Archive for the The Journey Category

I was a child who experienced deep grief. I didn’t know that’s what it was. Grief looked like anger, frustration and illness. It was communicated by my parents as, “I’m tired. Go away. Play outside.” I knew my grandmother had been killed in a car accident, but I don’t remember anyone crying. I remember my mother making meals, taking us to the doctor and cleaning the house. She seemed angry a lot. I thought it was my fault and internalized that grief as intense fear and insecurity. I am an adult now and I can appreciate the stress she was under and how hard she worked to hold everything together. I am grateful for her care and her sacrifices. But when I was a little girl, I didn’t understand what was happening and as a result suffered deep and painful emotional wounds.

We spent a lot of time at my Grandpa Swan’s log house. My mother took care of the house and my young aunt and uncle. My father worked on the house itself, repairing the defects of a house not built properly. They say the cold wind blew straight through the cracks in the walls until he fixed them. My dad was Mr. Fixit. I loved my dad. But he never seemed available to spend time with me. He was either working at the airport (to pay our bills) or working on that old log house. I was lonely and sad. I was always looking for something, though I didn’t really know what.

I spent hours wandering the woods on those 40 acres. I hunted for frogs and turtles and salamanders. I wasn’t afraid of snakes or walking sticks. I knew every nook and cranny of that property. The delight of my life was pulling up in our old yellow station wagon. I would make a beeline for the pond – running down the well-worn path on the hill as fast as I could. I would rush to pull up an old piece of metal siding to see if there was a snake or bullfrog underneath. In the summer I wandered through the woods and scooped up peepers–little baby toads. I remember there were hundreds, if not thousands of them. They were wonderful. I was alone, but nature filled my senses.

I remember the evening I stood in the field out in front of the house and looked up at the sky. The clouds were white and fluffy, and the sun was setting behind them in a glorious display of sparkling gold. I knew there was a God who created that beautiful scene, and I loved Him. More importantly, I felt loved by Him in that moment. I felt as if He was looking down on me and telling me that I wasn’t alone.

This is how I characterize my childhood; intense grief swallowed up in illuminating love.

My Grandpa Swan sold the 40 acres and log house the summer after I finished sixth grade. I was devastated. I loved the land, the garden, the outbuildings, and the old pond. And when I say I loved it, I mean that I still dream about that place 37 years later, and I probably always will. It was my second home, and the land was like a second skin.

I suppose I could call it the land that I lost. I was a child and I didn’t understand why my grandpa had to move to California and sell that wonderful place. My aunt Leslie and I loved it so much we went back to visit years later. The owners weren’t home and so we wandered down to the old pond–which looked much smaller. It’s strange how we can grieve a place as much as we grieve a person. In my dreams I am on the front porch or running through the fields or down to the pond. It is as much a part of me today as my current home.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to lose a place that I love. It feels silly to miss a place. After all, it’s the people we love who lived there that really matter. When they are gone, does the place even have any relevance? But my heart would argue the opposite is true. The love of the people is imprinted on my heart as much as the love of the land. My Grandpa Swan’s Garden was so lush. I remember picking sunflower heads and roasting sunflower seeds. I remember the rhubarb plants, the strawberries, the peach tree. The echoes of love still resound in my heart like a symphony. Each memory is a note. So, when I sit down to remember, there is a song thrumming through my soul that is as timeless as the soil itself.

I am an adult who remembers the wonder of exploring the land. The love of land has never left me. My husband and I purchased 5.5 acres in a small town in Southern Missouri about 13 years ago. We spent many summers there with only a cooler and a couple tents until we were able to get a small loan and build a little cabin. We have cut down trees, hauled wood and even had a well dug (Oh running water! Luxury of luxuries!). We only work on the cabin as we have money so there is much yet to be completed. But my favorite amenity will always be the toilet and the shower. I spent too many days and nights without either.

The past few visits I have done a lot of thinking about what will happen to our little slice of heaven when I’m gone. It was just a plot of woods when we bought it, but we have made it into a home. I have a bird feeder in the front yard and last Fall I planted iris bulbs. I have a little plot of oregano and this Spring I intend to try a few vegetables. I have made many friends of the people who live nearby, and my mind always wanders there when I’m in the city. I wonder if anyone will ever love the land as I have. Will they get as excited as I do when I hunt for mushrooms?

The land taught me about chanterelles, chicken of the woods and elkhorns. Will the people who come after me marvel over wild blueberries and wander through blackberry bushes gobbling each berry until their fingers and lips are bright red? Will they rush down into the woods when it starts to rain to watch the little dry creek turn from a gravel ditch into a cornucopia of waterfalls? Or will they use the firepit we lovingly built out of stones from the nearby hills? It was our first architectural marvel, and we were so proud to park our chairs near it and roast hotdogs and marshmallows as if we were kings and queens.

