I Miss My Friend

I have an exceptionally amazing group of friends, as previously documented. This sucky season of life has proven that. Countless cards, gifts, flowers, and texts have been pouring in these last 3 months since my diagnosis. I won't make it through to the other side of this season of life without you all. I will not be the person you once knew. Suffering and hardship inevitably change a person, but don't give up on me. Don't leave me in the shadows all alone. Be willing to sit with me in my grief and sadness, even if you don't know what to say or do. I probably don't know myself.

But there's one friend in particular, though, that I am profoundly missing. Oh, how I wish I could talk to him, now more than ever. There's so much I want to chat with him about. I want to talk about expectations and limitations, joy and sorrow, Jesus and truth, fear and anxiety.

His name was Jonathan Eades. Some of you reading this knew Jon or know his parents, who are equally precious to me. 

We first met after I graduated from college. I started attending a new-to-me church in the area at the time, and then joined a small group that met at his house. Jon was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy when he was five, and by the time I met him in his mid-twenties, he was permanently in a wheelchair. Somehow over the course of time, we fell into this habit of me spending every Thursday evening taking up residence on his couch, the two of us watching episodes of Big Bang Theory and Wipeout.

Jonathan eventually passed in February 2012. To this day, I still have reminders in my phone to mark his birthday and the anniversary of his passing. His parents remain two of my most favorite human beings on the planet.

I know I'll see Jon again someday in heaven, but I selfishly wish he were here now to help me navigate this season of life. He had so much wisdom and perspective to offer on life, born from his own experiences and adversity.

Jon, I hope I have half as much joy you did while traversing the valley, and I hope I shine the light of Christ half as well as you did. Like a sunflower follows the sun, I want to follow you as you followed the Son.

I miss you, my friend.

_________________

Functional updates

I'll try to carve out space in each post to provide updates on where I am in the process. So, if you're just here for the nuts and bolts, in the future you can slide straight here to the bottom and skip my idle wanderings above.

I'm still doing rehab multiple times per week, which has been going okay. I get very anxious about going because I keep anticipating being confronted by all that I seemingly can't do, but the occupational therapist made a good point - I have to stop comparing the present me to the former me, the former me that could do single leg squats with perfect balance and read 100 pages of a book per hour and had no problems with cognition. That person no longer exists. So, comparing my present self to my past self is a trap. "Comparison is the thief of happiness," he said. I have to figure out how to let go of what once was. No small task.

I connected today with a local cancer community support network that offers counseling and assorted educational offerings. I know I need counseling, especially heading into chemo and radiation. It's been tough mentally to stay between the ditches, with anxiety and fear sometimes rushing in like a landslide at times. I have to do double-time to not get swept away.

I'm at the start of week two for my medication transition, from a previous anti-seizure med to a new one. The old one had the side effect of depression, which I felt keenly. I am hoping the new one will go a long way in lifting the veil.

Some of you have asked about prayer requests. I’ll share with you the list of things that I’ve been praying for myself. I welcome your fellow intercession:

1. I’ve been praying shamelessly praying some versus straight out of Job, particularly Job 42:12: 

The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys.

Emphasis obviously being on the first sentence. I’m asking that the Lord would bless the latter half of my life more than the former half. I turn 40 this October, so it seems like an appropriate prayer, given that I’m supposedly reaching the halfway point of my life. I don’t know that I need the 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, or 1,000 donkeys, but I am shamelessly asking for God's blessing on my future.  
 

2. I’m also praying that I would not be overcome by darkness. John 1:5 talks about this:

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. 

I’m praying that God‘s light would shine into the dark nooks and crannies of my heart and mind, and that I would not be overcome by that darkness, especially in the weeks and months ahead.

 3. I’m also praying that God would fully restore strength, coordination, and motor control to my left arm. It continues to be a source of frustration for me, and I’m having to figure out how to manage expectations, and not get so easily disheartened. 

4. I'm also praying that I would not lose heart in general. Sometimes my worst fear in the midst of this trial is that my faith would fail, or that I would turn my back on God. I start to spiral and imagine all the ways that things could go wrong, one of which is that I would abandon my faith, but then I’m reminded of this quote from JI Packer:

I need not torment myself with the fear that my faith may fail; as grace led me to faith in the first place, so grace will keep me believing to the end.  Faith, both in its origin and continuance, is a gift of grace. 

5. I also pray that I would have eyes to see God’s fingerprints in my life, that I would keep looking for the ways progress is happening, and eyes to see how he is working things for my good (My new favorite song on the matter), rather than dwelling on all the ways I feel like my body still isn’t functioning like I think it should. I pray that he would provide tangible progress that would serve as encouragement and motivation to keep going.

6. I'm praying for quality sleep and good rest. I tossed and turned last night, and could not get comfortable so I just kept thrashing around. 

