When it hurts
This is for my boys. Not for right now, so Trey and Aden, if you are reading this and you're still shorter than I am, please skip it and save it for another time. Please.
But please, do come back and read it when you're older.
This gut-wrenching post has taken me weeks to write after months of it swirling around in my head. It will be too long, too personal, and not nearly as positive as I like to keep the blog content.
(Dear few readers, if you're not up for a marathon or some sad recaps, there will be lighter posts to come soon.)
Somewhere over the last eight years, this blog became how I remember everything. It's a wonderful thing, an active and ongoing scrapbook of you boys' lives, the place where I try hard to record our favorite memories, important milestones, and life moments that shouldn't be allowed to slip away.
And while I hope and pray that you will remember the good, it seems you should also know that not everything was good all the time. As much as Daddy and I are doing our best to try and shield you boys from grown-up pain right now, as you get older I don't want you to have some illusion that our lives were perfect and that nothing bad ever happened. Because it did.
We cannot forget God's blessings, because the honest truth is that we are blessed beyond measure. Trey and Aden, the two of you bring so much joy and life and laughter and growth to every day, and it is some kind of special that on top of graciously providing every need we could ever have, God would also choose to trust us with you. What we have together is so very, very good.
Still, even amid all the blessings, sometimes life hurts.
I wrote a year-end post for 2014 chronicling what had really been a happy year for us. One of the last lines I wrote was about knowing that anything could change in the blink of an eye. A passing comment that became prophesy.
It has been a rough year for us in many, many ways. So much has happened to shake us and our faith. And as therapeutic as it would be to just keep moving forward and try to forget all the bad, Trey and Aden, you need to know that amid all the fun and adventures and milestones, Daddy and I have walked in deep valleys.
This is my prayer in the desert
When all that's within me feels dry
This is my prayer in my hunger and need
My God is the God Who provides
The start of the year was relatively quiet. Financial challenges, mainly. Daddy's car had some trouble. Had to redo part of our plumbing after finding a leak in the basement. Heat stopped working and we replaced a pretty expensive part to get it working again. Water heater gave up the ghost. Those kinds of things. Very minor, and God has made sure all year long, through the perfectly-timed generosity of our loved ones, that we have always been provided for.
In early May, all of a sudden one day, Aden lost the ability to walk. You tried, but the pain you felt in your right knee reduced you to heartbreaking sobs. The thing is, you are tough as nails. So we know when you react to pain, it is serious business. We took you to the ER, having no idea what could possibly be wrong but hoping against hope it was something like a pulled muscle.
Until the nurses took your blood to test for childhood RA and leukemia. And the next few hours were spent silently praying and fighting back tears, wondering if life would ever be the same. What if you never walked again? What if a disease took you from us? Oh, child, sometimes it's hard to breathe when you're a Mama.
Praise the Lord, all the tests came back negative and X-rays were fine. Still not totally sure what happened, but what joy followed when you were healed.
Then in early June, my phone rang while at work and Daddy informed me that Trey was having a food allergy reaction. He retraced your steps through the morning to try and figure out why, then said what I have dreaded hearing since you were an infant. "He drank milk." By mistake, you had been given chocolate milk instead of chocolate soymilk.
All your reactions before have been from processed milk products. The only time you have been directly exposed to milk itself was during the challenge at the hospital, when a drop caused you to break out and swell up like a balloon. And so I thought, this is it. If you actually drank milk in any significant amount, I was sure it would kill you.
The ambulance was called, and I waited at work, crying and praying for you in my cubicle as hard as I could for an hour. When the wait became too much, I drove the three miles to the hospital and stood outside the ER, eyes peeled for the ambulance. Oh, child, sometimes it's hard to breathe when you're a Mama.
Praise the Lord, you had only drank a sip and it never did swell your throat or stop your breathing.
Having to imagine life without you guys is an awful, awful thing. How thankful I am for your health and for God's constant vigil over you.
