worth. In the end though, I could only save one. And him I still have with me, by the grace of God.

Feeling my own insignificance

I'm tabling the issue of what to do with this blog for a few days because something more serious has come up. Something that puts my own inferior issues into perspective and lets me know just how good my life has become. If my blog is my biggesto worry, I'm doing well.

This morning Sarge read this article. Go read it, it's short and I can wait. Because of his memory issues, he didn't immediately recognize the name of the surviving crewmember. But later in the day I got this email from a longtime friend:

Mark was able to see Lee and Stacy this evening.

Mark said that Lee was unrecognizable.  He's in the ICU and has had

multiple surgeries so far...he's extremely swollen...he has all sort of tubes coming in and out of his body...has had quite a few rods put in.

Apparently, the aircraft that Lee and the pilot were on became unstable at 20,000 ft - and they ejected.

At the time, a husband and wife were out in the middle of nowhere, and saw the plane and Lee parachuting down.

This couple was able drive out to where Lee landed and the wife was at Lee's side, while the husband was able to aid the rescuers in finding him.

This is a blessing - that helped arrived so quickly at such a critical time.

Mark met Lee's surgeon - he's prior airforce - and the surgeon's wife opened her house up for Stacy to stay...just a very nice couple.  At the moment, they are in Bakersfield...which is about an 1 hr 1/2 from Edwards AFB.

Lee will be transported to a hospital in San Diego in a few days.

Lee's parents are on their way out as well.

Stacy has been given much support from the commander and his wife, neighbors, and the wives of Lee's test pilot program.

Lee is in really good spirits.

 

love to you all!

christina

 

I put my hand over my mouth after reading the first sentence and then crumpled into tears. This would be awful news for any family to recieve but the idea of my friends having to suffer this just breaks my heart.

 

This is what I want you to know about Stacy and Lee: they were an integral part of a group of people that kept me alive and functioning when Sarge was newly ill. During that whole horrible first year when he was in the hosital more than out, when he was trying to kill himself, when he'd go for days without speaking, when medication didn't work or when it wracked his body with side effects that landed him the ER and the ICU, Stacy and Lee were there.

 

They have this huge dog, a cross between an Irish Setter and a St. Bernard. He looks like Clifford the Big Red Dog. I'm a tall person but Napolean's head comes to the top of my hip. He's the size of a small pony; I could practically ride him. He's as gentle as can be, just a really lovely animal. Stacy and Lee let me use him as my therapy dog. There were days when I just showed up at their house, my heart so heavy I could barely walk and Stacy would open the door, park me on her couch, and call Napolean. There we'd sit, the dog with his head in my lap, and I'd just pet him and pet him and pet him. Some days we'd all go for a walk. If Stacy and Lee traveled, I took care of Napolean. I spoiled him rotten those days. I just needed the companionship.

 

Stacy taught me to scrapbook. I haven't done it since; the fun of doing it was being with her, parked at her sunny kitchen table, using her cutting tools and gabbing away. The best thing about Stacy was that she never talked too much. It was okay to be quiet with her, too. SThe silence was beautiful, never awkward. But even with that, she never hesitated to ask me questions about Sarge's health or how he was progressing. She asked about his voices, whether he'd get better, how the medical board process was going. Things that should have been awkward to discuss, weren't.

 

During the hardest times, Stacy (along with others in my special group) sent cards to encourage me. She brought a meal when I had to have surgery. She prayed with me. I thought of myself as a flimsy wall and Stacy as one of many sturdy beams that propped me up and kept me from falling. I know I couldn't have made it without her.

 

Lee was a friend to Sarge too, during a time when friendship was extremely difficult for him. Anyone in uniform was a reminder of all that he was losing and additionally, a goad to his spirit. He felt like a failure, as though he wasn't a good provider for me, among other things. Lee embodied so many things that Sarge would never get to accomplish in his career. At that time Sarge was also wrestling with the stigma of mental illness. I won't lie, it was tough for the guys of our group to reach past the natural reticence that men feel in the face of such things but they did.  Lee prayed with Sarge, encouraged him, visited him. He asked me how I was doing. Later, when their first daughter was born, he made it possible for Stacy to come out with me so that I in turn was refreshed enough to go home and serve my husband with a renewed heart.

