The Broken Sinew

There is an old Sunday School song that speaks to the power of God. It speaks of the sway He holds over this world and all of the creatures and creation in it. It is taught to children before they can even read the Holy Scripture. With tiny clasped hands stretched out to their audience children sing words of Gods sovereignty and power. Small voices ring out seldom in tune “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.”

“He’s got the wind and the rain in his hands.”

“He’s got you and me brother in his hands.”

” He’s got the tiny little babies in his hands.”

While Researching the tune I learned it was an anonymous Afro-American spiritual loved by young and old alike and that it was common to add stanzas to the song according to tradition. The thought of the heartaches felt by the writer and its first choir resonated in my spirit, what deep sorrow they must have felt because of their oppression at that time. Yet they sing that God sees them knows them and holds them. Perhaps they added stanzas that sang

“He has every single heartache in his hands.”

”He has all that we have lost in his hands.”

“ He has my broken soul in his hands”

What an encouragement of the spirit to be able to answer back to the enemies of our flesh and heart He’s got the whole world in his hands. To every shipwreck we cause or we endure we can belt out …He’s got the whole world in his hands.” To all forms of human suffering and war we cry from the depths of our souls …He’s got the whole world in his hands.

It seems that the hymn writers knew something so profound and yet were able to communicate it so simply in an elementary song . He’s got the whole world in his hands teaches this aged Christian decades later that the acknowledgment of my position gives me a greater perspective of my problems. I like the sojourners before me can answer back to any struggle I encounter in this world, Gods got me. He still holds me right in the palms of his mighty hands.

“The Earth Is the Lord’s and all it contains.”

Psalm 24

Mr. Carrs Valentines Party was the day I had waited for all of my Fifth Grade school year. It took me days to weave my construction paper heart mail reciprocal. My ten year old hands repeated the rhythm of pink and red pink and red over and under until it was complete. The smell of Elmer’s glue and paper pulp filled my nose as I anticipated all the love that my little Valentines holder would hold. With care and extra tape I attached it to the back of the chair at my desk and waited.

When the school day had one more hour left the door to our classroom opened and suddenly A mom brigade burst onto the scene. Armed with popcorn balls, jello jigglers and baked goods of many sorts they brought the party and the party had begun. I remained calm and cool to not let me emotions overrule me but on the inside I was leaping with joy. I readied myself with my handwritten notes of encouragement and began placing them in each of my classmates Valentines holder. I had been precise in picking the very best Valentines card for each individual classmate and I had been precise in what I wrote on each one. I had to think long and hard of what to say to the school yard bully but even she should not be without a card.

The Three o’clock bell rang and it was time to clean up the party and get on the bus for home. And just like that the anticipation and the joy of the party was over and real life began again. The yellow bus smelled like sweat and sugar and was a lively ride. It took about 15 minutes to get home from Gardnerville Elementery School and the entire time I guarded those Valentines that sat upon my lap as if they were gold because they actually were worth more than gold to me.

Off the bus I jumped with my cards in one hand and the key to my house in the other. I opened the front door of 1513 Wildrose drive and straight like a rocket I proceeded to my room. I shut the door kicked off my shoes and sat on the floor with my Valentines and I began to read and re-read them. In those tender moments a voice in my spirit said to my ten year old self “you are truly loved.” I was loved and that wasn’t something I felt every day but today I had 20 or so little notes to prove it. I even got a valentine from the bully. As I collected the cards and put them back in the construction paper reciprocal I spotted another valentine I hadn’t seen when I came into my room. It was on the pillow of my single bed a big red foil wrapped marshmallow heart with a big grown up sized card, it was from my mom she had left it there before she went to work. I quickly opened that big ol’ marshmallow heart and ate it as I treasured reading over each word of my mothers card. I was truly loved.

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4:10

“Better to go to the house of weeping than to go to the banquet house, because this is the end of all the children of men, and The Living One gives good to his heart.

