Things to Do at Three in the Morning

I remember  that there was this moment in the emergency room, sitting beside him, holding his shaking hand in mine, a little more than two weeks ago now, when I thought to myself-- just for a second, and not really even a formal thought-- that maybe I could handle him dying if I could just remember the last time I got really mad at him.

It was just a second.

And I realized that I have never been that mad at him.

Frustrated, irritated, hurt-- regular married-for-longer-than-twenty-minutes stuff-- but never enough of any of that to be okay with him being gone.

And so for two weeks, I've had trouble sleeping. Because what if his blood sugar drops too low in the night? What if I'm not awake to notice that his sleeping has gotten shallow or that his breathing is irregular? What if I'm not awake to notice that his coloring is all wrong or his hands are cold? What if...

I mean, while I'm at it, what if the front door is open? What if there's an earthquake? What if we get robbed? I am a superb player of the game of What If.

So, I have to work on not driving him crazy. I want to ask him all day long what his blood sugar is. Somehow, I have graduated from being an English Lit teacher to being a doctor. I have only a growing clue about the science of blood and sugar and carbohydrates and insulin, but I'm looking for his numbers to be between this and that, always haunted by stories of worst case scenarios.

So here's where I am learning: faith.

I've always kind of had this image in my mind of ever-increasing levels of understanding as we grow. I see it like this: life is a progression of rooms attached to each other by doorways. I see myself walking through each room, passing furniture and art and a big rug across the floor. As I walk through the room, some things are sharp and in focus, while other objects are fuzzy and darker. At the other side of the room, I put my hand on the door knob, open it, and pass into a room just like the one before...only this time, more of the objects come into focus. That grey box in the room before has become a file cabinet. The big brown thing in the corner is a lounge chair. And with each room, I see more and understand more.

I feel like two weeks ago I walked into a new room.

I walked into it as I sat by my husband's side in ICU and waited for his personality to come back. I knew I was in a new room because all the stuff I've ever done to cope up until now wasn't working. I felt like I was standing at a train station in Stockholm-- I kind of knew the direction I needed to travel in, and I sort of recognized some of the names, but I was depending on the kindness of strangers to help me work out the coins for the turnstile to get in.

There's a lot of silence in this new room. I think when I get scared I just hold myself very, very still as deeply as I can, and I wait for the danger to pass. I remember flying between Denver and Montrose, Colorado-- it was my first time flying and the plane was really small (a 12-seater). I was terrified. You could feel all the turbulence, every bump, the whole way. I was pretty much certain that I had just given my life back to the Lord in time to actually meet Him face to face. But there was this older lady next to me and she was so much more afraid than I was. I was twenty years old and really good at hiding my emotions, so I looked over at her and asked her how she was doing. She was about to cry. I reached across the narrow aisle and held her hand-- she had on grey mittens-- and asked her about her family. Talking to her and listening to her like I was bold took the sting out of my own fear.

But this time, I have been a mess.

I told a friend of mine, the day after we got home from the hospital, that if he had died, I wasn't certain that I wouldn't have just walked into traffic.

Where in the world did that come from?

The first night in ICU, before he was acting right again, I pulled out my ipad and just queued up a bunch of Bethel sermons and hit play. We both rested finally. In and out of sleep, I would wake up to hear Johnson's familiar voice speaking truth over us like a blanket, and I felt the closeness of the Lord and could feel Don's warm skin under my fingers, and I knew that the nurses knew what they were doing, and I could rest.

But as a big picture, outside the safety of the ICU, trusting Him with my husband is a whole new room. Trusting Him like this. When the fear is real, based on real things happening-- but here's what He is reminding me:

He has never changed.

He is the same God who sat with me in another room in that very same hospital-- on the literal other side of the elevators, on that same floor-- and held me when the unthinkable happened and I lost Ben all those almost ten years ago.

The room I'm in is different this time-- I can't compare the two situations at all-- but He has never changed. He is fully as faithful and trustworthy and full of help and hope as He was then. He is literally every bit as good and perfect as He was every moment of every one of those days He brought us through.

But I am different and the place He wants to take me is different. He has new things He wants to bring into focus for me and new mysteries about who He is that He wants to reveal.

