Today - Day By Day

Thank you to all of you who continue to think of me, Lucas, and our families and lift us up to the Lord in your prayers. It was 2 years ago today that we suffered the loss of our Midi and Nathan. Lucas is a happy 6 year old now who, thanks be to God, is thriving and doing well. There is no doubt that the Holy Spirit is at work in his life - not just in protecting his heart from despair and pain but also in building him up as a boy who is a living testimony of God's goodness. I thank God for him everyday for I know that I do not deserve him. I also am doing well. My faith in Him has never been stronger. God continues to provide for me in every way and is teaching me deep lessons. I am learning to abide in Him, which is, I think, the main challenge for all Christians throughout the course of our lives. Not that I didn't before, but I'm learning to abide in Him in the Present even as I look back to my Past and await my certain ultimate Future. Here is where God has me. And Here is where I am learning to be.

I'm reading and marinating in this passage tonight and I'd like to share it.

"Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, 'I believed, and so I spoke,' we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened - not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.
So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil."

2 Cor 4.13-5.10

What I am struck by in my times in the Word lately is how throughout the scriptures - Old Testament and New, Psalms and Proverbs, prophets and epistles - the focus is on the Present. For a believer in Jesus and one who has experienced communion with God through the Holy Spirit, the Past is meant to help us believe and live in the Present with confidence that the One who gave blessings and rescued us and taught deep truths in the Past is reliable, good, and true. The Future promises of eternal glory, resurrection, freedom from pain, tears and suffering, a new heaven and a new earth, being face to face with Jesus - these are also meant to help followers of Jesus live in faith and confidence in the Present, even if the Present is full of pain and sorrow. Neither the Past nor the Future are meant to distract us or keep us from living in direct communion with God through the Holy Spirit in the Present. He is Immanuel, God with us; not just in the Past or face to face in the Future, but God with us right now. So I exhort you fellow believers in Jesus out there (and myself, too) to grow in your walk with Immanuel.

Healing is from God

A friend of mine said something to me last night that was a good reminder of a profound truth. He said (paraphrasing), "God has been so gracious to you. You can do everything right and still be a mess. But God has been gracious to you." In the past 20+ months, I have tried to do everything right in my grieving process.

1. Choosing not to dwell on "What if" questions
2. Believing in Jesus' victory over death and claiming that victory in my heart for Midi and Nathan
3. Clinging to Jesus in prayer
4. Soaking in and meditating on words of truth and hope from the Holy Scriptures
5. Going naked before God with all of my grief and pain, trusting that He would meet me and comfort me
6. Allowing others into my grief, even if they cannot fathom the depths of my pain, so that they could cry with me and lift me up to the Lord
7. Not allowing self-pity to cause me to withdraw from others or minimize their own pain and struggles
8. Not medicating my pain with drugs, alcohol, television, food, or other mind-numbing distractions
9. Choosing to love others and believing that doing so allows me to experience God's love for me more deeply
10. Clinging to and declaring the hope of the resurrection; that in the New Earth there will be no more tears, death, mourning, crying, pain. And that God is making all things new (Rev 21.5-6)
11. Embracing my life as a stranger and exile seeking a homeland (Heb 11.13-14)
12. Comforting others as I have been comforted (2 Cor 1.3-5)
13. Being grateful to God for marriage with Midi and her imprint on my life. Being grateful to god for the unique and special gift that Nathan was to me.
14. Understanding that self-entitlement is the enemy of gratitude. You can't be grateful for something you think you deserve.
15. Trusting that God is good: yesterday, today, and every day
16. Not taking any shortcuts or settling for healing on the surface
17. Asking for and receiving counsel for major decisions
18. Repenting often when unbelief and self-pity creep into my heart

And yet, my friend reminded me that though I have chosen and believed rightly throughout my grieving process, it is God alone who has met me and brought me to the place of healing and faith that I am at now. It is true. It is very possible that despite doing all the right things, I could still be a heaping mess, unable to receive comfort or consolation from God. So the general truth for all of us is that we could do everything right (and we should try), but the blessings bestowed on us as a result are from God alone. And we should be grateful. Let he who has eyes to see, see. Let he who has ears to hear, hear.

Wesley

"If death my friend and me divide,
thou dost not, Lord, my sorrow chide,
or frown my tears to see;
restrained from passionate excess,
thou bidst me mourn in calm distress
for them that rest in thee.

I feel a strong immortal hope,
which bears my mournful spirit up
beneath its mountain load;
redeemed from death, and grief, and pain,
I soon shall find my friend again
within the arms of God.