Ecclesiastes 7:2

Six years ago today I was put in and have remained in ”The House Of Weeping.” It has taught me so much and dare I say become my comfort, like aching bones in a soft bed sadness has wrapped me in a giant bear hug and nearly strangled me.

When my soul cries out as it can’t take any more there my God is and I am gifted with a tangible awareness of the suffering of others and of self. I am aware of His mercy poured into this ravenous hole in my heart, the chasm that can only be filled by His love. I am aware that He was “A weeping savior.” He “longed to gather His children.” He “forgave the unforgivable.” He is ”the balm of Gilead.” He is alive and ever present in my pain and “He carries my sorrows.”

Mourning has been a horrible and glorious gift it has caused me to rely on and hope in the persistent Joy to come while having my heart broken for the tragedies that just for now seem to be prevailing. It has taught me what I thought I knew before death, but honestly had no clue. Can I thank God for taking my son, can I praise Him for the tragedy, or do I only want His happy and fancy tickling gifts? ”Good people pass away; the godly often die before their time. But no one seems to care or wonder why. No one seems to understand that God is protecting them from the evil to come.” Isaiah 57:1 NLT Do I dare to believe this? Yes is my answer, but I’m not saying yes doing cartwheels and jumping in blindly, this is a convicted heart tore out of my flesh yes! I trust in the Joy to come and I trust in the Savior that slays me. I trust all gifts even the most grievious ones are for”’My good and His glory.” THANK YOU LORD for the weeping THANK YOU LORD for the pain. THANK YOU LORD for your Joy that pursues me in my darkest hours. ”Weeping may endure for a night, but JOY comes in the morning.” Psalm 30:5

Straight up in bed I sat as if I was awoken from a dream, but I had not been dreaming. Dreaming required sleep and sleep would not come. Three days earlier I was sleeping peacefully while my son lay dead on highway 395. Pedestrian hit by car at 73 miles per hour. I sat there awake in my nightmare, I placed my hand gently upon my husbands back and said “ this wont be the last heartache we endure!”, he tenderly replied to me “no it will not.” He had already had the thought, but this was a new epiphany to me. The thought was cruel and unfair how could my heart ever bear another sadness? I just sat there in bed letting the gravity of the reality set in. The darkness overwhelmed my spirit and my soul. I felt displaced and homesick.

Five years has passed since that night and the epiphany has proven itself true in so many different ways. New heartaches, challenges and losses continued to come like the wrinkles on an my aged face and the grey hairs at my temples. Time moves on and we move forward. There is no other direction to go. Walking forward means walking away from our dead. My son was in the past and the present was dragging me right along away from the memories, away from the accident, away into grief, away to other heartaches to endure. King David in the scripture rightly proclaims, after losing his son, “I shall go to him but he will not return to me.” Clearly David understood the time travel of the bereaved. The bereaved do not return, they cope.

Coping : To contend; to strive or struggle; to combat. To encounter; to interchange kindness or sentiments. To make return; to reward. To exchange or barter.

I never knew the official definition of coping until I decided to write this piece and reading it made me smirk. To cope is to truly try to do all that the definition entails with one exception, the exception is that we never return! We barter and exchange we strive, struggle and combat and we even try to interchange the horrible for the greater good or future joy. But we never return, we don’t comeback. Like an earthling being transported to Mars, moon-boots helmet and all, Grief is like learning to live, walk and breath on a new planet. Our minds remember the old planet and long for our sandal shod feet and the comfort of gravity but our loss has transported us to another world. The distance from earth to the heavens quite accurately portrays the distance we are from normal from memories from home.

In the receiving line of my sons funeral a kind gentleman that I knew from work hugged me and offered this advice,” don’t loose sight of Amy Jo.” I understood the the interchange of sentiment I understood his thought and I could even take in the kindness and all that it was worth, but my friend was an earth dweller and his perspective was from that vantage point, he could not see that I was not coming back. he could not see that for the rest of my days I would simply be learning to cope in a different world and in a different time and that coming back was an illusion.

