When God is silent

NOTE: Another started but unpublished until now post. I've come a bit further in the journey since I initially started writing this post.

Over the last 2 years I've heard a lot of things. I've heard my children laugh, cry and argue. I've heard my husband tell me he loves me and heard him cutting up with the kids. I've heard a lot of sermons, scripture, encouraging words but one thing I haven't heard the voice of God speak to me. He's been silent.

I can say that I've felt His presence, while not necessarily realizing until later that it was indeed His presence in the form of a friend hugging my neck, sending a note, or giving me a reassuring look...I know that it was the Heavenly Father working through folks to minister comfort to my broken spirit.
So, when God is silent is it because He really isn't talking or is it because I'm not listening or can't hear Him because of the chaos in my mind and heart? Let me tell ya, there's been A LOT of that in the last 2 years!!! I have struggled with trusting God and feeling like my prayers are effective. It has seemed to me that the things for which I've prayed have gone the opposite way.  Well, opposite of MY will...there's the rub. Why is God's will not my will and visa versa?  My will should be that God's will be done in my life and the lives of those I love...right?

Tis the season

This holiday season has been a season of reflection for me. As we make the journey to the manager during this season of Advent, I'm reminded of the great love of our Heavenly Father. I am aware of it on most days but this year, for some reason, I am made more keenly aware.

I LOVE the season of Advent!!! I love the lights, the food, the time away from work, but I mostly enjoy the time spent with loved ones. There are many loved ones who are no longer able to celebrate this season here on earth with us and that leaves a huge holes - gaps in our lives that can never be filled again in this first world. Life moves forward for us but in a very different way. That hole, that loss, that infinite missing and longing...it never really gets "better" it's just different. It's a wound that never really heals. As time passes, it forms a protective covering but it's very thin and can be ripped away by something as commonplace as a scent or a song. We laugh and celebrate but always with an ache...sometimes it takes our breath away and other times it causes our cheeks to glisten with tears for a time gone by but more often it brings a warm feeling way down deep knowing that we are so much richer for having loved those folks so deeply.

I miss my Dad. I make no excuses...I miss him every day and feel his absence in a very real ways every day. Sometimes that missing brings a flood of tears, sometimes a feeling of inconsolable longing but mixed with that is ALWAYS a warmth and love that is inexplicable...I can't describe it, it's something you have to experience.  People tire of hearing about the loss of our loved ones but I don't think I'll ever be ready to stop talking about my Dad. Giving him over to eternity has brought to the forefront the loss of my grandparents. I miss them more now then I did when the loss was fresh. I think it also has a great deal to do with the fact that my own children are growing up...entirely too quickly, might I add! I am beginning to realize that sooner than I'm really ready for it, things are going to change within my four walls. I think that only adds to my reflective state.

My Dad's passing has also made me more intentional with my Mom. My mom is not the type to gush and smooch and hug...I'm like that as well. However, I think since Dad's death we've both become more intentional with the expression of our love - showing it rather than it just being inferred. I'm not going to lie, it's difficult for me because by nature I'm just not that way. I can be that way and many of my treasured friends will tell you that they may randomly receive big mushy emails or messages from me during particularly nostalgic times (which probably annoy them...sorry). I've just come to realize that the people we love won't always be here with us. Many things can separate us from those we love...death, geography and change. So, I decided that those I love would never have to wonder - I'm going to tell them while I have them in their earthly vessels that I love them and that they are treasured by me. That's one regret I don't have with my Dad...I knew he loved me and he knew I loved him. The people who are precious to our hearts...they should know it! We should tell them! Don't say, "I'll tell them tomorrow"or "I'll see them again sometime"! If geography prevents a visit...send them a note! If you can see them...squeeze them tight and tell them you love them! If it's an old friend, tell them how treasured your time together is in your heart and that you love them. Tell your family...show the people around you that you love them! BE INTENTIONAL!

This season in my life is interesting...it's a melting pot of emotions from all directions. It's a blessing and curse - my heart wells up when I think of the many people who have touched and continue to touch my life, whether near or far. It also brings a sense of sadness that many of you are far away (separated by geography or circumstance) no matter the situation, I hold each of you close in my heart.

