You Live Here

First, thank you for your prayers for our retreat. It was the best one to date, mostly I think because we have had so much practice by now. Couples came and shared their grief with us and we hopefully lead them closer to Christ. 

I walked away from the weekend still feeling a little heavy, a little overwhelmed. September has brought in a flood of pregnancy loss outreach/educational events. In the last month I have:

-Attended a new support group, met other women, shared and listened to more heartbreaking stories
-Planned and led our own pregnancy loss retreat for couples
-Done two radio interviews sharing Caleb's story
-Spoke at a local parish to their Elizabeth Ministry Group to help them develop a pregnancy loss ministry
-Spoke over the phone with another parish across the county trying to help them start up a pregnancy loss ministry

And thats just formal stuff, not to mention the every day here and there of speaking with someone over email or Facebook that has had a loss. Recommending books or other resources to friends trying to help thier friends suffering a loss. And as I was praying this morning and "complaining" to the Lord about how hard it is to live in two worlds-the land of the living and the land of the dead- He spoke these words in the my heart "You Live Here."

I knew instantly what He meant. Four years ago when I felt Him calling us to start this ministry I had a vision (not like I actually saw it, more just in my imagination if that makes sense?) of Nathan and I moving out to a far off place. One that was very dark and very rocky. I felt the Lord ask me then "Will you stay here and build a town?" And I screamed "Yes!" Because at the time, that is what my heart longed for- a community of bereaved believers. Somewhere I could rest in my grief and be understood. And so in my mind Nathan and I built our home there-in the darkness of grief. We leaned into grief in our own lives and in a metaphorical sense we started to "build a home" in the land of the dead and dying. We started tilling the land to see if there was anything that could come from our brokenness.

About 1 year ago I felt the Lord telling me in prayer to look up. In my "vision" of creating this place or community for the lost we had been working hard to cultivate the land, so to speak,  to grow something out of our own brokenness. We had kept "our hand to the plow"  that we hadn't noticed the people, more like refugees, flooding in. And so when He said "look up" I had this vision of hundreds of people coming to our little "city for the broken." This was about the time that we had real life breakthrough in our ministry and were able to take our retreat to Chicago and go on national radio. For the first time I saw this ministry actually growing beyond our own parish and town and again I cried "yes Lord!" because that is what my heart longed for.

And now 4.5 years into this grief, my heart still longs for this city of the broken, but I just don't want to live there. Lately I've been trying to leave and thats where I feel the "burden" the most. Trying to live a normal life and getting "annoyed" with all this grief stuff that comes flooding in. And thats why God reminded me today "You live here" As in "You live here, in the town of the broken, the lost, the lonely. Please stay, please help these people, please show them the Father." He also told me that in the land of the living He doesn't really need me all that much-He can find others for that work-but here in the land of the darkness is where I live-not visit-but LIVE. 

And I had absolute peace after He revealed this to me. I get burnt out/stressed out/stretched when I try to go back and forth between the two worlds. But knowing that my mission and mission field are here-in the land of the dead- that gives clarity and simplifies things. And once again I cried out "Yes Lord," because I knew my heart was made for this-I was made for this. 

I will leave you with this from Isaiah. Nathan and I pray this often and really see it as a road map for our ministry.

Isaiah 61

The Mission to the Afflicted

"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me

because the Lord has anointed me.

He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the lowly,

to heal the brokenhearted,

To proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners.

To announce a year of favor from the Lord.

and a day of vindication by our God, 

to comfort all who mourn.

To place on those who mourn in Zion, a diadem instead of ashes.

To give them oil of gladness in place of mourning,

a glorious mantle instead of a listless spirit.

They will be called oaks of justice.

planted by the Lord to show his glory."

Dear Lord, please continue to make us "Oaks of Justice, planted to show your Glory" Amen!

The heaviness of grief ministry

"Cold is the night without you here

Just your absence ringing in my ears

Hard is the heart that feels no fear

without the bad the good disappears

Long is the road that leads me home

longer still when I walk alone

bitter is the thought of all that time

spent searching for something ill never find

take this burden away from me

and bury it before it buries me

Many are the days Ive wanted to cease

lay myself down and find some relief

heavy is the head that gets no sleep

we carry our lives around in our memories

so take away this apathy

bury it before it buries me

Steady is the hand that's come to term

with the lessons it has had to learn

Ive seen the things that I must do

Lord, this road is meant for two

So I am waiting here for you

So take my hand and set me free

Take my burdens and bury them deep

Take this burden away from me

Bury it before it buries it buries me"

This song has been playing in my head non stop for about two weeks now. I feel like it sums up not only grief, but also what grief is like now that I do a grief ministry. The stories I have heard recently from new support groups and couples registering for our retreat leave my head spinning. There is so much heartbreak and sadness in this world. I spent my holy hour this past Sunday pouring my heart out to the Lord, telling him much like the prophet Elijah "Enough oh Lord." Sometimes I wonder if I am strong enough to do this ministry, to continue to carry these stories and the hearts of these people with me. It all feels-heavy. And it often leaves me feeling unbalanced and not sure how to walk between two worlds-the land of the living and the land of the dead. And just when I wondered if God understood, or if he had really called me to this ministry I opened the book of Timothy and began reading my assigned Bible Study readings for the week.

