The Living In My Life

I’m looking out our front window at trees (upright), houses (intact), and cars (unmangled.) To say that I can’t imagine the chaos and destruction in Joplin and other tornado-touched places around the country is a huge understatement. I really can not imagine it. Whatsoever. At all.

I sit in my lovely home where I have toothpaste, and oatmeal, and toilets that flush and my heart goes out to the women in those devastated places who have so few belongings that they would probably be thrilled just to find a rubber band in the rubble that would enable them to pull their unwashed hair back from their faces.

As I think of them, I think of the blessings in my life here and now. The unnamed and often unnoticed blessings. They are everywhere—ephemeral and fleeting. They are also unguaranteed. No one can promised me that what (or whom) I love will still be here tomorrow. Because tragedy happens.

We had a bad storm late last night. In the blink of an eye, it could have turned into a tornado. And this morning, I could be the one rummaging through the mangled remnants of our home, looking for precious pictures, old journals, and special blankets from my children’s childhoods. Instead, I am freshly fed, freshly coiffed, and am sitting in a comfortable leather recliner next to a contented, snoozing dog. I am very aware how blessed I am. And I am very aware of my responsibility to pass the blessings along.

This past Sunday, our church received an offering for Convoy of Hope, a crisis assistance ministry that goes immediately to whatever place on the planet disaster is happening. Although I can’t travel with them to Joplin--or other ruined cities--I’m glad that the money our family gave on Sunday can. And maybe, just maybe, that check we put in the offering plate might go toward buying some oatmeal and a toothbrush for a Joplin mom who just wants to feed her family and clean up a little.

It’s so simple, really, the things that we truly need. And it’s so amazingly scary how quickly even our simplest, most precious things can be yanked away from us.

So today, I am making it a point to just be thankful for simple things. To be thankful for life. To be thankful to have a home, a family, a town, a life—all intact.

Although I certainly love my house and am thankful that it still stands strong, I’m especially thankful today that those whom I love the most---my husband and children--are alive. There are women in storm torn cities across this country who were not able to say the same as Wednesday dawned over their broken lives.

More than anything that I might ever do, or ever own, it is my family who puts the living in my life.

And I am thankful.

A Harvest.

Over thirty years ago, my dad was the pastor this church in Albemarle, NC.

It wasn’t big and it wasn’t fancy and there weren’t many people when he first arrived. In fact, one of the visitors who eventually became a part of the church recounted, “When I first walked through the front door of that church, I saw just six people--and four of them were on the platform!”

The four people on the platform would have been my two younger sisters and me (playing drums, bass and piano, respectively) and my dad, who led the singing and did the preaching. The two people in the pews would have been my mom and one other intrepid church attender. And at the very beginning that was it—the entire congregation.

It was most definitely not a day of big beginnings.

I was in my late teens when dad pastored there, and let me just say that when I was a teen and my view of the world was still shiny and unsullied, I didn’t tend to think about certain things.

I didn’t tend to think about the fact that it must have been discouraging sometimes to be in my dad’s shoes back then, to be in the prime of his life while pastoring just a handful of people.

I didn’t tend to think about how much fortitude and dedication it must have taken for my dad to go to that dreary, dilapidated church office day after day and labor diligently over sermons that only a couple of people would ever hear.

I didn’t tend to think about the fact that finances must have been very tight back in those days when Dad had a family to support that was—at the beginning, at least—bigger than the whole congregation.

There were a whole lot of things I didn’t think about back then.

Four days ago, when unexpected circumstances caused me to make a trip back to Albemarle to sing at a funeral, I made it a point to stop by the old church first. And when I pulled into the parking lot, I started to think about a whole lot of things because I suddenly saw that old church through different eyes.

I saw it through the eyes of a 49-year old woman whose dreams were no longer new and no longer shiny and I saw it through eyes that have seen disappointment and grief. I understood, in a fresh way, just what sort of gritty determination it must have taken my parents to stay in that place and faithfully pastor those few people.

And as I sat out in the parking lot and gazed at those long ago memories through older eyes, I wept.

I wept over old memories and new understanding and I wept because that building had encompassed the ministry of a father who is no longer on this earth. And for a few brief moments, I felt close to him, and I felt like I understood him better. I felt like a part of him was right there with me on that warm spring day—a day that was filled with the solemn quietude of long gone years.