This life on earth is 100% about Him. Everything else is extra. He is the beginning and the end. He is the assignment. This time here is on His mission. And He will never leave or forsake us. 

I've rambled here, but I want to encourage: if you are in a new place, in need of a new level of trust, do not despair!! Don't give up. And don't FORGET what you already know about how to cope with fear: worship. Somehow, in all of the enduring of those days in the hospital, I forgot that the key is worship. My friend messaged to remind me: "I'm sure you are doing this already, but I wanted to remind you to worship." How did I forget? How did I forget that lifting His name is the only way to get my eyes off the water? How did I forget that there is power in the name of Jesus? 

If you are in a new room, think of new wine skins and think of manna, new every day. The measure of faith I have walked in suddenly isn't enough. He's taking me to a deeper place. The milk that has satisfied my soul is not enough-- He is drawing me to the greater meat of His word. Ever increasing understanding of who He is is the only thing that will satisfy this new ache for understanding that is in my heart.

And there is PLENTY of that. 

So what do I do when fear grabs me by the throat at 3am? I'm headed for the rock of my salvation. I'm headed for His word. I'm headed for worship. No more getting pushed around by fear and powerlessness. 

God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7

Him

The poet doesn't tell you
That it's a husband.

Instead she tells you
That he's a porter,
Carrying in groceries
And furniture
And her dreams.

She tells you
that he cares for the flowers
And nurtures them
And waters them
And watches to make sure they
Don't get scorched
And they get rain
And wind
And pretty pots.

She doesn't tell you that
Sometimes she feels like
One of his flowers.

The poet doesn't tell you
that he's a husband.
Instead, she tells you
That he's a woodworker.
That he carves beauty
Out of planks of wood
And looks for
Imperfections
As marks of character
And distinction
And showcases them
And centers them
And prays as he works
That others will see
What he sees.

She doesn't tell you
That sometimes
She feels like
A plank of wood
in his hands.

The poet doesn't tell you
That he's a husband.

No, he's a storyteller
Who can pull the most
Interesting part of the story
From the rubble of details
And make you see
The meaning in just the
Best few words
And make you see the joy in
What someone else thought
Uninteresting.

She doesn't tell you
That sometimes
she feels like a story he is telling,
And that he sees all
The best parts
And understands the
Importance of the worst ones
And he weaves her together
Into a riddle that
Finally makes sense.

The poet doesn't tell you
That he is strong
And kind
And that
She's been blossoming
Under his care
For these many years.

She just lives it
With him.

El Roi: The God Who Sees Me

So he sleeps finally. I reach over and wake him bc I can't hear him hiccuping, which means I can't hear him breathing. He's always been a quiet sleeper but tonight I need him to snore, to make a sound, something so I can hear the breath in his lungs.

There's no one to call in times like these. You could call, text, message a thousand people, but no one has what you need: the solution. No one has the perfect mixture of words, the just-so inflections, the right tone. There is not one person on earth-- not my mother, not the doctor, not a friend, who I can call to lift this burden sitting on my chest.

Only You. And I can't hear You over the desperate flapping of my wings.

But I know you are El Roi-- the One who sees me.

I drove around crying this morning. I need a word from you. A sign that you see me, hear us. That you haven't forgotten that you assigned us to this outpost. That we haven't been abandoned out here. That you see that Don can't breathe because of these hiccups. That you hear our cries for relief.

What is the perfect prayer? The right combination of words, the correct tone, the magical compilation of things to get You to hear me? My theology tells me that this isn't about sin, but then I think...is there some uncontested thing causing an infection way deep down and this spark of rot is what is hurting him? I'll repent of anything. We work to stay current before the Lord, but have we missed something? The other night, he told me that he lay awake and confessed every single thing he had ever done wrong as he struggled to stop the constant spasms of his diaphragm.

We both know that this isn't how it works, but when you don't know where or why something came, you're left with vain imaginations. Battle.

