I've been contemplating all morning how I am going to start this blog post and now that I finally have peace and quiet in my house (God bless the schools for taking my children for seven hours a day) I still don't know. 

I've likened my thought process to a tornado before and it's still very true.  A tornado picks up anything in it's path and whips it all around together.  It's a weird and wild phenomenon.

I'm going to call the following list a 'brain dump'.  It's everything I'm thinking about, the contents of my mental tornado, if you will.

catering menus
restoration
getting more iron in my diet
refugees
folding the laundry
lularoe leggings
my spiritual giftings
gluten free foods
shoulder pain
conferences with my kids teachers
living with less
The Pile of books to read
how quickly can I watch 'Friends' on Netflix
time at home
winterizing my flower beds
intentionality
amazing weather/gorgeous fall color
death

I told you it was weird.  I saw a cartoon recently that perfectly summed up my introverted self.

I'm not going to touch on all these topics (probably) but this could still be a fairly lengthy blog post.  You might want to get out while the getting's good.  Or buckle up because this could be a bumpy, disjointed ride.

Let's start with the last (and most difficult one) on the list.

Death.

I'm going to another celebration of life service today.  Another young mother.  Another victim of cancer.

This is the second one in less than two weeks.  One is too many.  Two has made me numb.

Lisa Heft was vivacious and funny and thought provoking.  I admired her commitment to her family, her friends, her work.  I admired her bravery and her realness.  She was life giving and positive.  She once described me as 'colorful' and I loved that.

So, here I am with Liz Custer's memorial service still fresh in my mind, getting ready to go to Lisa's service.  And I'm still soul screaming it.

IT IS NOT FAIR.

It's just not.  If I were God I'd be taking the child molesters, the rapists, the murderers.  I'm angry that God lets cancer take mothers away from their babies.

I keep thinking about this one time where I was really angry at Larry.  I don't even remember why.  But I was super mad.  And the crazy thing is, Larry is the only one I wanted to comfort me.  I was so very very angry but I wanted comfort from the one I was angry at.

It's where I find myself with God right now.  I can't stand the pain and I am full of why.  

My uncle forwarded an email to me yesterday.  The following is a reflection from Richard Rohr and it aligned with a lot of teaching I've heard this year.

"We would prefer clear and easy answers, but questions hold the greatest potential for opening us to transformation. We try to change events in order to avoid changing ourselves. We must learn to stay with the pain of life, without answers, without conclusions, and some days without meaning. That is the perilous dark path of contemplative prayer. Grace leads us to the state of emptiness—to a momentary sense of meaninglessness—in which we ask, “What is it all for?” The spaciousness within the question allows Love to fill and enliven us.

Historic cultures saw grief as a time of incubation, hibernation, initiation, and transformation. Yet we avoid this sacred space."

Sacred space, huh?  Somehow, in this day and age, we've made grief into an unmentionable topic.  We avoid it.  We dance around it.  We gloss over it.

I'm gonna go ahead, tho, and agree with Richard Rohr.  We must learn to stay with the pain of life.  To sit with other people in their pain.  To be honest and admit that we don't have answers.  To pinch our lips together instead of uttering the platitudes that really don't help at all.

I've quoted Thomas Long before and I'm going to do it again.  In his book "What Shall We Say?" he says this: "When we do this, when we confront God in bewilderment or moral outrage over the experience of evil...this is not a lack of faith but an expression of faith."

So when we question God, when we confront God, when we are angry at God, it's not for a lack of believing in him.  How can we question or confront or be angry at someone we don't believe exists?  In the hard spaces there is a sacredness, a place for growth. It's when we stop asking, when we stop talking to God that faith starts to die.

So I'm learning to be ok in this weird sacred space.  I'm ok with my tornado of thoughts.  I am secure in my belief that God works all things together for good for those who love him and his love for me is not swayed by if I'm angry at him.  And though I'm angry, I also still trust God.  I still love him.  I still seek comfort from him.  I will still praise him.  I am delighted that he welcomes my questions.  That he is not turned off by my pain.  That he doesn't leave in hard times.

The color of this time of year speaks so much to my soul.  I love that even tho everything is dying for the year, God lets it go out in a blaze of glory.

I love the fall activities, watching two of my sons play football and one of them run cross country.  I love watching my daughter use her artistic talents to draw and paint what she loves about this season.  I love that my extended family members make an effort to be together.  I love the fall flavors and the comfort food.