Seated Where I Don't Belong

Last weekend marked 7 years since my friend Jonathan passed away.  It's a day quietly noted on my calendar. Jon - 7 years, the reminder simply said.  I was curled up in my recliner last Saturday as I was texting his mom, acknowledging the day, my Bible splayed across my lap, opened to 2 Samuel 9.  For reasons I don't fully understand, the story contained in 2 Samuel 9 is quite possibly my favorite in all of Scripture.  It strikes such a tender nerve every time I read it, and last Saturday was no different as I read it yet again. 

You see, it's the story of a man named Mephibosheth, a man "lame in both feet" (2 Samuel 9:3).  Scripture tells the story, "Jonathan son of Saul had a son who was lame in both feet. He was five years old when the news about Saul['s] and Jonathan['s death] came from Jezreel. His nurse picked him up and fled, but as she hurried to leave, he fell and became disabled. His name was Mephibosheth" (2 Samuel 4:4).  My friend Jonathan was also lame in both feet, permanently wheelchair-bound, suffering the ravages of muscular dystrophy.  By the time our lives intersected as adults, he essentially only had control of his right thumb, enough control to operate his motorized wheelchair.  He's now been gone longer than I knew him alive.  

So in Mephibosheth, I saw my real-life Jonathan on the pages last weekend as I pored over 2 Samuel 9.  Mephibosheth was the son of the biblical Jonathan, who was the best friend of David, and the man who willfully gave up his own right to the throne in order that David could instead ascend to the throne as God's anointed king. And Mephibosheth's grandfather was no less than king Saul, a man who in the end would take his own life in the midst of a losing battle.  

Jonathan would die, too, in battle the same day as his father.  David was anointed king in the wake, and in the aftermath, he began to ask, “Is there anyone still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show kindness for Jonathan’s sake?” (2 Samuel 9:1). 

As king, and in order to protect and preserve his power, David could have opted to have every family member in the line of Saul annihilated.  Instead he went looking for someone to whom he could show kindness.  

Who does David find?  Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, David's best friend, the man with whom David had sworn a covenant. Before Jonathan died, he had requested of David, "But show me unfailing kindness like the Lord’s kindness as long as I live...and do not ever cut off your kindness from my family...” (1 Samuel 20:14-15). 

David made good on his promise to his now gone-but-not-forgotten friend, found Jonathan's son, and summoned him to the royal palace.  He had made a vow to never cut off his kindness from Jonathan's family, and David meant it then and he meant now, even though his friend was gone.  

I picture David's palace with a grand, ornate hall, lavish in its opulence.  And I picture this long walkway down the center of the court, columns flanking both sides, rays of light scattering across the polished floor.  David stands at one end, Mephibosheth at the other.  Then I hear the shuffle and the drag of 'two lame feet,' as Mephibosheth ever-so-slowly makes his way to the king, the very king who may decide to take his life.  Step, drag.  Step, drag.  Step, drag.  His eyes are cast downward, not daring to look up, or to hope.  He reaches David and bows low.

I can't help but wonder if David also stooped low to get on Mephibosheth's level, places his finger under Mephibosheth's chin, lifts his head, looks him in the eye and whispers his name with fierce graciousness, "Mephibosheth!"  

No tone of condemnation, no tone of ill-will or hatred.  Just a tone of deep compassion, for this was the very precious son of his very precious friend, Jonathan.

“Don’t be afraid,” David said to him, “for I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan. I will restore to you all the land that belonged to your grandfather Saul, and you will always eat at my table.”   

Mephibosheth bowed down and said, “What is your servant, that you should notice a dead dog like me?”   

Then the king summoned Ziba, Saul’s steward, and said to him, “I have given your master’s grandson everything that belonged to Saul and his family.  You and your sons and your servants are to farm the land for him and bring in the crops, so that your master’s grandson may be provided for. And Mephibosheth, grandson of your master, will always eat at my table” (2 Samuel 9:7-10). 

Scripture goes on to say, "So Mephibosheth ate at David’s table like one of the king’s sons...And [he] lived in Jerusalem, because he always ate at the king’s table; he was lame in both feet." (2 Samuel 9:11, 13)

Mephibosheth got seated at a table where he did not belong, to eat food he could not afford, based on merit he did not possess. And all that in spite of his crippled feet.  

He was at the table for one reason and one reason only: because of who his father was. 

It wasn’t because David pitied him, felt sorry for him, or was obligated to him.  David bent low and lifted the head of a man who was not otherwise worthy of being in the presence of the king. For all intents and purposes, and according to the customs and traditions of the day, David would have been entirely justified in taking a sword to Mephibosheth and everyone else in the line of Saul, anyone who posed a remote threat to his rule.  