I miss my Dad but am so very grateful that my Mom is able to spend the holidays with us. We don't talk too much about Dad or memories when we're together...I think it's too hard and we haven't come far enough in the journey to do it without tears. It's odd that even as an adult I still don't know what to do with my Mother's tears.  But those moments from the past are shared with a knowing look or a random remark. We share the same memories, albeit from different perspectives.
I have a red berry & cedar candle that I burn every year at Christmas time...reminds me of Christmases when I was the preacher's daughter at Fincastle UMC. That simple candle brings back a flood of wonderful memories for me along with mixed emotions of happiness and longing. Sometimes I long for the days "up the valley" in house heated by an oil furnace, the only phone in the house hanging on the wall in the kitchen, rabbit ear antennas, TVs with no remote, a Christmas tree sprayed with canned snow and lit by multi-colored lights with GIANT bulbs and stockings full of fruit and candy canes. I miss the silver tree with the color wheel at my Nanny's house and the homemade chocolate pie but one thing that I don't have to miss...THE LOVE! I feel that love every time a memory comes to mind and while I can't hug those necks, their love crosses the veil of Heaven like a gentle breeze and sweeps over me and warms my heart, makes me smile and yes, brings a tear.

I am infinitely grateful for the blessing of my life and the life my husband and I have made with our children. Life is a journey and ours is full of twists and turns, ups and downs and everything in between but the one thing that is constant is LOVE! We love each other through it all.

I pray that this Christmas and every day beyond brings each of us the love of those we have in our lives and those who are loving us from the other shore and that we seize EVERY opportunity to LOVE!

Merry Christmas!
The Preacher's Daughter

And suddenly...it HITS me!!!

Since my Daddy passed away, I have had this overwhelming longing to return to the places of my childhood - to see the people that knew him either personally or through me. A desire to touch again those moments and those people who loved me and knew me "when"...

I keep trying to figure out why...why do I feel like I not only want to but NEED to go and sit in those places and at the feet of those wonderful people who knew me when I was young and my Ross family still intact...and then, IT HIT ME!!!  I am an only child and these people from my childhood/youth are like siblings or extended family members to me. They can talk about my Dad and not just in an ethereal way...they knew him and knew me and now, that is all the more precious to me.

I think, if you come from a large nuclear family (nuclear as in your immediate family...NOT the glowing in the dark kind) and you lose a parent, you have those siblings with whom to commiserate. Siblings to remind you of how it was "back in the day" and they, too have memories and stories that others won't and they can and should share them...often!

Nothing to fear but fear itself and everything in between

*NOTE: Since the original writing of this post, the Lord has brought me a long way with regard to fear and worry. Every day, I confess that spirit worry to Him and trust Him to go before, behind, above, below and beside me.

Since my Dad's death on November 21, 2012 I have lived in fear! There hasn't been a day that I can recall since his death that I haven't been worried or fearful. There are days when my fears reduce me to a heap on the floor. I HATE IT!!!! I hate being a mess, being vulnerable, feeling helpless and victimized but it happens to me a LOT in relationship to fear.  I have moments when I feel as though I'm having an out of body experience (no, I've never been abducted by aliens although I'm sure many have wondered over the years -LOL). The fear grips my heart so tightly that I can hardly breathe and I can't get away from it. I can't hide from it because it ALWAYS finds me.

One thing I know for sure FEAR IS A THIEF!!! It robs me of my peace and strips me of my joy! And folks, let me tell you...that makes me MAD!!!!

It feels like yesterday and forever

Fall is in the air...the mornings are a little crisper and the evenings a little cooler. The air isn't quite so heavy and the good hair days start to outweigh the bad hair days. This has always been one of my favorite seasons...in recent years it's a bittersweet season for me as I find my way back to complete faith and total trust in God.  It's a more difficult journey than I could have ever anticipated. Being raised in a household of faith, I didn't see this season coming. This season of uncertainty and doubt...never thought I'd be here or at least not this long. It scares me!

