a new spin on this holiday season

It seems like I always take a break from writing until something tragic happens to me or my family. Well, this situation is no different. I haven’t written about this situation because, frankly, it’s just too painful - to think about, to have to live through, to even consider as the possibility that it is really happening.

It’s the Holiday Season, right? A time for perpetual cheer, good will, all that jazz. But I ask you, how can I be happy when my family unit, as I know it, is forever changed? My family will never celebrate a holiday together again - no birthdays, no weddings, no holidays, nothing.

I’m headed home on Tuesday to be the “comforter” through this tough time for my family. It seems like it’s a roll I can’t seem to switch off. I hate seeing people hurting, especially if those people are my family. It just sucks that there is absolutely nothing I can do about it but just sit there and watch everyone hurt (me included).

Someone really screwed up. My family will bounce back from this, but it’ll take a REALLY long time. We’re all experiencing emotions we’re not used to feeling. I, personally, am feeling every negative emotion known to man, thrown in with a little compassion & concern. It’s an odd combination - to want to hurt someone yet feel bad for them, even love them.

I don’t think there’s any way to convey exactly what I’m feeling. This is a different kind of hurt, concern, despair than I’ve ever felt before in my life. It’s an experience I can’t put into words. It’s one of those things that, while I’m not thinking about it, life seems normal. But when I do think about it, it’s like my entire world is coming to an end. The innocence that was once synonymous with my family is forever gone. How I long for the days when the worst thing I could expect to go through was moving (leaving everyone I love), ending a relationship or losing something. I want those days back. I want my family as I knew it back.

Sadly, that will never happen. This Holiday Season is the beginning of a new phase of life - an unwelcome, unwanted phase of life. It’s kind of a phase of mourning, yet one of growing closer as the new family unit that we are. They say that God doesn’t give you anything you can’t handle. He gives you what you need to grow. I hate to sound sacrilegious, but if this is what it takes, I’d rather not grow in this area of my life.

I found a Bible verse during church today that I’ve obviously read before (because I underlined it), but I don’t really remember ever having really seen it before. It’s 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (NLT):

7…even though I have received such wonderful revelations from God. So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud.

8 Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. 9 Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. 10 That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I think that this situation, this crisis, is the thorn in my side - in my family’s side. I can’t count how many times I’ve asked God to take this situation away - to let my family go back in time and find a way to stop what happened. But He won’t, and we can’t. I guess all I can do is just truck on through this newfound sadness, this apparent weakness, and learn to lean on God.

Maybe that’s the spin on this Holiday Season - everyone remembers that Jesus came as a baby to save the world. It seems like a much different story when you see how hard and ugly that world can be. I guess those verses need to become my life verses for the time being - until I can learn to welcome this ever-so-painful thorn in my side.

when you want to be closer

Have you ever noticed that, no matter how much you may miss someone at any given time, you always want to be nearer when they're going through a trying time (surgery, death of a loved one, hard times in general)?

Absence does make the heart grow fonder, but it seems that trials make the heart grow "fonderer"... those trials make the separation that much harder to bear.

What makes us, as humans, need to be near someone we love who is hurting? I know there the whole "we're human, we have the capacity to love and the need to nurture" answer, but is there something else? I can see a commercial on TV for the "Sponsor our Children" organizations, and my heart will ache for the people in the commercials. But, normally, once the commercial is off the screen (or I'm just plain distracted by something else), those people are completely out of my mind. Yet it seems that nothing can remove someone I know from my mind when they're going through something that may put a strain on their day-to-day life.

Why is it that some people can ache for people they don't know... ache enough to leave everything they know and love to help care for these people, to show them the only love they may ever know? Why is it that, for some people (sadly, myself included), we get caught up in the whirlwind of excitement that comes with sponsoring a child we've never met, but once it becomes part of everyday life, we tend to put that on the back burner? I'm terribly guilty of this, no matter how hard I try to stay excited about it.

But I've gotten off-track.

I've noticed since moving away from my family/loved ones that I miss them most either when I've just left them or when I know I'm going to see them soon. This time that missing them seems almost unbearable. My days are brighter because I know I'm seeing Adam and my family in almost less than 2 months, but they are also a little darker (at the same time, strangely) because I know that no matter how much I want to be with them now, I have to wait.

What brought on my writing this? Well, I'm sure Adam won't mind my telling you... he's getting his wisdom teeth out tomorrow. They're all impacted. I would give anything to be there with him, to try and help him feel just a little better when the pain starts. I know I won't really be able to do anything to help, but for me (and maybe this is selfish), just being there, sitting in a room with him would be better than the options I currently have.

At least this is the (hopefully) only surgery that I won't be able to take care of him afterwards. I look forward to the day when I'll be able to drop anything to be with Adam, my sisters or the rest of my family & friends when they're going through a rough time.

Yes, I do want to be closer. Much closer.