Instead, he stooped down and whispered, “Mephibosheth, come eat at my table, both now and forever - because I loved your father. For his sake and to honor him, I welcome you here without condition or payment. You come with your two lame feet, you pull out a chair, you sit at my table, you drink the wine poured for you, and you.feast. Neither your past tragedies, nor your lineage, nor your disability will haunt or hinder you while you sit here in this chair at my table. You need not wonder if any spears will be thrown at you. Enough spears have been thrown. No more. So, come and eat. Sit down at the king's table and partake.  Simply for the sake of your father.” 

For those who are in Christ Jesus, you have the same opportunity.  We get to sit down some day at the wedding feast of the Lamb with all the other saints, and shout "Hallelujah!  For our Lord God Almighty reigns.  Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory!  For the wedding of the Lamb has come..."(Revelation 19:6-7).

But here's the catch - you only get a seat at the wedding feast of the Lamb based on one condition and one condition alone: 

Who your Father is. 

Nothing and no one else will merit or warrant your presence at the feast other than God your Father.  And neither will your literal or figurative limps merit your absence from the feast.  You get to pull up a chair at a table where you do not belong, to eat food you cannot afford, based on merit you do not possess in and of yourself.  You get to come with your crippled body and your crippled heart and your crippled mind. And in your coming, you will bow low only to find King Jesus who will lift your chin, look you in the eye, whisper your name with fierce graciousness and say, "Don’t be afraid, for I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your Father, and you will always eat at my table.”

So, pull up a chair and partake.  “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!  Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.  Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?  Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare.  Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David" (Isaiah 55:1-3).

Jesus declares over us, "Come, you who have absolutely nothing to offer in return.  I will show you kindness for the sake of your Father."  

And because of that promise, I will get to pull up a seat at the table where I don't belong.  

Right next to my friend Jonathan.

And we will feast.

Forever and always.  

Creation Need Not Play to An Empty House

Life has been fairly calm as of late, which I'm certainly not complaining about.  In the quiet, though, it's made the little things stand out more so than usual.  Small moments that may seem insignificant or trivial, but ones I am grateful for nonetheless.  May I not be guilty of "despis[ing] the day of small things" (Zechariah 4:10).  I've been taking mental notes of some things here lately for which I am very grateful:

• Matching curtains! Finally! Back when I first moved into my apartment, I purchased some red curtains.  I failed to do the math and didn't buy enough panels.  When I went back to find more of what I bought, they were out.  In light of the shortage, I had been hanging this random strip of black fabric to fill the gap.  I kept checking the store every so often to see if more would come in - and lo and behold!  They got more!  Only took me about two years, but hey, I've finally got matching curtains.
• Purchasing an external hard drive - So, my personal laptop is going to officially turn 14 years old this summer.  Yes, it probably belongs in a museum, and yes, I still use it, and yes, it still works.  Buuuuuuuuut that probably won't always be true.  Figured I should probably be proactive and back everything up onto an external hard drive. It's only been on my to do list for practically 12 months.  
• Solving a problem  - My parents have a Honda Odyssey, which they have a love/hate relationship with.  Most days here lately it leans more toward the hate side.  They get rather frustrated when they find there are seemingly a dozen other Honda Odysseys in the parking lot, all of them looking exactly alike.  It makes finding theirs a bit more difficult.  I decided to solve their problem.  I bought a cheap taxi-like car topper and hand-wrote a sign on it that said, "HEY! This one is yours!" on one side.  I don't think my mom is going to be caught dead putting that thing on top of her van, even if she is annoyed that she can never find it in the seas of Hondas.  But either way, I thought it was a pretty ingenious solution.  I also bought some Ford magnets (we are a Ford family through and through - right up until my parents bought a Honda) to go over the Honda logos.

                                   

• A job I enjoy - I happen to really enjoy my job.  That hasn't always been true with this particular job I've been in now for over four years, but I genuinely enjoy getting up and going to work these days.
• Cheap gas! I was excited to see that gas was as low as $1.69, but then it got even better when I pulled up to the pump and it was listed at $1.63.  Somebody wasn't doing their job, but I wasn't going to complain.
• Just Pies - any time Just Pies is involved, it's always a good thing.  My sweet friend Jill surprised me with a strawberry rhubarb pie the other day.  So much amazingness packed inside a pie crust. 
• Dinner with Myrt - I have a dear friend from church, a woman I adore, who will turn 84-years old this May.  I had dinner with her the other night, and as I sat across the table from her, I just wanted to burst into tears, I got so overwhelmed with how grateful I am for her and how much I love her.
• Cable TV - I don't have cable at my own apartment, but I'm currently house/pet-sitting for some friends.  They have cable.  And I'm reminded of why I don't have cable at my apartment.  BECAUSE I AM AN UNPRODUCTIVE CITIZEN OF SOCIETY WHEN I HAVE CABLE. Seriously, I watch more movies on Hallmark Channel than what is deemed healthy. I turn into a lazy bum because all I do is sit around and watch TV.
• Scrapbooking - I finally got around to finishing my scrapbook of my September Wyoming trip. 
• I got crafty - I had a stash of old, empty wine bottles I had been wanting to paint and do something crafty with.  I dug through my paint drawer, discovered I had some enamel paint, which is the kind you can paint on and then bake the item in order to seal it.  So I painted my wine bottles all black, stuck them in the oven and waited for the magic to happen.  I honestly thought I would take them out of the oven and angels would descend from on high and shine a light on their awesomeness.  But they looked exactly the same as when I put them in the oven.  So, no angels, but they do make for nice racks for my bracelets. 