I realized that even though my dad never pastored a large church, never lived in a nice house, and never had much money, he was still a success. My dad was faithful to what he was called to do and he did it with joy and with excellence.

My dad was also blessed to have a wife at his side who didn’t whine about not having extra money to go out clothes shopping. Instead, she cheerfully scrubbed church toilets with him, dusted pews while he vacuumed, typed his letters, and sat on the front pew and amened his sermons. And all along the way, she quietly invested her love and her life into her husband, into her children, and into those few parishioners who came through the doors of that humble building.

My dad was a flawed man in many ways. There is no doubt about that. But I sat in that parking lot and looked beyond his faults and I cried because he was no longer around to unlock that little white door and step inside the church to do the ministry he loved so much.

And throughout his long ministry, my dad always did so much more than just pastor a church. While we lived in Albemarle, my dad also opened a youth center and spent hundreds of hours reaching out to both troubled teens and “good kids” alike. He played pool with them, counseled them, listened to them and loved them unconditionally. My dad’s ministry has never been confined to a church’s four walls and for that, I am grateful.

But that’s not the end of the story.

After my dad had built that church up to about forty people, he left and another pastor came. In a few years, the church outgrew that old building and rented a theater to meet in. And then in 1986, a new building was constructed and a few years after that, another even larger building was built.

Today that little white church runs over six hundred people and continues to grow.

And this was the church that had invited me to come and sing at the funeral of one of its long time members, a woman who just happened to be one of the handful of people who had attended my dad’s church all those years ago.

After thirty-one years, I had the privilege of seeing her husband and her daughter and son once again. They told me how much my dad had meant to them and how they had never felt more loved than when they were attending his church. The son and daughter told me how my sisters and I had been their role models and how inspired they had been by our singing and playing in the services.

And then, one by one, other people (many of whom I no longer even recognized), came up to say that they had also known my dad, that they had been members of that small church, and that their lives had been greatly impacted by our family’s ministry.

In those brief, sweet moments following the funeral, I was reminded of the very thing that I had been grappling with earlier in the day while sitting in the dusty church parking lot. I was reminded that no act of kindness, no song, no sermon, no hug, no word of encouragement ever goes to waste, even though it may seem like such a very small thing at the time.

It might be five years later, it might be fifteen years later, it might even be thirty-one years later, but eventually, the good seed we sow into the lives of those around us will produce a harvest. Sometimes we never get to see that harvest, but other times? We do.

This past Monday night, standing in a thriving church in Albemarle, NC that was birthed out of my dad’s long ago ministry, I got to see a harvest. I got to experience a harvest. It was a harvest of hugs, a harvest of joy, a harvest of precious memories treasured.

And in the middle of the memories, and the stories, and the laughter, I caught a glimpse of my dad.

He was smiling. And I was glad.

Tears By The Sea

As a pastor’s family, we are often given the honor of being involved in the different passages of life that affect various members of our congregation.

Ten days ago, one of those passages came in the form of a memorial service for a church member’s daughter, Allison, who died of brain cancer at the age of forty-seven. She left behind a daughter in her teens and a son in his twenties.

We’ve been to numerous funerals and memorial services in our almost thirty years of ministry but this one will stand out in our hearts as being one of the most meaningful. (The following pictures are being shared with the family’s permission.)

After a church service that was packed to the walls and resonate with robust singing (Allison had requested a non-somber funeral), we went with Allison’s family and a few friends to a nearby beach for the scattering of Allison’s ashes.

Allison was an avid horsewoman and the family had arranged for one of her best friends to carry her ashes along the beach on horseback.

Steve and another pastor read Scripture and prayed . . .

. . . while Allison’s friend and Allison’s ashes kept watch.

And then at the place where Allison had spent so many contented hours, her ashes were scattered . . .

. . . and her memories were gathered.

Having accomplished her loving, lonely task, her friend turned her horse and rode away--but this time, without Allison.

Then it was time for family and friends to walk to the edge of the water and lay their roses down with the ashes.

A certain beloved (and weeping) cancer warrior joined them.

After Sarah had completed her sad and beautiful task, she walked over to stand near me. As she and I glimpsed each other’s tears, we both came to the realization that we were not just there as a mother and a daughter; instead, we were present in that moment as two cancer sisters who’d come to the sea to honor a third sister, whose beautiful life was cut short by an enemy that each one of us had done battle with.