 

And now this awful thing has happened to my friends. Time and geography have separated us but I have never forgotten the way they heaped blessing upon blessing over our small family. I think about Lee laying in the hospital and I wonder what sort of road lies before them now. I know they'll have great interim care; the military is good at that. What sort of disabilites will Lee have long term? I pray that he'll have none. I wonder what their future will hold. I don't want them to have to shoulder the burden we've borne, to have to wrestle the VA for benefits and treatment. I don't want them to know any of what we've known. I wish with all my heart that I was near enough to bring them meals and babysit their children and bless them the way they blessed us. My heart is broken into a million pieces for them. Please, if you pray, pray for my friends.

 

ANSWERS.

There are a few days in my life that are burned into my memory. I know I will never forget them even if Alzheimer's sets in, even if I am so completely demented that I can't dress myself. The day Sarge kissed me in the car outside a convenience store when we were both 20, the day I got married, the day we first held Sam in our arms...

And the day I sat in a social worker's office on a military base, clutching Sarge's hand as he described hearing voices. The day everything in my world fell apart.

It's been nearly seven years since that day; I can hardly believe its been that long. Some of those intervening days felt like an eternity; some of them winked by in an instant. Some of them were filled with unbearable sorrow and some were radiant with light. All of them contained the heartbreak that an injured spouse brings to the marriage of two souls deeply in love. Seeing him suffer, knowing that I had no answers, watching as his diagnosis and treatment shifted monthly has been one of the hardest things I have ever had to endure. I feel silly even saying that because of course it was never about me to start with. But I never wanted to watch him go through that.

Today, though, for the first time, after having long ago released any hope for an answer, we were finally given one. It was what we often call "pure chance" but what I secretly feel can only be the divine hand of God. Who else could orchestrate events so perfectly?

Sarge has been trying to transfer all his care to a single VA facility in our home state. For a number of complicated reasons he'd been going out of state to recieve care but since that's no longer necessary, he's consolidating providers. Streamlining. As a part of that process, he had to see his primary care doc. In the course of his routine exam he mentioned that yes, he does still hear voices but that he copes just fine and no, he does not take medication. Yes, that is a decision that he AND his doctor made a few years ago. The new primary care doc was unconvinced and insisted that he needed to see a mental health specialist right away. Sarge is nothing if not compliant so even though he was reluctant and very afraid they were going to try to medicate him again, he went to the appointment today.

They handed him a survey to fill out. He did so, wincing at how crazy the answers made him sound. We know how normal he is but on paper, even on blog-paper, he sounds, well, not normal. When they looked at his survey and told him he was seeing a different doctor, he was even more nervous.

But this is where the miracle happened. The doctor he saw is not part of the VA system. He was there visiting, doing a clinical study, gathering research subjects, for just a bare week. Sarge told his story to the doctor who listened and then asked "Do you ever transpose words? Do you ever have non-seizure seizures?" Sarge's eyes went huge as he said "YES!" The doctor went through every single one of his symptoms with him and told Sarge that he knows defininitively what he has. Sarge has a brain injury caused by a virus. Medication will not work for him, ever. It has not worked in the past and will not work in the future. He has never had an organic mental illness. The seizure-type episodes are his brain getting overwhelmed and shutting down to reboot. They will happen during times of stress. The only resource Sarge has right now is to do what he's already done: learn to cope with his voices and live around them and learn to manage stress so that the seizure-type episodes are few and far between. The doctor said there are only three doctors in the world right now who understand this type of injury and that although it's not uncommon, it's not prolific either. It often looks like schizophrenia and is inaccurately treated as such. And because many people don't have Sarge's support system, they wind up labeled as non-compliant and uncooperative and they fall through the cracks. They don't get the help they need.

Sarge doesn't qualify for the doc's study because he's too high-functioning! We both got a laugh out of that. He's too normal now and he knows what he needs and how to manage himself. The doctor said that we have both done the exact right thing in managing his care. Everything we've done is what he's needed, including getting him off meds, battling docs to keep him out of a long-term care facility, and my fierce and unequivocal stand against electroshock therapy. What we made up as we went along was intuitively correct.