In writing this I realize I’m no longer looking for what I lost in those 40 acres my grandpa sold. I retain my memories and can stroll there any time I like. More importantly, the people I love live there even though they no longer live on earth. My Aunt Melinda and my Aunt Nina are young and beautiful there. My Grandpa Swan is always making jokes and funny faces and the strange silly sounds only he could make. My Cousin Pleasy was there, sitting on the front porch, all smiles and sweetness. And my Uncle Daniel had space for me on the back of his dirt bike and time to ride me around on the trails in the woods. I even remember my Grandma Swan in what must be one of my earliest memories. I was sitting on her lap and I was loved. Love echoes in my memories and no one can snatch them away.

I spend a lot of time walking around the woods on my little plot of land. I know the hole where the groundhog lives, how to avoid the yellow jacket nest in the ground, and where the deer leave their droppings. The mosses and ferns grow near the dry creek beds, and I find joy and wonder in each little bloom of the wildflowers that sprout in the Spring. Most recently I have made new friends in the nuthatches, chickadees and titmice that visit my feeder. I have found so many beautiful creatures there and I continue to awe over how the land always seems to have more to give.

Life will always have seasons of deep grief and loss. One day it feels as if the pain from what we have lost will consume us and joy will never sprout anew. Our tears are like rain washing away everything we loved. But feelings are more transient than the leaves on my trees. They sprout, then grow, and then shrivel, die and fall to the ground. Then the cycle begins again.

Listen. Do you hear it? Spring is so near I can almost smell it. The robins have arrived. They are looking for worms and berries and they are beginning to build their nests. This is the rhythm of nature, the rhythm of life.

I still feel my Father in Heaven looking down on me with love. Sometimes He shines through the clouds in a glorious sunset as He did when I was a child. But most often, He speaks through his Word to remind me that He is sovereign over all creation. More importantly, with Him nothing is ever lost. In Him I find the love that fills my heart with joy and gladness even on the gloomiest of winter days.

 

“As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.” – Ecclesiastes 11:5

There’s a little saying Christian people like to say when bad things are happening that can be used as a kind of ‘whitewash’ over the pain. “God is working, we just don’t know what He is doing.” This is no comfort to someone under extreme stress. I mean, what exactly is God doing, torturing me? God is either all powerful and all-knowing and in complete control, or He isn’t, and everything is chaos. And since the world is still turning, the sun still rises and sets and all of my atoms haven’t flown apart and started floating into outer space, I assume there is a force holding everything together. Alas, this doesn’t comfort me.

As I consider the ways in which I need to rebuild my life in the form of habits, goals, and behaviors, I have thought a lot about what a solid foundation looks like. I’ve been meeting with a counselor, and she is good at asking me blunt questions and forcing me to deal with the emotions I keep stuffing deep down inside. I am learning that even though I’m a good writer and communicator, I am even better at hiding my real feelings from people. I project the Margaret I want people to see and not the real Margaret who is. I thought this was necessary for me to function in real life. This is a pattern I have practiced for years. And in some ways, it is necessary in the workplace. However, I had gotten so good at this that the people I work with thought I was strong enough to withstand a tsunami. And I wasn’t. Things kept flying at me and konking me on the head and I just kept getting up and walking forward. Then, when the waters rolled in and grief knocked me over, there was no getting up. If I am to build a new foundation, one important thing to consider is I need to practice self-care while doing so. I thought I knew how to do this, alas, I do not.

I made a list of goals for 2024 and one of them was to stop hiding from conflict. A hidden broken heart doesn’t heal–it festers. I need to communicate openly and release all of this pain. I want to emphasize that this is really hard to do in a corporate environment where emotions are perceived as weakness. The goal is not to dump my pain on other people. The goal is to honestly and openly communicate issues so they can be resolved. That is a step, but not necessarily the foundation I need to build on.

The foundation will enable me to face my fears. It will be a strong platform to give me courage when I lack it most. It needs to be something non-negotiable and durable, more valuable than currency, and yet completely weightless. In fact, it will make me buoyant. What can I trust that can do all of these things? No one or thing on earth is able to do this for me. I have to make my foundation faith in God. This is the same God who allowed my beautiful dog to die and who has allowed great adversity in my life. Faith in God is a choice I continue to make even when it seems irrational. The reason I always run back to God is that everything else in this world has proven inadequate.

