A Gift of Tears

I wanted a sign.  I know it was a lot to ask and that it is "an evil and unfaithful generation who ask for a sign."  (Matthew 12:39).  

And I'm okay with that.  

I'm not above saying that I have days when I struggle.  These last few days have been hard.
  
Cindy-Lou Who fractured her wrist.  

The kids were all in drive-mommy-to-the-funny-farm mode; I don't know how they coordinate schedules like that!  (When I told Dynamite that he was going to drive mommy straight to Crazyland, he said he didn't want to go to Crazyland; he wanted to go to SKATELAND)!!

I was placed on prednisone for allergies and literally did. not. sleep. for two days.  (My kitchen counters have never been whiter)!

My grandma was placed in hospice care.
 
I was tired.  God, have I been tired.

As I walked in to the hospital last night, I prayed in my head, "Lord, please, let me know you're here.  That you're a part of all of this.  That you are real..."  

Because I struggle.  Like, a lot.  I question everything.  A friend of mine once told me, "That's how you answer questions--with another question."  

I am doubting Thomas who asks Jesus to show him the nail wounds in His hands.  

I am Israel who keeps forgetting how much God loves them and continues to fall in to their old sinful ways. 

I've stopped feeling entirely bad about it.  We were made to wonder.  

I figure that if it's God who made me this way, then it's really not even my fault. ;-)  (You see what He has to work with here).

So, I asked.  

When I walked in to my grandma's room, my dad's wife showed me a picture of the rainbow that arched over the hospital as she was parking the car.  A sign.

But it wasn't a sign for me.  That was her sign.

I wanted to get my grandma a rosary to hold since that seemed to offer so much comfort to her.  As I wandered in to the bathroom, I thought, "What if there's a rosary hanging in the bathroom?"  (Yes, I'm a weirdo at times...most the time, actually).

But there wasn't one.  Only toilet paper.

I walked to my car to get a rosary and walked back up to my grandma's room.  I opened up her swollen fingers and placed the beads in her hand.  "Here, grandma," I said.  "Here's a rosary."  I prayed that the familiar feeling of the beads in her hand would help her rest.

As I got ready to leave, I laid my head on her chest.  And I cried.  

I have a hard time crying.  It's probably due to growing up in a fairly dysfunctional family (what family isn't?).  Being an only child, I often felt that I had to hold things together.  That if I cried or felt sad, everything would fall apart.  That feeling has followed me in to my adulthood.  

There have been so many times I have willed myself to cry, desired the flood of emotions to take over, known that the situation called for tears, but they wouldn't come.  Apparently, my brain had trained my tear ducts not to render tears. 

But last night, I sobbed on my grandma's chest.  I cried like a 5-year old girl.  My tears fogged up  my glasses and my nose ran.  This carefully-constructed shield that had been placed over my heart for so long was seemingly lifted off of me.  My heart was exposed.

And I savored my humanness for a moment.  Clung to feeling sad, because it was exactly what I felt.  "Good and honest sorrow." (Isaias Powers) 

 It is a beautiful thing to find that you are still capable of feeling pain.  

And that was it.  My sign.
 
A gift of tears.  

My dad's wife got a rainbow and I got the rain.  

I couldn't have been more grateful.
 

History Repeats Itself, Sandy Hook and Judas

On December 14th, 2012 at around 9:30 a.m., twenty-six people were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School by a 20-year old kid with a gun.  Twenty of them were children--first graders. 

On December 14th, 2012 around 6:30 p.m., we bundled our children until they couldn't move their arms to attend Holiday Nights at the Henry Ford Village.  As I buttoned their coats, I pulled them close and pressed my cheek against theirs. 

It felt wrong that we should be doing anything so enjoyable while mothers and fathers were sick with grief.  It felt wrong that worlds were shattered, but ours was still in tact.  

We walked through the Village arm in arm.  We smiled and talked about our week pretending that all was right with the world.

It was cold out and our breath rolled off of our lips in a white fog.

"What's that?" my four-year old wondered aloud.

"It's your breath," I said.

"What's bref?" he asked.

"It's air that flows in and out of your body," I grappled with words, "It tells us that you are breathing."

"What's breaving?"

"It tells us that you are alive," I answered.  The words hung heavy in the air.  

Our sweet child was alive.  And twenty-six others were not.  Adults and children whose lives were ended in the blink of an eye.

I won't lie.  I stood grateful.  God, was I grateful.  But I fully recognized that another mother sat telling her little boy that his sister would not be coming home from school that day.  Not ever.

Bonfires glowed and hands felt the rough bark of sticks that browned marshmallows.  Carolers sang in tightly-knit circles, their hands being warmed by furry muffs.

Silent Night echoed throughout the moonlit streets.  We listened and prayed in our hearts for those whose night was not silent at all, but filled with the sobs that wake you even in your sleep.

We listened to horses trot, drank hot apple cider and earnestly longed for a time when living seemed gentler.

We sang about the birth of the One and mourned the death of so many.

We warmed our children's hands with our own and thanked God for one more day.

Innocent blood was shed.

Two thousand years ago and a million times in between.  It's the age old tragedy of the human condition.

Children who did nothing wrong at the mercy of a deranged man with a gun.

A man who did nothing wrong, but was betrayed with a kiss by his companion. 

Mothers wept.

Men suffered.

Judas hung himself.  A murder suicide.

Betrayal.

Anger.

So many questions.

Revenge upon the innocent.

A heart grieved.

And yet again, we find ourselves hoping for redemption.  Praying for peace.  We wring our hands and beg to be delivered from such suffering.

Today and two thousand years ago...and a million times in between, we pray, "Come, Lord Jesus, come."