Let Love In

I had a daydream this morning, out of nowhere. I was sitting on the couch, laptop open, researching sights to see while we are in Italy on our cruise next month. It was a fleeting picture, but my heart is still halfway there, hours later.

In the vision, Camden was patting my rounded belly, saying "Bebe."

I would have been nearly 19 weeks pregnant today. I would have been almost halfway finished. We would know the gender of our little love.

And then I was back on the couch. Kind of stuck. One foot in my reality, one foot in how I wish things could be.

Kind of how I've felt the past year.

If I'm honest, I'm pretty pissed. I'm pretty pissed at my God, whom I cried out to from the bench at the edge of our bed, begging Him not to take another baby. Willing my body to hold it in, not to fail me again, for the blood to stop flowing. I'm pretty pissed at my God who keeps giving only to take away. Why? Why give at all if I'm only allowed to hold it for what feels like a millisecond?

I haven't been talking to Him much lately other than to yell at Him. I haven't thought much of my faith other than to question if it's all a crock of shit. If the constant seeking truth really amounts to freedom. If the following Him to deserts is worth the dry heat searing my exposed flesh. 

But then I listen to these words:

Halleluhjah

You have won the victory

Hallelujah

You have won it all for me

Death could not hold you down

You are the risen King

Seated in majesty

You are the risen King

I watch the band as they sing, study the faces in the crowd of worshippers. What have they overcome? What hell on Earth have they endured, what path have they walked to end up here: choosing to praise and honor the name of Jesus, joyful expressions on faces upturned?

I suddenly realize I have a choice: Keep looking around me and what I've lost, at what's been taken. Keep living in my anger that is acting as a prison, chaining down my arms so that I can't lift them to praise. Leaving marks on my wrists, the wounds fresh and stinging and reminding me of my circumstance. Soul blackened by the poisoned thoughts. Keep living in the angry, bitter place.

Or I can look up.

I can look at Him. I can leave the questions behind, let the anger fall away. Because I know this place... where the light of His face is, darkness has no room. When I fix my eyes on Him, choosing to let everything else go, I'll be overcome by the glory of Him. The love that flows freely despite my selfish wandering, my choice to stay imprisoned for far too long. The grace that is new each time I look up after looking down for so long.

I realize I've known it all along, that I have this choice. That God won't force anything on me. That He gives me the freedom to be angry with Him, to question my circumstances. To fear taking another step, not knowing if it will lead to more loss. But I also know that He loves me all the same. 

I'm not without my burdens, my questions, or my anger. But despite that, in the deepest part of my soul, I know the truth: 

He HAS won it all. 

Our anger, our questions, our hurts are not too much for Him. They might be too much for our religion, our laws, even our church culture. But they are not too much for Him. When we push him away, His love moves toward us. We are never outside of His vision. We are never left alone, never forsaken.

So I sing along:

Our God is risen

He is alive

He won the victory

He reigns on High

Our God is risen

He is alive

He won the victory 

He reigns on high

Our God is risen

He is alive

He won the victory

He reigns on high

Hallelujah

You have won the victory

Hallelujah

You have won it all for me

Death could not hold you down

You are the risen King

Seated in majesty

You are the risen King

And as I sing, I let room in for Hope. I hope that my questions, my doubts, my fears, will be overcome by Him who beat even the finality of death. 

And in the meantime? I let love in. For the first time in months, I let His love wash over me. Let it run like a river down my arms in chains, healing my wounds. Let it flood my heart, taking over the darkness. 

Let love in. Let love in. 

Let His love in.

Capture

It's been ninety-five days.

Ninety-six sunrises and ninety-five sunsets since my Mama stepped into eternity with Jesus.

Ninety-two days have come and gone since we returned her body to the dust from which it once came.

Not a single day has passed where thoughts of her are absent.

At the beginning, so soon after her passing, the days were long. And a month in, the days seemed longer somehow. Weeks later, they also seemed darker.

But in the midst of those dark, long days: Grace.

God's perfect grace has carried me day after day, moment by moment. His perfect grace lead me to a place of wholeness again. A place of peace and surrender and deep knowing that this - this plan that included the loss of her life - was the better way. It was always the better way and there could have been no plan to compete. This way may have shrouded me in dark days, but this way lead her to eternal light.

A truth of life that none of us want to think about but know we will one day reckon with is the truth of loss. The truth that the physical beings we know to be our families and friends will one day become eternal. The truth that at some point, all we will have left are the remnants of the lives they built: Walls, doors, windows, and a roof. Pictures that speak a hundred words. Memories, both precious and bitter. Music that represents their essence. Movies they loved, books they read. Certain scents.

It may seem like a long list. But compared to having them here? Impossibly short.

Our lives go on after a loss. We feel the void their presence once filled, but life goes on.  Moments come and we wish they were here. Memories flood in that we wish could be changed. Others that we wish we could freeze and live in, just for a moment.

For me, a single photo by my bed serves as reminder of who my Mama was. It was taken on my sixteenth birthday and still sits in the original frame it was placed in ten years ago. The photo was snapped in our front yard. We both smile, the mother and daughter who share such similar features. The mother and daughter who started out the inseparable pair only to one day become strangers; the daughter filled with bitterness. The mother who loved in spite of the daughter's anger-masked-anxiety, who loved with no conditions. The mother-daughter duo who eventually landed in new territory: a place of few words but great forgiveness and surrender. A place trembling with God's redemption. A place where life came full circle: the daughter who was once dressed by the mother now did the dressing.

