Monday, July 10, 2023

Concourse C

I’ve felt all along God placed this specific trip in my path and honestly it was easy for me to say, “Yes! I’ll go!” whenthe opportunity came up at lunch one afternoon at McAlister’s. It’s been a dream of mine to do mission work with families in another country since I was just a little girl. I thought I knew as a young girl it was going to be Haiti. In my mind I was going to go to Haiti and work in an orphanage. It turns out 10+ years later my first international trip is to Durban, South Africa where I’ll be helping build, paint, and finalize the set up of a preschool. This is one of those times when I can finally see the bigger picture and know that God’s plan and timing are better than my own. I think back to prayers I’ve prayed and questions I’ve asked and frustrations I’ve aired about when the timing would be right…and now I know. 


I have so many examples of God’s hand and timing on all the details but the one moment that almost brought me to tears was the minute we stepped on the train in the Atlanta airport. We were navigating the busy terminal and making our way to Concourse E. As we got on the train Christine said. “If we get split up, we’re headed to Concourse E…E as in elephant. We can meet there.”  We all giggled and thought that was the perfect way to rememebr our gate since we would be seeing elephants at the Thula Thula Elephant Reserve. We continued on the train, grabbed the dirty, silver rails and held on as the train jerked to a start. An announcement was made that we were coming up on Concourse C. The recording said, “Our next stop is Concourse C. C as in Charlie. Christine and I locked eyes and smiled the biggest smiles. She looked at me and said, “You are exactly where you are supposed to be…”


All the things that had to happen and line up just perfectly for me to be on that train when they said Charlie’s name are proof in my opinion that God cares about me/us. He cares about what makes my heart happy. He wants me to know that I am seen and heard. That was his way of telling me his timing is always perfect and this trip is not a fluke. 


I have a feeling the reason I’m here is more for me than anyone I’ll meet or help by working at the school. I have a feeling I’m going to experience so many more moments like that too and I’m here to soak them all in! South Africa, here I come! 



Sunday, June 25, 2023

Durban, South Africa

I'm going to South Africa!  


I am planning to use this as a journal to share some of the pictures and experiences I have while I am away. I leave the states on July 10th and will be in Durban, South Africa until July 20th.  


If you think about it say a prayer or two, mainly for my two little people at home.  I know this is going to be different than they're used to and the longest (and furthest) I've ever been away from them.  


15 days, 6 hours, 58 minutes until go time!     

Monday, January 11, 2021

I Want What You Want

 Dear Jesus,

Thank you for giving me today.  

Because of today I have the opportunity to engage in another day where I can learn and grow.  Thank you for allowing me the time to sit with you and uncover my own valuable opinion while also listening to the opinions of others.  Your nudges and wisdom when meeting others in hard places helps me realize when I am being disingenuous and allows me to give my heart and mind up to your desires; not my own.  

I am not right.  I am not wrong.  There is really no need for labels and shame.  I am only learning and growing and trying to do the best I can with my faith held close to my heart.  I want what you want.  

Amen           

Thursday, December 10, 2020

Grief Then and Now

The thing about the grief we normally carry and feel is we are typically one of the few feeling and experiencing it.  We grieve when someone or something is ripped from our lives unexpectedly; when someone we love with our entire heart and soul is taken away from us.  All the while the rest of the world keeps going as we struggle to take our next breath.  I vividly remember walking into Macy's to look for an outfit to bury Charlie in and I was screaming (silently in my mind) at everyone in the store that day because I couldn't understand how they could just go on with their normal day when my world had literally just been destroyed with little hope for rescue.  

However, that day and every day after I kept walking.  I kept moving forward and eventually I lost my "old self" and my life turned into "before" and "after" our trauma.  I often find myself thinking, 'Was that before Charlie or after?'  

As we move forward after loss we have the opportunity to work through all the hard things and come out of the darkness better than we were before.  But we can only do that if we learn to recognize that joy and sadness can exist at the exact same time.  I learned to embrace that truth while relying on other people and their (what I thought was) "unbrokenness" to help me cope and move forward.     