I want to go back to being ok...I want to go back to being the person I was before losing someone I loved changed me...and not just momentarily...it has changed me FOREVER! I will never again be the same person I was before Dad died. "Dad died"...it still sounds so unreal - I still find myself finding it difficult to believe...but it IS real! Very painfully REAL!

I miss my daddy everyday but some days are harder than others...some moments are more difficult than others. There are moments on a cool fall evening when I'm riding in my van with windows down and I hear the song of the cicada and remember the many nights riding with my Dad up the valley when we lived in LaFollette or home from a ballgame when we lived out on Bates Pike in Cleveland. I can't describe how heavy my heart becomes when I think about the fact that I'll never ride with my Dad again in this life. I'll never get to talk about the resurgence of UT football with him, sit and listen to his hilarious high school stories (I wish I had written them all down somewhere) or sit under his teaching of the Word. I miss everything about him every single day!

Death changes everything! It changes the way you look at and see every situation! Every aspect of your life is eternally altered. I find myself many many times thinking and saying "IT'S NOT FAIR!" And in the flesh, it's not fair but for eternity...it's all good. My hope through this journey is that when I push through the pain and sadness, that on the other side I'll find the strong faith that my father had bubbling up inside of me. That I'll have the unwavering trust that He does have a plan to prosper me and not to harm me. The evidence that all things have worked together for good because I do love Him and want to love Him more. When I find myself on the other side of this season, my prayer is that the person I become is the person that God intends me to be.

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness...

Pressing on...
L

Life Lessons

As I reflect onthe last year and eight months, I have come to the realization that we (my family) have learned a lot - things we wanted to learn and others that we didn't want to learn but needed to learn so that we could grow as a family and as individuals.

Things I learned:
*I can survive a broken heart
*My children are braver and stronger than I ever realized
*Bad things happen but they don't have to define us - the way we respond does
*Letting go is difficult but necessary
*People, even the ones you love and who love you, aren't perfect and will let you down
*I can't control the actions of others - only my actions and reactions are within my control
*If someone wants to be mad at me, they're gonna be mad no matter how hard I try to please them
*I can't live my life trying to please people
*It's ok that everyone doesn't like me (I hate it but it's ok...or it will be ok)
*We are a flawed people in a broken world and WE ALL NEED JESUS
*Even when you try your very best you may fail but failure isn't defeat unless you allow to make you stop trying
*There are some things in life that can't be fixed - you just have to allow them to run their course and trust that the Lord has your back
*I have to allow my children to experience failure and make mistakes - it's part of living and I have to give them the opportunity to grow
*I have to allow my children to enjoy their successes and teach them to enjoy and applaud the successes of those they care about
*I have to forgive folks even when they don't ask for it
*It's important to try and make time to see (in person) the people who mean the most to you - even if it's inconvenient - try your best
*I have to take a hard look at myself and allow Christ to heal those things in me that are broken, hurt, angry, faithless, full of doubt, regret

Things I believe my children have learned:
*They can/will survive a broken heart
*They are braver and stronger and smarter than they ever thought
*Grown ups aren't always the good guys (which is unfortunate)
*Life isn't fair but we try to find the good/positive things in every situation (it's hard sometimes)
*Life is hard sometimes but it's worth the fight
*It's ok to ask for help - especially when the road is hard
*They don't have to be perfect and shouldn't try to be
*Sometimes the good things come to those who do the right thing -sometimes the good things happen to the ones who cheat and manipulate - it stinks but it's life in this broken world
*Mom and Dad love them...a lot - NO MATTER WHAT

In the last year and eight months, we have learned several life lessons. Let me tell you, life lessons aren't always fun; Sometimes, they REALLY stink! My kids have had to learn some life lessons that I wish they hadn't learned so soon in their lives. I've had my stomach in knots for months worrying about things that, when I stop and rationalize, are really completely out of my control...yet I worry!

I guess saying that I've "learned" a lot through this journey is an overstatement. I've experienced a great deal and I hope that I have/will learned/learn from the things I've seen/experienced but I'm not sure that I've made the transfer of those lessons to practical application. I've experienced the deep dark valleys and the flat places...the mountain tops have been scarce of late but I still believe that there are some waiting for our family and for each of us as individuals.