Sarah and I stood and embraced for a long time, crying and praying and remembering. The cleansing air, the grief on the wind, the eternal waves—it was a moment she and I will not soon forget.

My tears continued as I saw Allison’s son say his final good bye. As I looked at him I imagined my own dear Nathan—so near his age—and I could only imagine what his feelings would be if breast cancer had taken me the way brain cancer had taken Allison.

The day held such beauty . . .

such sadness . . .

such hope.

As we all finally turned to go, I looked back and noticed one single rose.

Representing one single life.

Well lived.

The Rest of the Story

Just to give you a bit of the “story behind the story,” here is a little background about Allison and a very special mission in her life.

The following article about Allison’s Mission is from the
CHES Toy Drive in in Cape Hatteras, NC.

Many families have special Christmas traditions that are passed down and enjoyed year after year. Certainly one of the more enjoyable traditions the CHEC family enjoys is the annual CHEC toy drive. Every year, the CHEC lobby is filled with toys to be given to little ones on Hatteras Island. And every year, there seem to be more toys than the last, thanks in large part to another tradition started by a very special person.

Allison Fagley taught the children at her day care, Friendship Bridge, the importance of giving and they began their own Christmas tradition. Each year, the children would have bake sales to raise money that they would then spend on gifts for others. To the delight of CHEC employees, each year Allison and the Friendship Bridge van would pull up to the office. A seemingly endless line of young children would file in, with gifts they purchased for others their own age to add to the collection. Emails would fly out, “the children are here!” and employees would come to the lobby to see the kids and help them bring in the
toys that they had collected.

Something has been different the last two years. Though the CHEC lobby still fills with toys, there is no van, no parade of children with gifts. Allison was diagnosed with brain cancer and has been in that battle for years now. She had to give up the day care she ran for 20 years and move away from Hatteras Island to be closer to family.

However Allison’s tradition of giving continues. Parents of past Friendship Bridge students and friends of Allison still have the bake sales, still buy the gifts and still bring them to the CHEC lobby. Like many family traditions, the people and places change but the tradition itself remains.

Allison shown with her day care students after delivering toys in 2008

And finally, here are a few pictures from before and during Allison’s cancer journey. The picture in the bottom left corner is especially meaningful because her family told us that in the last few days of her life, Allison used a large wooden cross as a “telephone” with which to talk to Jesus. (You can’t see the cross in the picture but it’s what she’s holding in her hand.)

They said she would sometimes talk for thirty minutes at a time and always seemed so peaceful when she was done. It’s inspiring for me to think that even in the midst of her suffering and the muddling of her mind from the advancing cancer, she was still aware of God’s presence in her life and was able to talk to Him and find His comfort and peace.

But now? She has no cancer, she has no pain and she is finally able to talk to Him face to face.

And here on earth, our hearts have been made forever rich by the memories we will always treasure—memories of ashes and roses and tears by the sea.

The Richness of Being Poor

This is a house I lived in as a child, along with my parents and five siblings. Although I realize it seems to be a bit on the sparse side, it had an accompanying feature which truly set it apart from most other houses: it had its own outhouse that all eight of us got to share. How quaint is that? (It’s quite quaint to look back it but not quite so quaint as actually using said outhouse. Trust me on that.)

So. Did I grow up poor?

That’s kind of a complicated question. If poor means not having a lot of money, then yes, I suppose I did.

But there are really very few times that I remember feeling poor. One of the rare moments was when I was about four and overheard my parents talking about needing some groceries and not being sure they had enough money to get everything that was on the list. (Feeding six kids is not a job for the faint of heart or the thin of wallet.)

After listening to them talk, I decided it was time for me to help. I ran and got a five dollar bill from Mom’s purse, cut it carefully in half and gave both pieces to her saying, “Now you have enough money, Mommy. I made some more for you.” (I couldn’t quite understand why that didn’t bring forth a huge sigh of relief!)

Mom has always been good at making something out of nothing. She could stretch a pound of hamburger so far you would think it had rubber bands woven throughout it. She could take a few forlorn potatoes and whip them up into a delicious dish that would miraculously feed eight (or more) people. Dad would always pray a blessing over our meals and I sometimes wonder if some surreptitious divine multiplying didn’t go on a time or two because we never once lacked for food.

What impresses me the most about Mom’s cooking is that she has rarely relied on recipes, her homemade bread being a good case in point. She made it two or three times a week and it was always a wonder to behold as she began to gather her ingredients. She’d open the fridge and stand there for a moment gazing upon the things she’d rescued from the family table over the past few days. After her brief perusal was finished, it was time to start the grabbing and tossing ceremony.