The thing that is different this time as we wade through our current environment full of grief and darkness is that we are ALL feeling it.  Grief has consumed our entire world.  It isn't just a person or family this time who have been hit with a traumatic loss.  We are all trying to figure out how to let our "old self" transform into something new while we grieve the things/experiences (and possibly people) we have lost because of a global pandemic.   Literally, no one is exempt this time.  We are all weary and it seems there are no "unbroken" people to help us muddle through all the feelings.  

At first, I didn't think that would work.  I was frustrated and disappointed because we were all experiencing something so tragic that I didn't believe we were strong enough to hold one another up.    That's when I started praying. I started really reflecting on it all.  I searched scripture and tried to uncover truth in the messy middle of the pandemic.  Once I began to really reflect on what was happening I remembered Jesus' power is perfected in our weakness.  Our "unbrokenness" doesn't exist.  We are all broken and carrying ugly, hard, earthly things with us all the time.  I was reminded once again my strength comes from Jesus (just like I was reminded when we lost Charlie six and a half years ago).  

I have always disliked the saying, "God doesn't give us more than we can handle..." because I don't believe it and it doesn't make sense to me.  First of all, God doesn't "give us" bad things.  Bad things (in my humble opinion) come from sin.  Also, on my own, I could not have lived through losing my son.  It was Jesus (and the people he placed in my path) that helped me take each new step forward.          

I guess what I am saying is we all need Jesus and we all need each other.  Typical (or atypical grief circumstances) requires us to lean on one another.  When I think about the one big lesson I learned from grief it would be without a single doubt you must share how you feel with others.  God gave me people and friendships to help me seek him when I turned the other way.  I needed to share the grief attacks, the sadness, the loneliness, the frustration, the anger, and all the other things I was feeling.  I couldn't walk through it alone and I didn't have to.  I needed to find a person (or two or three) and share the deepest (and often darkest) parts of my heart with them.  The nature of our current grief situation makes this hard because human nature has us compare grief.  But I think we need to go ahead and stop here.  Grief is not "big or small" and it cannot be compared.  Everyone's grief is important and should be validated with an empathetic ear not someone trying to fix it.  We can pick up the phone and call someone when we need them or better yet, call someone else just to check on them.  We can still help each other weather this storm regardless of our circumstances because our strength does not come from ourselves.  

My strength comes from my Savior.    

For those of us who have experienced the loss of a child we always say, "It's a club no one chooses to join..."  It's true.  No one wants to experience something that causes their heart to ache to the point of physical pain.  No one wants to experience tragedy that brings nightmares and anxiety and sleepless nights (among a million other things).  But I can tell you from personal experience from grief good things can come.  I believe that is true of this trying time as well.  It has been hard for a lot of people.  It has been hard for my family and I as well.  But everyday when the kids get weepy and I want to cry big tears I try and remind all of us "from grief good things can come."        

As I mentioned earlier joy and pain can coexist.  This always reminds me of a quote from Brene Brown where she said, "Twinkle lights are the perfect metaphor for joy.  Joy is not a constant.  It comes to us in moments - often ordinary moments.  Sometimes we miss out on the bursts of joy because we're too busy chasing down extraordinary moments."  In our current circumstances I think sometimes we miss bursts of joy because we have allowed ourselves to be consumed with hard and negative things.  I am not naive enough to think that we should all just skip through life and ignore all the hard things because those hard things deserve space too (see above and find a friend).  But what I am saying (and I need to take my own advice) is we need to look for those moments of joy; those twinkle light moments so that as we begin to learn who we are now and figure out how to deal what is to come we can keep going and grasp hope in our heart for what lies ahead.    

God tells us in Lamentations 3:22 that the love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to and end; they are new every morning...

I am clinging to that promise as we all experience this grief together. 

 
Images by Freepik