We look at this picture, Camden and I. Each morning she points to it, excited to hold it in her chubby little hands. She traces her fingers over the three-dimensional roses, taps on my face and then her Mimi's. We talk of her. I share stories. Sometimes I don't speak at all. Sometimes, her Daddy says Camden comes from a long line of strong women.

I can only hope that to be true of my life as it is true of my Mom's.

But while I wait, in what I hope are many, many years before my legacy is left, I live each day. I love my daughter, my husband. I try to memorize the twinkle in Camden's eyes, the way her belly rounds and the infectious and joyful sound of her laugh. I try to remember the way her little body feels in my arms. I watch as light pure fills their being when they lay eyes on each other every afternoon - Camden and her Daddy. I hear the deep, strong voice that prays over our meals, thanking God for breath in our lungs. I witness the strong hands, following the command of a selfless heart, that clean the kitchen after I've cooked dinner, no matter how messy the condition. I listen each night as he reads a story of Camden's choosing and then sings a song. I feel his warmth as he hugs my body close every single night before we drift off to sleep.

My life is good. My life is full. My life is joy.

I live. I live in that goodness, fullness, and joy from God every day. And I look at our picture, my Mama and I. A moment captured.

Loving can hurt

Loving can hurt sometimes

But it's the only thing that I know

When it gets hard

You know it can get hard sometimes

It is the only thing that makes us feel alive

We keep this love in a photograph

We made these memories for ourselves

Where our eyes are never closing

Hearts are never broken

Times forever frozen still

So you can keep me

Inside the pocket of your ripped jeans

Holdin' me closer 'til our eyes meet

You won't ever be alone

Wait for me to come home

Loving can heal

Loving can mend your soul

And it's the only thing that I know, know

I swear it will get easier

Remember that with every piece of ya

And it's the only thing we take with us when we die

We keep this love in this photograph

We made these memories for ourselves

Where our eyes are never closing

Our hearts were never broken

Times forever frozen still

So you can keep me

Inside the pocket of your ripped jeans

Holding me closer 'til our eyes meet

You won't ever be alone

And if you hurt me

That's OK baby, only words bleed

Inside these pages you just hold me

And I won't ever let you go

Wait for me to come home

Wait for me to come home

Wait for me to come home

Wait for me to come home

Oh you can fit me

Inside the necklace you got when you were 16

Next to your heartbeat where I should be

Keep it deep within your soul

And if you hurt me

Well, that's OK baby, only words bleed

Inside these pages you just hold me

And I won't ever let you go

Wait for me to come home

-Ed Sheeran, Photograph

Sacred Time

I've been looking through old pictures and found several of Mom in recent years. 

My heart is so fiercely being tugged in two different directions. I look at old photos of her and grieve time I didn't use to spend with her. I want things to change, I want her healthy and walking through life with me. I want to know what it's like to be best friends with my Mom, like so many friends I see get to experience. I want to hear her voice again. I want to check my voicemail and hear her rambling message about a sale at TJ Maxx. I want to feel her arms around me, knowing I am safe there. I want to hear her laugh, see her gorgeous smile that was so bright it reached her eyes. I can't breathe at the thought of living life without her here, and everything within me fights the idea of letting her go.

But then I look over at Mom as she lies in her Hospice bed. I listen for her breathing, which has now become shallow. I look at her face, so beautiful and so much my Mom. I think of her inability to wake and talk with us. She is alive, she is with us, but her life that has been a testament of strength and grace is beginning to wane. We see it happening, right in front of us. And with all of that, all of me also looks to the complete, perfect healing that God is preparing for her and I want nothing more than for her to be free.

Existing within the two worlds is tough business. One moment, my sister and I are laughing, singing, joyful and joking. We are reminiscing and sharing the sweetest memories from the gift of being daughters of Kathy Gibson Burdette. We feel special in the truest essence of the word knowing that we were her greatest gifts, her miracles that she wondered if she'd ever experience. We live in this protective bubble of knowing we have been cherished every single moment of our lives in the purest form of love that exists on this Earth.

But in other moments, we weep. Our bodies shake from the sobs that escape from a deep, deep wound in our souls. A place where we feel like we can't breathe. A place that feels like our hearts will never be put back together from this heartbreak. A place that doesn't feel real. Like a nightmare from which we cannot wake.

I don't know what the future holds. I don't know the moment that will be her last, the moment that God planned long before Mama was being formed in her mother's womb. I don't know how we will find a new normal. I don't know how to say goodbye. 

There are so many things I can't know.

But I do know these things to be true: Where we are right now is sacred. Where we sit is holy ground. The time we have is precious. Each breath she takes, each moment she has opened her eyes for us, and the slightest hint of a smile we've seen are gifts. Such irreplaceable, beautiful gifts. These are gifts that we will put in a special box, up on a shelf in our memory, to be taken down and opened with care when our hearts need it the most. Our broken hearts will be held by our Savior, and we will continue to live in His fullness of love. He is a good Father who gives good gifts in the form of precious time. This time will be what we hold dear until the moment comes that we see her again.

For now, I'll sit back and let each moment come. I'll be emptied with each cry, and filled again with each laugh. And when the time for goodbye comes, this is what we'll say:

See you soon.

On the day when I see

All that You have for me

When I see You face to face

There surrounded by Your grace

All my fears swept away

In the light of Your embrace

Where Your love is all I need

And forever I am free

Where the streets are made of gold

In Your presence healed and whole

Let the songs of Heaven rise to You alone

No weeping

No hurt or pain

No suffering

You hold me now, hold me now

No darkness

No sick or lame

No hiding

You hold me now

Thank you Jesus, for the work You are doing. We praise You.