So I know I probably won't sleep tonight. I'll sit here and listen for him to take the next breath past the hiccup. Tomorrow I can sleep, when he has the medicine that might help stop this, but whose reputation is sketchy. I can sleep while he sits up, trying to maintain this amazing attitude he has. Being nice even when he feels terrible. Not crying even though I know he wants to.

Oh God, won't you hear our cry?

So here is where I rest: His word.

But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who long for your saving help always say, "The LORD is great!" But as for me, I am poor and needy; come quickly to me, O God. You are my help and my deliverer; LORD, do not delay.
Psalm 70

I sought the Lord, and He answered me and delivered me from all of my fears. Psalm 34

In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help. From His temple He heard my voice and my cry to Him reached His ears.
Psalm 18

When I am afraid, I put my trust in You. Psalm 56:3

God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and love and a sound mind.
2 Timothy 1

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;
Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.
There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.
God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early.


Psalm 46

Lord, You have never failed us yet. I thank you in advance for the healing that is on its way.

And I know you hear. You are El Roi, the God who sees me.

Everyday Champions

Here is what I tell them:

When you have walked a difficult way, you gain an authority that belies your youth. If you are sixteen years old and you know what it means to resist constant fear, abuse, negativity, and the seemingly constant pronouncement of failure over your world, you have authority to speak. Every time you look at yourself in the mirror and choose to live again, you gain authority. When you have walked a difficult way, you learn secrets. You learn where to walk on the path. You learn where the safe places are; you learn how to recover when you slip; you learn how to light a flare and hold it high above your head as a beacon of hope for others; you learn where the places to rest are-- and the people who need to know will recognize the light in you and begin to seek you out. You.

You might not have fancy words. You might not have profound sayings. But there is a quiet confidence that comes with survival.

You. The champion who saw the beautiful battle, bella...bellum, and stepped into the campos to be the campio. They will sit and listen and watch.

So now I see a room full of champions.

They are writing. Some of them never write, but today when I asked them to tell me about the champion living inside of them, they began to write. When I told them not to worry about their spelling or grammar (shock! horror!), they hunched over and held their pencils awkwardly and began to write. They squirmed and twisted their bodies around as they leaned their skinny, growing torsos across their notebooks to protect their privacy, and they wrote.

They are writing because they hear the sound of their own drumbeat in their own veins. Their struggle, their personal war, is violent and private and they are covered with bruises and scars from frostbite and sunburn and they're winded, but daily they return to the field of play. The field of battle. 

How do I help them to believe it?

How do I help them grow in strength, tenacity, and grit? Oh, God, how do I teach them to not give up?

And in the stillness, while they are at work untangling the strings attached to each of their thoughts, I hear with clarity from the One who has taken up residence in my soul: Live it out before them. Light the flares. Listen to their stories. Show them the snares in the path. Be their champion. 

So I tell them:

Keep writing.

Words Matter

If you know me, you know that the open dictionary in front of me means that I’m in heaven.

There’s this thing about words…

I imagine myself, O-Captain-ing in front of a group of mesmerized young scholars, waxing eloquent in a completely non-ironic way about the importance of words. It’s a great speech.

“Words matter, kids.”
They nod appreciatively. Some lean forward in their seats. But there’s that one kid— you know, the tough one who has to be convinced, but at the end of our story he has learned a tough lesson and dedicates all of his novels and screenplays to me as an adult. Oh, and there’s always an homage to me buried somewhere in every book or film. Whole graduate level film classes write papers about this mysterious unlocker of the key to words. I become an archetype that upends that stiff from Dead Poets Society.

But I digress.

Words.

When crafting a lecture (don’t worry, old schoolers— some of us still lecture!), I talk to myself a lot. Silently, I think about what I want to say and I’ll sort of pretend that I’m arguing about it— because that’s sort of how I’ve always been. Man, ask my parents and many of my early mentors. Some of you can relate. Anyway, in my mind there’s always a voice that wants to challenge the point that I am making, so I will argue back and forth with that voice.

Words matter!

No they don’t! You’re just saying that because you’re an English teacher.

I mean, fair point that this is my trade, but they do matter.

Prove it.

If I were to tell you to shut up —[I imagine that the whole class erupts about that time that one teacher at Davis or Lorraine or Pine Street told the whole class to shut up]— why would you be so mad?

