Moving Forward vs Moving On - My Race with Grief

      Yesterday was Father's Day; and this is the sixth year we have had to celebrate without him. Surprisingly, these six days were not full of bitterness and sadness. Of course I have had my share of days when my grief is so painful I just want to allow the black hole of my emotions to swallow me up, but I also have a lot of good days where I'm happy and okay that my dad is no longer with me. For a while I felt that these 'okay' days meant that I was moving on; not only moving on past the pain of my dad's battle with cancer and death but also moving on from my life with my hero.

(Yup, that's me, number 685; sporting the haircut that comes when learning the lesson of going to sleep chewing gum.)

      We all race against grief differently. I have pushed passed the jealous feelings of friend who still have their fathers here on earth with them. I have come to terms with the sadness of never getting to do special father-daughter things again. My particular tripping block is guilt - feelings that I have failed to use the precious time we had wisely or that I did not express my love for him enough before he died. My dad was truly an amazing dad. He always made time for me and my siblings, supported us in every sport we participated in, was our math tutor, nurtured our talents; made our life goals his goals. Have I always remembered to appreciate my dad for these blessings? No. Big life events tend to magnify common everyday occurrences and bring them to the center of our attention; and as I continue to grow up, run the race of life without dad, the importance of these magnified everyday memories start to diminish and they shrink back to make room for the new memories I make. One has to move on in life, don't they? Whether or not this this true, I can't stand the idea of moving on from my dad. Saying that feels like I'm not only shoving the memories to the side, but throwing it away all together. So then I become stuck in life, and grief zooms ahead to take the lead.

      You can't race without running, and you can't run without moving on and down the course - or so I thought for a long time - until I started running again. See, just in case you haven't caught on to the running theme of this post by now, I often think about running when I think about my dad because it was something he loved to do. Although he did his best to include me in this passion, I have never shared his talent or grace in running. My very first 5k was a zoo run when I was eight years old. I had begged and whined to be allowed to run the 'big run' (versus the kid mile run) and with the entire course being in the fences of the zoo, my parents gave in.  I was so excited! I insisted on starting at the very front with my dad and the other runners (which, I should inform you from my experience, it is not advisable if you can't run a sub-8 minute mile. Especially if there are those crazy fast, stroller pushing mommy runners. Ouch!) thinking that if I tried my hardest I could keep up with dad. My dad kindly ran with me the first block, but then to my horror, told me that he was going to run ahead and meet me at the finish line. Just run the whole way and follow the runners in front of me were his instructions and then he was gone. That day my dad finished top three in his age group with a time of 17- something; I finished sometime way behind him and I got to keep the stuff toy red panda he won.

      I finished that race not by moving on, but moving forward. When running alone I could have quit, cried, sat down or even run back to the starting line; but the only way to race and finish was to move forward. And that is how I try to race against grief, allowing what was given and taught to me in the past push me forward to promises in of the future.

      As promised, my dad was waiting for me at the finish of my first 5k, and once again he is ahead of me waiting at the biggest and best finish line in heaven. It is okay for me to have good days and move forward in my life. Setting new goals, trying different things and being happy is not moving on from my dad, it is moving forward in the race he encouraged me to run. It's not going to be easy, but I want to run my life's race with a prayer in my heart and hope lacing my shoes- just watch me go!

Still

I have heard it said that crying helps to cleanse one's mind and while I am not really sure if that worked for me I have had some (more) time and tears to sort through my feelings. Grief is a very funny thing, it seems to often come out of no where and multiply. Sometimes I feel like with all of the things going on in my life to distract me and the amount of time that has passed since my father died, that I would be able to adapt, that the pain would lessen, and I wouldn't cry as much. Thinking logically, I am rather shocked at how much I cried after J. died, after all, unlike many of my friends, I had had the opportunity to say good-bye to her. I hugged her tightly and said good-bye knowing that there may be a chance that we wouldn't see each other again this side of heaven; and yet, when I heard the news of her accident and passing, I entered a depressed state, full of nights of tears and nearly late assignments as my study habits slowed to a crawl. In my shock I ranted and raved at all of you about how much I did not like change . Unfortunately, feelings like this are doomed, as everything is constantly changing, the world around us, those I love and even myself. And while I was pouting over my inability to avoid this painful change, mentally demanding of God to tell me one thing in my life that did not- does not - change, a simple phase came to mind,

"Jesus no cambia."

I learned this sentence during my time in Panama, and besides Ayudarme! (help me!) and ¿Cómo estás?(How are you?) it is the only Spanish I have managed to keep in my memory.


"Jesus no cambia."

"Jesus does not change"

The children would follow us through the village yelling this at the top of their voices with passion and excitement. And who wouldn't? As the memory of children rejoicing, I wanted to run through the streets myself shouting 'I am loved by a God who does not change!' While I go through the ups and downs of life, He is still with me, still knowing me, still loving me. 

 

Unlike my restless heart and nature, God is Still - calm, steady, resistant to change. He is good, always has been and always will be. He is the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like the shifting shadows (James 1:17). And I am okay because He is still God.

And it's okay for me to change; for me to grieve. For me to mourn for those who I have loved.