And what I've been telling doctors as my theory about what happened to his brain has ALSO been correct, despite them telling me no, it could never have happened that way. YES, IT COULD HAVE. I feel so JUSTIFIED right now. And so relieved to have an answer! To finally KNOW, okay, this is what happened. It won't get any worse than this. Now we know what the siezures are; the last piece of the puzzle. We have a strategy to manage them. We know now that the one scan I thought they should do and they didn't, a PET scan, is the one that would have helped them diagnose this. We know that there's a possibility that Sarge could get better over time. We know he'll never need to be medicated again.

The doctor took Sarge's records and information with him. And he put notes in Sarge's file about all of this, changing his diagnosis and stating that he does NOT need to be medicated, that he is more than fine just the way he is.

More than fine.

Safari

When I was little, I had a deep fear of Africa.  I had once heard a reference to "darkest Africa" (probably someone quoting Joseph Conrad) and in my youthful mind I took that to mean that the sun shone very dimly there.  Even as a child I was solar-powered and the thought of not seeing bright sunshine every day struck fear into my heart.  My limited knowledge of Africa also included the fact that the Sahara desert was there and that it was full of wild animals.  (That Africa had elephants was its only plus and not even my love of that particular pachyderm was enough to induce me to want to travel there.)  Put it all together, throw in some adventure stories I'd read, and this is what I knew about Africa: if you went there you would die in the middle of the desert after you got lost and your camel shriveled up from dehydration.  If you were lucky you'd get kidnapped by a tribe of bedouins, sold as a slave, and wind up in some dusty village getting speared by a native.  Or you'd get juju'd to death.

I was very, very afraid.

This was unfortunate for me because the feature of every missionary story told in Sunday School was Africa.  It seemed that if you wanted to be a missionary, that was the place you went.  I was all for serving God because I really, really loved Him but I was petrified down to my core that He was going to make me go there.  One day I asked my mother about it, afraid she'd tell me that this was one of life's hardships and that I'd have to deal with my eventual exile and death.  I remember her smiling just a little as she told me that not every missionary went to Africa and that God would not send me there if I were that scared.  "Honey, He'll prepare your heart if He wants you to go there.  He won't make you go like this."  What a huge relief!  I was so glad to be standing there on our stone driveway in the full sun, knowing I'd never have to leave the comfort of my house to get speared by hostile tribesman.

Whew.

A few years later my youngest cousin Holly was severely burned while carrying a cup of hot tea upstairs to my aunt, who had the flu.  She tripped on the way up, splashing boiling water all over the side of her face and shoulder.  I remember getting the phone call.  I remember the way the bandages wrapped around her poor little head and neck disappeared into her shirt when we saw her next.  I remember her face shiny with salve.  Mostly I remember sitting in the quiet darkness of the living room, absorbing the news that this small girl, one half of a miracle set of twins born to my infertile aunt, might be permanently scarred.  I couldn't bear that thought so I bargained with God, offering Him the thing that cost me the most.  I knew He wouldn't want the locket I treasured or even the stuffed animal I'd had since infancy.  I was old enough by then to know that God doesn't want things.  But service, that was something I could see Him wanting.  So I promised Him that night if He would heal Holly without a scar on her face and neck, I would go to Africa and be a missionary for at least two years, longer if that's what He wanted.  It was the only thing I had that I thought God could truly want.

Looking back I can see how misinformed I was about God, not to mention Africa.  As an adult, I know Africa is a continent, not a country (crucial to my minsunderstanding as a child) and I also know that as a continent it is anything but homogenous.  I also know my chances of getting eaten by a wild animal or speared by someone is pretty slim provided I use my common sense.  And I don't think I'll be traveling across the Sahara by camel anytime soon.  As an adult I know that God is not a bargainer.  I can just imagine His pained sigh as I prayed with fear seventeen years ago.  There wasn't any need for that; He would have healed Holly just for the asking.  Any price that needed to be paid was paid long ago, and not by me. 

Here's where I'd like to point out that if you met my cousin today you'd never know how badly she was scalded all those years ago.  She has a relatively small scar on her shoulder that I know bothers her sometimes.  But her face and neck are pristine.  And I've yet to set foot on any part of the continent of Africa.