"I am grateful to Him who has strengthened me, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he considered me trustworthy in appointing me to the ministry." 1 Timothy 1:12

As I read the words I felt God's smiling down on me saying ,"see, I did call you to this-you can do it-you were made for it." I left that hour of adoration feeling renewed and capable (or at least capable in knowing God is with me!)

This weekend will be good-I know that. Please pray for the couples seeking healing and for my husband and I as we lead them and train others to do this ministry.

Couples Retreat

There is still time to register for our retreat. Please spread the word to those in need.

 No cost for the couples.

The Bus Project

Six months ago my husband sat me down and said he had something to "run by me." Hesitant I sat and listened while he explained to me his desire to sell our second car. My first thought was "this is crazy-the car is payed off already!" I mean, who doesn't want a second car around for the "just in case" times? He went on and on about how he wanted to take the bus (and we don't live in a city where people take public transportation-most people have their own cars and just drive). If he took the bus to and from work we would not need his car. We could save money by not paying insurance, the money from selling the car, and the random repairs that come up, not to mention gas money(which is basically a wash b/c he would have to actually by a bus pass). He answered every question I threw at him. I could see how excited this idea made him so I said "alright, but first you have to take the bus and try it out before we just up and sell the car." 

So he did. He's been taking the bus to work and back now for 3 weeks and really enjoying it. And here are a few of the changes I've seen come of it, changes for the better:

1) We now walk together the 8 blocks to and from the bus stop to drop him off. When I add in an extra loop down a side street I can log one mile in the morning and one in the afternoon-score! Exercise without trying!

2) More family time. Before he had to leave earlier because he had to park far away and take a shuttle to his department. Now we get about an extra 15-20 minutes at home each morning before walking out the door because the bus drops him off RIGHT outside his department. 

3) More awareness of the community-after a few days of standing out waiting for the bus after work Nathan noticed that there was no bench or cover. He's looking into contacting the city to see about getting something out there for the people waiting to sit on and be sheltered under while they wait. If the city does not provide it he will ask his employer-something as simple as a bench could go a long way.

4) Less stuff to worry about. Honestly I'm now looking forward to selling the car to have one less thing to worry about and maintain. 

5) Nathan has more time to "decompress" on the way home, since he isn't driving. That means by the time he sees us he is ready to transition into the "daddy!!!!" mode easier.

Those are just some of the benefits in the first few weeks. Will it always be easy? No, I'm sure the winter months will be challenging to get to and from the bus stop, but I'm confident we can figure that out as it comes. What really sealed the deal was when Pope Francis put out his latest encyclical entitled "Laudato Si’"or "Care for our common home." Read it online free here. There is even a small section on public transportation ( I knew I had officially lost this argument when I saw that!)

So for now-we are set to try and sell Nathan's car. Hoping to sell it in the next month or so. I'll keep you posted on the bus project!

Love as strong as Death

Nathan and I just celebrated our 6 year wedding anniversary last month. I took some time to look back through our wedding album. That's when I saw this-

The wedding cake. I looked closer at what I already knew-the words on the cake. They had been taken from Song of Songs and say "Set me as a seal on your heart, set me as a seal on your soul." Then the bottom layer "For love is strong as death," also from Song of Songs 8:6. DEATH-who puts the word death on their wedding cake?I had to stand back and chuckle because duh-we do. 

When Caleb died God released a calling on our lives to minister to other families who have experienced the death of their children. At first people told me I was just doing it for "now" and eventually, when we had living kids, I would leave it behind. But we didn't, and maybe some look at what we do as dragging our feet in the past and not moving on-but that's not the case. God has called me to this field of death, much like the prophet Ezekiel:

"The hand of the Lord came upon me and He led me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the center of the plain, which was now filled with bones. He made me walk among them in every direction so that I saw how many there were on the surface of the plain. How dry they were!" Ezekiel 37:1-2

Looking back on our wedding cake I realize that this calling, this ministry, was written on our hearts from the beginning. This is my own personal revelation- but I truly believe that all of us sit down with God before we are born. He gives us a mission and we sign off on it. It's our job to figure out what that mission is. And how do we do it? By getting to know the Father, the one who gave us the mission in the first place. Ever since Caleb died and the new "mission" came to me in prayer, I had a sense that I had said yes to it long ago. Like some part of my heart or soul knew, just knew, that my first child would die. 

