COUNT IT ALL JOY! Count it all joy...count it all joy...count it all...sigh...count the blah...blah blah blah....Just smile and wave, boys. Smile and wave!
I come to you today in an different place than I have been before. I think if most writers are honest, we’re always in the search for the most authentic, most vulnerable, most honest words. Hemingway said “write drunk - edit sober” and he didn’t mean necessarily inebriated, just uninhibited. Or, you know, it was Hemingway, so he was probably imbibing heavily. Anyway, I’m sipping sweet tea and looking for the same results here.
I’ve spent the last ten years (or maybe 37) faking badass, and I’ve only recently discovered that. I figured out I wasn’t that tough recently. One morning in July, Craig woke up, and his legs no longer worked. The pain he has suffered with since his injury (USCG) ten years ago had risen to levels not yet experienced. Nothing to be done, he is mostly wheel chair bound now. This was an eventual expectation of the progression of degenerative disc disease and spinal stenosis, but neither of us saw it happening this soon, this sudden, or this seriously. It was devastating to us.
To say we were drowning in life is an understatement. Craig’s pain progressed significantly and we fought Veteran’s Affairs for care unsuccessfully. Chronic pain sufferers commonly deal with depression and Craig entirely bottomed out. In the past, I have rallied to boost his spirits, but I didn’t rally. I couldn’t even rally myself. I made like an ostrich and stuck my head in the ground. I was very busy at the time, which was a good thing, because I was barely hanging on otherwise. Craig was so bad, I was terrified he’d end his life. He thought about it many times. When I had to leave him, I’d mentally go into a self-preservation mode and detach...just in case he did. I spent way too much time talking to other people instead of him. He was so dark, angry, and unintentionally mean. He didn’t mean to be. All of his energy was used to manage his horrific pain and his own thoughts of escape and he couldn’t manage much else. Pain is, at it’s very basic level, an animalistic response. He was a growling grizzly. I was hurting, too, and he hurt me. I snapped and hurt him. It was a delightful situation.
On the flip side of that, I was attempting to manage my typical, bubbly self. I needed to get our oldest child to tutoring. I needed to help him read and write. I needed to be a real mom to both boys, teach at Cale, host at VBS, and all the other hats I wore. People looked so sad when they asked me about Craig. I brushed off most of that. I couldn’t carry their sadness, too. No one has any idea how much their sadness weighs when you are already drowning. I wanted them all to be ok. So I was ok. We were ok. EVERYTHING WAS OK! Just smile and wave, boys! We’ll just count it all joy!
But that was a bold faced lie. It wasn’t joy. My facade had cracks after a while. It started to leak at times and the dam broke in spots near trusted friends. I kept saying I was trusting God, but truthfully, I was mad as all hell. I couldn’t trust Him. I felt entirely abandoned. Craig was mad at God and felt abandoned on many levels. He was mad at God, mad at the VA, mad at himself, mad at his work, mad at his mom who never called...it was just overwhelming. It was hard to do everything. It was so very hard to go out. Chasing the kids, lifting his chair, make sure he could reach stuff from his chair, make sure places were accessible to wheelchairs, make sure he was safe in his chair...people can be horribly rude. Occasionally, the dam would crack at a bad time and people were shocked by it. “You’re always happy! I never thought you cried!” That just made me angry and more resilient. The wall was firmly in place.
I numbed my mind to it all and I acted out in other ways. Trust me, when you numb bad emotion out, it’s going to leak other ways. I slept too much or I didn’t sleep at all. I drank. I snapped at the kids. I couldn’t admit to myself how bad I felt, though. I thought I was just tired, too energetic, too lonely, or the kids were just too much.
Brene’ Brown talks about her term “Badassery” in her newest book, “Rising Strong.” She says it isn’t the people who project perfectionism or tough posturing. It’s the people who say “This really sucks” and then they get up, brush themselves off, and stumble forward.
Admitting that “it sucks” when I can’t change anything feels like whining. I really struggle with that so very much. I do not want to whine...ever. I’m not a victim and I don’t wring my hands in desperation. I also struggle to acknowledge the big life waves that can take us down. I cannot acknowledge the tsunami because I’m afraid if I stop long enough to realize that I’m drowning, I might just drown.
Plus...even so...aren’t we supposed to just count it all joy no matter what? Sing like Paul in prison! Be happy! Shake it off!
Well, Paul admitted he was in prison. He knew that. So it wasn’t denial. Also, I don’t really think that blissful happiness is really what authentic Christianity is all about.
Author Phillip Yancey said, “’Rejoicing in suffering’ does not mean Christians should act happy about tragedy and pain when they feel like crying. Such a view distorts honesty and true expression of feelings. Christianity is not phony. The Bible’s spotlight is on the end result, the use God can make of suffering in our lives. Before He can produce that result, however, He first needs our commitment of trust in Him, and the process of giving Him that commitment can be described as rejoicing".
My “Word of the Year” for 2015 is Trust. I really thought that was going to be mostly other people, which that has been a thing, too. But I see that it’s mostly trusting God. Trusting in Him entirely is truly worth rejoicing. He is, once again, pulling us back to Him. He’s washing away our sins and fears. He’s restoring our marriage. He’s restoring Craig, in a sense. He’s restoring our family...though not to what we once were. No, we’ve changed and grown through this process. We’ve learned to trust people and we’re grateful for our church community group - our #Tribe. My family is there for us. I’m also grateful to be a part of a small group of women who understand that life is crap sometimes. I’ve learned that grieving failed expectations in life can be ongoing - and that’s ok. Grief is a beast of it’s own. I give in to that for a bit and then figure out how to “Thrive” within it. I feel like we’re all brushing ourselves off and stepping forward in true badassery fashion this time.
“it is well" by andy luce.
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