Because it’s rude! My momma spanked me when I said that when I was little (good for her!). Because if we can’t say it, y’all can’t say it.

[At this point, I would probably teach them that old playground saying: Shut don’t go up, prices do. Take my advice and shut up, too. It would kill.]

Let’s talk about what it means. [I go to the white board— are you still with me?— and write the phrase across it: SHUT UP.]

Break it down.

What does “shut” mean? Why do we add “up” to the ends of some imperative sentences?

After a little while of doing this, we decide that maybe it isn’t the words we use so much as it is the connotation of the words we use. If I tell you to shut the window because it’s raining, you probably won’t be offended. If I tell you to shut your stupid mouth because you’re getting on my nerves, I’m probably doing to hear from your mom later.

Ah, there’s another word: stupid. This is a good one. I might have them look it up in the dictionary— the actual, real dictionary on their desk. We’ll talk about the Latin and what the word really means and how it came to be something insulting when it came from a word having to do with being stupefied— having been stunned or shock by something as in pain or grief.

You can see how a room of 28 scholars could have some very interesting conversations around just a couple of words.

Words matter, and now I’ve proven that I can make you call your mom over calling you “stupid” even though this afternoon I will walk behind you and your friends and hear you casually use some of the worst language ever and no one will think one thing about it.

Which leads to another point: who you are matters. Words used by one person might not have the same impact used by someone else. If your teacher or your mom tells you that you’re stupid, it might have the power to injure you in a way that one of your peers might not have. Maybe.

And the same can be true with the impact of positive words.

If I tell you that you are beautiful, will it matter to you?

Words matter.

In August of 1993, my friend Lynnelle was one of the teachers the Lord sent into my life to help me through the ridiculousness that was my early 20’s. Sitting over tea, she took me to 2nd Corinthians 2:14

But thanks be to God who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him.

Triumphal procession.

What do you think of when you read or hear those words? I’ll tell you what I thought of immediately— the ticker tape parade that was thrown for the Braves right after they won the World Series. I think of victorious gladiators. I think of a newly crowned king or queen. I think of the softball team at our high school and the send-off we give them every year when they load up the buses to head to the state championship game— the students line the side walk as the girls lean out of the windows and wave, everyone yelling wildly, the police escort running blue lights in front of the buses and after.

Who proceeds in triumph? Champions. People who are on their way to becoming champions. Heroes. Victors. Contenders.

Take a moment to think about that.

Paul, who was an evangelist who saw some serious difficulty in the mission field, praised God for always leading him in triumph. He was in a lifelong parade of triumph, “spreading everywhere the aroma of Christ”!

The triumph here is over death and damnation. It’s over despair and depression and worthlessness. He is talking about the triumph of Christ over the grave. Victory. Jesus Christ, the champion— the fighter who has overcome all battles. And I follow Him, blanketed in the folds of His robes, part of the train, as both the conquered and the conquering— one of His champions in this life. Overcoming because of the power of His Spirit in and on my life.

When I began to picture myself as one walking in triumphal procession, way back in my 20’s, something in me changed forever. I’m one of those people who believes we were all created for glory— some of us will say yes and some of us will not, but we were all created to walk in triumph. Sadly, I think the church has misrepresented much of what it means to know the Creator of the Universe, but that’s not a conversation for this place— anyway, we were made for glory. To grow in our understanding of who He is and who we were created to be every single day until the last time we close our eyes on this gorgeous blue planet and open them in the face of the Artist responsible for all of this beauty.

I believe that His intention has always been that we walk around in triumph, even when things seem dark. I believe that He has created a planet full of champions, and some of us know and some of us don’t.

I believe some of us have believed the lies of some words and have hung them over the doorways to our hearts, have adopted them: loser, sick, stupid, failure, alone, greedy, insecure, ugly, etc. We sit on the sidelines and watch the parade going by, sometimes even resenting the joy we see in others.

Words matter. This year, I want to understand more of what it means to be a champion, and also what it means to champion others. I want to understand what it means to use words as a weapon against what attacks and oppresses us.

Let’s go forth and conquer, champions.