This is my prayer in the fire
In weakness or trial or pain
There is a faith proved of more worth than gold
So refine me Lord through the flame
Emergencies behind us, I suppose the next blow was our government's decision to move our country further from God's will than probably it ever has been before. It felt like a betrayal. And the unrest and division that followed completely changed my mindset. I guess I have always taken "American" for granted, never once thinking that in my lifetime I may have to choose between "American" and "Christian".
Began 2015 with long-term ideas of living out life in our little house in the middle of nowhere and someday helping to take care of my grandchildren. And now, who knows. Persecution is a very real possibility in my lifetime, which makes it a probability for yours. I'm sorry, boys, for the state of this world and what my generation has done to it.
This is way too morbid, but I want you guys to know that if the situation should ever come up where I have to choose between life without Christ and death with Him, I will choose Jesus. As I hope you would. Stand firm, boys.
Anyhow, the news was unsettling. For the first time ever, I had absolutely no desire to try and see fireworks on Independence Day. Certainly didn't feel like celebrating. Which would become the theme of our year.
But at the same time, and no matter what the world looks like when you all are older, we know that God is still in control. Always in control. He has not left His throne.
I will bring praise, I will bring praise
No weapon formed against me shall remain
I will rejoice, I will declare
God is my victory and He is here
When 2015 began, Giga and Poppop started talking with us about another vacation to Florida for the summer. While our finances weren't in great shape even for what little that would have cost us, every time it came up something inside of me said, "Don't go." Not knowing exactly why, I obeyed the voice. So Giga and Poppop took you boys to Florida late in July, while Daddy and I stayed home.
There was reason behind the "don't go". The voice was God's.
Sunday night, July 26, one of Daddy's basketball players, Chase Mullins, died in a tragic accident.
Death is hard, period. But when it is unexpected, especially in someone so young and full of life, the suffocating grief gets intermingled with questions of why and how it could have been prevented and how on earth can his family and friends ever move on from this.
The days that followed were a blur. Chase's mom and dad made Daddy their spokesperson for the TV stations and newspapers, and God gave him the strength to speak memories of Chase over and over, and to ask for prayers for the family.
We dreaded telling you guys when you returned, because Chase had been your buddy, horsing around with you at open gyms. I'm not sure you really understood what we told you, maybe because it was the first time either of you had ever seen your Daddy cry.
Daddy spoke at the funeral, in front of hundreds of people and probably our entire community. It was beautiful and excruciatingly painful. And especially hard on Daddy, who, even despite his occasional outbursts of grief, had to bury much of it in order to be strong for Chase's family and his precious basketball team, who had lost a lifelong friend.
Time did not ease the grief, and in mid-August, Daddy became very depressed and started having anxiety attacks. He did his best to keep going and live as normal for a while, but it eventually sucked the life out of him. I had to be very hard on you guys during this time to keep quiet in the house, for you not to argue with each other or bother Daddy with anything.
I was more a single parent during this time than during basketball seasons. Didn't know how to help Daddy or what could make him better. Worried that he might not be able to pull through, would lose his job or not be with us anymore. Looked around at our home and everything in it, and wondered if we would be able to keep it.
I questioned everything.
Praise the Lord for a good Christian doctor, who helped to counsel Daddy a bit and then put him on medicine. Daddy did eventually come back to us.
This is my prayer in the battle
When triumph is still on its way
I am a conqueror and co-heir with Christ
So firm on His promise I'll stand
One month to the day of Chase's death, early that morning my phone buzzed with activity. There had been a shooting near our community, two innocent young lives taken without reason in appalling fashion. Your school was on lockdown. The violence so prevalent in our country and world had found us, and struck at a place dear to our hearts. Somewhere I had spent many weekends growing up, somewhere I have taken you countless times. Somewhere the three of us had been a few days earlier.
A manhunt followed, with many of our church and friends and community praying for justice, for comfort for the families, for safety of everyone nearby, including you guys. I so badly wanted to pull you from school, just to know you were safe with me, but I couldn't. The manhunt didn't last long. The lockdowns were lifted, and life returned to normal.
Except it didn't. Never in my entire life will I forget driving across the bridge that afternoon headed to church. On one side of the road, caution tape and ambulances and fire trucks and police cars, lights flashing and officers everywhere. On the other side, news trucks and cameras and satellite dishes piled up in parking lots. The horror of human sin and the ugliness of human sensationalism. I drove through slowly and couldn't stop the tears from falling. How dare it come here.
