COME SO ALIVE

Finding breath and beauty amidst the storm

Tag: sorrow

Saved you a seat

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On 04/21/2023

In Gratitude

I took this photo as a joke two weeks ago today. Spur of the moment, we decided to spend a 4-day weekend on Minnesota’s North Shore again. First thing after unloading, I walked down to the fish shack’s porch on Lake Superior to enjoy the waves and sun (even though it was only 35 degrees).

I thought about sending the photo in a text saying “I saved you a seat” to two friends who would know exactly where I was – because they’d been there too. And yes, maybe to rub it in a little where I was. Not proud but there it is.

But if I texted them, they’d text me back. And then I would have to text THEM back…etc, etc…and I really just wanted to shut off the phone for the weekend.

So, I didn’t send the photo. But I thought about it again last week, after another friend texted me, “Can I come over?” and then “Wanna sit outside?” Now it was a gorgeous 80-degree afternoon so it made sense to sit outside…but I sensed it was more to share some bad news privately.

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We aren’t going under

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On 03/24/2023

In Peace

I have so many posts I want to write, have started writing…but my brain just can’t seem to write them. I thought I’d be further along in shoulder surgery recovery by now – further along in lessened pain. I’d be back to me, just in a sling. Back to writing.

But five weeks post-op, I still find myself either lowering the Tylenol when the vertigo it triggers gets too bad and wakes me up throughout the night…or in pain from less Tylenol which then gets too bad and THAT wakes me up.

Full disclosure: lots of tears and lots of swearing at stupid little stuff in the last week from lack of sleep.

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Breakfast in bed with a side of lament

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On 09/16/2022

In His Vast Strength (stroke)

Still in bed and propped up against pillows one Saturday morning, I read my daily devotional a few weeks after Chuck was discharged from the hospital and inpatient stroke rehab.  The plan was a study on the book of Ruth, and that day’s reading began with this:

“Naomi has experienced a great deal of sorrow and loss in her life, and she is in a very dark place.  She doesn’t understand why God would allow all this tragedy to happen.”  Love God Greatly: Ruth, YouVersion plan, Day 5. 

And I thought, “Amen, sister!”

(In case you aren’t familiar with that book, Ruth had lost her husband and her adult sons, which, in that time and culture, meant she had no one to take care of her anymore.)

I next opened Instagram to see if something could lift my spirits – and encountered this post from the previous day:

“When the world as you understood it falls apart, God’s invitation to you is to lament.  Lament consists of two things: allowing yourself to feel your sorrow, and then expressing that sorrow.”  Adam Young, quote from the “Why Lament (Surprisingly) Leads to Life and Freedom” podcast.

Lament.  Yes, I can relate to that.

Then Cody walked in with a big smile and a plate full of pancakes to treat me to breakfast in bed.  And, of course, my dark mood lightened.

But, after breakfast, I started asking God how to keep writing for Come So Alive when I wasn’t feeling that way now, feeling “so alive.”  How did I give people hope when I barely had enough for myself? 

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Looking hard for signs of life (again)

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On 04/15/2022

In His Vast Strength (stroke)

I debated posting on Good Friday because it seems too holy for anything I could write, but this post from last year came to mind. In rereading it, I had forgotten that, even though I wrote it in May, it took place on Good Friday in April.

I wonder if the disciples felt this way. A life-shattering event as the sun set on a Friday evening, the beginning of their Shabbat. Shocked and seeing only death around them. A Saturday of silence where there was nothing they could do. Scared and wondering how the story ends – or if it already had. Having no reason to assume new life was just around the corner.

I guess that’s where our stories differ. They could not have hoped for life after death. A year after writing this post, we find ourselves looking hard for signs of life again. As we mourn. As we keep walking. And as we have to trust that spring and new life will follow this harsh winter we have had.

Looking hard for signs of life, first posted May 4, 2021

I found a bench in the sun and waited for my friend to walk the labyrinth. I had walked it first and wanted to give her time alone in it. Once she finished, she sat on a bench across from me, and we shared our experiences, which in the same labyrinth were very different from each other’s. 

There were large, barren trees in a ring around us.  I wasn’t paying much attention to them but my friend commented on the one behind me, whose crooked branch I was sitting under.  She had been quietly assessing if it was a dead branch and the likelihood of it falling on my head.  But then she noticed very small buds on the tree and realized it was safer than it looked.  She said,

“You really have to look hard for life.”

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A short post for someone in pain

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On 06/29/2021

In Pay Attention

Two years ago, before my husband’s open-heart surgery, I realized I had been waking up morning after morning with a song already playing in my head. It didn’t start at the beginning of a song but somewhere in the middle, and it wasn’t the same song every day. So, I paid attention. For weeks, I had lyrics, usually about fear, playing in my head.

This morning I woke up at 4:37 a.m. – for some unknown reason – and had lyrics running through my head from a song I haven’t listened to in several days. So, I paid attention again and realized I was supposed to write about it. Because you may need these lyrics to get through today. Yes, you.

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