A bit of history - Shaping Theology

Thursday, June 26, 2008

my little boy, my sweet girl.

I would change it if I could, I would take all the pain away and give up anything right here and right now. I will never forget how it felt, the moment, the sounds, the faces, the way the air felt and the embrace between a husband and a wife in saying goodbye when we just began saying hello to a future that was all of 11 weeks but had felt like the son that I would eventually play basketball with or the daughter that would call me Daddy and would resemble Mommy.
I am broken in a million pieces. Nothing else matters - all the crap, the small complaints, the little things we whine and cry about - is completely worthless, is completely irrelevant to this. This is real life, this is true pain - everything else is meaningless and petty in contrast. Everything else is sad, and pathetic, is small and superficial.

I can not forget, we move on but we can not say goodbye. For those that believe in Jesus Christ, believe in a beautiful tomorrow that has no sorrow, no pain or death. We believe that all of life is worth living, that through all of life's tragedies that we will no doubt have many more triumphs. I believe through all of this, that one day… in a beautiful tomorrow I will see my son or daughter.
I wanted so badly to be angry, to curse the very God that I have been worshipping, to cut myself in two, and slip out between my bones and muscle - to leave the situation, to leave the pain that I never knew I was capable of feeling. I watched Tina, my beautiful Tina stare at a darkened ceiling, her grip getting tighter with the furthering silence… what was joy became a feeling that I never felt would leave.

Between tests, I told her that "we don't know yet, we don't know anything" Yet we do now, and I'm not positive if I can even type how I'm feeling - match my words to my thoughts, my feelings, the way my eyes feel like burning coals and my body feels 10 years older. A feeling that still sits in me, ever so quietly becoming further, a feeling that is being comforted by God, by God alone.

I have lived the worst day of my life, today hasn't been much better and tomorrow will increase in difficulty. It's difficult to not think about all of the people who give their babies away, that kill them off, for those that have multiple children with multiple men while abusing their bodies in a variety of ways. It's difficult to not be angry, to be confused, to be absolutely devastated. As a man, it is difficult, in many ways as a man of God it is increasingly more difficult. I wanted more than anything to protect her, to protect our child and our family… as a man I am steeped in wanting to simply "fix everything," yet I am helpless and broken. I am hopeful though.

I don't have to pattern the reasons for this with the belief that it happened because of this, or because of that… it happened and statistics will not change, alter or eliminate the reality of what Tina and I are going through. I had a nightmare that this would happen, I talked about it, I challenged it - I told my brother a month ago that if this were to happen - that I wasn't positive where I would be with my relationship with God, I feared where Tina might be in those moments, in that situation. I said I was fearful of who I might become, of where she would be when it was all said and done. Yet here I am, writing about how God granted us an opportunity to love someone - even if it were for 11 weeks. For when you love someone, when you extend your body, your emotions, your mind, your heart and everything that makes you, you… you take a risk - that can either hurt you in the end or bring you complete jubilation. A million things can happen, and in this case - one of those things happened - this is beyond statistics, this is unrelenting love and right now I'm well aware that Tina and I have lived June 25th 2008 out as the worst day of our shared life together.

I would give anything to change it, I would give anything to erase the pain that Tina is feeling.
Thank you God for giving me the opportunity to still be thankful, whereas I felt that complete anger at first, confusion, frustration… and at times a sense of betrayal. I know that all that you do, does not always make sense and it doesn't have to. You're a God that is not necessarily fair, but you are just, even if that "just" doesn't make sense to us. Tina and I will move on, we will have a family and we will have many beautiful children - but you sweet child, you were our first and we will never forget you - as you gave us an opportunity to understand a level of love outside a love for each other. You gave us a vision of hope, even in these moments of death.
You are in the arms of Jesus now, where the world can never hurt you - and we will truly never know you - until we meet you in Heaven.

