hope

Day 9

Our second church service since Mom left us filled me with encouragement once more. A healthy amount of tears dripped from my sore eyes onto my pallid cheeks as we sang of God’s good plans, his faithfulness, and his constance. All of which I believe, and I mean really believe.

However, I mentioned the dissonance between faith and desperate circumstances during Mom’s Celebration of Life, and I want to share more of what exactly that looks like. Suffering forces people to confront their inmost beliefs, and that is completely healthy and can become beautiful. My Mom loved Jesus with her entire being: the cacophony of confusion left in her wake prompts intense introspection and deconstruction.

Our Father in heaven,

your name be honored as holy.

Your kingdom come,

Your will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And do not bring us into temptation,

but deliver us from the evil one.

Matthew 6:9-13, CSB

Now, please understand, I’m not looking for answers and I do not plan to provide any at this time, but I do want to share the questions clamoring in my mind. Thoughts that, perhaps, cloud your mind as well. Maybe sharing my thoughts will help those echoing the same to feel less alone and less afraid, because two thoughts can be true at the same time: one can trust God and be utterly confused and skeptical at the same time. Thus, my questions:

• Good fathers are supposed to protect their family. Why don’t you [God] protect mine?

• If Jesus is the abundant life, how could my mom die? She loved him.

• If he [God] knew what Mom needed, why weren’t her needs met?

I’ve said this so many times — I believe that God can do all things, but I fear what he will allow to happen. This is precisely why: I have not experienced twice how despair and hopelessness kill those whom I love, and those who legitimately love Jesus.

Today, I was incredibly overwhelmed by the generosity and the care from mine and Scott’s small group. They ensured our current needs were met and provided provisions for our future needs. My family has experienced such incredible and support from people being the hands and feet of Jesus, and, because of them, right now my faith remains strong. I wrestle through these complex questions, but it is abundantly clear that we have our daily bread, that God is providing and caring for us, and that we will get through this. I cannot thank our community enough for all they have done. You have eclipsed this horribly dark and tragic time with light and love and I am amazed and humbled at all of this. Thank you.

Tips for Communicating with Someone in Mourning

Acknowledging the situation is better than avoiding the topic altogether. It may be awkward to speak up, but a simple “I see you,” goes a long way 💙

Redemption is Coming

Now without faith it is impossible to please God, since the one who draws near to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

Hebrews 11:6, CSB

I lost faith when I went through a few years of loss and turmoil. My mind and thoughts were tormented by the harsh reality that my friend was gone, and my brother Patrick gave up his life to shame and depression. Unable to make sense of life anymore, my faith faltered. I was broken and in a state that felt impossible to recover from. My reality was horror. How can one have faith when his or her circumstances seem to contradict that which one believes?

We each respond differently to grief and suffering; while I struggled to believe, my mother remained steadfast. Her trust in God did not waiver despite the reality that her baby was gone, and I could not understand it. Thus, with water-brimmed eyes in 2019, I asked her how she could remain confident, and she provided aged wisdom:

“You are so young. I cannot imagine having to face the things that you have had to your whole life. I have faith because I have seen the faithfulness of God over the years. You spent the past 15 years watching destruction without redemption. You have been so strong.”

Her words made sense – It’s challenging to maintain faith when one’s life has been painted with suffering since its beginning. My life has been beautiful and even amidst intense suffering has been filled with mercy and blessing, but, like many, I began viewing life through lenses of sorrow as a young girl.

We are so very attached to outcomes. We have faith that God is good, that He is the God that delivers redemption and provides healing. Broken endings aren’t good, and they don’t look like redemption.

It’s been four years since my brother took his life from me and I assure you, death is not good. Mourning never ceases. My faith was unfathomably wounded back then. My heart turned to dust, my mind to ashes, but dust is what God used to breathe life into man.

We died that day, each of us who loved Patrick. Our hopes for earthly restoration disintegrated with his demise. We were broken beyond repair, we needed entirely new perspectives and new hopes. We had to relearn how to think, how to communicate, how to be still.

In the years following his death, I began to seek and experience the redemption my mom told me I had not yet experienced. I felt restoration in my own life and in my own mind. It has been beautiful because it feels like entering Spring after a harsh Winter. It was warm and safe and filled with healing and new life.

I have the faith I lacked those four years ago, and now I know that I can be the one to encourage fellow sufferers to hold on: you may not have had the chance to experience redemption and restoration, but you will. You will.

God is with us. He is our reward. He is our comfort, our strength, and our healing. Even when our faith falters, He brings life from loss and healing from grief.

God is good, even when life is not, and He is good when our nightmares become reality.

Have faith, my friends. Your story is not over, and your life does not have to be without redemption. Your heart can be healed. You can have abundant life after tragedy. Hold on, have faith, redemption is coming.

Love Enduring

Love bears all things, hopes all things, believes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

I Corinthians 13:7-8

I wrote in a letter to my deceased friend’s parents three years ago (2020).

You hear the verses in weddings, but are they not just as applicable at funerals?

Grief is love that endures – beyond life and beyond loss. It endures. It remains. It loves against all things, against hope, and against the belief for its object of adoration to return.

In the end, it’s love that goes on.

It can make us bitter or it can make us springs of life and of hope and of beauty once more.

Where there were once caverns of bitterness, may there be fields of tenderness.

Where there were once deserts of anger, may there be harbors of forgiveness

Where there were once rivers of sorrow, may there be streams of mercy.

