journal, journal...

i've been told/that there are those/who will learn how to fly/and i've been told that there are those/who will never die/and i've been told that there are stars/ that will never lose their shine/ and that there is a morning star /who knows my mind/so why should i worry? why should i fret?/ cause i've got a mansion builder /who ain't through with me yet /why should i worry? why should i fret?/ cause i've got a mansion builder /who ain't through with me yet/ and i've been told /that there's a crystal lake in the sky/ and every tear from my eyes /are saved when i cry/ and i've been told there'll come a time/ when the sun will cease to shine/ and that there is a morning star /who knows my mind /so why should i worry? why should i fret?/ cause i've got a mansion builder who ain't through with me yet.. 2nd Chapter of Acts (band)

permit me to write without capitalizing today-- and forgive me-- lately, all of my blog entries seem to read like journal entries :)

sometimes i wish i could teach my students how to live without worry, and then i remind my heart that i need to learn this lesson as well. sometimes i wish that i could just tell them, children, it's all going to be okay. these "light and momentary troubles" you wrestle with in the hallways of your future dreams...they're nothing. they're just nothing.

but when you're fourteen, the hallway is anything but nothing.

do you know that some of them live in abject horror of transitions between classes? and i can tell you that the freshman hallways of our school are packed tight and they look like salmon fighting to get upstream from my desk inside the classroom, and i guess that's exactly what they are right now. fighting to get to safety, to the next level, to mating season, to open water... they are fighting to matter. they are fighting to be heard. they are fighting for a smile or a nod or a laugh or just to be looked at for goodness' sake... sometimes i think they'll do anything to be looked at.

i want to tell them, he's looking at you kiddo. he sees you. he sees me, i know it, and you're in the same room with me, so i know he sees you, too.

sometimes it feels like,

he sees me, kiddo. he sees me. he sees me, i know it, because you're in the room with me and his word says that you have angels watching over you, so i know he sees me, too, because i'm here with you...

i miss my son. and i'm ready to look at the possibility of another child. and i feel so good about being in that place, and i feel so on the very verge of panic over it because already my memories of the days in the hospital are fuzzy (um, the morphine haze didn't hurt in that department...). i feel like i'm looking through the bottom of a heavy green glass goblet when i look at those days in my memory. wavy. i see elizabeth, my midwife and dear friend, and i see dr. c, a precious and good man who will deliver my next child via c-section, and i see my husband holding my son and telling God that we will serve him and i think,

yes, i can do this again. i can.

but i want to build an altar. i want to create some testament to ben's life. the drowsy artist in me wants to build and i am thinking things over in my mind and heart. what to do, what to make....

and i want to do it now, while his loss is still in its infancy.

and i need to do it, because already i can tell that my wound, bruised and scarring, is still painful for others, too, in a different way, and it's easier on them if i don't talk about it. so i hold him, not forgotten, in my heart and i know that this child will never not have lived. his entire life was entertwined with mine, part of my bloodstream, held and cradled and nourished by me and the scar across my tummy is a memorial that i love-- his mark. he was here. he was there. he came forth and went ahead of me. he beat me to eternity but he was here.

but...oh, how can i explain it? the loss sometimes feels so lonely. like a spanish guitar, intense and intricate, filled with long silences, followed by complicated runs of notes and notes and notes.... my husband mourns with me, as do friends and family, but the scar stretches across my body and i think of him morning, noon, and night.

always thinking of you, dear baby ben.

so it's hard to describe the deep hope that i feel being born again in me. the sense that, while everything is changed for me-- even the way the light looks against the trees after a storm is not the same--something new is pushing forth. it's hard to describe the newly twinned nature of my heart: i'm both sad and serene. the part of me that had never known loss, was the uncolored page in the coloring book that was my heart, is colored with red and flesh and strawberry blonde hair, while the old me is waking up again. i am both old and new. i am here and there.

