Enthusiastically, Dawn

Life is mostly froth and bubble,
Two things stand like stone,
Kindness in another’s trouble,
Courage in your own.

Adam Lindsay Gordon

It’s about 6 AM, Friday morning. I feel lost in Summer’s perfume- intoxicated with the scent of saltwater, sea spray, and summer breezes. The three months earmarked as a vacation for most in the USA are dizzying in their distractions. Routines lose their momentum; everyday life takes on a different pace. It seems like there is no place to land, to plant one’s feet, to find footing. Everywhere I look is busyness and blue skies. A dream-like state that leaves me short of breath and longing for quieter moments. Ah, but it’s such a short season. And balance is like surfing, one rides the waves before them while they can. Tides change quickly.

The Weigela bush outside my office window is blooming again! It’s as if it has a second wind, a burst of fresh inspiration. Maybe it’s just me longing for a new life. Either way, I think it’s my favorite flowering bush in our yard. Most of the blooms have already died but these new emerging blooms are shameless in their late arrival. These bright sipping cup-shaped flowers might invite hummingbirds for me to see. I haven’t seen many this year.

Meanwhile, I feel rung out from July. July was a fast-moving train, refusing to slow down, tirelessly turning out days, faster than the wheels of a locomotive. Maybe it’s been that way since mid-June. It’s hard to say. My writing has suffered in volume, but writing is as much about living, learning, perceiving, and experiencing as it is about tapping on keys or scribbling on paper. I believe a writer needs time to process what they see, experience, think, and feel. All people need these in varying doses, but for those who write (I can only speak from my own experience) a healthy portion of solitude must weigh in the balance of days. The echo of Socrates weighs heavy on my mind thanks to my Human Relations professor: “The unexamined life is not worth living”. But the fact remains, I crave quietness in my days.

All the activity, the pace that I sense the world thrusts upon a soul, whether welcomed or not, produces a mixture of emotions in my mind and heart, spirit, and soul. When one looks out at sea, only the surface is seen with one’s eyes. But beneath the surface, there is activity, life, and action. For me each day the same questions repeatedly rise from the depths. Why is my girl not here? Where is she? Does anyone really care? Did they ever?

There is a new emptiness in our marriage, even despite our 20-year anniversary vow renewal. I feel like we are being watched by a merciless predator waiting to pull us under into an abyss we cannot escape. Maybe this is the new place we live. I’ve often wondered where dreams go when they die. I give all these questions and heartaches to the Lord. But something has also changed in me. I’m not sure who I am. I’m not sure who I want to be. Everything is out of reach and close at hand. Everything is upside down, a reversal of happily-ever-after. Even in my relationship with the Lord, there is a shift, something different. Only God can know and see the things that can’t be known or seen. All I have to offer is a heart that feels divided…between what I see and what I cannot see. I’m caught between the seen and unseen realms. I fear what I can’t see, and I despise what I can see.

Still, outside my window the Weigela blooms, a bird calls, and if I try, I can dismiss the cars racing by as though their passengers’ every moment is an emergency, a rush to nowhere with no end in sight. And there it is, the bird sounds again. I don’t recognize the call, nor can I see the bird. But hidden among the red maple leaves the bird is present. No less real is this bird than the old tree from which it calls or the magenta blooms in my sight. And, maybe that’s what I long for …to see what I can’t see, to know what I can’t know now?

Isn’t this where faith stretches its limbs, learns to spread wide wings, and soar? I don’t know much, but I know there’s no shame in questioning God a million times with questions that can’t be answered now. Some come to faith in a whisper, and some come in a never-ending storm or a continual wrestling with the wind. Some were made to limp through life- a reminder that not every story has a happy ending, and not all of us get the best family life, peaceful surroundings, a life of plenty, this side of eternity. But none of these circumstances are where our hope lies. Our hope lies outside the certainty of what is seen with the eyes in this life. Our hope, yes even my hope and battle-worn faith, rests in the hands of a faithful, all-knowing, living, loving to the uttermost, eternal God.

I still don’t know why my girl isn’t here. Why I’ll never see her grow and change and become all she could have been. I can speculate, you can speculate. But the truth is we cannot know what cannot be disclosed fully. God knows my girl’s heart (present tense intended, Romans 14:7-9). He made it when He designed intricately her small being in my womb. Every detail he wove into her essence- her body, mind, spirit, and soul- all fashioned for His pleasure and glory.

There are things that cannot be known on this side of eternity- it’s a hard reality to face. Each day I wake up to this painful truth. Each day a new reminder of her absence. Life goes on around me, and it seems as though I stand in an unending tide of tears, rising and falling with the moon.

It’s a pain only God himself can touch. This pain may not be relieved or reconciled in my lifetime. I accept this bitter medicine because my hope lies firmly in the realm of unseen but incomparable and complete beauty. One cannot alleviate this kind of pain by any means, though one could try. But people, pleasures, and possessions will not subdue the pain or bring healing. This pain can only be placed on the altar before God again and again until that final offering when one stands before Him in glory. Until that time, I will come again and again and give Him all my tears. For God alone, is the only one who sees completely, who sets things straight, who brings wholeness and healing, who binds the wounds even the wounds which have passed through His holy hands to touch my life. Even though I cannot completely shake this pain, I say Maranatha. I listen to the birds; I see hints of glory in flowers. I linger in the early hours, and I wait in hope for His coming.

Related Posts:

• First Day of the Second Summer Without You
• A Letter to My Daughter One Year Later
• The Green Hat {A Love Letter to My Girl}
• When You Kill A Spider In Your Daughter’s Room at Eleven PM
• About Your Happily Ever After