Pass a few fleeting moments more
and death the blessing shall restore
which death has snatched away;
for me thou wilt the summons send,
and give me back my parted friend
in that eternal day."


-Charles Wesley

Lucas' Firsts

Yesterday, Lucas had his first piano lesson. He needs to work on tapping to the beat in common time, understanding long and short notes, understanding loud and soft notes, and posture.

Today, I finally got around to taking the training wheels off of his bike and took him to the park to teach him how to ride without them. He did great! He's probably been ready for like 2 years so I totally take the blame for not teaching him earlier. He needs to work on how to stop without falling and how to make smooth turns.

Lucas is Special

On the night of July 1st, I was just finishing up giving Lucas his nighttime bath. I took a step back and looked at him and was feeling thankful to God that he is such a happy boy, despite how much he has lost. So I told him, "Lucas, I'm so glad that you are such a happy boy." And he replied, "It's because God made me special!"

He is so right.

UP

There is a movie out right now by Disney/Pixar called "Up". Lucas and I have seen it twice. It is on one hand an entertaining, animal-talking, hilarious, thrill-ride that kids really seem to enjoy. It is on the other hand a very touching story about life, death, grieving, loneliness, relationships, and moving forward. The main character is an old man named Carl Frederickson. The first 10 minutes of the film beautifully captures key points of his life with his childhood friend and fellow adventurer Ellie, who becomes his wife and lifelong partner. Through a moving video collage of their life together we see Carl and Ellie get married, buy and renovate a house, get pregnant and anticipate the birth of their child, suffer a devastating miscarriage, picnic on a grassy hill, dream of going to South America to visit Paradise Falls, and repeatedly set aside their dream in order to deal with life's misfortunes. Finally, Ellie gets sick and dies, leaving Carl without his soulmate and with a dream unfulfilled. With his wife gone, Carl decides to attempt to keep his promise to Ellie by flying the home that they made together to South America. To make a long story short, Carl eventually succeeds in getting the house to Paradise Falls. Now backtrack a bit. When she was a child, Ellie started an adventure scrapbook about her plans to go someday to Paradise Falls. A few pages into the scrapbook she leaves a section blank for photos/memories of what she will do when she gets there. As far as Carl knew, the scrapbook was never completed and the pages in that part of it were left blank. Fast forward. So after Carl gets the house to Paradise Falls, he sits on his chair and looks one last time at Ellie's scrapbook. It is then that he notices that Ellie had continued to work on the scrapbook throughout the rest of her life filling it with pictures of their life together. At the end of the scrapbook she had written, "Thanks for the adventure - Now go have a new one." Soonafter, in order to save the little boy who traveled with him, Carl has to choose to throw everything that was in the house out so that the house could fly again. Later, after saving the boy, Carl sees the house float away for the last time.

Though I am a bit ashamed that I have personally connected to the story of this fictional animated character, the truth is that there are aspects of his journey that so clearly mirror my own. It has been 18 months since Midi and Nathan died. Lucas and I continue to live in the home that Midi and I started making together six years ago. And I find myself today in a place where I am ready to move forward, physically and emotionally. A big part of this will be packing up and moving out of this house on Abila St. that Midi and I made our home and moving into a new place and making a new home with Lucas. I wasn't ready to do this last year. But I am now. In December, through much thought, prayer, and counsel, I decided to take a leave-of-absence from my teaching position for the '09-'10 school year. So I will have over 12 months to work through this next part of my journey.

Last year I feared any aspect of moving forward. I feared that moving forward would necessarily be tied to letting go, which I desperately did not want to do in any form. I also feared that I would feel guilty if I moved forward and started to experience life as this improved person that God is making me. I think that is why I was completely unable to touch any of Midi's belongings last summer. I just wasn't ready. But what I have realized since then is that there is a certain way that I have to let go of Midi and Nathan if I am to move forward in a healthy way and embrace/seize the rest of my life and the new joys that await me. As I have seen and witnessed that God has so much more for me yet and have experienced joy in new relationships that I have chosen to give myself to, I feel confident that the rest of my life can still be good and purposeful. It is not time in and of itself that has brought me to this place, but it is by seeing over time that despite the pain of loss that I will feel every day of my life, new life and new joy can still come in and coexist with that pain. God has walked with me and graciously given me enough evidence this past year-and-a-half to be confident and eager to embrace what is to come.

Though I do not like to project onto Midi what I think she would say if she could communicate to me today, I think based on what I know of her and what I know of myself if things were the other way around that her sentiments would be similar to that of Ellie: "Thanks for the adventure - Now go have a new one." And as I sit here at the beginning of my time off, I am ready to let go and move forward and embrace the new adventures that God has in store for me and Lucas.