sometimes i leave.
sometimes i'm not in my eyes. sometimes i leave and i sigh. sometimes this blank heaviness is too much and i am sitting with you and then i am not. sometimes it is like this. sometimes i sink into remembrance that looks like forgetfulness to you and i am grateful when you let me go... i will remember myself again and come back again, but i'm always both here and there. lately i'm more here than there, but i guess i'm always both places anymore...

i wonder if anyone else sees it. that i'm older and different. don and i have done this together-- i think it's hard for us to see the changes sometimes. we had such a good relationship before-- i had no idea how powerfully tragedy would strengthen us.

i love him in a way and to a depth that i did not know what possible. i need him. i am so grateful for him.

and God?

this relationship is so complicated.

here is one thing i know:

in the beginning i never knew/just how much i really needed you/more than a friend/someone i could talk to/ you've changed me in so many ways/nobody knows me like you/ you put your arms around me and bring me through/there's many times i don't know what to do/ though some know me well /still nobody knows me like you/all of my secrets to you i tell/you saw each time that i slipped and fell/all of my faults, yes you know them well/but you've never turned me away, no no no/nobody knows me like you... walking in your presence is where i wanna be/ you said in you word/ you said you would lead me /yes i love you, oh i really love you/ i'll go anywhere as long as i know that you'll be there.... all of those nights that i was afraid/ i stood on the promises that you have made/ the way that i act sometimes i am ashamed/but you never turned me away, no no no... nobody knows me like you... (benny hester)

sometimes i think, you know, if i can still love -- me, a woman whose righteousness is as dirty rags-- if i can still love him after all of this... how much better than me, how much higher than me, is he? if MY puny love can survive this heartache that everything inside of me insists he could have STOPPED, then how much deeper and more trustworthy is HIS goodness? how much more amazing and trustworthy is His love if my flaky self can still follow?

friends, our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness. it's all him.

friday night...light

had an amazing weekend.

it was good, too, to get out of the house. i've been really hesitant about going out in large groups-- i don't know if that's part of the grief process or not, but i've just felt overwhelmed at the thought of being in a gigantic group, but my friends miki and elizabeth organized a three-ring-very-southern-circus and i simply could not resist.

we began the night at the whistle post in historic old town conyers, eating frikkles, drinking sweet drinks and watching for the rockdale citizen/teacher paparazzi to come take pictures of all of us drinking fizzy drinks and printing mug shots for the whole town to see :). we laughed our heads off and i think multiple conversations were begun and left unfinished and it was just fine. i love parties like that-- happy madness.

from there, we walked over to the new depot to see steel magnolias, directed by one of my favorite friends in the universe, jay tryall.

it was fantastic.

besides laughing my head off at miki, who was in rare stand-up-comic form (i've known miki my entire life-- literally since i can remember knowing any human-- and there is still noone alive who can make me laugh like she can), the play was incredible. i can't say enough about the entire cast, but cyndi evans was hysterical as ouiser boudreaux. i have to find her and introduce myself to her at church next week. i almost want to ask her for her autograph. i love how she just threw her entire self into the role and i can't imagine how that must feel for an actor. i wonder if its anything like singing can be sometimes-- when you just so totally mean it. you close your eyes and open your lungs and go for it and ... freedom. i wonder sometimes if that's what acting feels like for people who are really good at it.

and to top the entire night off, the weather in georgia was perfect. breezy, not too humid, almost cool (what! imagine that in august!).... lovely.



there was this moment, right after the play, when it occurred to me that life could be normal again and was normal right that minute. we were all posing in front of the stage that jay had meticulously put together and jay -- the director who was being interviewed by the paper but who graciously stopped to take our picture-- goes, "okay, say 'shelby'" and we laughed and said it and my heart was full...