A driblet of leftover mashed potatoes? Into the bread.

A dab of Wheaties recovered from someone’s breakfast? Into the bread.

A dollop of uneaten Cream of Wheat? You guessed it.

We used to kid her that someone really needed to hide the dishwashing detergent when she was baking bread because we were afraid she might grab that as well.

But that bread was always delicious and always plentiful and when it was hot from the oven topped with a mountain of real butter that melted down into its soft, fluffy goodness? Well, who was poor then? Certainly not us!

Up until I was about thirteen years old, our family didn’t own a TV. I suppose to some that might be the undeniable proof that that were deprived; I mean, no child should have to grow up without a television. (Isn’t there a a law about that somewhere?)

Well, somehow we six kids managed to survive fairly well. Library books were free and they were plenteous and who needed a TV when The Happy Hollisters was close at hand?

(Much to my delight, I recently found an old Happy Hollisters book at a thrift store. I dearly loved those books.)

I owe so much of my love for learning, writing, and reading to the fact that we were deprived of television as a child.

Yes. Poor, poor us.

And books weren’t the only things that were plentiful. Music was, too! Mom played piano, Dad played guitar and they sang together beautifully. We kids grew up loving music, too; in fact, the house in the picture stands just one mile away from the cemetery where Dad is buried. Our whole family used to drive over to that old church (it was always unlocked) and mom would play the piano for me while I’d stand up in front of the scratched pews (peopled only by siblings) and sing my little heart out.

And that’s why it was especially meaningful to me when my extended family gathered at that same country church after Dad’s funeral and Mom played that same old piano as we all sang.

And after all those years, I also got the privilege of playing that dear piano myself. Music makes such good memories.

The scarred pews were still peopled by my siblings—but this time they were joined by family and friends who had come to honor the person who had made sure that music ran like a lovely chord throughout our family.

Later on, we were able to get our own piano at home, a battered upright which we rescued from a yard sale for a few dollars. At various times throughout the day, each of us might wander on over and take a turn banging on it happily while our dog howled along.

And if you wanted to set a glass of milk on the piano? No one freaked out and went running for a coaster to protect the wood. Shoot, that old piano had been around the block a few times. It had the rich patina of many years, many sticky fingers, and many lives lived raucously in its presence. In fact, I’m quite sure it would have laughed its ivories right off at the absurd idea of coasters. It wasn’t like one of those prissy pianos set up for decorative effect in someone’s parlor, no siree. This was a working family’s piano. This was a piano that liked the noise and the chaos and the howling dogs and the spilled milk and the little bit of bread with butter that got smeared on its keys occasionally.

It was all good.

And how could anyone be poor when they had a piano? And music? And homemade bread? And books? It was impossible!

As I continued through my (TV-deprived) growing up years I learned about the art of being content. Just content. That’s all.

So we couldn’t buy fancy new sneakers for gym class? Did the old ones still work? Well then, I learned it was possible to be content with old shoes.

I also learned that I’d better count the money I earned on my paper route several times before spending even a penny of it. If I went into a store and saw something fabulous (a cheap ring, an inexpensive gadget), I would stand there and think about whether or not I could be content without that certain thing.

Many time I could.

And I learned that being content is a good thing. It’s a good gift. It is part of the richness of being poor.

(However, if someone happened to give me a matching bracelet/ring set for my birthday—well, I could be very content with that, too!)

I took so many of those lessons I learned as a child along with me when I married Steve. As newlyweds (I was only nineteen!), our master bedroom--and I use that term loosely--consisted of a decrepit, spongy bed whose non-magnificence was complemented by a line up of lovely brown grocery bags snaking across the tattered carpet. We thought it perfectly logical to store our clothes in grocery bags since we had no money for a dresser. I remember looking at those bags and laughing and saying, “Well, at least they all match!”

Contentment. It is a rich gift.

It’s amazing how often I hear financially secure couples say that the happiest times in their whole marriage were back when they were newlyweds and living on nothing. They’ll laugh about the things they had to do to make it through the week without running out of money and how they had to make do with odd items when they couldn’t afford something nicer. (Grocery bag dressers, anyone?)

Their eyes still sparkle even sixty years later as they talk fondly about the days when they were busy discovering together the richness of being poor.