I'll admit to you, boys, that this and what happened to Chase took a toll on my faith. It was senseless, and in the little box I had put God in all the years of my life, stuff like this shouldn't happen. The box was shattered, and though I knew God's role in my life and blessings, I realized that what I thought I knew about Him was wrong.
For a little while, it drove me away from Him. Honestly, I was pouting that God didn't conform to my expectations. As if He should have.
Boys, please know that God does not cause these things to happen. Death and suffering and grief are a result of humanity's choosing their own way over God's. But God, in His grace, always puts purpose into pain. We are so thankful that Chase had accepted Jesus as his Savior. And God has indeed used a horrendous situation to bring trust, strength, and even salvation to those who loved Chase. As for our community, we together realized how strong we are and that there is tremendous power in unity and kindness.
While I did see the good coming out of the mire, the jaded feeling did not leave me. Too distant from God to appreciate Him working.
All of my life
In every season
You are still God
I have a reason to sing
I have a reason to worship
And then came what took every drop of air from my lungs, a situation that I won't describe, but when you're old enough, you'll know. When it came, I was home on the couch in the midst of a bout with strep throat, already feeling awful.
The news came, a panic attack seized me, and, tears streaming down my cheeks, I croaked to the God I had pulled myself away from, "I don't know what to do."
"Praise Me," He said, as clear as if He was sitting right beside me. He was.
And so I sobbed out praises to God, coughing and rasping and crying until I threw up, and then there I sat, head hanging over the toilet, worshipping the Lord until my voice gave up altogether, because it was all I knew to do. Because at my lowest point, He is still God.
In an instant, my world turned completely upside down. God picked me up from the distance I had created and He set me on His lap. Boys, it is impossible to describe the love and peace that God gives until you tumble into that deep valley.
At this point, Daddy was still having issues with his anxiety, and so I knew I had to carry the burden myself. The Lord has kept me in constant contact with Him since then, covering me in peace like a blanket. Unexplainable peace. Ten days later, Daddy well into his medicine and a little more stable, I told him the news. And like a husband and wife should, we carried it together.
I will bring praise, I will bring praise
No weapon formed against me shall remain
I will rejoice, I will declare
God is my victory and He is here
The situation has not improved as of now, except that the grownups around you all have had to learn to balance moments of grief with everyday life. None of us knows what the future holds or how or when we will open this up to you, but I pray that when we do, you might be able to understand. Sometimes it seems there are no right answers. Daddy and I are doing the best we know how.
Then came the problems at church, severely affecting some of our dearest friends. We also tried to shield you from those, which wasn't easy. Aden, you are pretty observant for such an active little guy. Walking around church one day, you said, "Something is just not right around here. Everyone is sad."
Sad is a good way to describe it. Sadness, shock, and grief are part of what we will remember from this year.
But the biggest thing we will remember, and something we pray every day that you will embrace for your lives, is that God is faithful. No matter what. There is not a moment I can look back on that God was not right by my side. For both Daddy and me, our faith has grown this year in ways it never could have if it went into the books as another happy year.
Don't get me wrong, we still have happiness and joy. Because of God's blessing, and because of the two of you. Trey and Aden, you have no idea what you mean to Daddy and me. And your grandparents. There have been times, in the toughest of circumstances, where you all have been what kept us going. Please, never doubt how very much you are loved.
And please know this. God is real. Life is worthless without Him. Because trials will come. They just will. God's presence, His peace and strength and hope, are priceless treasures. He loves you even more than I do, gave His Son Jesus Christ to take the punishment that should have been yours, and invites you to eternal, undeserved reward with Him in Heaven someday. Where I'll be waiting for both of you.
Boys, we are shaken. But not broken. And we will live and laugh and cry and love and fight through this life with its ups and downs, no matter what. I want you to know that sometimes life is hard. And it isn't fair. Sometimes it hurts so badly that you don't think you'll be able to take the next breath. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. And give you your next breath, and the one after that.
God is faithful.