I have struggled and I continue to struggle...but these things I know, God is for me/us and He has a plan. I have NO CLUE what the plan is and I struggle every single day to trust that He knows best. Every day, I have to turn my doubt, worries and anxiety over to Him about 1,000 times. I'm not always successful and some days I feel defeated and forsaken but I'm learning again to pray believing that He will answer. I'm learning to trust and have faith that He hears my prayers and answers them in His time an in His sovereign ways. I will never understand why some of the things that have happened over the last year and eight months have happened to us. I have made the choice to believe that He knows best and has allowed all these things to refine each of us; preparing us for the path He has for us.

There is a lyric from one of my all time favorite songs that says,
God is too wise to be mistaken
God is too good to be unkind
So when you don't understand
When you don't see His plan
When you can't trace His hand
Trust His Heart


Help me, Heavenly Father, to trust Your heart!

Got Trust?

Phew! Father's Day came and went and it was just as emotional for me this year as last. I think my sadness was compounded by the fact that I had been sorting and filing old pictures....many of them of Dad. Me and Dad - Dad and each of my children as newborns - Dad and Mom - All 3 of us....the list goes on. It was a double-edged sword...the memories were so sweet and seeing him - his face, his smile - was so wonderful but on the other side...it was painful and brought sorrow and sadness and worst of all longing.

Longing is the worst. I long for my Dad's presence - I long to catch the hint of his smell (Old Spice deodorant - he never wore cologne) - I long to feel his embrace, hear his laughter, his voice...there's so much about him that I long for...and it causes the tears to well up in my eyes and spill over before I even realize that they're there. Longing is a terrible feeling and what makes it worse is there will be no end to that longing in this first world. I think that I will always long for my Dad - it seems that the further away I get from November 21, 2012 the deeper the longing and the more overwhelming the missing of him becomes. There are STILL days when the tears come for no real reason...a song, a smell, a familiar moment and sometimes it's as dadgum commercial on TV!  When I feel that longing it makes my brain feel foggy and scrambled...I feel unsettled and in disarray. In those moments, the doubts and questions return. "Why, Lord? Why now? Why at this time? What is Your plan? What were/are  you thinking? How can good come from this? What am I supposed to do?"  Yeah, the question and doubt are pretty endless in those moments and unfortunately, I have lots of those moments.

It seems as though when one area of you life feels disheveled, other areas seem to feel that same way. I find myself feeling like things are falling apart or, as my 9 year old would say, it feels like everything is "jacked up"!  I hate that feeling...the feeling that whatever can go wrong most definitely will.  The feeling that everything you say and do is said and done the wrong way or taken the wrong way or in the wrong context. I then start to feel frantic...the frantic need to fix it all!  I'm learning, however, that some things can't be fixed with a kind word or an "I'm sorry" - death can't be "fixed"...grief can't be "fixed". As a child, I can remember distinctly, moments of fearful tears worrying about my parents dying someday. I remember them finding me in a puddle on more than one occasion and asking me why I was crying. Upon telling them of my fear, they'd assure me that I didn't need to worry that that wasn't going to happen for a very long time.  Guess what, it's been "a very long time".

I continue to struggle with my Dad's death. I wonder what could have been done differently. I wonder why God has healed so many in the months since Dad's death but chose not to heal my Dad in this life. I continue to wonder why...I try not to but I do. I continue to struggle with my prayer life...I wish it weren't so but it is. My biggest struggle right now is trusting God. Trusting that He really does have a plan and that somehow, my Dad's death was part of that plan. I've been taught and reminded many times that God is NEVER caught off guard...that nothing is ever a surprise and of course I believe that's true.  I trusted Him with something immensely precious to me...my earthly father's life and a year and a half later I find myself still struggling - not just with Dad's absence but with the reason for his absence. And so, the question remains...can I trust that this horrible part of my life is working for good? Do I believe that all this grief and longing, not just in my heart and life but in the hearts and lives of my children, will somehow bring God's plan for our lives to fruition; that He'll use this incredibly horrible loss (and all the other struggles that have seemed to follow) to work for our good? Got trust?