• Regular TV - You know, that thing people watch when they don't have cable.  I'm enamored with two shows: Victoria and This Is Us. I now plan my entire Sunday and Tuesday evenings around these shows.  Seriously, get on the Victoria and This Is Us train if you haven't already.
• Good books - I recently read The Perfect Horse, The Eighty-Dollar Champion and The Martian.  The first two are exceptional non-fiction stories.  Truly gifted story-telling.  And The Martian? Quite possibly one of the funniest books I have ever read.  It now sits on my all-time favorites list.  I had read it a year or two ago and decided to re-read it last month.  Still just as funny.
• Absent neighbors - Neighbors come and go in my apartment complex.  There was one set of neighbors who lived above me - how shall I put it? - let's just say I was very aware of their love life.  Very.  They have since been evicted, I'm assuming for reasons other than their crazy loud love life.  The people who now live there are in a band.  Yes.  Guitar- and bongo-playing kind of band.  I've heard enough "Proud Mary" and other classic rock songs to last me a lifetime.  They've been gone for the last two weeks.  Can't say that I'm the least bit bothered by this fact.
• My niece and her birthday party - One of my nieces recently turned five.  She insisted on a Star Wars theme.  She was decked out in a Princess Leia costume and went running around yielding a light-saber.  But the best part?  Her birthday cake.  Which was Tinker Bell.  May the fairy dust be with you.  

• Tears spilled over a friend I still miss - As hard as it is for me to believe, it will be five years tomorrow since Jonathan died. A couple of weeks back, our worship band at church sang the song "Never Once" by Matt Redman, which also happened to be a song that was played at Jonathan's funeral.  I cried through most of it.  I still miss him.  One of my most profound regrets in life is that I have no pictures of Jonathan and I together.  I don't know why that bothers me so much, but I just wish I had a picture of the two of us together.  It wouldn't make the reality of him being gone any less real - and it doesn't make the memories of him any less real by not having a tangible photo - but I still wish.  But regardless, I'm thankful for my friend and the tender memories of him.  

It's the little things that add up over time, that make a dent, that remind us of the small things that make up the big things. I'm grateful for the small things.

“We are here to abet creation and to witness it, to notice each thing so each thing gets noticed. Together we notice not only each mountain shadow and each stone on the beach but we notice each other's beautiful face and complex nature so that creation need not play to an empty house.” - Anne Dillard   

Always This Sweet Reminder

 Jonathan's sunflowers bloomed yet again this year.  

I am always grateful for the reminder of new mercies, new years, new seasons, new moments.   

And every year, they keep their faces turned to the sun, following it each day as it blazes across the sky.

Just like Jon followed the Son.  

I want the same to be true of my life.

It is Good

It's good to see Jonathan's sunflowers spring up again this year.  New seeds, new blooms, new life.  

New mercies every morning.

Conversations with Dirt

I found myself standing out in the drizzle and cold in a small town in Virginia this past December, staring down at a small plot of earth, having a conversation in my head with the dirt and the body that was now buried six feet below.  At various points, I wasn't sure if it was teardrops or rain getting in my eyes.  It was so compulsory, so involuntary, the conversation that ran through my head.  But it was like every other conversation I had with Jon when he was alive - simple, comfortable, without effort.

And in that moment, as I stood over that gravestone marker, I realized how much I still missed my friend and how much I still wished he was here.  

It will be a year ago tomorrow that I got that dreaded phone call from Pastor Brad.  "He's gone, Courtney."  Blast it all, Brad.  Don't tell me that.  Not today.  Not now.  Don't tell me my friend is gone.  My keys were nearly in hand.  I was just coming to visit him at the hospital.  Don't tell me he's gone.     

There have been a lot of moments since then when I have found myself absentmindedly thinking, "Ah, I should remember to tell Jon about that."  Or maybe I'll think to myself, "Jon would find that funny."  I watched The Civil Wars perform on the Grammy's last year.  I wanted to tell Jon about it.  I saw a sign last week for the first game of the Blue Jackets' hockey season.  I wanted to text him to see if he had bought tickets yet.  I still watch The Big Bang Theory and laugh and wonder if Jon would have found it funny, too.  I've watched countless movies and told myself about all of the details that Jon would have picked up on, the ones I always seemed to miss.  I ran my finger across the books on my shelf and counted all the books that Jon randomly bought for me over the years - War Horse, South, Touch the Top of the World.  