Last weekend our church hosted the West Africa Partnership Summit.  Africa came to me, in a sense, particularly Ivory Coast, Senegal and Togo.  The pastors I met in November came back again, spoke to us again through translators, and were in turn revived and refreshed by our hospitality.  It was a beautiful time of fellowship for all of us.  We greatly enjoyed serving them and hearing from them; they were in turn happy to be here with us, giving us perspective on their very different lives.  Their struggles are so very different from my own and yet at the heart of the matter we have so much in common.

As I listened to one of the pastors speak, I thought about the idea of the global church.  It occured to me that these men are my brothers even though we look nothing alike, don't speak more than a handful of common words, and have met only a few times.  According to what I believe, I will be spending eternity with these guys.  It made me wonder who else I bump into on the street that may be my brother and I just don't know it.  It's a good basis for thinking about people; how can I treat anyone as "less than" if they are my family?

I haven't felt afraid of Africa for a very long time but this weekend, for the first time, I actively desired to go there.  I'm not sure when a trip will happen; my time's not as free as it used to be.  But I'm sure now that my mother was right; God has prepared my heart for Africa.  When I go it will not be with reluctance, because I feel I must; it will be because I have the desire to love the people there.   I have made the most important journey right here at home, from fear into freedom.

Journeys of various types

When I was little, I had a deep fear of Africa.  I had once heard a reference to "darkest Africa" (probably someone quoting Joseph Conrad) and in my youthful mind I took that to mean that the sun shone very dimly there.  Even as a child I was solar-powered and the thought of not seeing bright sunshine every day struck fear into my heart.  My limited knowledge of Africa also included the fact that the Sahara desert was there and that it was full of wild animals.  (That Africa had elephants was its only plus and not even my love of that particular pachyderm was enough to induce me to want to travel there.)  Put it all together, throw in some adventure stories I'd read, and this is what I knew about Africa: if you went there you would die in the middle of the desert after you got lost and your camel shriveled up from dehydration.  If you were lucky you'd get kidnapped by a tribe of bedouins, sold as a slave, and wind up in some dusty village getting speared by a native.  Or you'd get juju'd to death.

I was very, very afraid.

This was unfortunate for me because the feature of every missionary story told in Sunday School was Africa.  It seemed that if you wanted to be a missionary, that was the place you went.  I was all for serving God because I really, really loved Him but I was petrified down to my core that He was going to make me go there.  One day I asked my mother about it, afraid she'd tell me that this was one of life's hardships and that I'd have to deal with my eventual exile and death.  I remember her smiling just a little as she told me that not every missionary went to Africa and that God would not send me there if I were that scared.  "Honey, He'll prepare your heart if He wants you to go there.  He'll make you willing.  He won't make you go like this."  What a huge relief!  I was so glad to be standing there on our stone driveway in the full sun, knowing I'd never have to leave the comfort of my house to get speared by hostile tribesman.

Whew.

A few years later my youngest cousin Holly was severely burned while carrying a cup of hot tea upstairs to my aunt, who had the flu.  She tripped on the way up, splashing boiling water all over the side of her face and shoulder.  I remember getting the phone call.  I remember the way the bandages wrapped around her poor little head and neck disappeared into her shirt when we saw her next.  I remember her face shiny with salve.  Mostly I remember sitting in the quiet darkness of the living room, absorbing the news that this small girl, one half of a miracle set of twins born to my infertile aunt, might be permanently scarred.  I couldn't bear that thought so I bargained with God, offering Him the thing that cost me the most.  I knew He wouldn't want the locket I treasured or even the stuffed animal I'd had since childhood.  I was old enough by then to know that God doesn't want things.  But service, that was something I could see Him wanting.  So I promised Him that night if He would heal Holly without a scar on her face and neck, I would go to Africa and be a missionary for at least two years, longer if that's what He wanted.  It was the only thing I had that I thought God could truly want.

Looking back I can see how misinformed I was about God, not to mention Africa.  As an adult, I know Africa is a continent, not a country (crucial to my minsunderstanding as a child) and I also know that as a continent it is anything but homogenous.  I also know my chances of getting eaten by a wild animal or speared by someone is pretty slim provided I use my common sense.  And I don't think I'll be traveling across the Sahara by camel anytime soon.  As an adult I know that God is not a bargainer.  I can just imagine His pained sigh as I prayed with fear seventeen years ago.  There wasn't any need for that; He would have healed Holly just for the asking.  Any price that needed to be paid was paid long ago, and not by me. 

