Miracle

The kind that milk cows morning and evening and come in from the barn needing a shower.  That was my definition of a farmer.  I was pretty sure I would never marry one.  I mean really?!  We do have a choice whom we marry, right?  I didn’t have to sign up for a lifetime of pouring feed and pushing cows around.

I remember one time when an old family friend stopped by for the evening.  This man could earn money in many different ways and one of his occupations was shearing sheep.  Up to that point I had never actually met a sheep before.  I knew they weren’t white and fluffy like pictures made them look but I had never actually touched or come close to a sheep.  Much to my mother’s chagrin, long after the man had cleaned up and left, days later, there was still an odor about the house that smelled of bad wool and lanolin.  It was then that we found his old shoes in the laundry room, left behind because their odor was so offensive they could never have been fit for anything other than the garbage.

I don’t remember when Ian first learned I had a keen sense of smell.  Probably shortly after we started courting because I told him that I knew he was in the room because I could smell his cologne.  Ian was a bit afraid I might not like him because he had chosen sheep and animals as a way of life and I might not approve of the smell.  I will admit, I wasn’t crazy about how sheep smelled at first.  But somehow with lots of love for the Shepherd I decided I could deal with it.  Because, after all, it was Ian’s love and dream to work with sheep.  I watched him shear, and on occasion would hold my breath and scoop up the shorn fleece and haul it off to the bag.  Only to come away with a lingering smell, and lanolin on my hands.  The more I came to know Ian, the more I learned the value he placed on farming.  His love for sheep came right after his love for God and his love for me.  I was married to a farmer!

Ian always tried to be careful about not dragging in too much odor when he came in from chores, but I could smell it, even in his beard.  As time went by I came to not just tolerate the smell but even to enjoy it.  It meant my husband was doing what he loved, and that made my heart full and content.

And then, it started getting harder to do chores, to move fences, to scoop feed and fork hay.  Slowly Ian had to give up caring for sheep.  Only a few now and then, and not the large flocks he wanted.  The equipment he had accumulated for his work has been sitting.  Unused.  Waiting.  And we’ve been waiting too.  Waiting for life to change.  For energy to come back.  It’s been almost two years.  And the reality is that life has not returned to what it was.  The letting go has become more than a conversation.  It has become life.

Ian started posting his equipment on Craigslist.  Trailers drove away with new owners.  And just this week a few more pieces of equipment rolled off the property.  And with each piece it feels like Ian is losing a part of his dream.  A part of his identity.  A part of himself.

I tell myself it would be easier.  Easier if there was something to replace the dream.  Some direction for moving forward.  I tell myself it would be easier if it had all disappeared in some horrible disaster.  Then at least we’d know.  And we’d know we have to move on.  But instead it’s a slow death.  One day at a time.  Letting go, with nothing for stability but our relationship with Christ.

Last evening I found myself in the kitchen wondering what to do?  I knew that Ian was having a difficult evening, which meant I was in tears.  I’ve found that one of the best ways to bring cheer to Ian’s heart is when one of his sisters or friends calls to say hello.  I wanted to call someone, anyone and ask them to call Ian and encourage him.  I tried but they were busy.  This sibling was doing this and another was too far away and another was having family time.  In my heart of hearts I knew that God could send the balm for my husbands pain.  But as a wife, what do you do when your husband is hurting?  Hurting deeply.  Feeling the loss of the future.

When Christmas rolls around each year it often gives us pause to think and remember and miss the absent and think about the important.  Beauty seems more real, trials more difficult, separation more keenly felt.  We all long for a miracle to somehow come and mend our broken lives.  To rewind or fast forward to another day, another time.  I find my heart longing for something big to happen and heal the pain in my life.

Oh my heart- how do I reach out to the man I love most on all this earth?  How do I encourage him through the pain of this night?  This night of losing?  God, where is my heart’s miracle?

And then it happened.  Through nothing I did, Ian’s sister, Mary Heather, called him all the way from Paraguay.  And when I saw Ian next, his face was bright with a smile!  My miracle had happened and all that was left was for my soul to recognize it and revel in it.

Two thousand years ago, God sent a miracle for my heart.  His only Son came to this earth and daily I experience His hope and His grace if I choose.  The miracle of birth.  The miracle of a baby.  A God-baby that came and dwelt among us to show us mercy in our sin.  This was the big miracle that my heart longs to know and understand more every year.  And through this miracle, I can daily receive the gifts of life.

A Man of Sorrows

It's been quite a while since I posted last.  Ian has been doing a bit better this spring and summer and with his rise in energy, my heart has not needed the emotional release valve as often.  Which means I haven't written as much lately.  While life has still been difficult, and at times, very trying, we've had many moments of joy.

During the more difficult times I've been thinking a lot about who Jesus was to the people around Him when He lived here on earth.  He was called:

“A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief…”  This all – man – all – God knew what it was like.  He was acquainted with grief.  He did not run.  He did not hide from it.  He wore it like a robe.  A man of sorrows.  It was a part of the very essence of who He was.

These words have become ever more real to me.  As Ian and I have walked through the last few weeks and months and now a year, I have told God often that I want this experience to change me.  I want a softness to the grief’s and suffering’s of others because of our experience.  When I hear of the earth groaning in grief.  The ravages of war.  Refugees, thirsty, hungry with nowhere to turn.  Illness, and death creeping into my life from all angles.  My heart cries out to God for mercy!  How does God, who knows all things, continue to allow this sinful world to destroy itself?  It makes my heart daily more grateful for the redemption we can have through Jesus Christ.

