love is

 it's easy to recite the verse, the one that we hear at weddings and memorize in sing-song tones as children.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;  it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

it's easy to hear it, and know it, but to really sink into our bones is different. patience is still sinking in to mine, and nothing has pressed patience into me more than our marriage. because life with a brain injury is slow. and it's  unknown. and it's not clearcut.

which creates a greater void that needs to be filled with patience. which is exactly where i need to be stripped. which is why God gave me to ian.

i needed him to help me learn patience.

like when he doesn't answer me as quickly as i want him to. 

or when i just really want him to be able to walk on his own. (because even in the midst of the excitement of his progress, my heart still sins).

or when we don't yet have what we think we need.

i. i. i. that's what i make it about. the root of my inpatience is my selfishness.

and if someone had been watching, filming, observing my heart and outward acts for the last two days toward my husband, they would not see love that was kind, or un-resentful or patient.

i don't see that in myself.

but i do see my god, hanging on a tree for me, that my impatience might not separate me from him. i see his blood traveling down his body and onto his toes and drip on the ground so that i not be lost in my sin. 

i see his head slumped down by death so that i my face may be lifted up to gaze in His face on the ressurrection day.

this was done for me. and for our marriage.

eight twenty eight

today is eight twenty eight.

today is our dad's birthday. and today is our anniversary. and today means His promise to work all things together for good because He loves us. today is for reflecting on three years with a God who has held our marriage, has kept us when we would have left on our own and has sprinkled joy in the most unexpected places. 

today is for remembering that when God gave life to Steve on this day 53 years ago, 

He knew exactly what He was doing.

we are now one because of life.

and above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. and be thankful. 

Col 3:14-15

in love

i&l

fraudulent

"you shouldn't have said that today, maybe that sounded harsh, you're assuming a heart motive, that's not believing the best of that person, you're angry again, you're inpatient again," the voices in my heart and in my head drone on all day.

eventually my body sits to write - to be the means of a story God has written that has nothing to do with myself.

a calendar with dates for talking to people in public, at retreats, conferences - who am i to have this place?

my sins rattle throughout my brain all day and tell me that this is fraud.

that this experience, this public story we're telling, is not worthy of being told by me. that my sin somehow cancels out anything God would do through us.

that this husband, so sweet and foundational should have more than this sinning wife.

"the Lord your God is in your midst; a might one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exalt over you with loud singing." - zephaniah 3:17

my God still rejoices over me. he will quiet me.

so humbly and dependently we make our way.

"Who, oh Lord, could save themselves,
Their own soul could heal?
Our shame was deeper than the sea
Your grace is deeper still"

and so it goes

"ian, do you remember that today is when your dad died three years ago?"

"he was a good man."

that's all that needs to be said and all that needed to be said. he was a good man. and we miss him.

love

i&l

six

I remember sitting in the sterile, hospital hallway, back pressed against the wall with my knees tight to my chest. My cell phone was pushed against my ear, hard, as if the closer it was to my ear, the more likely he was to come back. It was an old voicemail, just a few days old, and he was singing obnoxiously and with falsetto to me on the other end:

"I can't see me lovin nobody but you for all my life. When you're with me baby the skies will be blue, for all my life."

He continued through the whole song and so many times in that hospital I found a quiet place by myself and tried to find comfort in that voice.

Six years ago today the hospitals, missing Ian's voice, losing my best friend all started. Another rainy, September day, just like today, lead Mary, Steve and I on a trip to Pittsburgh, each silently praying that it wouldn't be his brain.

Last night as I told Ian how sad I felt with each anniversary, he said sweetly,

"That's why I love you. It makes you sad because you care about me so much."

Today does make me sad.

"Sorrowful yet always rejoicing" is my prayer. To have strength for the rejoicing, even if it's just quietly in my soul.

Larissa

i would

it was 3:00 in the morning, a very light and tired night, heading to bed.

"ian, i wasn't being very respectful of you tonight. will you forgive me?"

"yes. why were you having trouble?"

"just not responding well to your brain injury."