Some couples who get married now might be tempted to think that they should instantly be at the same financial level as their mom and dad who worked hard for 35 years to be where they are. But if you were to get married and already have everything--well, where’s the fun in that? How are you ever going to get to experience any funny, dramatic “poor young couple” stories to regale your kids and grandkids with later as you all sit around the Thanksgiving dinner table?

Stories which might go something like this:

“Well, Nathan and Sarah, your mom and I were making just $50 a week at the church where I worked part time and I was also selling shoes on the side. One day I went into the bathroom and discovered we were out of toothpaste so I called out to your mom, “Honey, we need toothpaste.”

She was out in the kitchen making the grocery list and I could hear the frantic clattering of the calculator keys while she ran the numbers, subtracting the coupons, adding the tax, trying to find the bottom line. Finally she sighed and called out, ‘I’m sorry. We don’t have money for toothpaste this week. We’re going to have to get by with baking soda instead.’

And then? You’ll never guess! Five minutes later the mail man pulled up in front of our cramped and shabby apartment. When I went out to check the mail, I discovered that there was a sample size tube of toothpaste. That never happened before and has never happened since!”

Let me just say that stories like these, stories of adventurous, plucky poorness, make for such great telling and re-telling. Our kids have heard all of Steve’s and my stories, and they’ve also heard the stories from their grandparents on both sides. They have a keen appreciation for what life was like back then and because of that, an even keener appreciation for what they are blessed with today.

Nathan and Sarah are products of generations of people who lived through hard times, people who laughed, and played music, and read books and recycled Wheaties—people who did their best to model contentment, to celebrate simplicity, and to embrace the richness of being poor.

____________________

What about you? What’s your story? What lessons from childhood do you still hold on to today?

Some of you may have grown up with very little, like I did. Others of you may have grown up with plenty, and you learned your life’s important lessons from a whole different perspective.

I’d love to hear your story.

Where Seventeen Went (Revisited)

It seems that August is the big month for transition and change and for kids to take another step toward growing up—going to a new grade, a new school, a new college, a new town.

Since Nathan will be a senior in college this year and Sarah is headed to High School, the whole “growing up thing” seems extra poignant to me right now. I wrote this piece a year ago and just happened to run across it again this week; it really struck a chord with me and I wanted to share it again.

Where Seventeen Went
August 4, 2009

While we were eating lunch with Steve's parents last Sunday, I looked around the table and remembered that I had first sat on those same dining room chairs when I was just seventeen years old. And now, amazingly enough, my own children have grown into teenagers and are sitting there in the same chairs, at the same table.

Steve and I are about the same age now that his parents were when I first met them as a teenager. And now Nathan is bringing his girl friend to that very table, except that Steve and I are the parents, instead of the starry-eyed youngsters. And Steve's parents are the grandparents of the children I hadn't even thought about when I first set foot in that dining room thirty years ago.

At some point when I wasn't even looking, the generations regenerated. And when they did, they took me along.

Truthfully? I'm not sure that I'm quite ready for all this generational shifting. I'm not sure that I'm ready to acknowledge the fact that I'm no longer the seventeen-year old, the new kid at the table, the daughter-in-law-to-be, the young girl on the brink of the rest of her life.

I'm not sure that I'm overly thrilled with the fact that I somehow morphed from seventeen into forty-seven and no one even told me it was happening. No one told me that I would go to sleep a few times, cook a few meals, change a few diapers, travel a few miles, and then wake up a few mornings later to discover that thirty years had passed.

Seventeen-year old kids should be warned about that.

Seventeen-year olds should be told, "Don't take Thursday afternoons for granted. Or Tuesday mornings. Don't wish for the day when you'll be eighteen. Or twenty-one. Be happy you're seventeen because one day you'll turn a page on the calendar and you'll be forty-seven and you'll wonder where seventeen went.

You'll wonder where the wrinkles came from. And you'll wonder how you survived the heartache that life brought with it. You'll question why you didn't always treasure the joys that were birthed out of the heartaches. You will be well aware of the fact that you made a few mistakes and learned a few lessons as you glance in the mirror and see a face that is no longer young. And you will ask, “Why didn't I know all this at seventeen?”

Seventeen doesn't last forever. But neither does forty-seven. I know that the next time I blink, I'll be seventy-seven and looking back thirty years at today. The generations will have once again shifted and I will be the gray-headed lady at the dinner table whom everyone is calling, "Grandma." I'll remember the days when I was forty-seven, and when I was seventeen and I will be ever so glad for those lovely days.