Ian was one of the first people who truly taught me how to cry.

As a child I was either all sunshine or all rain.  I had no emotional even keel.  As a teen I became embarrassed by my inability to control my tears.  Experiences marred, formed and shaped me into a young woman who rarely cried and if I did, it was alone.  I learned to bottle my tears behind my eyes even in the most difficult of times and would show them only to God in the darkest or quietest of moments.  My friends called me, “Iron maiden.”

“I don’t understand tears,” I told Ian.  “Tears make me feel vulnerable and manipulative.  When I cry it makes my head hurt and there is nothing soothing about them.”

To me, tears were another language that I fought against using.  So when they did come, it was with bitterness not relief that they flowed.

I watched almost fascinated when Ian would break down mid sentence when telling me about some difficulty someone was going through.  He told me many times that tears are a gift.  That it’s ok to cry even when we don’t know why we are crying.  That crying with someone creates a beautiful bond.

Slowly, with much encouragement I began to learn to cry.  As I write, I realize I’ve come a long way, and have a long way yet to go.  I’ve cried for many reasons in the past but only just a few weeks ago did I really cry, just because I could and because the pain felt so deep and because for the first time it felt as if tears brought relief.  I want to continue to learn how to cry, how to really feel with those around me.  How to be touched like Christ was touched.  How to let tears fall unabashed and unabated until Jesus returns.

I doubt that Jesus’s acquaintance with grief had much at all to do with people dying a physical death around Him.  Instead I think He walked as a Man of Sorrows, a Godman who knew and fully understood the ravages of sin and Satan.  Families falling apart, one angry, careless word at a time.  Fathers, mothers, crying, “Why me?!  Why us?”  Sudden accidents tearing hearts and lives to shreds.  The slow ravages of lust and greed.  The destruction of sickness.  He knows and truly understands the awfulness of sin and the devastation it has brought to our world.

I’ve told myself countless times to be strong in the midst of pain.  I’m learning that there are different types of strength.  One type of strength I want nothing to do with.  It’s the strength that says, “When everyone else has fallen apart I have to be strong because who else will pick up the pieces?”  It’s the strength that is it’s own form of ugly.  Jesus, as Savior of the world, when everyone else around Him was grieving the loss of Lazarus was so acquainted with grief that He joined them in weeping.  He didn’t ask, “Who will be there to pick up the pieces?”  Because He knew that despite everything, only God can truly pick up the pieces of our lives and help to put us back together.  Any strength that I have that makes me think I could, is false and full of self.

I do want to be strong in truth and righteousness.  When the battle of my heart to die to self and what I want rages, I want to be founded on Christ Jesus who says that He is the only Way, the only Truth and the only Life.  I want to allow God to change my heart because of the things we are experiencing.  Father make me pliable!

February

  You prayed, despite your throat hurting so much you could hardly talk, “God give her the emotional support she needs to live through today.” 

And you and I, we cried. 

Only culture thinks it knows what our Valentine’s Day should look like, feel like, be like. 

You saw past the chocolates, the cards, the teddy bears and the roses, you saw my real soul-need.

  In our vows, when we married, before God and four hundred silent witnesses, we said we’d be there for each other,

“…in joy or sorrow, sickness or health, wealth or want, till death do us part…”

And on that balmy evening I knew I could not prove faithful those words, spoken by a fallen tongue. 

“…With God’s Divine assistance, I hereby pledge thee my troth.”

  It’s only in the knowing God that I can be faithful.  It’s only in the commitment of my heart to Him, daily, over and over again that I can be faithful to this greatest of earthly gifts.

  This gift of you. 

My Ian.

My Love.

  When I’m sick you’re there for me.  You massage my feet, hold me while I cough and cry and check on me every few minutes to see if you can get me anything else.  You’ve been faithful as best you know how.  You daily die to self, for me.

I shrink sometimes from doing the same for you. 

And I know you must feel it.

Thank you for committing to love me through it all.

  The dirty house, the coughing, the forgetfulness, the burnt lima beans, the late meals, the attitude and spirit that does not always choose to put you first.

  Thank you for committing to love me despite myself, and despite the woman I’ve become since first you vowed to love me.

  And while the world celebrates Valentine’s Day around us, you and I, we’ll eat noodle soup and peaches ‘cause it’ll slide down your sore throat easier. 

And you and I, we’ll choose to live a picture of real love.

A New Year

Today I was reveling in the thought that even though the journey seems difficult right now, God continues to shower us with blessings above and beyond our needs.  He is faithful.

January 2014.  It is today.  It is here and now.  It is this moment.  Last May it seemed that the end of the year would be so hard to reach.

Today we look at what feels like a year of unknown, struggle, and challenge ahead of us.  The only thing that can quiet my heart from beating into a frenzy is the sure tones of my Heavenly Father saying, “My grace is sufficient for thee…”

After our trip to Mayo, the second week in December, we came home and waited for the results to come back.  One by one they came.  And in the end, all was well.  The tests were all normal including the second muscle biopsy.  The doctors tell us that while something is wrong with Ian’s muscles, they don’t know what it is.  Unless his symptoms change, or his illness becomes more severe, they do not have any other tests to suggest.  Without understanding what is wrong, they haven’t been able to give us a diagnosis or a prognosis.

If I knew what to say after that… I’d say it…

Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,

     I will joy in the God of my salvation. -Hab 3:18