"you know that i would change it if i could, right?"

he's so good to me.

sometimes, it's embarrassing

i dont know, maybe it's me, but sometimes suffering is embarrassing. when it's prolonged, and so outwardly apparent, and creates so many needs. living through brain injury and brain cancer, and losing someone to brain cancer, and now thinking about a smaller type of cancer, it's another need. another reason for people to pray. another reason for maybe some to think that our faith is too weak. another reason for "i just feel so badly for them." yes, here we are again, friends, needing healing, and relief, and strength. 

i don't know what the Bible says about it. ian would say it's just a feeling. but it's there. and i'm sure we're not the first ones to feel it. so that's probably why i want to say it out loud. and i know that it is good for us to be cared for, and prayed for, and to ask for prayer. and i'm sure that somewhere Jesus can satisfy and heal it. but sometimes, it just sits there in our gut.

as for ian's appointment, it may not be cancer, but they will treat it as if it were. we will be scheduled for two outpatient procedures in pittsburgh, so we will just say overnight at a hotel. they will remove the nearest lymph node and have it tested.

thank you, truly, for praying. even if sometimes it feels, embarrassing:)

i&l

somewhere, someone is sad

constantly and rhythmically, there is loss. an unending current that ripples through all of us, every one of us. across houses and hospitals and huts is the screech of loss and desperation. what makes some of us happy is exactly what makes another sad, triggering memories of days that went by too fast.

so as we watched the fireworks that mean summer and warmth to so many, they shot like bullets through her, each burst a memory of a little life, a short life, a lost life. there were children shrieking with laughter around us but i could only think of her, who wanted them to just hurry up and finish, because they weren't happy anymore.

these are the losses that we won't ever forget. and not to live in despair but to live like our own "man of sorrows." for me, it may be as simple as a Tom Petty song on the radio that ian used to sing to me or it's when our three year old nephew tells us that his daddy's dad is already in heaven. to someone else who has lost there are triggers everywhere, and they are sharp and they sting.

i don't want us to forget that somewhere, someone is empty. and we feel that depth of loss with them and for them and through them. we share in the losses of others, because we share in the death of Christ for us.

"weep with those who weep."

i&l

why bother

on my worst days, the really bad days, thoughts and doubts and fears grind through my mind, "should we have done this? can our marriage really last our whole lifetime? will i be miserable by age 30?" the fears are suffocating and isolating and overwhelming. especially when i keep them trapped inside my own mind and don't share them with ian, or a close friend, or even my journal.

these seasons are long and scary. what if i ruin my marriage? why if i become so bitter that i don't even like my husband anymore? what if we never have relief from this?

recently as these thoughts were pummeling through my head, i think God cleverly and gently reminded me that leaving is not an option. i have made a covenant. and so spending time thinking on these fears was only producing in my heart a growing thought pattern that may someday build up to significant bitterness toward my spouse. significant bitterness that would feel trapped inside a covenant. it is not an option for our marriage to end. this is it. we're in it. it's too late to spend time on doubts and fears. like our wise dad told us before he passed away, someday we would have to look back on our decision to get married and know that we did it in faith, 10, 20, 50 years from now.

and this covenant is not meant to be a trap, so why waste my time there? i pray for good days and good thoughts toward my husband. and God does answer them. some days feel grueling (more to come another post on that) but even in the grinding, God can and will produce a sweetness for us. because He designed marriage. and he already has.

thank you, always, for praying
i&l

"blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trail, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him." james 1:12

to ian, he said that it's hard for him to see now that 'blessed is the man.' it's hard to see that blessedness in his life. how clearly the scripture leads us to ian's eternal reward - 'he will receive the crown of life.' nothing more is needed.

thank you for praying

I walked a mile with pleasure;
She chattered all the way,
But left me none the wiser
for all she had to say.

I walked a mile with Sorrow;
And ne'er a word said she;
But,oh, the things I learned from her
when sorrows walked with me.

Robert Browning Hamilton "Along the Road"

when I would rather live in my dreams

He was the old Ian, talking constantly, walking, recounting tiny details of his day. He was telling me that over the past week, he was really disappointed that I hadn't bought any juice at the grocery store, because he was sick of water. And I was so happy.

And then I woke up, the dream ending, turning over in bed to see my disabled Ian. And as each time I have these dreams, I wake up to a reality that feels colder, sadder, and not as fun as my dreams. The healthy Ian slips back into the past and a fractured day follows, a result of the absolute strangeness of brain injuries. A strangeness that forces me to be in love with two versions of Ian.

Unfortunately, I don't know what to do with dreams that are happier than life. It's probably normal, but without getting into interpreting dreams which I've never loved to do, I fall short in understanding what god is doing in us while we sleep. If even the winds obey him, then surely my dreams do too. And that's where I get stuck - why would god give me little glimpses of life with Ian better, only to snap me back into sadness with my alarm?

I don't want to stay there, though. Instead, I'd rather think of these dreams as being preludes to heaven. That's the only place that I'm guaranteed to see healthy Ian. And that's where we will know happiness, fully.

Instead of dreading these dreams, maybe I should welcome them. Or, I can at least try.

Thank you, always

I&L