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.

a heart broken (and lessons learned)

What do you write when your soul longs to scream out, but it doesn’t know what to say? How do you recover from a major life change - and I mean MAJOR? It’s out of your control. You didn’t cause it, you didn’t want it. I didn’t cause it. I didn’t want it. But I have no choice but to accept it. How do I deal with this?

How do I deal with this gut-wrenching pain that’s coursing through my body? How do I deal with the seemingly “foreverness” of uncertainty that is now my future? What about the emptiness that I feel in my heart? What about my feelings in all of this? Don’t they count for anything? I guess not.

I guess I’m looking for answers (as evidenced by the many questions I’ve asked). I wish there was an easy answer. I wish there was an easy fix. I wish this hadn’t happened. I wish I could erase it.

But now I have no choice but to accept it - to recover and move on. To learn from the entire situation and become stronger in spite of it. In spite? No - that would mean that I regret all of it. I will become stronger because of it.

I’ve learned that I can be put through the wringer and come out whole on the other side. I can stand up for myself and for something I believe in. I know when it’s time to say, “No more, this isn’t for me.” Now the question is, will I bring strong enough to say it if, God forbid, the need arises?

So I would like to thank you. Thank you for helping to mold me into the woman I am today. Thank you for helping to make me stronger. Do I regret the past? Not all of it - not the good times. I’m going to try to not be embarrassed for the things that have happened (and for seemingly fighting for no reason). I will try to swallow my pride and ask forgiveness (it’ll be hard, but I’ll try).

The road to recovery is going to be painful, I know. But it’s, unfortunately, a necessary evil. I just hope I’m strong enough to deal with it.

a death in the "family"

A friend’s mom just died. Point blank, no romanticizing. I can’t imagine the pain he will be going through once the death has been accepted (he is seemingly in some major denial). He’s a friend of mine through Karen…

I don’t even want to begin to consider what I will feel like when I have to go though similar circumstances. Will I be the strong one in the family? Will I take charge? Or will I be the one who just clams up and doesn’t accept it because I don’t want it to be true?

We’re all getting older, that can’t be hidden or denied. No one wants to think of the remote possibility that their parents will die some day. Yet something like this is a constant reminder. It helps me realize exactly how much I appreciate and love my parents, friends, family, etc. But do I really show it? Or am I one of those friends/sisters/girlfriends who lets everyone else shower me with emotion, but I don’t relate how I’m feeling - how much I love and appreciate them?

It’s times like these that I look back and really start to question the kind of person I’ve become. Not because I’m a bad person… but am I maybe a little too selfish? I look back at my life and try to find times where I did something completely without regard as to what it would get me in return. I don’t think I can think of a single time that’s happened. Maybe I need to be reminded.

Or maybe I just need to wake up and realize how good I have it. Maybe I need to start showing people I appreciate them, and not only after they do something for me.

Maybe…