I'm sorry if I'm all over the place, I'm truly beside myself right now - and I really don't know how to word all of this. I want to say thank you for all the support, all of the love and the comfort given to Tina and I during these tough, tough times. Be Blessed and go in Peace.


12:23am

What else can I truly say? A child of 3 months had the power in its little body to save his Daddy. To rupture the emotional blockade of his Mommy, to force us to feel, to love, to hurt, to reside in rage and to push for hope and pray for eventual joy. In these small moments I feel very little about everything else, very little else has any purpose or potential for my thoughts, concerns, or feelings. Very few things really matter to me anymore. I am grieving, I am sowing potential seeds of joy in prayer of desperation, and anxiety. Oh G_D how we need you, we so desperately need you.

What more can I write? How can I take my thoughts, emotions of the past couple weeks and attach them to this screen and make sense of it all. How can I put you in a position to see the shards of my heart splintered and breaching my ribs, my soul, my everything. How can I write to you about my brokenness, about the depths of our sorrow, about all that I'm feeling while the world moves from day to day and invites me with more of a shove than a handshake to move on- while my head, heart and soul cry out- NO. NO do not push me to push forward, NO do not ask me to care about all the things that you care about world, NO materialism, paychecks, social politics, business swagger, or exhaustive habits of "civil responsibilities" will excuse me of how I'm feeling, with how Tina and I our feeling.

NO, just leave me here- leave me here flat in the road, run me over and get it over with.
Sorry is adequate from those that care, because sorry can not carry this pain- but neither can any other word, phrase, or stare. Sorry will work because it saves time, and awkwardness for both of us, it saves you thinking that you said the wrong thing, and my thinking that I didn't explain myself well enough to you. It saves further burrowing down the rabbit hole of life, of death and its unexplainable reality. So let me suggest that sorry works because it doesn't work but neither does anything else.

Why are we so caught up on being mad about stupid things, that neither matter or mean anything? Why are we caught up on tomorrow, when we could lose it all today? Why do we cry for things to be our way, when we have no clue or perspective on what that may be if we have it "our" way. Tomorrow I will head to work, and I will tell you I care about things that I neither care about or love, but I will tell you this by not necessarily just my words but by my actions- why? Am I a liar? Am I two-faced? A hypocrite? Am I genius because I know my enemy as well as my ally? Or do I have to work in this world according to this world? Can I work according to God, while like a thief in the night I wear a disguise and plant my faith against you're barren nature. I will shout, get excited, and act motivated by things that I do not care about, or feel any level of passion about.

Why? G_D that is something that I once hope, and pray to know about.

I remain who I am inside, who I am due to God, and his faith in me. Yet I'm split a dozen different ways, for a dozen different people, facilities, and agenda's. While the real me, the real Lance is screaming to live 24-7, and to not have to live in shadows, and myspace blogs that a handful of people will read. A handful of people will know me, and in that time frame of them getting to know me- I'm having to spend the bulk of the time refining my image to suit the multitudes. Why is it not okay to just be me?

I've aged 10 years in the past week by my estimation that puts me at a comfy 70 and counting. Why do we spend the bulk of our lives attempting to please people we truly do not care about? We work jobs that provide a paycheck and omit us from actually living passionately, Godly, full of rigorous love for an eternal destination kind of life. We say tomorrow I will change, remember, make sense of, care for, care about…

We do not know what tomorrow will bring- so how can we plan for it?
Much of our lives when living according to the world is in conjunction with attempting to dominate others. At the beginning of time we lost our connection with G_D, we lost his infinites and gained a finite presence that permeated our life to the point of death. We once provided for ourselves outside of ourselves, we still do… though it is different now. We were connected to life in G_D, in the garden, in his in infinite now. We were told that we would live by our own sweat, we would provide for ourselves by our own sweat - yet we still seek ways to dominate others in order to sway the sweat. The only energy we have outside of our dominion in G_D we have chosen to overwhelm others with in selfishness and greed.