Those memories are bittersweet, but I'm grateful I have them nonetheless.  They are marks of a friendship and a friend that I will forever remember and be shaped by.  The sadness still comes on occasion - and I've learned that it's okay.  I've learned to welcome it with open arms.  I've learned to not apologize for the tears when I have conversations with others about Jon and what he meant.  I've accepted the reality that I'll probably never make it through "Never Once" by Matt Redman ever again without thinking of Jon or wanting to cry.   

And I know I'm not alone in that grief or sadness.  What his family has experienced - is experiencing - eclipses whatever I might feel.  But in the end - we all know the same reality: we'll see Jon again.  Heaven isn't some pipe dream, not something we're wishing is true.  It's real.  And my friend is there.  Walking. Dancing. Celebrating. Rejoicing.  And as much as I want my friend here - I want him there more. 

We are not people without hope.  Our hope is in Jesus Christ and Him alone.  And we'll cling to Him and run to Him when the waves of life sweep over us, threaten to send us tumbling down to the abyss, when the memories get to be just a bit too much.

And I'll cling to Him even when I find myself having a conversation with a piece of dirt.          

The Bridge That Spans

I'm honestly at a loss for words and struggling to figure out how best to frame this entry.  My apologies if it seems a bit jumbled or haphazard.  It seems I live in this chasm, suspended between two worlds that I can't quite figure out how to bridge - life at home in Columbus and life here in Kenya.  And in the middle of all that confusion, I'm reminded of God's sweetness and tenderness in a very simple way. 

If you have followed this blog at all in the last few months, then you know about Jonathan.  If you need to catch up, go here and here.  And if the pictures below are to make any sense, then you ultimately need to go back to this post.  A few weeks ago, the man who planted those sunflowers here in Kenya sent me a picture of Jonathan's garden.  And today my mom sent me a picture of Jonathan's garden at home in Ohio. 

The bridge that spans the gap. God's tenderness in the form of blossoming sunflowers.  Reminders that His mercies are new every morning.  Reminders that life goes on.  Reminders of home.  And reminders that my friend's legacy lives on.         

Jonathan's garden in Eldoret, Kenya

Jonathan's garden near Columbus, Ohio

As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands.
Instead of the thornbush will grow the juniper,
and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
This will be for the Lord’s renown,
for an everlasting sign,
that will endure forever.
Isaiah 55:10-13

I Don't Pretend to Understand

Sometimes I marvel at the grace of God.

I don't pretend to understand it.  It shows up at moments when I least expect it, in ways I never thought possible. 

When I was out visiting Missouri last weekend, I don't think I made it through a single serious conversation with a friend without mentioning Jonathan, without talking about his legacy, without missing him tremendously, without crying.  And God shows up in this moments, reminding me that it's okay to grieve, okay to cry, okay to miss him. 

This grieving thing has been a process, to say the least.  Such bittersweet moments have comprised a vast majority of that process.  One such instance being on Mother's Day.  I had lunch with Jonathan's mom, just the two of us.  I'm so grateful for her presence in my life, and not just because she's Jonathan's mom.  She's my friend and trusted advisor.  We sat talking about life and all that had been happening - jobs, relationships, future dreams, upcoming trips overseas.  As we talked about my upcoming trip to Kenya, she mentioned that a friend of their family had just returned from Kenya and Ethiopia. 

Before I get to all that, though, I have to back up and give some explanation.  At Jonathan's service, his family handed out packets of sunflower seeds.  These were to be reminders not only of Jon's life, but how we should all be following the Son, just as sunflowers follow the sun across the sky.  It was such beautiful imagery, so fitting for Jon's life. 

So, back to the family friend.  He goes on this trip to Ethiopia and Kenya and while he's there, he did something I will be forever grateful for:

He scattered those sunflowers seeds across the dust and the dirt of Kenya. 

In the moments when the fears most overwhelm me about this trip, when I want to scrap the plans and forget about going, when I want to ask myself if I'm crazy for doing this, when I ask myself why I care so much, when I consider the thought of traveling alone, I remember those sunflower seeds taking root in the plains of Kenya.  And somehow the fears give way.  Because my friend has gone on before me.

Please don't misunderstand me.  I don't mean that in a mystical kind of way.  I just mean it in a symbolic kind of way.  I know whatever fears I might have, I have to ultimately hand them over to Jesus.  But there's something to be said for this peace I find in knowing that in some way, Jon has gone on before me, to make a way.  There's something to be said for the fact that not only did Jon commission me to some degree, but there's something to be said for getting to be the hands and feet of somebody I miss terribly, someone who never got to run and play with these precious orphans in Kenya himself.  I consider it an awesome privilege to be an ambassador for Jonathan Eades.  You can bet there will be little kids in Kenya who will not only hear me speak of the grace of God, which shows up at just the right moment, but they will hear me speak of a man named Jonathan Eades, who spent his life following the Son.