And I'm being even more aware of the little moments this season.  Treasuring them.

I love how my grandma came into my kitchen, looked me in the eye, opened a cupboard, threw an envelope in, closed the door and then asked to be put to work.  I had her chop apples and cheese for the salad and I waited till after she left to open that envelope.

I love how God spoke to me in a misty sunrise one morning.  He spoke to me about how even in the fog, he's there, working.

I love how Cole took the time to arrange this stuffed bear known as Professor Beary Bear around here.

I love the weather this week and how I could enjoy some peaceful yet productive time on my porch.

I was completely enthralled by the guts of the pumpkins we carved.  How it was messy and beautiful and in the carving there were seeds.  Seeds that could be roasted and eaten for nourishment.  Seeds that could be dried and planted to bring more life.

Isn't that so much like life?  Sometimes there is cutting.  There is ripping.  There is tearing.  There is an emptying out.  But in the mess there is life.  And we have a choice.  We can throw the life out with the mess saying it's not worth it to separate and clean and prepare.

Or.

Or we can put in the time, the effort it takes to sort thru the junk to find the life.

The choice is ours.  I hope we choose well.

I have been wanting to write this blog post but I also have been dreading it.  Life can be a crazy and difficult crush of emotions.  The older I get, the more I am realizing how intertwined our feelings are.  Things are not simply "happy" or "sad".  And a single day can hold a whole gamut of emotion.

This past week has been a difficult one.

Many of you know Liz Custer and her story.

Liz is the beautiful girl in the middle 

(photo used with permission)

For those of you who don't, Liz has been battling cancer for the past three years.  On Friday night Liz went to meet Jesus.

My link to Liz is this: we grew up going to church together, her older sisters babysat me and my siblings, and she's been my neighbor since 2011.  While we were never really close, Liz was one of those people who always had a smile and a kind word.  And our boys have spent countless hours together.

Last Monday morning I had to tell my 11 year old son that his friend's mom went to Hospice and that she would likely pass away soon.  I'll never forget how he silently walked away, blinking back tears.  And it made me angry.  Angry at the disease that steals life from the young.  Angry at the thought of motherless children.  And angry at the God who didn't seem to be doing anything about it.

I soul screamed it at God.  IT'S NOT FAIR.  DEATH IS NOT FOR THE YOUNG.  BABIES SHOULD NOT HAVE TO GROW UP WITHOUT THEIR MOTHER.  PARENTS SHOULD NOT HAVE TO WATCH THEIR CHILD DIE.  IT'S.NOT.FAIR.

During the course of the day and my wrestling with God it became apparent to me that there was another emotion that the anger was masking.  A deeper emotion.

Fear.

There is absolutely no reason why it couldn't have been me.

The thought of it makes my breathing faster, my throat close up, my heart pound.  What if it was me?  What kind of legacy would I leave?  How would people remember me?  How would my babies and my husband remember me?

I've been thinking about that as I've read people's tributes to Liz on Facebook.  How in a time of loss people tell stories about their loved one.  They share the memories, the pictures.  The desire is to honor the life of their loved one and it is precious.  Grieving people need each other.

This morning on my walk I was thinking about how pain either makes us tender or makes us tough.  How we either face the pain head on and wrestle with God or we stuff it and let our hearts turn to stone.  The reality is this, anger is easier.

Anger lets us say "I don't need nothin' from nobody."  Anger lets us push people away and anger lets us believe the lie that if we don't let anyone close our hearts will never break again.

But facing the pain?  That takes bravery.  The brave hold out their broken hearts to God and say 'This is a mess.  I don't know how to fix it.  But I trust you.'  The brave say with the Psalmist "Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him."  The brave tell their broken stories and let their words bring healing to someone else's brokenness.

I think one of the greatest ways we can honor someone's life is to stay tender.  

To do the silly thing.  

To laugh.  To play.

  

To share stories.  To cry.  To feel.

To say 'yes' to people, to relationships. 

So, throw that party.

Let your "too big" baby sit on your lap.

Give that simple gift.

Make a mess.

Find joy in the small things.

Celebrate any chance you get.

And share your story so someone can say "me too".

We say it again and again and it can feel dry and cliche but it's true.

You just don't know how much time you have.

Make each day count.