The Godly often die before their time, but no one seems to care or wonder why. No one seems to understand that God is protecting them from the evil to come. Isaiah 57:1

In my quiet time this morning a thought kept rolling around in my head, round and round like a childhood top I used to play with.  “My expected life is quietly putting to death my actual life!”   I’m coming to grips with personal and deep longing for things I don’t have in this season of my life.  Things I have worked so hard to gain, things ashamedly I have to admit I thought were owed to me, a picture or a vision of the great goals I had for my life.  My great expectation for a perfected life with minimal pain, has been quietly whittling away at the joy of my actual life.

My expected life was full of imagined celebrations with a whole and complete family, Christmases and birthdays and sweet Sunday dinners.  I would sit back and appreciate the sacrifices made to ensure that three beautiful adult children would grace my table and “rise up and call me blessed.”   Trailing behind them would be a glorious parade of grandchildren, the ones I had hoped for since their parents birth.  They would be beautiful and bold and mighty testimonies of Gods Great Glory!  I would sit back and take in all the beauty of a legacy I got to affect and I would praise God for every beautiful moment.  My table would be filled with guests that stayed married, people who told truths and friends who loved deeply, “in spirit and in deed.”  Our cups would spill over, feasting would fill us and our mouths would sing songs of continuous praise.

But actual life has set for me a different table with an unusual bounty, a bounty of bitter and sweet, lies and the truth,  betrayal and births, divorces and death.  I would have never expected a life like the one I have and although this is not the life I hoped for it is the life that was designed for me. My actual life is filled with empty seats but empty seats leave room for the grace of strangers. My life has been touched by the bitter taste of death, but the bitter taste of death brings a  deep sweetness to all of my memories. The  Flaws wrestled out in myself have the power to make the  flaws of others seem small and unimportant.  Dreams and visions of a perfect celebration have given way to imperfect parties where soul-food is much more satisfying than the intended menu. I have tasted and seen that the Lord is good at times when nothing taste good or seems good or is good.

C.S .Lewis wrote “if we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”  In conclusion I suppose my expectations are good, they show that I was created for something greater.  But when my expectations steal the joy from my earthy experience I lose sight of who God is, I start to think that my efforts must equal His actions and my hope is dashed. Dashed because my great expectations have placed me in His seat and I have forgotten my place at His table.  My hope is for GREATER EXPECTATIONS ones that I am not in charge of, ones more divine.

 

Birthed:

It was by  pure sacrifice on my mothers part that I was brought into this world, and clinging to the womb for 24 hours on one of the hottest days in August was my very first act of rebellion.  I was simply declining my invitation to the festivities. But the cold steel forceps placed upon my skull and the doctors firm grip put an end to the act of  my defiance.  And there I was a baby girl  5 lbs 13 oz 19 inches long with hair the color of coal.  My lungs worked just fine and I used them to state my disapproval to my mom and to all those present and responsible at Bakersfield Memorial Hospital. I have no possible idea of knowing if I had some kind of supernatural understanding of what I would face ahead, but if my birth was any kind of indication, it was gonna be a bumpy ride and my feet would end up being firmly planted, declining many invitations while being met with the cold steel forceps of life.

 

Born:

Although I came to a knowledge of Christ when I was 18 years old at a boarding school I enrolled into, to turn my life around, I didn’t really know him.  I was walking the walk and talking the talk but I honestly had no understanding of the whole rebirth, relationship thing.  I would say to myself, ” you are a religious person now, this is what religious people do!” I watched religious people and I copied them.  Fortunately God is faithful to draw those whom He calls and He isn’t really interested in Religious People Copy Cats.  In fact I think the Bible says these kinds of people become twice the sons of hell they were in the beginning!  I was 21 by the time I truly had my come to Jesus moment which is really more like Jesus came to me.  I was giving birth to my first born child and had been given the news that because I had been laboring for 32 hours they thought it prudent to take her by Cesarean  section.  I suppose rebellion runs in family’s.  I completely panicked, they made me sign the papers that said “Don’t sue us if we kill you”, then rolled me right into emergency surgery.  My heart started to quicken and then to tighten and tighten some more.  I grabbed the nurses arm that was hovering above me and said, ” um I am having a heart attack right now so lets not cut me open!”  And there we were two rebels laying upon one gurney.   My nurse was so kind she said “honey you are having a panic attack, your heart is just fine, you are going to be just fine, try to relax.”  And right there in that moment that will forever be etched upon my heart like forceps to my crown I met him, I cant say the voice was audible but the message was so clear,” you must surrender, you are mine, I am in control.” Its not really a fun thing to understand how big God is and how small you are and it certainly isn’t easy to understand but it is a very comforting knowledge. It feels like ones soul is remembering something it cant explain.  I had her by the way, my little rebel she looked like an angel with hair the color of coal born on the 31st day just like her mom, she left the surgery room a rebel and I left the surgery room born again.

 

Bearing:

“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. ”  Bearing children is a life long event, it doesn’t happen at birth and then its over it begins at birth and continues and the pain of it never goes away and the joy of it is eternal.  It is the very essence of long suffering. Long suffering is an attribute of God. Its defined by Noah Webster as Bearing injuries or provocation for a long time being patient and not easily provoked.  Child bearing is a constant curse and constant soul care, if you trust the caregiver.  I find it completely amazing that God can take something caused to hurt you, allowed by himself, and use it to heal you because of who He is. Being born giving birth and bearing is a cycle we are always continuing on in. Hurting and being healed is a cycle we were intended for, and the heartache and happiness of it all is the greatest teacher. The birth of my second child was longer than the first, he was turned round in the womb and was half way engaged into the birthing canal when I  was rushed into emergency surgery again.  Funny how life has a way of repeating itself, funny how humans are just little rebel makers.  This time I was more calm  and yet still frightened, they took him from my body, that beautiful boy.   8 lbs 8 oz  21 inches long and a little old man comb over hairdoo!  He said nothing no loud cries of protest,  no screaming no nothing, no sound… I thought he might not have made it, and my heart started to tighten and tighten, then  he finally found his lungs and started the protest about his arrival, my heart was completely overwhelmed with thankfulness.  I wept and I rejoiced.  He was was birthed, my faith was again reborn and  my surrender was real.   We would bear with one another many challenges over the next 18 years and many blessings.  Then I would be left to bear him alone and he would bear with me no more.  My heart will continue to break and my surrender will continue to grow and I will gladly suffer long the life of my son and the love of my Savior.

 

Photo: me pregnant with Chile.

 

 

 

The process of writing is strange and wonderful and almost spiritual in a sense. I do not in any way shape or form consider myself a writer or a spiritual writer, I had to look up how to spell grammar for this very paragraph, and I am almost certain I abuse it every time I blog. I struggle with spelling, grammar and putting my thoughts in order and on page, but My mind  thinks deeply about the world at hand and I am constantly pondering the things of God.  By his grace he has given me  some kind of mystical gift in the way that I am always either writing, rehearsing or telling a story and the bigger gift is the ability to always trace his hand in it. And so of course during this beautiful Christmas season I have a gift to share by way of a story.

Palm Sunday 2019 I was driving by the Cemetery, there I saw a lady standing at a grave.  She was all alone and her head was bowed solemnly.  I immediately began to weep, only because the grave is so final and I knew maybe if not exactly, some of the kind of feelings she was having.  I said to myself , as if I was writing a story “you’ve got to leave the grave.”  I started mulling it over in my mind, “next title of story LEAVING THE GRAVE!”  I like most people I know  want the party and none of the pain.  So wouldn’t I be a prudent writer if I told a story about leaving the grave?  Maybe not, because the grave is the gift and the grave sight is where life must be lived.