Tina and I have gone through so much in the past week, and again I'm not positive if I can ever put into words how we are feeling. Then again I realize that there is nothing that says I have to. Coming home was supposed to be something different than this, it was supposed to be joy, friends, family and birth. Coming home was not supposed to be death, heartbreak, struggle, depression, and anxiety. In time I… well I will leave this blog for the next miracle that G_D provides us, I leave this space for you my love- my little beanie.

I love you without ever having held you, yet you were always in your mothers womb, and when I held her I no doubt held you little one. I prayed for you every night, I prayed for health, comfort and love. I prayed for strong parenting, wisdom and guidance. These are all things that G_D has provided you without me. He tends to know more about life than I do little one- so listen to his whisper and clamor to his hands.

I am the father you will never know in this reality, at this particular time little one. I will know you though, your mother will know you to. At a different place at a different time. Little beanie your Daddy loves you, he prays a lot, he cries a lot for you, he dreams of you, he consoles your Mommy for you, little one I am the father that you do not know - but I enjoy many things- comics, writing, Detroit Redwings hockey, laughing, deep conversations, I would have taught you about life, about what matters, about how to treat others, and how to move past mistakes and know God. Your Mommy is a beautiful woman, full of love, compassion and soft features that resemble yours I'm sure. She loves you so incredibly much, she is devastated by you and encouraged by you just the same. She would have fed you on organics, and made you the strange kid in your classes at school, she would have helped you through your math- because your Daddy is only so-so. She would have shown you how to care, how to cry, and how to get back up after falling.

You're missing "a lot" by not being here- but seeing it all by being with GOD.

- Love,
Dad

Sunday, August 03, 2008

Dancing with Lightning

My dog 4 days ago was carried cradled in my arms into my garage, his breathing shallow, his eyes full of pain and letting go. 2 days ago my dog had to be put to sleep, his eyes full of love, not the eyes of a 15 yr old doggy, but that of a energetic little pup. I lost my dog 2 days a go, a boy and his dog. More than a dog but a brother, friend, a full fledged member of my family. I've lost quite a bit lately.

April 16th I lost my grandmother, April 21st I learned that I was going to be a father, June 7th I heard the heartbeat of my daughter, June 25th I lost my daughter and she entered heaven, August 1st I lost my dog and now I'm here…Where am I? Did I somehow fall through the cracks of Grand Rapids and into a form of Hell? What am I learning from this?

Reliance? Selflessness? How to deal with pain? With loss? How to teeter on absolute emptiness? 15 year old dogs die, grandmothers die, babies before they see the light of the world die, as hard as that is to write, type, say, think and believe. Being forced to believe these things does not make it any easier. Yet its not as if God has "duped" us, its not as if when you buy a dog and go onto love them that there is less than a 100% chance that they would one day die. When you attempt to have a child, its not as if you should expect everything to go perfectly, perfect is the talk behind fanciful stories, and conversations between God and his Son.

I paced the yard the other night, I walked outside and soaked up the dusk, my feet hit the ground of childhood memories as each step reminded me of the grave I was entering, the childhood I was leaving. A thousand toys over the years have found their way from my dogs mouth to then be crudely buried in the ground beneath to potentially be found another day, to be rescued from their grave beds. Some will be found and some will not be - none of them will be unearthed by its original owner, and that may just be for the best. I knelt down by the place I use to lay and tell him the secrets, fears, and pains of a 12 yr old boy, as he reacted with a lick to my face, and I with my arms around his neck. I paced his home, and watched the lightning in the distance, and I could hear the rain as it hit every leaf on its way down from heaven. I wondered out loud if I would ever see his sweet face again, and in these moments as if I could ever forget I had my wounds reopen and thoughts of my daughter raced into my mind, and I nearly fell off my feet. I asked God with anger, I told God with a furious tone and my arms raised high, hit me again, hit me with lightning, strike me down, tear me to the ground - I do not feel beautiful any more, I'm starting to feel more of death than life, strike me down and "get it over with."