*Obviously, the biggest symbol of moving my life forward is moving to a new home and all that doing so entails. There are other smaller symbols that signify my moving forward, namely shaving my head, which I did on Father's Day. I have actually wanted to cut all my hair off and go with the 1/4" look for quite some time. But I submitted to Midi who absolutely did not want me to. I figured that the only person whose opinion I cared about in regards to how I looked was Midi. So shaving my head is actually pretty meaningful to me in that it symbolizes that I understand that Midi is no longer here and therefore, in some strange way, releases me from my promise not to cut my hair off.

Only One

It has been over 10 months since Midi and Nathan died. During that time, I think I've felt the sting of not having Nathan more frequently than the sting of not having Midi. This has more to do with the fact that as I continue to be Lucas' father, I miss Nathan so much. I miss being his dad, too. I experience this particular kind of bittersweetness of life everyday, many times a day. In a few weeks, I am going to have to face this in the most intense way. I anticipate that the days when Lucas turns five on December 1st (and Nathan does not) and when we celebrate on December 6th will be the hardest, most bittersweet days. Pray for me, Midi's parents, and my parents. I don't know how we are going to make it through those days.

But lately, I've really been missing Midi and my mourning has focused on her. It would have been her 35th birthday this past October 29th. There was only one Midi. There was only one who I loved for all of those years. There was only one whose love I desired and pursued. There was only one who I wanted to marry, be family with, raise children with. There was only one who I dreamed of living with the rest of my life, going on walks with until the day when one of us couldn't walk anymore. There was only one whose walk with God I cared about more than my own, who I wanted to see grow and flourish, who I wanted to see bless others with her gifts. There was only one Midi.

There are so many wonderful qualities that Midi had. What has come into focus for me the past couple of weeks though is what a strong woman she was. But not strong in the traditional or cultural sense. She was strong because she was secure. She never felt the need to convince others that she was right and they were wrong. Our culture has a way of telling women that they need to be everything and do everything. They need to be pure. If not, then they are deemed a "slut", whereas a man is deemed a "player". They need to be attractive by hollywood standards. They need to be independent, strong, family-first, successful, take care of their flawed husband. So much pressure. And that pressure causes so many problems if a woman doesn't know who she is. Midi knew who she was.

She was a safe place for everyone. There was nothing about a person that could keep her from loving them. She wouldn't allow any barrier to block someone out of her life. They could be black/white/brown/yellow, rich/poor, gay/straight, truthful/deceitful, Christian/non-Christian, liberal/conservative, male/female, old/young, smart/dumb, careful/reckless, broken/healed. And everyone knew that about her. She definitely sought to understand more than to be understood.

Back when Midi and I got together (2000), if you had asked those who knew us both (mostly from our UCLA days) about who was the more accomplished spiritual leader or whose faith was stronger, I think 10 out of 10 would have said Midi. I would have been one of those 10, for sure! But there was something about me that Midi saw that I'm not sure others did. And I think that this is more a reflection of who she was than who I was. She trusted me. From day one, she trusted me. Or maybe more accurately, she trusted God. Though I was a work in progress (still am...we all are) she saw the finished picture - and she liked it. She was able to do so, I think, because she was so secure. She was secure as child of God. But she was also secure as a woman. She was secure enough to put herself in the vulnerable position of trusting me to lead us and to do good for her. She didn't have a problem receiving my love. She never felt the need to fight for herself with me. She never felt that she would lose herself with me. She trusted that I heard her, listened to her, valued her, and desired only good for her. And so she was able to jump in with both feet and swim in my love for her.

Not everyone can do this.

But she also knew her value to me. She knew that a guy who saw the world in black and white could use the perspective of one who was comfortable in the grays. She knew that a guy who leaned so heavily towards the truth/justice side of the "Truth/Justice to Love/Grace" scale could really benefit from one who embraced the love/grace side. She knew that our children would receive the best of both worlds from us, partnering together. She knew that by trusting me and trusting that my love for her was unconditional and unbreakable, she was empowering me all the more to love her and lead our family. She knew that she was good for me, and I for her.

I was blessed to be married to Midi for over 6.5 years. We did not have a perfect marriage, but ours was a healthy marriage, never in jeopardy for a second. I realize that one of the enduring gifts that God has given me through Midi is wisdom and perspective regarding marriage. Before my life with Midi, I could never have counseled a young couple about how to deal with conflict. Now I can. What is sad for me though is that while I can bless others from my experiences in marriage with Midi, I can no longer experience it myself. I only have memories left. Bittersweet. Thank you God for Midi. But why did you allow her to die?