Here's where I'd like to point out that if you met my cousin today you'd never know how badly she was scalded all those years ago.  She has a relatively small scar on her shoulder that I know bothers her sometimes.  But her face and neck are pristine.  And I've yet to set foot on any part of the continent of Africa.

Last weekend our church hosted the West Africa Partnership Summit.  Africa came to me, in a sense, particularly Ivory Coast, Senegal and Togo.  The pastors I met in November came back again, spoke to us again through translators, and were in turn revived and refreshed by our hospitality.  It was a beautiful time of fellowship for all of us.  We greatly enjoyed serving them and hearing from them; they were in turn happy to be here with us, giving us perspective on their very different lives.  Their struggles are so very different from my own and yet at the heart of the matter we have so much in common.

As I listened to one of the pastors speak, I thought about the idea of the global church.  It occured to me that these men are my brothers even though we look nothing alike, don't speak more than a handful of common words, and have met only a few times.  According to what I believe, I will be spending eternity with these guys.  It made me wonder who else I bump into on the street that may be my brother and I just don't know it.  It's a good basis for thinking about people; how can I treat anyone as "less than" if they are my family?

I haven't felt afraid of Africa for a very long time but this weekend, for the first time, I actively desired to go there.  I'm not sure when a trip will happen; my time's not as free as it used to be.  But I'm sure now that my mother was right; God has prepared my heart for Africa.  When I go it will not be with reluctance, because I feel I must; it will be because I have the desire to love the people there.   I have made the most important journey right here at home, from fear into freedom.

This time, tears of joy.

745 days

14 hrs

38 minutes

18 seconds

The judge signed the finalization papers today, on Sarge's birthday.  Forever and always we belong to this little boy!

(Ignore how terrible my hair looks in this picture.)

 

Notes from a sabbatical

Well, it appears I am back.  I feel slightly guilty telling you all this but I had a fabulous time away from this blog.  I felt like I'd gone on vacation without actually going anywhere, if that makes any sense at all.  By and large, my computer went unused (which is why I am so. behind. on blog reading) and it felt gooood.  Did you know there is an entire world outside my basement?  And that I like sewing ten times more than I thought I did, which is saying kind of a lot?  And my son? Is CUTE.

Here's what I did, bullet-point style.

• We sent the final paperwork for Sam's adoption in to the lawyer on Friday!!!  WAHOOO!!!  Now we wait for it all to make its way through the courts.  We are really hoping this goes quickly because I cannot wait to let out this breath I have been holding and know that forever and for always I will belong to this little boy.

• Inspired by JCasa, I sewed covers for the arms of my computer chair.  Sarge and I have identical chairs and his is looking distinctly raggedy.  While mine is still pristine, I wanted it to stay that way.  And I wanted it to look cool.  Vintage fabric + vintage buttons = LOVE. (The pics didn't come out so great but trust me, they rock in person.)

 

• I decided to stop fooling around set goals for myself project-wise.  The outings planned for me and my sewing machine are designed to increase my skills in specific areas.  The armchair covers helped me with designing (I made up the pattern), sewing over elastic (harder than you'd think) and free motion quilting, which I'm betting doesn't show up in the pictures.  My next project will work on design again and embroidery.  This is really getting my creative juice flowing!

• I met Beagle, her hubby C. and her sweet son N.!  N. and Sam were born just one day apart which I think is just so cool.  Beagle and I share similar stories as adoptive moms.  I have to say, we thought we had it rough with only 20 days notice for Sam...Beagle and C. only had 1 day!  It was incredibly cool to have the boys together in the same room, two little dreams come true.  Maybe one day they will be blogging about us!  (Group picture up for a limited time only!)

• I found deep peace.  I did a lot of praying...was finally ABLE to pray.  I met with Robin, I read my Bible and some other books and was finally able to let go of some of the anger I've been carting around this last 5 years.  I think this was the point and purpose of the whole sabbatical.  That led me to think about this blog and why I blog and I came to several conclusions that deserve their own post.  I'll get to that in the next few days.

• I made the most awesome oatmeal raisin cookies EVER.  Twice.

• And I missed all of you.

xoxo

Flicka

Past Present

Mom and Dad, you might want to consider not reading this.  Fair warning.