The Dust of Everyday Life

Pablo Picasso said, “Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life.”

I have needed some dust washed off my soul lately.

In the wake of Jonathan's death, I have found myself reflecting on thoughts too numerous to mention all in one place, but finding at the same time a sense of desperation to get them out of my head and onto paper or onto canvas.  Because in the days after his loss, I just kept coming back to the same phrase over and over again:

There is healing in the act of creation.

There is a solace that is found in making something that is all together separate from you, but still a part of you.  Maybe it's my way of remembering.  My way of honoring.  My way of healing.  Because I don't know what else to do.  I don't know what else to do other than write.  Journal entries.  Blog entries.  Cards to people, talking about Jonathan.  I don't know what else to do other than to paint, to put a brush in my hands and figure out a way to bring life to my own soul.  That's what I know to do.

I remember after I lost my grandfather several years ago, I dredged up a story I had written about him when I was an undergrad student.  It was originally a creative writing assignment for an American Lit class I was taking.  We were to write a story with "local color," a story that conveyed a distinct region or area, including dialect and geography.  I chose my grandparents' farm and the words of my grandfather to tell the story I had bottled up in my head.  So, when he died, I did a painting based on that story, a story I dearly love because, from my perspective, it so clearly captured my grandfather and all that I esteemed him to be.  I treasure that painting and that story so.

Because that's what I have to do to wash the dust off my soul.  Because that's where I find some semblance of healing and satisfaction in the face of loss.

There is healing in the act of creation.

"God created the heavens and the earth...and he saw that it was good..." 

Joy

Joy is such a funny, funny thing.

I've thought about it a lot here lately and the conclusion I've come to is this:

It is so very selfless.

As I sat at Jon's celebration of life yesterday (and yes, it was a celebration) and watched his mom and sister sing the words to Matt Redman's song "Never Once," raising their hands in true worship, and I thought to myself, "That is what true joy looks like."  That is what it looks like fall down on your knees and worship God, even in the midst of the greatest pain and loss of your life.  That is what it looks to offer a sacrifice of praise, to praise God when you least feel like it.  That is what joy looks like, dancing alongside grief.  That is what it means to make Jesus greater.  And that's what it looks like to choose joy. 

It would be an epic failure if I tried to capture all that went through my mind and my heart yesterday as I sat listening to the words spoken about Jonathan's life.  I went in just feeling so - so sorrowful, so sad.  I missed my friend terribly and I wasn't sure how I was going to make it through the next hours.  The tears just wouldn't seem to stop.  And seeing his body lying in that casket - I kept waiting to see his chest move or to see his eyes open. (I promise I'm not trying to be creepy)  I desperately wanted my friend back. 

But as the stories began unfolding and as the worship songs brought forth praise, a small part of me was being healed.  And I was humbled.  I count it nothing less than a privilege to have spent my Thursday evenings with Jon, taking up a spot on the couch in his little corner of the world, watching episodes of Big Bang and Wipeout, rehashing scenes from Lord of the Rings.  As I was at the visiting hours on Sunday afternoon, his mom nearly did me in when she pulled me in for a hug and said, "Courtney, you saw past his chair.  You saw past his chair.  And he loved you."  And when his brother-in-law said, "You know, Jon had a lot of friends who could say a lot of nice things about him and he had a lot of friends who loved him from a distance, but very few who entered into his world like you did."  It was too much.  I wanted my friend back more than I wanted to hear those words.

But leaving - leaving that celebration behind and leaving Jon behind, I realized the value of choosing joy in this moment.  If Tim and Twyla, Jesse and Kellye could choose joy, if they could choose to lift their hands in worship, if they could choose to smile and praise God, then surely I could do the same.  Because I am not without hope.  Jon was not without hope.  Yes, he spent most of his life in a wheelchair.  Yes, he had a terrible disease that robbed him of a lot of things the rest of the world said was necessary. Yes, he didn't like what that disease had done to him.  But he was not without hope.  He saw that disease as something not to be bitter about, but something to be grateful about because it was making him more like Christ.  I love how Anne Lamott talked about it in her book Traveling Mercies - she was talking about an interview with a man who had a terminal illness.  He was learning to savor life and instead of having a life-threatening disease, he had a disease-threatening life.  Jon had a disease-threatening kind of life.

That kind of joy isn't manufactured by the world.  It's not manufactured by a religious crutch or a warm fuzzy feeling from a so-so god.  You don't pull that kind of joy out of thin air, you don't conjure it up and you don't fabricate it.  It comes only from a God who said, "I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete."  Jon's joy is complete.  And never once did he walk alone.