This is my prayer in the harvest
When favor and providence flow
I know I'm filled to be emptied again
The seed I've received I will sow
I love you so much, Trey and Aden. Beyond measure.
Mama
But please, do come back and read it when you're older.
This gut-wrenching post has taken me weeks to write after months of it swirling around in my head. It will be too long, too personal, and not nearly as positive as I like to keep the blog content.
(Dear few readers, if you're not up for a marathon or some sad recaps, there will be lighter posts to come soon.)
Somewhere over the last eight years, this blog became how I remember everything. It's a wonderful thing, an active and ongoing scrapbook of you boys' lives, the place where I try hard to record our favorite memories, important milestones, and life moments that shouldn't be allowed to slip away.
And while I hope and pray that you will remember the good, it seems you should also know that not everything was good all the time. As much as Daddy and I are doing our best to try and shield you boys from grown-up pain right now, as you get older I don't want you to have some illusion that our lives were perfect and that nothing bad ever happened. Because it did.
We cannot forget God's blessings, because the honest truth is that we are blessed beyond measure. Trey and Aden, the two of you bring so much joy and life and laughter and growth to every day, and it is some kind of special that on top of graciously providing every need we could ever have, God would also choose to trust us with you. What we have together is so very, very good.
Still, even amid all the blessings, sometimes life hurts.
I wrote a year-end post for 2014 chronicling what had really been a happy year for us. One of the last lines I wrote was about knowing that anything could change in the blink of an eye. A passing comment that became prophesy.
It has been a rough year for us in many, many ways. So much has happened to shake us and our faith. And as therapeutic as it would be to just keep moving forward and try to forget all the bad, Trey and Aden, you need to know that amid all the fun and adventures and milestones, Daddy and I have walked in deep valleys.
When all that's within me feels dry
This is my prayer in my hunger and need
My God is the God Who provides
The start of the year was relatively quiet. Financial challenges, mainly. Daddy's car had some trouble. Had to redo part of our plumbing after finding a leak in the basement. Heat stopped working and we replaced a pretty expensive part to get it working again. Water heater gave up the ghost. Those kinds of things. Very minor, and God has made sure all year long, through the perfectly-timed generosity of our loved ones, that we have always been provided for.
In early May, all of a sudden one day, Aden lost the ability to walk. You tried, but the pain you felt in your right knee reduced you to heartbreaking sobs. The thing is, you are tough as nails. So we know when you react to pain, it is serious business. We took you to the ER, having no idea what could possibly be wrong but hoping against hope it was something like a pulled muscle.
Until the nurses took your blood to test for childhood RA and leukemia. And the next few hours were spent silently praying and fighting back tears, wondering if life would ever be the same. What if you never walked again? What if a disease took you from us? Oh, child, sometimes it's hard to breathe when you're a Mama.
Praise the Lord, all the tests came back negative and X-rays were fine. Still not totally sure what happened, but what joy followed when you were healed.
Then in early June, my phone rang while at work and Daddy informed me that Trey was having a food allergy reaction. He retraced your steps through the morning to try and figure out why, then said what I have dreaded hearing since you were an infant. "He drank milk." By mistake, you had been given chocolate milk instead of chocolate soymilk.
All your reactions before have been from processed milk products. The only time you have been directly exposed to milk itself was during the challenge at the hospital, when a drop caused you to break out and swell up like a balloon. And so I thought, this is it. If you actually drank milk in any significant amount, I was sure it would kill you.
The ambulance was called, and I waited at work, crying and praying for you in my cubicle as hard as I could for an hour. When the wait became too much, I drove the three miles to the hospital and stood outside the ER, eyes peeled for the ambulance. Oh, child, sometimes it's hard to breathe when you're a Mama.
Praise the Lord, you had only drank a sip and it never did swell your throat or stop your breathing.
Having to imagine life without you guys is an awful, awful thing. How thankful I am for your health and for God's constant vigil over you.
In weakness or trial or pain
There is a faith proved of more worth than gold
So refine me Lord through the flame
Emergencies behind us, I suppose the next blow was our government's decision to move our country further from God's will than probably it ever has been before. It felt like a betrayal. And the unrest and division that followed completely changed my mindset. I guess I have always taken "American" for granted, never once thinking that in my lifetime I may have to choose between "American" and "Christian".