full for these women, only a few of whom i really even knew, for being a safe first-outing since the death of my son. full for the midwife who has been my friend for 20 plus years, who has literally seen me inside and out and who was in the room for the nightmare and who was two feet away from me, normal as grass. full for miki, who i've always loved and laughed with, who shared my childhood and is as much a sister as any blood sister could be and who i still want when bad things happen. full for caroline, my sweet compatriot and co-conspirator and who can be trusted with any secret. full for karen who didn't come to the play and who ordered two salads because she is karen :). full for val, who is kind and spunky. full for the clever, funny women all around that stage. full with affection for the sweet mother of a former precious student (i see where kelsey gets it from now, that sweet kid). full, knowing that each of those women has been touched with her own sorrows, but that each of them put on lipstick and packed their purses with steel magnolias memorabilia per miki's command and we laughed and laughed... full because i have wept with jay and no one in the room knew but jay and me. i have also laughed with him til i thought i would choke.

so many stories in that room.

we are surrounded, all of us, with jars of clay, holding precious treasures of pain in our hearts. we bump into each other, jostling each other and helping to catch the falling burdens, without even knowing it.

i loved a lot of people friday night.

it was good.

Sigh.

I want, I want, I want, I want...

Sigh.

It's okay.

Finding lately that "I want" is coupled with "I hope," and that, dear friends, is a good thing.

So much love-- thanks to all of you for continued emails, calls, facebook comments... what a sweet, weird little community :)

Good Lord...

Oh, I'm tired. But glad. Sad, but today the sadness doesn't go from front to back. It's light-- it's so weird.

There is no end to what I am learning this season. And it's so hard to put it down in words, but I am compelled to do it.

So often, I wonder if I'm feeling the "right" thing: on days when I go hours without thinking about my son, I wonder if that's okay-- if I'm alright, if I'm in denial, if it's too soon to sort of be... okay... again. On days that I come home and collapse on the bed, angry and irritable and exhausted and pissed off with sadness, I wonder if I'm like a wound that has healed wrong, with infected tunneling and cavities and pockets of disease, needing to be broken open, cleaned out and set right again.

Sometimes I feel like the only thing that will make it all feel better is thrashing around on the bed and holding tight to this little teddy bear my friends sent me while I was still in the hospital. I wonder if the pain is too much, to be this many weeks out from his loss. He would be three and a half months, I think, and double over with a new wave of pain.

And I'll tell you the truth: my God is good. And patient. Because the anger that seemed to stay so at bay before has come knocking with a big, arthritic fist, pounding against my heart. And in my mind, my Father sits beside me on the bed, while I groan with weeping because I have run out of words, and am tired of saying the same ones, and He loves me.

Here is my heart's cry: He is good. Oh friend, everything can fall away and break to pieces on the floor, but call every man a murderer and a liar and evil, and God alone is good. I do not understand this thing-- and it's NOTHING compared to losses others have sustained, but here is the message I am getting from him, through the darkness that would overwhelm my heart and mind:

He alone is good. He alone is holy. His love does not waver when our faith does. He loves he loves he loves he loves he loves. Even when He is quiet, he grieves with me. I know it. I know it-- and that is just His spirit in me. The very fact that I can know that He loves me, even after this and in the face of what the world would tell me is evidence to the contrary, I KNOW that my redeemer a) lives and b) loves me.

So here is my challenge to us: Can we love Him back, in this fallen and sometimes cruel world? Oh God, here is my ugly, under-construction prayer-- that I will offer all of this pain to you, new waves of it daily, and tell you that I will love you and I will look for your goodness and I will not listen to the enemy of my soul. I will not go down the path that leads me toward blame and anger toward you. I will not shake my fist at you.

Only hold me, Lord. Oh, God, that you would make yourself felt in a way that we have never felt you before. What I had of you before is not enough for today. Let the world accuse you of being unjust-- as for me and my house, we will serve you. Only hold me and let me hear you and feel you in a way that I have never experienced. New depth, new truth. Do something new, Lord, and make yourself the center of my attention. Not my loss. Not my sadness. I give it all to you. Only hold me.

Be glorified in all of this mess. Pull my heart up out of this valley of death. Only you are good and worthy of being praised. I command my heart, worship Him.