Grief

Grief is such a funny, funny thing.

I've thought about it a lot here lately and the conclusion I have come to is this:

It is so very selfish. 

I know, that seems a little harsh.  Maybe too abrupt. 

But the thought occurred to me yesterday while I was driving home, tears streaming down my face.

I lost my good friend Jonathan yesterday.  I knew the day would come - the phone call would come - at some point.  His heart and his lungs would some day give way and the phone call would come.  It came yesterday at 11:51 a.m.  And my heart was grieved because my friend was gone.  Just as I was getting ready to text his mom to see if now was a good time to come to the hospital to visit, my caller ID flashes the name of our pastor, and I knew.  I knew. 

As a thousand thoughts ran through my mind, about how it had to be a Thursday.  Thursday nights for the last year and a half have been spent watching Big Bang and Wipeout with Jonathan.  Of course, it would have to be a Thursday.  I thought about how Myrt and Paul are out of town and they don't know yet.  They'll miss his funeral.  I thought about Tanner, Jonathan's dog, and wondering about how confused he'll be that Jonathan hasn't come home yet.  I thought about James, Jonathan's caregiver, who has devoted ten years of his life to serving Jonathan.  And I thought about Tim and Twyla, Jonathan's parents.  I truly, truly believe that apart from God himself, they are the sole reason Jonathan lived as long as he did.  Thirty-one years is a long time to be living with Muscular Dystrophy.  He far outlived the usual life expectancy for people with this disease.  I have never met more selfless people.

And I thought about how selfish grief is.  I was grieving what I had lost instead of rejoicing in what my friend had gained.   And if there was anything Jonathan was about, he was about others and he was about selflessness.  Not once - not once - in the few short years that I knew him did I ever hear him complain or take pity on himself for being confined to a wheelchair.  I never heard him grumble, I never heard him say "woe is me."  He volunteered his time at the church doing Powerpoint (he literally only had the use of his right thumb, which was enough to let him use his computer and operate his wheelchair), he worked at another church creating and burning audio files of sermons and special events.  He always wanted to know how my family was, how my other friends were, what my boyfriend was up to.   It was always about others.

And if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.

Jonathan spent himself on behalf of others, just like Isaiah 58:10 commands us to do.  I cannot be selfish in my grief.  Not that I should disregard the sadness or squelch it or act like everything is a-okay, but that grief should never lose sight of what the ultimate truth is:

Jonathan spent his life on behalf of others because there was a Savior and a King who spent his life on behalf of Jonathan.  That is a life worth rejoicing over.

God's Funny Like That...

Let's just say yesterday was not the greatest of days.  I don't want to use the words "horrible" or "awful" because I feel like it's an insult to those who are legitimately having bad days, like my friends Jon and Alex.  Both have been in the hospital since Wednesday night, independent of one another.  Alex suffered another round of severe Crohn's pain and was staring down the possibility of another surgery.  And Jon - well, some very scary moments when I thought I was going to lose my precious friend.  He is wheelchair-bound due to Muscular Dystrophy and has been quite sick in general here lately, problems breathing and things.  But heart problems popped up on Wednesday, starting with an irregular heartbeat.  It went downhill from there, to the point on Thursday night where he was non-responsive.  And to go into the hospital yesterday to see him, to feel so helpless in the face of something that I could physically do nothing to fix, I wanted to run and hide.  And to look his mom in the eye as she pulled back from a hug, tears streaming down her face, barely whispering, "We almost lost him, Courtney..."  Sometimes the thought is too much.

So me not getting a job that I so desperately wanted, one that I knew I could have done well, seemed an afterthought in the midst of all that my friends were going through.  They were fighting for their next breaths, hoping those moments to be without pain, and here I was crying my eyes out about not getting a job.  Life wasn't making a whole lot of sense yesterday.

After making the rounds at the hospitals, I needed to run some errands to pick up some things on the "to buy" list.  As trivial and meaningless as it seems in the face of what has been happening, I was on a mission to find a pair of skinny jeans.  I don't own a pair and quite frankly, never have cared to own a pair, but for whatever reason, I decided to cave and buy a pair.  So I made a pit-stop at the mall.  I'm looking at jeans and as I'm becoming aware of what's playing over the stereo, I hear the lyrics, "...everything's right, hey, everything's right tonight..."

Of course, God would do something like that.  He plays Matt Wertz, one of my  all-time favorite musicians, in the middle of a crowded mall at the moment when I most needed to know that everything was, in fact, going to be right.

So, not only did I get a pair of skinny jeans (on sale!) out of the deal, I got a gentle reminder from a sovereign God via Matt Wertz:

Everything's right.