Began 2015 with long-term ideas of living out life in our little house in the middle of nowhere and someday helping to take care of my grandchildren. And now, who knows. Persecution is a very real possibility in my lifetime, which makes it a probability for yours. I'm sorry, boys, for the state of this world and what my generation has done to it.
This is way too morbid, but I want you guys to know that if the situation should ever come up where I have to choose between life without Christ and death with Him, I will choose Jesus. As I hope you would. Stand firm, boys.
Anyhow, the news was unsettling. For the first time ever, I had absolutely no desire to try and see fireworks on Independence Day. Certainly didn't feel like celebrating. Which would become the theme of our year.
But at the same time, and no matter what the world looks like when you all are older, we know that God is still in control. Always in control. He has not left His throne.
No weapon formed against me shall remain
I will rejoice, I will declare
God is my victory and He is here
When 2015 began, Giga and Poppop started talking with us about another vacation to Florida for the summer. While our finances weren't in great shape even for what little that would have cost us, every time it came up something inside of me said, "Don't go." Not knowing exactly why, I obeyed the voice. So Giga and Poppop took you boys to Florida late in July, while Daddy and I stayed home.
There was reason behind the "don't go". The voice was God's.
Sunday night, July 26, one of Daddy's basketball players, Chase Mullins, died in a tragic accident.
Death is hard, period. But when it is unexpected, especially in someone so young and full of life, the suffocating grief gets intermingled with questions of why and how it could have been prevented and how on earth can his family and friends ever move on from this.
The days that followed were a blur. Chase's mom and dad made Daddy their spokesperson for the TV stations and newspapers, and God gave him the strength to speak memories of Chase over and over, and to ask for prayers for the family.
We dreaded telling you guys when you returned, because Chase had been your buddy, horsing around with you at open gyms. I'm not sure you really understood what we told you, maybe because it was the first time either of you had ever seen your Daddy cry.
Daddy spoke at the funeral, in front of hundreds of people and probably our entire community. It was beautiful and excruciatingly painful. And especially hard on Daddy, who, even despite his occasional outbursts of grief, had to bury much of it in order to be strong for Chase's family and his precious basketball team, who had lost a lifelong friend.
Time did not ease the grief, and in mid-August, Daddy became very depressed and started having anxiety attacks. He did his best to keep going and live as normal for a while, but it eventually sucked the life out of him. I had to be very hard on you guys during this time to keep quiet in the house, for you not to argue with each other or bother Daddy with anything.
I was more a single parent during this time than during basketball seasons. Didn't know how to help Daddy or what could make him better. Worried that he might not be able to pull through, would lose his job or not be with us anymore. Looked around at our home and everything in it, and wondered if we would be able to keep it.
I questioned everything.
Praise the Lord for a good Christian doctor, who helped to counsel Daddy a bit and then put him on medicine. Daddy did eventually come back to us.
When triumph is still on its way
I am a conqueror and co-heir with Christ
So firm on His promise I'll stand
One month to the day of Chase's death, early that morning my phone buzzed with activity. There had been a shooting near our community, two innocent young lives taken without reason in appalling fashion. Your school was on lockdown. The violence so prevalent in our country and world had found us, and struck at a place dear to our hearts. Somewhere I had spent many weekends growing up, somewhere I have taken you countless times. Somewhere the three of us had been a few days earlier.
A manhunt followed, with many of our church and friends and community praying for justice, for comfort for the families, for safety of everyone nearby, including you guys. I so badly wanted to pull you from school, just to know you were safe with me, but I couldn't. The manhunt didn't last long. The lockdowns were lifted, and life returned to normal.
Except it didn't. Never in my entire life will I forget driving across the bridge that afternoon headed to church. On one side of the road, caution tape and ambulances and fire trucks and police cars, lights flashing and officers everywhere. On the other side, news trucks and cameras and satellite dishes piled up in parking lots. The horror of human sin and the ugliness of human sensationalism. I drove through slowly and couldn't stop the tears from falling. How dare it come here.