 Last week my family sent several balloons to heaven in celebration of what would have been my father's birthday. (And yes, I realize that those balloons will probably send a couple of sea turtles to heaven as well.)

It has been 1,320 days since my father died, and I still miss him. I still cry.

But God is still good.

Change

This morning I found out that a dear childhood friend of mine suddenly passed away and it hurt, really hurt. All of the biology knowledge I have stored up in my brain is telling me that death is just a part of life and that life is not be possible with out it; but in my heart I know that death is the absence of life - there is no death without life first. Childishly, I wish I could assist death in choosing who it took, and argue that J., who was so full of life and passion, should have been on the bottom of the list. To say that death quite simply cannot rob the world of the treasure we all found in her. I want to stomp my feet and throw myself in the middle of the floor yelling and screaming that things shouldn't change.

I don't like change.

While it is exciting to watch my friends grow up and strive for amazing careers as doctors, teachers, counselors, firefighters, nurses, missionaries, pilots and soldiers, I constantly think about the days when we were little and played basketball in the park, had late summer night bonfires and randomly danced and sung together. Sometimes I just don't want to grow up, but return to the happy days of my childhood, back to the days when I didn't worry so much about my future and following the standard of others, but lived with a pure and simple joy. Spending my childhood with J. I never would have guessed that the power to continue spreading joy throughout the world would be given to me instead of her. I always thought that J. was going to live an extraordinary life, and  I would excitedly say 'I know that girl!'. J. did live and extraordinary life, and blessed and touched so many people, but here am I, dealing with change and only getting to say that 'I knew that girl'.

Well, I guess I can say more than that. I can say that I knew that girl and was extremely blessed by her kindness and caring. I can say that I knew that girl and was motivated by her passion and love for Jesus and supported by her friendship. And because I knew that girl, I am forever...changed.

Vending Mechine Troubles

***Warning: This post was very difficult for me to write and may be difficult to read. What you read below contains a personal struggle and conclusion; it is in no way is the sole answer or opinion about prayer. The way you communicate to your Savior is a very personal thing and I respect the way all of your experiences and love for God have created your own unique way of praying. The only goal of this post is share the lesson taught to me in hopes to remind you how powerful prayer is and perhaps trigger you to rethink about this unique gift we have.

My post about Morning Weights and Prayers last week got me thinking about another lesson I have learned about praying.  Questions about prayers are numerous; how to pray, when to pray, what is it okay to pray for? Type any of those questions into a internet search engine and hundreds upon hundreds of answers pop up, and in this post, I'm not trying to add to these answers, but to simply share with you one of my biggest struggles and what it helped me learn.

This time of year can be hard on me as it is the time of year when a lot of people come together to raise money for cancer and celebrate those who survived; it is also very near to my father's birthday. (For those of you new to this blog, bout three years ago I lost both my father and grandmother to cancer within eleven months of each other.) As those around me rally against cancer, I look back at my personal battle with the disease, and the thing my father told me a few months before he died stands out. I was very angry at the time, and I asked my father why he wasn't mad at God for bringing this upon him and not answering our pleas for healing. He calmly answered me by telling me,

"Glorydawn, God can't be put in a box for our convenience. He is not a vending machine that we can just put prayers into and get what we want out." 

I thought what he said was ridiculous, we were all earnestly praying and trusting God to complete His will, which at the time I thought was to do a miracle and heal my father. My prayers weren't selfish! And I definitely wasn't treating God like a vending machine! With this way of thinking, naturally I was quite upset when my father died. I had done everything right, begged, pleaded and bargained; asked God to heal my father, to guide the doctors' hands.  Why? Why did such a loving God cause the cancer to be unresponsive to treatment and for surgery to go wrong? Why? I like an enraged child shook, rattled, kicked and pounded on my God 'vending machine'.

Thank goodness, God has been patient with my demanding questions. And even though He hasn't shown me the answer to why, He has revealed some of His characteristics and feelings to me. In Hosea God says with a broken heart, "When I fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied, they became proud; then they forgot me. [Their] love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears." (13:6 & 6:4). Jeremiah gives an account one of one of the times this happened. The people of Judah had prayed the 'perfect' prayer, saying exactly what they need to say in repentance and God looked into their hearts and saw that their love and repentance was not strong and true. (14:11- 15:1) The people of Judah were shocked that the Lord did not take their perfect prayer and return to them what they wanted, and when God told them that if even if they found the 'perfect' people to say the prayer for them He won't give them what they wanted, the people still didn't understand that it wasn't in their power to control God.

As my father tried to teach me, and I what now understand, God is not a vending machine into which we can insert what we deem are 'perfect prayers' and then receive what we want, when we want it. There are no number combinations to punch in to turn on showers of blessings, and prayers aren't like coins we can insert into a lifeless machine. We have the opportunity to talk directly with an amazing God, and when we pray we can tell Him exactly how we feel without having to cover it with a mask in fear of offending Him.

I now spend my prayers, talking on a personal level with my Savior. I tell Him my worries, excitements and fears. And while I still ask for blessings, no longer stand around impatiently  kicking a dead machine for the blessings I thought I paid for.