And yet I wouldn't ever choose to go back, because seventy-seven will be a good age. Just like forty-seven is a good age. Just like seventeen was a good age.

In fact, you know what? Every age is a good age. Every age reminds me that I'm still alive, and I still have gifts to give, adventures to experience, pain to bear, joys to treasure.

I am very much aware that the days I'm living now will soon fade and that the calendar leaves will soon fall. I know that in some nostalgic moment down the road, I will look back at this sweetest of all generations when I had Nathan and Sarah's laughter filling the house. I'll think of how I was so aware that the winds of time were blowing harder and stronger and that one day they would blow those children right out my front door and take them to meet the loves of their lives and they would have children of their own and put their feet under their own tables in their own houses.

But happily, beloved children who go away also come back to visit. And the day will come when Nathan and Sarah will bring their own children home; they will sit at our table and look around and say, "I remember when I was seventeen." They will feel sad about it. They will feel happy about it. And then they will count their blessings and hug their mamma and go on living.

But you can't see all that at seventeen. And that's how it should be. One of the things that age carries with it is those kinds of special secrets, imparted only to those who make the journey through a whole lot of years. Nathan and Sarah will arrive at forty-seven and they'll find that it's really not so bad hanging out in the Land of The Middle Aged. And my hope is that by the time they get there, I will have paved a straight path for them, set a good example and helped to make their journey meaningful.

They will discover that in the ongoing reshaping of their lives, each generation will come to be inhabited by new faces, new lives, and new stories. And in the midst of the shifting of the generations, in one of their houses, at one of their tables, someone will turn seventeen--someone who will be on the brink of the rest of her life.

And a generation's journey will begin again.

_______________________

In closing, here’s a precious child who will be fifteen years old in two weeks. Can seventeen be far behind?

Pearls In The Pain

A Brief Timeline of The Past Four Years of Smith Life:

2006

1. In June, Sarah had a cancer relapse. We dealt with major grief as we were reminded of the statistics that there are no long term survivors of relapsed Neuroblastoma. Her oncologist discussed with us that she may need a second bone marrow transplant. (A bone marrow transplant is one of the most stressful things on the planet.) He ended up trying chemo instead and after several months she was miraculously back in remission.

This picture was taken the night before we told her and Nathan about her relapse. I remember looking at her carefree smile and thinking, “Tomorrow your whole world will be torn apart.” And it was. She was absolutely devastated.

The oral chemo she was put on made her skin and lips extremely dry.

It was a tough time for all of us.

But it was a wonderful day when we got to tell her that she was back in remission.

2007

1. Nathan left home to go to college. Since we’re a very close family, it was a really tough adjustment to have him gone.
2. I was diagnosed with COPD (lung disease) and was told my lung capacity was at 60% of normal; I was also told I was a possible candidate for a double lung transplant down the road.
3. I had a health scare concerning my heart; after a few tests (including MRI of the heart) I found out it was a false alarm.
4. I started having severe vocal problems and underwent several tests and procedures to get to the bottom of them. I had difficulty singing (one of my great loves) and even had to go on vocal rest for awhile. The source of this problem was never discovered.

Here’s a picture of one of the tests I had. The only reason I’m smiling is that I was just posing; the wire (with the small camera attached) had not yet been inserted through my nasal cavity and down the back of my throat. It was NOT a fun experience.

2008

1. I had a cancer scare in February when I was told I had a 90-95% chance of cancer in one or both breasts. After many tests and biopsies, sleepless nights and tears, it turns out it wasn’t cancer after all. But for all a whole month, I truly believed I had breast cancer.

Waiting for my surgical biopsy.

2. Steve was diagnosed with skin cancer
3. We had major job (church)-related stress
4. Steve resigned from the church he pastored in November. We went largely unemployed for a year.

2009

1. In August, my dad passed away. We flew to Wisconsin for his last hours of life and his funeral.

2. Steve was voted into a new church in September; we commuted for two months before moving to Manteo in December.

2010

1. Sold house/bought house
2. In March, I was diagnosed with breast cancer; had a double mastectomy in April
3. I have more surgery pending in the fall

What do all of those experiences have in common?

Stress.