Looking back now I can see how the Lord put a love of death (weird!) in my heart. I have always been drawn to cemeteries. I love the stories you can gather there just by reading the headstones. I love the peace and stillness of the cemetery-the way it helps put our lives in perspective because we see the end-that there really will be an end one day. I have always been drawn to death, so much so that we thought we should put it on our wedding cake!

Love as strong as death- those words mean so much more now, six years later. 

At Caleb's funeral. I'll never get over how small that casket was.

Our love has been stronger than death. It will always be stronger than death because we have the love of Christ, the one who conquered death. Looking back over my life I can see how God was always forming me for this ministry of death. He was always preparing me, shaping me, guiding me. 

I'd like to leave you with a prayer that I keep tucked in my Bible about mission (not sure who wrote it originally?):

God has created me to do Him some definite service,

He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another.

I have my mission-I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.

I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.

He has not created me for naught, I shall do good, I shall do His work.

I shall be a preacher of Truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.

Therefore, my God, I will put myself without reserve into your hands. What have I in Heaven, and apart from you what do I want upon Earth?

My flesh and my heart fail, but God is the God of my heart. 

Prayer

I grew up going to Catholic Schools-1st grade through 12th. I left 12th grade with very little knowledge (sadly) of how to actually "pray." The thing about prayer is you can talk about it a lot but until you just "do it" and dive in, you won't get anywhere. Enter FOCUS summer training 2007. As a new missionary I was required to pray in silence for 1 hour every day, attend daily  mass, and do a rosary-every day. Talk about a change in lifestyle! Never before in my life had I spent so much quiet time with myself and God. Sure I had "prayed" before, but mostly just when I needed things. In college I had a Bible and it sat on my shelf, occasionally coming out for Bible Study each week. But now, now I had hours (literally) inside a chapel with nothing but silence. And it was HARD. It wasn't fun, at least not at first.  I laugh when I hear people say that religious monks and sisters have it "easy" because they retreat from the "world" and just pray all day. Sitting silent for hours each day requires you to look at yourself, to really sit with yourself and all the things in your life.

After spending two years in FOCUS doing the daily routine of prayer -my life changed. Suddenly God wasn't just some big thing up in the sky directing things. He was real. I took everything to him-the good, the bad, the ugly, the insignificant-everything. Its amazing how prayer shaped my daily choices and activities. Suddenly if I had a problem I found myself waiting until prayer time to figure out the next step. Things slowed way down in my life and I started to crave more silence instead of dread it.

Is there room in your day for more prayer? For more silence? A good gut check for me is to go through my daily routine and look at the noise-alarm clock, television, radio, talking on phone, music in the car, talking at work, etc. We fill our days with so much noise that God can't get in. In our home from 1-3 pm each day the kids nap, and silence fills the air. Its a beautiful thing. Having those two hours of quiet gives me time to think, to pray, to receive whatever it is God is trying to tell me. I often read scripture or other books. I can't say I spend the entire 2 hours in silence, but it is "quiet," without distractions. 

I guess I wanted to start off writing about prayer because often times when I say things like "God spoke to me" or "I feel like God is asking me to do this or that" I fear people might wonder-when? how is God speaking to you? It's in the quiet time, the prayer time. God speaks in the silence and unless we are used to listening we will miss what He is saying. Our souls can rest in silence-they were made for eternal rest so training ourselves here on Earth to rest is really just a preparation for eternity. St.Augustine said "My heart is restless until it rest in Thee." Oh how true are his words!

Hoping you can find some time today to sit in silence and pray. 

Something New

When I stared this blog it was in response to wrapping up my other blog, Good Grief. I was ready to be done writing about sad things, grief, and brokenness. I envisioned this blog being about my life as a stay at home mom-recipes, play dates, crafts-whatever. But its been over a year now and I just don't see this space turing into that. There is still an ache in my heart to write, but I don't really have a desire to write about my living kids. What I need is still to write about Caleb. I need a way to parent him along with my other kids. But then, what to write? Everything that could be said about grief is pretty much summed up in the other blog. So Im praying and thinking about writing more things about our ministry here and what God is doing in our lives. I love writing and I love the outlet it gives me. I also think as Christians it's our duty to encourage one another with the things God has shown and given us. I know God is working in my life and I'm ready to start sharing that with the world, even if it sounds crazy (because it is nine times out of ten). So stick with me as I attempt to write more in this space. Until then enjoy Judah Thomas-5 months! Also, Abigail is in VBS this week and the theme is St. Patrick of Ireland! Fun Times for all!