I'll admit to you, boys, that this and what happened to Chase took a toll on my faith. It was senseless, and in the little box I had put God in all the years of my life, stuff like this shouldn't happen. The box was shattered, and though I knew God's role in my life and blessings, I realized that what I thought I knew about Him was wrong.
For a little while, it drove me away from Him. Honestly, I was pouting that God didn't conform to my expectations. As if He should have.
Boys, please know that God does not cause these things to happen. Death and suffering and grief are a result of humanity's choosing their own way over God's. But God, in His grace, always puts purpose into pain. We are so thankful that Chase had accepted Jesus as his Savior. And God has indeed used a horrendous situation to bring trust, strength, and even salvation to those who loved Chase. As for our community, we together realized how strong we are and that there is tremendous power in unity and kindness.
While I did see the good coming out of the mire, the jaded feeling did not leave me. Too distant from God to appreciate Him working.
In every season
You are still God
I have a reason to sing
I have a reason to worship
And then came what took every drop of air from my lungs, a situation that I won't describe, but when you're old enough, you'll know. When it came, I was home on the couch in the midst of a bout with strep throat, already feeling awful.
The news came, a panic attack seized me, and, tears streaming down my cheeks, I croaked to the God I had pulled myself away from, "I don't know what to do."
"Praise Me," He said, as clear as if He was sitting right beside me. He was.
And so I sobbed out praises to God, coughing and rasping and crying until I threw up, and then there I sat, head hanging over the toilet, worshipping the Lord until my voice gave up altogether, because it was all I knew to do. Because at my lowest point, He is still God.
In an instant, my world turned completely upside down. God picked me up from the distance I had created and He set me on His lap. Boys, it is impossible to describe the love and peace that God gives until you tumble into that deep valley.
At this point, Daddy was still having issues with his anxiety, and so I knew I had to carry the burden myself. The Lord has kept me in constant contact with Him since then, covering me in peace like a blanket. Unexplainable peace. Ten days later, Daddy well into his medicine and a little more stable, I told him the news. And like a husband and wife should, we carried it together.
No weapon formed against me shall remain
I will rejoice, I will declare
God is my victory and He is here
The situation has not improved as of now, except that the grownups around you all have had to learn to balance moments of grief with everyday life. None of us knows what the future holds or how or when we will open this up to you, but I pray that when we do, you might be able to understand. Sometimes it seems there are no right answers. Daddy and I are doing the best we know how.
Then came the problems at church, severely affecting some of our dearest friends. We also tried to shield you from those, which wasn't easy. Aden, you are pretty observant for such an active little guy. Walking around church one day, you said, "Something is just not right around here. Everyone is sad."
Sad is a good way to describe it. Sadness, shock, and grief are part of what we will remember from this year.
But the biggest thing we will remember, and something we pray every day that you will embrace for your lives, is that God is faithful. No matter what. There is not a moment I can look back on that God was not right by my side. For both Daddy and me, our faith has grown this year in ways it never could have if it went into the books as another happy year.
Don't get me wrong, we still have happiness and joy. Because of God's blessing, and because of the two of you. Trey and Aden, you have no idea what you mean to Daddy and me. And your grandparents. There have been times, in the toughest of circumstances, where you all have been what kept us going. Please, never doubt how very much you are loved.
And please know this. God is real. Life is worthless without Him. Because trials will come. They just will. God's presence, His peace and strength and hope, are priceless treasures. He loves you even more than I do, gave His Son Jesus Christ to take the punishment that should have been yours, and invites you to eternal, undeserved reward with Him in Heaven someday. Where I'll be waiting for both of you.
Boys, we are shaken. But not broken. And we will live and laugh and cry and love and fight through this life with its ups and downs, no matter what. I want you to know that sometimes life is hard. And it isn't fair. Sometimes it hurts so badly that you don't think you'll be able to take the next breath. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. And give you your next breath, and the one after that.
God is faithful.
When favor and providence flow
I know I'm filled to be emptied again
The seed I've received I will sow
I love you so much, Trey and Aden. Beyond measure.
Mama
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