****

My past has been knocking at the door of my mind increasingly ever since this happened.  It's as though a door that I slammed shut is refusing to stay shut any longer and things that I thought I had long since forgotten are making their way into my consciousness whether I want it or not.  It's disturbing, to say the least.  And when I tell you that for the first few days that I titer up the dose of nortryp (I am still getting to level I need to be) my nightmares become graphically violent, that's really saying something.  I fall asleep trying hard to think of LOLcats because if I even stray close to my past I'm in for an ugly night.  Those days, the only time I get true rest is in the middle of the afternoon, curled up in the blinding sunlight.

When I was newly out of all that darkness (escaped, it felt like) I was so raw.  It was a good kind of raw, the kind of raw you feel when you've been ill for a long time (which I had been) and you are finally recovering.  I felt..new...but in the way an alien is new.  I was an adult for the first time but also responsible and doing the right thing with my life for the first time.  I was living at home with my parents again but it was by choice.  I was on a wagon of my own making and so scared of how destructive I had been toward myself that I didn't dare fall off.  I loved being up on that wagon.  I severed all ties to my old life.

That worked very well for me for a while.  I think it's good when you're trying to escape a bad lifestyle to leave every aspect of it behind.  My problem was that a specific friend, someone who traveled the periphery of that lifestyle, didn't quite get the memo and about five months after I'd left it all, he called late one night.  He wanted to hang out, told me all the gossip.  I was horrified on my end of the phone, had no idea how to end the conversation and stop the flow of words into my brain.  He told me what they were calling me behind my back; it cut even though I didn't want it to, even though I could identify it as petty and childish from people older and supposedly more mature than I.

The next day was church.  I went, pale and quiet with dark circles under my eyes.  I didn't say a word to anyone, told my parents I was fine when they asked even though I knew by my mother's worried look that she knew it was a lie.  I couldn't tell them about it.  I was so close to crying the whole time.  I sat in church thinking that it was futile, here I was looking like a good girl, dressed like I ought to be, singing like I ought to be, reading my Bible like I ought to be.  But all that ugliness, the Flicka that drank and smoked and used men as her drug of choice was still there under the clean and proper exterior.  I would NEVER be clean of it, I thought.  I would always be used up; a cautionary tale.  I'd never be a good girl again.

After the service was over, my pastor's wife drew me aside and asked if I was okay.  V. was five foot nothing, a slim switch of homespun and I knew for a fact that she'd never done anything like I'd done.  A less likely person to hear my confession I could not imagine.  In that quiet hallway I could not hold it in anymore.  All of the tears burst out of me as I sobbed "I just want my past to stop following me!"  I told her about the phone call, about how it made me feel like running except there was no escape from myself.  I can't remember a single thing she said to me and while I know she prayed for me, I don't remember what she said then either.  But I remember the relief of letting it out.

I learned this over the months I spent there: forgiveness doesn't mean that the past never happened.  Forgiveness is atonement for the past.  I had done wrong, BAD wrong.  I hurt myself the most in that process, intersected with other people's sin and been hurt by them as well.  But I needed forgiveness for deliberately doing things that I KNEW would lead to my own destruction.  And the only person I could get that from was God.  And lucky for me, He'd taken care of that a few millenia ago and as soon as I asked, we were totally square.  I felt so free.  My past stopped looming over me like a dark demon that instant.  It's that freedom that saw me through the early years of Sarge's illness, that freedom that saw me through so much of our hardships.  It amazed me, amazes me still, that it's accessible to anyone.

But you know how it is.  You take your eyes off of it and you lose it.  The problems of life seem overwhelming and then slowly, so slowly, the spectre of the past creeps back and then there you are, prostrate again with burdens.  That's where I am now, trying to regain the freedom that I have hidden under the piles of junk in my life.  It's a progressive sort of freedom, perfect and being perfected all at once.  It's a work that was started that day when I begged God to keep my past at bay.  He has done so and now that He has strengthened me, it's time to face some of what has been hidden these many years and put it, finally and at last, to rest.  It's time to let go of my own petty hopes for vengeance, time to forgive and accept forgiveness and far beyond time to let go of my own poisonous anger.  All of these things and more have been narrowing my spaces until I am confined.  I want to be free of restrictions. 

It's only the beginning...but what a good place to start.