The grave is a present no one would open if they had the chance to, yet it opens ones heart to the reality of heavenly things not understood by people not yet gifted.  Mornings after my sons death I would find my way to the back of the house and out the door to the patio, black coffee in hand and Bible on my lap, tears soaking into the thin paper pages of Job, Isaiah and the Psalms.  Every evening when I had hopelessly stumbled through the day, back to the patio I went, Bible open heart poured out and a big glass of dark purple wine warming my belly, sometimes the smoke of a clove cigarette in my lungs.  He met me there each day on the patio in my desperate longings for questions to why, longings for answers, longing to be able to see His plan. The plan that desperately wounded me.  I remember asking Him time after time  to transport me to Heaven just to see a glimpse of the Glory my faith knew of but heart couldn’t grasp. Prayers coming from somewhere supernatural drove deep into my heart and rose back up to the heavens never uttered from my lips but felt deeply to my soul.  “The Spirit longs to make intercession for us.” The grave had a hold of me but could not hold me. I would have never longed for or clung to God so deeply like this if I had not experienced death.

Dying daily and yet living!  Something very mysterious was starting to come into my view, or into my story. As I met God daily because of my afflictions He started showing me how much life there is in death. We die and are given over to death daily.  Our dreams die our bodies die our parents die our expectations die our marriages die, its the reality we live in.  We live to die!  Is the story of the gospel written into our souls? The gift of Christmas is that Christ also was born to die.  Our lives imitate that very story daily.  He overcame death once for all and we will overcome death if we are his. The beautiful birth of Jesus that we celebrate every Christmas Season only leads us to the grave unless we believe that death has offered us a new chance to live. Death on a cross and a grave overcome.

I’m not sure yet of all the gifts of the grave and I embrace the fact that God’s ways are not my ways.  I can say with much certainty that I would have never written into my own story the loss of my child, but I can say I wouldn’t for one second change it.  God will be glorified even through death in my life and one day I will remember the grave no more and the gift will no longer be mingled with death and every day will be like Christmas.

 

I have been a student of beauty for as long as I can remember, from the time I was a tiny little girl I  recall having a deep appreciation for the majesty of beauty.  My very first memory, I can recall, finds me riding a shiny red bicycle with a silver bell, wearing a blue and white gingham jump suit, cotton of course.  Feeling a sense of freedom and smelling the warm California air.  My hair which normally looked brown and drab was ablaze with auburn colors painted by the suns rays. My senses were almost overloaded with what they were feasting on. Air, Light, Smell, Sight and four year old wonder of all that delights.

Out of all that God has created for me to appreciate with my sight like the sky, birds and nature.  Homes, churches and monuments, art, words and poetry,  I have found nothing as beautiful as a woman. The gentleness of a woman’s curves, the delicate bones of her face, the plumpness of her body and the tenderness of her touch all captivate my senses.  The way her voice sings instead of commands and the way her presence can calm you.  She has been divinely created to encourage to love and to help. She is the essence of beauty.  I am glad to be one.

My Grandma Ella was the picture of elegance and also my first teacher on the subject of beauty.  She stood tall and slender with a regal shape. A blond and silver “Bee Hive” hairdo topped her head, like a crown.  She said helpful things to my heart like ladies do this and ladies don’t do that, they sit up straight and never leave the house without there face on. My grandma made me feel as though it was a  privilege to be considered a lady and she drove a Cadillac!

My Aunt Cleo in her appearance was much different than my Grandma Ella, she was more round and full figured. When I met her she was a redhead. She had a sweet sideways grin and a wink that always accompanied it. I could here the Arkansas in her voice. Lordy, Lordy  what I would learn form my Aunt Cleo!  Words like a lady should know how to dance and always wear red lipstick.  Aunt Cleo taught me how to shave my legs when I was ten years old, even after my mom had said “no way.” She understood me, she listened to me, she loved me.  She was fearless, she was gritty and she was GORGEOUS!