Let us tell our souls, Bless the Lord. Let us command our hearts, Look at Him and wonder at his goodness. Let us set our eyes on the things above.

Ah, Sabbath.

Go here to hear some powerful worship music. The musician is one of my best and oldest friends. This man is living what he's singing. Kenny and I have been there and back together and I am so blessed to be listening to Him worship our God... Kenny Peavy

First days

School has begun!

And it's weird. And good.

Freshmen are strange little people-- already at an incredibly awkward age, add this huge transition and they're even funnier.

I'm sleepy so I won't write too much, but I wanted to tell you about telling the kids about Ben.

I did exactly as I planned-- during introductions, I told them that I wanted to tell them something sad, but something that was important (I should add that this portion of class was very short. We only talked about Ben for a couple of minutes-- no more than one or two). I waited until the very end of my introduction-- I told them happy things and then told them this one very sad thing. Their responses have been so interesting. For one thing, I feel pretty certain that many of them already knew (b/c of having older siblings). That was nice, honestly. They were looking at me with such tenderness and sympathy as I was talking to them, before I told them what happened.

For the rest of them, their first response is mild shock-- a collective gasp and then the precious young teenager "Awww...." I don't know if you know any teenagers, but I've heard this expression of sympathy before-- there is a thing inside teenagers that somehow honestly feels for people. It doesn't show up all the time or in all situations, but when it does, it's uniquely...heavy. Beautifully heavy.

I asked them if they had any questions. Several shared that their moms had lost babies, either in childbirth or during pregnancy. Others shared that they had lost siblings or cousins to accidents or sickness. It was honestly one of the most fascinating "get to know you" first days I have ever experienced. It was not sad or depressing, but it was very real. I think they wondered about the fact that I did not cry as I shared with them (though I almost did yesterday). A couple asked me if this was my first baby and if I wanted to have more.

I loved how real their questions were, and how respectful. These children do not know me, and I do not know them yet, but they blessed me.

And while I have them to thank for that, somehow everything inside me only wants to praise Jesus.

Sunday

We went to church with Don's folks today. It was fantastic. The worship...oh my gosh. It reminded me so much of Eastwood Baptist, back in the early 80's. It was anointed and I wept while I sang-- I have needed a worship time like that in such a bad way. Maybe it's because we were in a different place than normal. Maybe it's because the room was dark and the music was loud and the congregation entered in as a whole (none of this is a commentary on my own church-- I love LOVE my church-- but rather on this blessing the Lord gave us this weekend). I was able to throw my head back and just sing.

And they did Desert Song. That is the song that has brought me such comfort and so many tears all of these weeks. I couldn't believe it. It was the first time I've sung it with other people-- usually I'm in the car or in my classroom with it blasting.

If you live in the Athens, Georgia, area you should check it out: Grace Fellowship.

The Lord is so kind. I've been so hurt...just hurting with Him. Feeling like, okay, there is the pain of this loss, but then also, Lord? Do you love me? My mind always seems to go there first-- I wonder about His love for me. Not His existence (though that has occurred to me, too, but fleetingly-- I know He's real). I don't wonder about His goodness or His love for you or for China. I wonder about how incredibly unloveable I must be.

Oh, self-pity, thy name is SAMANTHA.

And just when I want to completely go under, to totally drown in a pool of total, devastating self-pity, He brings me into a church where the worship is exactly my style. Exactly what I needed. To close my eyes and tell Him, "YOU ARE GOOD. Your lovingkindness is everlasting!"

And then, on Saturday, a book comes in the mail. My friend, and one of my favorite leaders and mentors in YWAM, Paul Hawkins, sent me a little book written by his wife, Peggy. She has suffered from crippling, mind-numbing pain for the last 30+ years-- the kind of pain that makes you shake your head.... It's called "Though He Slay Me" and it was and is the word of the Lord for me. Peggy addresses questions that my heart has been struggling with: If You're good and You love me, then why this unfathomable pain? I want to write more about what she's written and I will after I finish reading the book.

God is so good. And He is paying attention.