Yet God does not work around me, he does not work in the ways that I would like. He does work though, he does perform, he does communicate, just not in the ways that I wanted him and Thank God for that - for a man who has felt the losses that I have should be deemed crazy and not capable of calling lightning down on himself. Besides I really have too much to live for, too many people yet to love and continue to love. I'm not done yet, unless God says so.
I've been angry though, I've been angry with God, I've been disappointed, not for a second unimpressed, just depressed and awaiting the next miracle. It's okay to be angry with God, his shoulders are big enough to carry my pains, they already did on a wooden cross, between agonizing steps and eyes pointing heavenward. God didn't cause this pain, yet he didn't stop it either. I know that I lack the perspective, you lack the perspective, her, him, we all lack the perspective to understand for a second what's going on and what we're doing in a world created by a perfect God against the grain of an imperfect people, yet we still ask, ponder, question, and hurt.What right do I have to my life? My life is not my own, and choosing to follow Christ never meant that everything was "going to go right" "go peachy, and pretty" and there will be those that don't understand how I can still embrace a God that neither of us can see, feel or touch and that seems distant in a time where absolutely pain and misery has been present - yet let me tell you this, what good story can be read without difficulty? What great tale has ever been told without chapters of trouble and the meddling of an antagonist - who begins a good book and puts it down before reading its conclusion?

God wasn't always distant, hidden, or devoid of telling us right or wrong. God over history, specifically in the times of the OT made himself very apparent, very close, and constructing many rules and a system of right and wrongs, do good and be rewarded, do bad and experience misery. He made himself very apparent to Moses, Abraham, and the prophets, across 613 rules, commanding armies to move and sometimes to stay. Though the Israelites had God right in front him, they experienced less faith than you and I, they broke the very rules set before him - this is said to be the sole reason as to why Jesus came to be present amongst us and die - to usher in a new covenant that would be of grace, love and faith in him. Yet if we dig deeper we see that seeing God, being with God, hearing him spout of rules, regulations and having him construct a "fair" system of rewards and punishments did little or nothing to endorse faith.
Would we really want that world again? Sometimes I think we do, and in those moments as I stared up at darkening sky I wanted a God that I could see, yell at, and maybe - no definitely be able to embrace and cry my eyes out to. Yet all I received was breeze, my own tears and heavy breathing, all I received was my thoughts of despair, and trembling hands of mixed emotions. I wanted lightning because I felt that would be a sign that God still knows I exist, yet strangely in all the quietness of the night I felt his presence, I felt him moving in and through me. I felt a peace that I haven't felt for awhile, and I remembered that Jesus died for me and so how could he ever forget me? Was I really expecting God to be like the one the Israelites seen and heard from? No, in those moments I was crazy - and who listens to crazy people?

It's easy to pray and praise a God that has done nothing but good in your life as of recently, but what about when your in a season of defeat, disappointment, loss and death? What about when you feel like collapsing under the pressure, and as your fingers slip off the pages of scripture, and yours hands wring off of each other as you pray deeply, pray long and hard, soft and quiet - what about your faith in those moments? Peter must of asked himself in those moments when he stood for what he believed in and had the choice of freedom or the cross, he chose the cross but not to be hung in the way that God was hung but upside down - because even he believed that in no way could he die like Christ and in the end he died with great "joy." He died in knowing that now he truly would live. Jesus had the devil in his face pressuring him to kneel to him, and to rule the world as a new "father and son" and in those moments Jesus through tears, trembling hands, his pores pierced with his own blood shouting out from his eternal being - Jesus sidestepped the devil and told him to stand behind him. Later, Jesus no doubt stared into the sky as his body slumped, as his crown dug deeper, as the cross shook with the son of man, as the sky darkened and the moment of victory came to the forefront, as thousands of angels looked on and the forces of good and evil met nose to nose, all bets laid out for the direction of the world and its concluding chapters were to be set in motion. Jesus cried out to God, Why have you forsaken me? It may not had been him asking for lightning, but it was indeed him asking for deliverance from what he was going through, it was him asking for Holy communication - it was so human and so divine all the same.