My Mama Judy L. Walker was more beautiful than them both.  She was kind and funny and the tiniest thing you ever saw.  When she smiled her little cheekbones would turn into two perfect circles rising up to meet her eyes.  She had a sensitive spirit one that would not bid her well in her  future but when I was little she was the picture of everything lovely to me and I wanted to be just like her.  She was a lounge singer, she got dressed up every night, and every night I would take my perch on the closed toilet seat in the hall bathroom and watch her put on her makeup at the sink.  She smelled like Charlie Cologne and she always double did her eyelashes with Maybeline Mascara.  She never forgot to rouge her cheeks.
Everyone told me that I was the spitting image of my mother, this was a huge compliment to me and I was tickled to be it!  One night while watching her make up routine I asked her why she had curly hair and I had straight hair, I mean I was her spitting image you know.  She replied with a giggle, “honey this is a permanent in my hair.”  I was shocked and dismayed and decided that I must have one too!  I asked my mom if I could get a permanent also, she said that I had to ask CARLOS….

Entering the scene is Beauty’s arch enemy…..Shame Also known as Carlos.

I hated Carlos and in some strange way I loved him too and I wanted him to love me.  He was abused and he was abusive and he abused me.   He was my stepdad and I was terrified of him.  He was the ugliest person I have ever known he stole beauty right from your sight and replaced it with rotten, ruined  self loathing shame, but I had a goal named permanent and I wanted that beauty.  And as terrified as I was, I set out to plan how I would ask Carlos for one.

Mustering up courage is hard for a ten year old girl. The first day went by and I couldn’t ask, the second day went by and I still couldn’t ask.  All the time Carlos loving every minute of my torment.  He would look at me with his greasy grin and yellow eyes, and taunt me with his chuckling smirk.  The third day was my day, I couldn’t handle the not knowing anymore.  I remember walking straight up to him, he was sitting  in his recliner. Belting out my rehearsed lines ” its almost my birthday and instead of a present could I please get a perm?”  I waited…. .

“No!” Carlos laughed out loud in his wicked way,” a perm aint gonna help you.”

I felt as if he had been waiting  and waiting to land this beauty mocking punch to my soul.  If I had been a smarter child I would have said fine and walked away… but all in one blow I was crushed and defeated.  My desire for beauty and my ten year old courage had afforded me nothing but a disgusting, stomach sickened shame.

The Bible says in Ephesians 6:4  “Fathers do not make your children bitter about life, instead bring them up in Christian discipline and instruction.”  Another translation says “Fathers do not provoke your children to anger.”  As a child of Christ now for almost 30 years I can see the wisdom of this scripture.  Almost all my  life I carried around deep in my soul the scar of my rejected beauty at the hands of a rebellious step father.  You could say that I was embittered from that exchange.  Even more serious baggage came when I started trying to comprehend God as Father.  I couldn’t help but think, maybe God is sly and just waiting to pull the rug out from under me.  Maybe God thinks I am ugly maybe there is no beautiful mystery and maybe I will be found wanting.

We know we are deeply flawed and yet we long to be deeply loved. Our own hearts deceive us, the enemy of our soul deceives us and the world tells us we are not yet beautiful.  The memory of our scars tell us to see with our eyes what is inherently wrong with us how ugly we can be, how ugly we have been treated.

But the underlying current of our spirit tell us something else, it beckons us to search for beauty through eyes of faith and the words of God.  To trust what we know not what we see.  To trust the price paid for us. To trust the one who created us to behold beauty. The one who is beauty the one in whom we are image bearers of beauty.  The one who died that we might beautifully live.

I knew as a little girl standing before Carlos that I was beautiful, I knew I was loved by God, though I hadn’t yet met him.  I knew I had value I knew I had worth, I knew I was a woman created to encourage, what I didn’t know yet was how to take a punch without getting knocked out….

I know that now.  In my weakness Christ, the true beauty, is strong and in Him I have Victory!