Magic in an Ordinary Life

A friend recently asked me while chatting on Facebook what books I had been reading.  And I said that I was a little burnt out on fiction and had since dived into the world of non-fiction, and then proceeded to give her in a nutshell my present selection:  "Well, one is on the Holocaust, another is about an Antarctic expedition, another is about horses, and one is about gambling."  I've got Ernest Shackleton's South and Ben Mezrich's Bringing Down the House being simultaneously read, with Bill Nack's Secretariat, Luci Swindoll's I Married Adventure, and Doris Bergen's War and Genocide on deck.  I'm going to have to work up to War and Genocide, which is a concise history of the Holocaust and I pulled Nack's and Swindoll's books off the shelf because 1) in preparation for Disney's upcoming movie version of the story of Secretariat and 2) Swindoll's book is just such an encouraging read - and talks a lot about Africa.  They are both books I've read before but books that good are always worth re-reading.  I remember having to slog my way through Nack's book initially when I read it the first time so hopefully I can make it through again.  Mezrich's book is just all together fascinating now that I have seen the movie 21, the movie being based on the book.  It's a true story about six MIT students who lead double lives and take Vegas for millions by playing black jack and counting cards.  It's a wonderfully stunning, unnerving, and exciting read all at the same time.  Makes me wish I was brave enough to take on Vegas and smart enough to count cards.  It's a fleeting thought. 

But I think the book that has been most compelling for me as of late has been Shackleton's South.  I had been talking to my friend Jonathan about our latest reads and I had mentioned I wanted to get my hands on some books about Shackleton's expedition to the South Pole.  He was sweet enough to pick up a copy of Shackleton's memoir for me at a half-priced book store and I've been reading it ever since.   If you're not familiar (like I was prior to reading this book) with Shackleton's adventures or his life, you can read the cliff-notes at Wikipedia.  The short version of the story is that Shackleton set out on the dawn of WWI to cross the Antarctic from sea to sea, but his ship Endurance was eventually crushed between some ice floes and him and all of his men were stranded on ice floes for months at a time.  They all eventually - despite some of the worst weather conditions known to man and some of the severest trials - make it back to civilization alive.  Meanwhile almost all of World War I had happened without their knowledge.  Once Shackleton reached a whaling station in South Georgia and attemps to rescue the remaing men left behind in his party, he writes:

We were like mad men arisen from the dead to a world gone mad.  Our minds accustomed themselves gradually to the tales of nations in arms, of deathless courage and unimagined slaughter, of a world-conflict that had grown beyond all conceptions, of vast red battlefields in grimmest contrast with the frigid whiteness we had left behind us.  The reader may not realize quite how difficult it was for us to envisage nearly two years of the most stupendous war in history....No other civilized men could have been as blankly ignorant of world-shaking happenings as we were...

 But you know what really has me so captivated by Shackleton's story?  I think it's something that I've been thinking about for a long time, years maybe, off and on - this idea of the ordinary life.  This idea that even in the most obscure and mundane and monotonous life, there's something worth telling, a life worth living.  I think I went through this phase in college where I told myself if I didn't achieve x, y, and z, I was going to be a failure in life.  I was so driven by this idea that everything had to be a grand adventure.  And then I realized that even in a so-called common and ordinary life, I could still have a great adventure.  Now, not to say that Shackleton and his men were exactly living ordinary lives, but to them they were.  They were doing what their hearts had been set on and that was common for them.  It was their lives to be men of the sea and to suffer through freezing cold temperatures.  Shackleton would often mention times though when the ship would be stuck in a floe for a few days, the men would get out on the ice and play football.  One part of me wants to say, "You're out in the middle of the stinkin' Antarctic freezing your fannies off, and you're playing football?!"

But this was life for them, a common, ordinary life.  Shortly after the Endurance sank and the crew was facing a bleak outlook, Shackleton wrote about how some of the men were telling the cook how they wanted their tea made.  "It occurred to me at the time that the incident had psychological interest.  Here were men, their home crushed, the camp pitched on the unstable floes, and their chance of reaching safety apparently remote, calmly attending to the details of existence and giving their attention to such trifles as the strength of a brew of tea." 

An extraordinary life being played out in ordinary ways.  And as I drove to work the other morning, thinking about the story and just life in general, all I could come up with is that there is magic in an ordinary life well-lived.  It reminds me of Chesterton's (I think he said it anyway) quote when he says "one of the most extraordinary things in life is an ordinary man, his ordinary wife, and their ordinary children."

I think sometimes it's easy to get down and out about our "ordinary" lives, when we feel like all we do is punch the clock and do it all over again the next day.  But it's a matter of perspective.  If that's how we choose to view our lives, then yes, that's all it will be.   But if we choose to see our lives - common or otherwise - as as adventure, an opportunity, then even the simplest tasks are things to be valued.  I'd like to think I've been on my fair share of adventures, but I'd also like to think I can find magic in living that ordinary life.