I woke up Tuesday morning and slowly built up to a panic attack as I thought about returning to work after my two-week vacation. I began to cry and pray out loud as I exercised. And somewhere in the deep shadows of my heart I felt a voice telling me to be still. He reminded me that my circumstances are always changing, but He does not. He told me I am His precious child. He reminded me I am adopted, chosen, loved. He told me to get out of the way and let Him work. How did I respond? I said, “Yes, Sir.”

And just like that, I felt so safe and protected and strong.

“Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, I have no pleasure in them.” – Ecclesiastes 12:1

As I write this, the wren is singing outside my kitchen window. He’s very serious about singing. He trills as he jerks back and forth with intensity. It’s almost as if he is shouting at the world, “Hear me! My song is important! Listen! Listen!” And then he scoops a mouthful of peanut butter and walnut and retreats to the tree. I would imagine the life of a wren is very simple. Eat. Poop. Mate. Raise young. Sing.

I need to be more like that wren. I need to sing often and with fervor regardless of my circumstances. Why else does music exist? If God created the wren to sing, I know He created me for a purpose as well. I have decided to build on a foundation of faith this year. And finally, I am starting to have a little hope in what the finished structure might look like.

“Dogs live most of life in Quiet Heart. Humans live mostly next door in Desperate Heart. Now and then will do you good to live in our zip code.” Trixie Koontz (from Bliss to You)

After 5 days of solitude in the country, I have returned to the bustle of city life. With all its hectic busyness, chaos and technological insanity, I find myself longing for the quiet mornings watching the bird feeder with my cup of hot tea. The working world is calling me back and I have to go.

I have been meeting with a counselor over the past month and have been doing my homework. I am supposed to journal my feelings every day (so I don’t stuff them) and I chart out goals for 2024. I also did something she didn’t ask me to do, I made a list of all the good things (blessings) God has done for me over the years as a way of remembering His goodness. This exercise has been the most impactful in helping me to know He is faithful and will help me to go forward.

I sat at the kitchen table in the country and was engulfed with quiet and calm. I remembered one, two and then twenty plus things. There have been so many times I was fearful about where God provided. Even now I remember times He helped me that weren’t on my list. There was that time my home was in foreclosure and He provided a job and I was able to save the house. Or that time I was grieving the loss of a close friendship and He helped me to forgive that person for ghosting me. I also remembered how addicted to sugar I was and how heavy I was and how He helped me to stop eating unhealthy food and start exercising. I know I’ve been writing about it for a long time, but this is a major blessing in my life that continues to bear fruit. I went to visit a neighbor in the country and she told me her daughter is morbidly obese and her leg bones are like Swiss cheese to the point she can’t walk and they had to give her stem cells to try to help heal the bones. I have aches and pains and arthritis, but at least I’m still able to walk. That is a MAJOR blessing!

The biggest thing my counselor tells me is that I am too hard on myself and I need to practice self-care. I am struggling in this area. I need to take care of my family and I need to stay healthy. I generally take care of everyone else before me. I feel the retreat was self-care but I have to live in the real world. Also, it’s really hard to not think about all the things I am afraid of. I had nightmares 4 out of 5 nights while I was there. I don’t understand how to stop having nightmares or how to stop being afraid of things that really are frightening.

I have watched several inspirational movies about authors – one being Charles Dickens, “The Man who Invented Christmas” and “Miss Potter”. These stories helped me to dream a little again. I want to find a way to start writing fiction stories again because that is when I really feel alive and happy. To me, that is the best self-care I can do. But it requires time, something that I don’t have a lot of.

I started the new year with a workout and lunch with an old friend. It was nice to eat in a restaurant (something I don’t do very often) and just gab about life. The one thing I noticed during our conversation was that several times I said, “In life, there is no easy button.” It occurs to me that I wish I had one. Or better yet, a button that says, “Problem solved.” Or maybe I wish I had a beacon to turn on at night like the light that comes on at the checkout when there is a problem with something you are trying to scan. The attendant rushes over and helps almost immediately and fixes the issue. I love that.

I have been reading Psalm 37 over and over. There is one verse in particular that has been helpful. “Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.” (Psalm 37:8) I can attest to the fact that fretting does tend only to evil, but it really is hard to stop.

I’m afraid of work tomorrow. I’m hoping things get easier. They may not. I need to accept the way things are and have courage to change the things I can. I’m not certain of anything anymore and in some respects I’ve lost my confidence. But day by day is all I can do. Sometimes the best courage we can muster is to just get up and keep going. Just show up. So that is what I intend to do. And when I take a break or eat my lunch, I am going to practice living in quiet heart.