Stress wears many different faces but we all experience it in one form or another. And I know that there are a whole bunch of you who could write a list of your own stressors that would make mine look like a Sunday school picnic. I’m by no means saying that I’ve had it tougher than everyone else because I haven’t. Not by a long shot.

But still. Life is stressful. For everyone.

And lately, the stresses of life have been causing me to niggle around the edges of depression. I think that thrown into the mix of the stuff listed above is the fact that I’m 48-years old and might be in the early (but non-terminal) stages of a midlife crisis.

And maybe those of you who are near the same age (or at least the same season) in life can relate. Your kids are out of the nest, or at least old enough to not need you as much as they once did. You’re starting to realize that you’re not going to change the world, or discover the cure for cancer, or be the first person to go to Mars.

Your physical body is--shall we say—changing. And not for the better. Your knees ache. You’re having to wear reading glasses. (Which you swore you’d never do.) The sands of time in your hourglass figure are all sinking to the bottom. Shopping for clothes is not as fun as it once was. There are jiggles where there didn’t use to be jiggles. And joggles where there never were joggles. When you wave good-bye to friends, the bottom part of your arm keeps waving long after your friends are gone.

You’ve been married twenty or thirty years by now and have weathered some pretty tough storms. You’ve come to the unhappy (but realistic) realization that there are no perfect marriages and that the only time any couple ever rides happily into the sunset with all their problems resolved is at the movie theater. Or maybe you’re divorced. Which is one of the biggest stressors possible.

Your kids turned out to not be as perfect as you thought they might be. Because after all, what young parent doesn’t gaze at their tiny newborn and have delusions that this little child will be the first baby on the planet who will be raised perfectly by the world’s best parents. (Ha.)

The dreams you had as a college student concerning your goals for a fulfilling, well-paying, world-changing career didn’t quite come to fruition. You’re coming to realize that you’re not going to retire with a couple million in the bank account after all. In fact, your current hope is that you’ll be able to find a way to retire at all before you turn eighty.

And I could go on. And on and on.

Life can be stressful. And depressing. And disillusioning. And disappointing.

And to think it only took a blink of an eye to even get to this point.

Wasn’t it just last week when we were fifteen years old and our lives were ahead of us, full of golden promises and possibilities? When we thought that anyone over the age of thirty was ancient and out of touch? When we knew that we had all the answers?

Now it seems as though we know all the answers to the questions no one asks!

Welcome to real life. Real stress. Real pain. Real tough.

Although I would be the first to say that many times life is pleasant and fulfilling and wonderful, this particular post is written for all the times when it’s not. And it’s written for all the people who struggle just to get from one day to the next.

Because life isn’t really about fluffy dreams and pristine perfection. It’s about just showing up. Again. And again. And again. And realizing that in the grittiness of life, a few pearls are inevitably formed.

In fact, if I were to look back over the stressors that I listed at the beginning of this post, I could very easily add, “This experience was tough but it brought something special to my life. This crisis made me into a person I never would have become without it. This challenge brought into my life some wonderful people that I never would have otherwise met. This health crisis made me appreciate life a lot more. This trial helped me to feel God’s presence and comfort closer than ever before.”

Truly there are pearls in the pain. And it’s the pearls that make the gritty parts of life doable. And bearable.

What you’re going through today might be the toughest thing you’ve ever faced. Hang on. Keep showing up. Know you’re not alone.

And remember that one day you’ll hold in your hand the pearls formed in the pain.

____________________________

I’ll leave you with the lyrics to a song that I haven’t thought about in about ten years, but it came to mind again this morning as I was writing.

Life is Hard (God Is Good)
By Pamela Thum and Joel Lindsey

You turn the key
Then close the door behind you
Drop your bags on the floor
You reach for the light
But there's darkness deep inside
And you can't take it anymore

'Cause sometimes living takes the life out of you
And sometimes living is all you can do

Life is hard, the world is cold
We're barely young and then we're old
But every falling tear is always understood
Yes, life is hard, but God is good

You start to cry
'Cause you've been strong for so long
And that's not how you feel
You try to pray
But there's nothing left to say
So you just quietly kneel

In the silence of all that you face
God will give you His mercy and grace

Jesus never said
It was an easy road to travel
He only said that you would never be alone
So when your last thread of hope
Begins to come unraveled
Don't give up, He walks beside you
On this journey home and He knows

Life is hard, the world is cold
We're barely young and then we're old
But every falling tear is always understood
Yes, life is hard, but God is good