Completely Unclinched

I keep thinking I should write.... and then I don't know what to say.  I've had all sorts of things I've wanted to share, moments with God.... ups and downs....  but I rarely have the energy to do it.  And I don't mean physical energy, I mean mental and emotional energy.

I thought perhaps I was just moving into a new stage of my grief... you know, that 'easier' part I've heard so much about.... 

I thought that maybe I'm just so overwhelmed with everything going on in my life separate from Rachel (although none of it is EVER truly 'separate from her' to me, but it is to everyone else so I'll go with it) that I just don't have time to focus on her.... and maybe that's good....right?

I thought that maybe it's just me so busy being pregnant for the 7th time and raising 4 energetic children whom I also get the amazing privilege of homeschooling, and so no minute in the day is unclaimed.....

I thought maybe I'm in a horrible depression... after all, this is what 'they' say you need to look out for... not wanting to go anywhere, or do anything... not having energy or desire to do the things outside the house that you have always done.... losing interest in things that 'should be' important to you.... not talking to people about - or writing about - what's on my heart, which for an outward processor like me, is actually usually a really bad thing.....becoming content with surface conversations and unconcerned with peoples' opinions of me.....

I feel like time is flying by....like I'm letting time slip away and not achieving anything.... like I can see a new wrinkle each day in the mirror and my kids are growing in front of my eyes, and even though I am completely and totally here... in my home... in my life... with my family.... dedicated to them and God alone....in His Word more....not preoccupied for the first time in for as long as I can remember as the good over-achiever I am.....I don't answer the phone (ever, literally) and I use the computer about 1/10 of the time I used to.....I still feel like I can't slow it all down and I'm missing them grow.  (losing the last 3 years of photos when my computer crashed last night doesn't help that feeling at all!)

But mostly, I just feel confused.  And I realize as I write this and the song "I will carry you" plays in the background, bringing tears to my eyes, that it's still not easier....  I realize that this numbness doesn't need to be explained... and even if it was, it wouldn't be explained away.  Because it is what it is. 

And the truth is that for even as much as I have slowed down with the ways in which I busied myself before....  I have just gotten better at not going 'there'.... because 'there' still hurts like hell and sometimes I just don't have it in me.  Sometimes I just don't want to feel my way through it.  And sometimes.... sometimes I just still feel that unexplainable peace from God as I still still in 'it'.... knowing I am the odd man out in my little place on earth, knowing that this journey has held much more pain than just that associated with Rachel's death - the disappointment, betrayal, loss after loss....loneliness, abandonment, judgement....silence, fear, alienation.....and it's okay. It really is.

Sometimes I just wish 'they' were right and that moving into the 'stage of acceptance' (which by the way I did in September 2010 while I was still pregnant with her, but don't try to tell the grief specialist - or grief layman - that because they know too much to believe that could be possible since it's clearly out of the correct text book order) would mean that I now just lived within my 'new normal' and this just became part of who I am and the tears no longer had a reason to fall because I was finally 'accepting' the fact that I couldn't escape her death.  I finally stopped fighting it and now I would just be okay with her being gone. I finally just learned to forgive and forget.....  and I finally could call my grieving 'done' and just continue on with my life, preferably from where I left off almost 3 years ago.  And who knows, maybe that is the difference between losing a child and other losses and maybe those text book answers really do apply to other people.  Maybe it's just me or my kind....

sigh.

What the heck am I trying to say?  I don't know... see, that's my point.... I start thinking or writing and I feel like I'm making sense but I never get anywhere and I'm just not used to that.  I have no 'clincher' to this post. I like to have clinchers.  Good writers always have clinchers.  that's how I come up with my title... How do I title this if I don't have a clincher and don't even know what my point is?  And why write without a point?

But I guess it wouldn't be unlike me to be over thinking it - because the truth is that I have had this unbelievable contentment with things just the way they are - undecided, undone, unplanned...unclinched. (if that's a word?)

I went out to plant the flowers I bought for Rachel for Easter in my garden and decided to sit with a book in the sun instead.  And I didn't feel bad.  My Rachel tulips look like they have been mangled under the ground, not growing well at all, and it's not breaking my heart. (yet)  I've missed a few different weeks of visits with Rachel and I didn't feel like I let her down.  (although the thought of missing the blooms on her tulips there is weighing on me...they were close to blooming on Friday...but not bothering me enough for me to drive down there, I guess)  I have her entire nonprofit up in the air... the board members, the tasks at hand, the future plans for ministry.... and I just do nothing.

And I know some people think this is improvement... like I'm finally stepping into a better place and letting go of my need to 'do'.  I'm not convinced.  I feel like I don't know me... like this just isn't me.  None of this is anything like me, even before Rachel.  And I don't know for sure if that is even what God wants from me.  And honestly, I'm a little worried that I will awake from this numbness one day and regret my complacency and how it is undoubtedly going to do nothing more but leave me more alone in this - and make it harder to do the things I have worked so hard to do for her and for God's glory.  And yet I don't care to do anything about it.

Is that good?  Bad?  I don't know and strangely, right now, I don't care.  I'm just hoping He has a purpose in it and that even though I don't know how to conclude the wide range of emotions and thoughts I have,  that even though I feel completely unclinched, that He will never let me drift so far off the story line that He can't bring it all back around to one amazing clincher. 

So, as I let all the things I have no idea what to do about sit and slip away, I will sit in the sun with an iced coffee, a good book and my amazing children every day because I can. I will enjoy each moment I get with them here.  I will care for my home, my husband, my children with great humility and thanksgiving, believing that my sometimes thankless and most often glamorless role as the maker of this home was designed by the Maker of this Universe and is the most beautiful gift I have ever been given next to my salvation in Jesus Christ. 

And at the end of every day...whether I have cried or not... whether I have gone 'there' or not... whether I feel like I accomplished something or not... I will crawl into bed and curl up with a pretty pink and green blanket that held one of the most precious little girls to ever be and I will thank Him for her.  All of it.  The beginning, the middle, and the end... knowing that through her, He changed me.  That because of her, I am different - better.  That in Him, I am with her and she with me.  And that in the end.... well, we're gonna dance, me & her - except it won't be the end, it will be just the beginning - the first day of forever. 

Who doesn't love that kind of clincher?