It's fairly easy to "copy and paste" things that sound spiritual, to speak of how you've been blessed when you "don't deserve it" and to act wholly mature in moments where you truly are immature. To act spiritually mature when you know very little about God, and live a life that clearly shows that. It's been said that you know when you've come into the presence of someone who is medically insane by the very fact they keep trying to do the same thing while expecting the same results. Some will do as their fathers, as their mothers, live out their lives in all the same ways that they themselves were raised, they will speak of securities that they in no way possess, and think of themselves as proud, and as accomplished by what they do and forget all the while they themselves have done nothing. They will have done things that a million other people have done, and it will not mean a thing - because doing like the rest of the world is one thing, living out the life that you speak about is a whole different thing. I feel sorry for you as my lectures remain between those that choose to read outside of themselves, between God and myself.

In the past year I have seen many victories, I have chosen to live my life differently, and to create a family with my wife, and we have been met with many tragedies as of recently - yet how is it that when we have good happen we praise God, but when the bad happens we look the other way? We think when the "good is happening" that God is watching and listening, and when things go wrong that God is absent. Yet could it be said that the bad happens to those that God knows will continue to carry on, to be truly strong, to continue seeking relationship, to those that would hang from a cross upside down and do with joy. All we can ask in this life is that we find relationship with God, and have happiness along the way. For God to have relationship with us, he will do, and allow all things to happen in order to hold our hands, in order to hear our voices, in order to give us salvation. God will bring you through the dark, and dastardly, through hell and high water, through grief, and depression, through death and sickness if it means that we will be with him in eternity. If God is willing to love us enough to give his only son to sin, death, and resurrection? Then what will he do for us and through us?

Can we become "alone" enough to come to God? Can we become brave enough in our worst moments to pray loud to God, to pray deep to God and give thanks for not just the good but the bad as well? Can we "give praise" to God when we're in seasons of sickness and death? Can we when its all said and done, through eyes of pain and distance, of age and brokenness … can we say "thank you" God that you love me too much to let everything go my way, to love me enough to put me in situations that you cry for as well… but that you must allow in order to reach me. To give "thanks" to God for giving me heartbreak here in my finite situation, so that I can have Glory with him in our infinite home.

April 16th I lost my grandmother, April 21st I learned that I was going to be a father, June 7th I heard the heartbeat of my daughter, June 25th I lost my child and she entered heaven, August 1st I lost my dog and now I'm here…Where am I? Today I'm in a moment where I give thanks to God for the good and the bad.

My dear Josiah, my little girl that I imagine every day being in my arms, and being my first born. God loved you too much to allow you to see the pain of this world, and he has put aside a family for me in heaven with grandparents, cousins, animals, and a beautiful white dog named Kojak. God is storing away treasures for me to have in the near future, he is holding some of the rewards for me for another day - like all good parents do in order to not spoil their child. So as I stare into many more nights some starless, some filled with them, some rainy, some dry, some lightning filled and some quiet - I do not stand alone. I have a future, I have a beautiful wife (a love that nobody will ever know about, and will be jealous about - because its really "that good") I have a little girl waiting for me who has a better Daddy than what I could ever be, I have great parents, in-laws, brothers, sisters, and kitties. I have a job, a car, a home, the opportunity for education and to praise, worship and study God in this world and in the next. I pronounce with no fear, no sadness, no contempt, without looking back, without holding on - I present that in the near future Tina will be pregnant, and she will go full term, I will be a Dad, I will raise a family, God will lead, and will whisper in my ear, and I will listen. Satan has no hold over our situation, my wife's body is her own, and she will have a baby, this family is my own and I will have a family. God will bless us, and will be with us every step of the way. Lightning or not.