Hold Me Jesus
Hold Me Jesus.
This is all I could mutter in a whisper when I got the news that Joe’s daddy passed away a couple of weeks ago.
Nothing can prepare you for that phone call. ‘Hey, I just wanted to let you know that Dude passed away.’
This was not a surprise, and yet, a total surprise. He was doing so well, and there was discussion of him moving to a qualified nursing and rehabilitation home that same week.
But in the moment of a phone call, the news was shared that he was gone.
Hold Me Jesus.
Over the last several months I realized that there are many times when I just needed someone to give me a hug, or to wrap their arms around me in an embrace. I found myself often longing for someone to hold me when the grief was so heavy. I just wanted someone there to wrap their arms around me with that physical assurance that everything was going to be ok.
When the person you expect that from is gone, you must find it from somewhere else. This is when the loneliness really set in for me. The little things you’re so accustomed to leaning on someone else for, and then they’re gone and obviously no longer able to provide.
Hold Me Jesus.
I can’t recall just how many times I have said this over the last nine months, but it’s been a lot. I have cried to Him to just allow me to feel held in his presence – to hold me. This has been one of my biggest hearts cry. (more on this in a minute)
Healing is Not Linear
Life has been really good lately. I find myself boldly walking forward now, needing less and less affirmation from outside sources that I’m on the right track, but rather just leaning into what I believe God is presenting as each next opportunity, each step forward.
This is a new space for me. For most of my adult life I have searched for outside affirmations, am I doing this right, what do you think of this, did my message get across appropriately, was I too harsh in the way I delivered that message?
I can see God doing a great work in me on this. I can feel Him building my confidence in a voice He put in me long ago, and a dream that was put in my heart way before that.
But … this growth, this healing is not linear. It’s quite the opposite. Just when you think you’re getting somewhere, something comes and pulls the rug out from under your feet, again.
I wish it were as simple as checking off a box or a step-by-step path take you from unhealed to healed. Wouldn’t that be awesome?! The Type-A side of me would really like for this to be the way it happens! Hey, a girl can dream.
I read somewhere that the process of healing is like an upward spiral. We process things cyclically and each time it comes around, we peel back another layer and get closer to the root of where we need to be healed, and that this process can often feel like a never-ending pendulum between pain and acceptance.
Healing is messy! Sitting with all the emotions; sadness, anger, rage, confusion, shock, discontent, grief is really disgusting work in the trenches, but oh-so worth it on the other side. It’s a lonely place to be here too. No one can process these emotions for you, but you. Yes, counseling is incredibly helpful – but YOU still must do the work of it. This disgusting work takes an awareness first that you need healing somewhere, and second a processing of the subsequent emotions. When we are unaware, or choose not to deal with them, we simply suppress and put a band-aid on a gaping wound. This does not serve us at all!
Another thing I’ve learned just by watching this play out in my own home, is that everyone heals in their own time. We all process trauma differently. …and while you may think losing someone the way we lost Joe was not traumatic, I will respectfully disagree. There is a residual ripple effect that reaches our lives every day. It may not surface today, but there’s an under current lying in the wait, and you never know when it might surface.
This current resurfaced with that phone call, Dude is gone.
As much as I wanted to say I was ok, the current started reaching for me. The kids were all asleep when I got the call, and I dreaded telling them all the next morning. I dreaded the arrangements and sitting in the same funeral home that we had just months prior. I dreaded all the things that I knew were coming that week. I dreaded the idea of these emotions I had healed from resurfacing. I dreaded feeling lonely again. I dreaded (and feared) that all the healing I thought had happened, would be just a band-aid on a gaping wound and ripped away with just a phone call.
But it wasn’t.
That’s where this idea of an upward spiral comes in to play. Yes, I have processed a good bit of healing, but I am also aware there’s still work to be done. I imagine in some way, there will always be work to do here. Whether it be a processing of that awful day in June-2022, or another event that brings up a similar emotion, I believe the key here (or I dare say the trick), is to have built a firm foundation of faith, and to actively work on that faith daily. This doesn’t mean that the current won’t pull at you, but it will lack the strength to pull you under.
That foundation is the one that allows me to say Hold Me Jesus, and quite literally feel his presence surrounding me with comfort. I am far from perfect, but daily I am learning that the only way I have survived this traumatic event is to have faith that God knows what he’s doing in this season and believe that he will use this mess for good.
I asked God to help me grow, and it started to rain.
It is not lost on me that in the same amount of time it takes to grow a human, we have been without Joe, and our family is growing too. Not in the physical sense, but everywhere else. I see the kids walking forward with a bold faith. I actually had the honor of interviewing Andrew for my podcast that's launching soon, and I can't wait to share it with all of you. The boy who can sleep anywhere, is wide awake and listening to God's direction for his life, and it's incredible. These kids, they amaze me every day in the things that God is revealing in their lives. He is so faithful to us! There’s a (re)birth happening within the four walls of my home and I am excited for it.
I have so much more to share on this and will over time.
...but for now, I’ll close with this:
I asked God to help me grow, and it started to rain.
If you’re going to grow, you must embrace the rain. We’d much rather grow pretty; we don’t want the rain or the mud that comes along with it. But remember, when we pray for growth, we cannot pick and choose how to grow. God causes (or allows) that rain. It’s in the rain that everything that isn’t Him is washed away. It’s here, our roots grow deeper, and we learn how to cling to Him, and His word.
If you are in your own season of rain, stop for a moment and thank Jesus for it. Even if you can’t see it, even if the rain is blinding you, continue to grow your your roots deep in Him … and know that you are growing.