Love transforms us in unfathomable ways. Lost love breaks us with the bleakest measures, but our response to love and love lost distinguishes us entirely.

Some respond out of anger, some shut down in sorrow, and some pretend through avoidance. Each response is unique, with each respondent clinging to the response that feels the most emotionally safe.

Friends and strangers hold their breath and peer at grievers in hopes of a response that will provide them with an image of the grievers’ hearts.

How quick we are to observe the unfathomable, but how slow we are to communicate the tragedy. We look with bravery but cower in speechlessness. All the while, the griever, the sufferer, sits in isolation and trapped in love’s loss.

With fortitude, the sufferer remembers his or her enduring love and allows that mercy to shape the day. Love and truth tear away the temptation bitterness invites: these tools patch up lost love’s damage.

Patched, but not healed. Bandaged, but not mended. The sufferer must reach out beyond the frailty of his or her understanding and leap towards something more. The promise of more – the promise of the fullness of life.

Choosing to trust God beyond all belief, the griever leaps into freedom and the chance for redemption. The chance to experience the beauty of life and the beauty of love restored. The chance to overcome bitterness with a happiness long forgotten. The chance to live abundantly despite every odd being against the individual.

This, this is love enduring. This is love unending. This is love restoring, healing, and beginning.

I Write to the Griever; I Write to the Friend

Shame cloaks one in fear. Fear keeps one in isolation. Isolation repeats the cycle.

It’s the tragic irony that prohibits us from knowing how to reach out to others when we need them most, and it’s often that same irony that keeps others from reaching out to us.

The concealment of shame safely shields one from oneself and from others – at times I have been afraid to voice my concerns and share my story simply because the story itself frightened me. Sharing makes life’s nightmares more real. Other times, the fear of another’s someone misunderstanding has kept my fingers from typing and my mouth from speaking.

But where does one turn when he or she internalizes those matters that are too dangerous to share with others?

I look to words – to books and to music, to poems and to plays – but what happens when there are no words?

The prevalence of centuries of literature whispers God’s mercy: one looks to the Psalms for comfort and contrition, the Old Testament stories and New Testament parables for history and application, and the prophecy books for detailed truth of who God has always been. These precious words preserve timeless truth. It is God who bestows light and life into man, and man who reflects the image of God (Genesis 1, John 1).

Mankind mirrors fractures of God’s mercy, not because God’s mercy is broken, but because we are broken and fallen creatures. Mercy cracks through the brokenness of man, reflecting the glory of God, through the gift of man’s words.

Words meant to heal, words crafted to explain, words written to comfort. Words to bring the shamed out of isolation and into compassion: words powerful enough to help the confused and broken feel understood and validated.

I didn’t get those words. I couldn’t find them.

When my world fell apart, I fell with it, and there were so few resources to explain. No one writes about the loss of a sibling, though most of the deceased are survived by siblings. It’s rare for young people to experience and detail loss.

And grieving a “complicated death” (ie: suicide, murder)? Some psychologists write to attempt to explain, but few first-hand accounts exist. These deaths are shrouded in the shame of the survived, leaving the survived isolated, tabooed, and unreached.

I intend to share the depths of a griever’s experience as a sibling, as a friend, as a woman, as a youth, and as a survivor. In weeks to come, I will share excerpts from my journals to convey the intensities of loss and the miracles of mercy. Some excerpts may be incredibly intense and seem hopeless, but these are the details of redemption and lament.

In the end, we’re each the griever and the friend.

So, let’s break the cycle. Truth is not powerless. Isolation, shame, and fear are powerless.

A Solemn Prologue

In the busyness of life, I nearly forgot my own. I nearly forgot my past – who I was, where I was, what life was like while I was there.

I nearly forgot the tears, the heartache, and the traumas. I nearly forgot that I was such a young girl dealing with such developed problems. I was such a child, scared, and hiding, yet mandated to make mature decisions.

I was 14 the first time I witnessed someone lose his mind to the brink of insanity.

What a child.

I was so young, enduring too much beyond my own comprehension.

Even now, colleagues marvel at what I went through, and yet I expect myself to be normal – to act like a person unacquainted with loss and torment.

Torment. Absolute torment. It was hell and I didn’t even know it, because hell had become normal.

Normal was hiding, wrapping clothes around me as a shelter to cry in peace. So much hiding. So much crying.

And I never could have imagined how much worse it could get. Oh, so much worse.

I can’t believe that was my normal. I can’t believe how much I hid from the world. Hide and hide and hide.

No wonder I have such difficulty grasping out of hiding.

I lived in Sheol. Abaddon was my home. I can’t believe I lived through it.

In some ways, I think I always knew someone would die. Maybe I knew, somehow, that something else would destroy me. Maybe. Maybe I knew that I needed to be destroyed. Maybe it was always there in the back of my mind, hiding safely behind the clothes of denial.

I loved. That is the crime that caused me so much pain. That’s the face I saw in the grave. A man so wounded, he forced gravity to take the life out of him. I was 21 years old when my brother stole his life from my arms, and I’m still trying to come to terms with that reality.

Grays, Blues, and Splatters of Red

Apprehension gathers around my temples and sends shakes into my hands.

I feel calm: I smile to myself as I peer into my rear-view mirror, fighting the duplicity of my inner turmoil. We’re nearing the end of the year, the end of the decade. So many endings. 2020 looms menacingly behind a two-week’s notice, and its emanate arrival bubbles conflict within me.

bubbling… boiling… overflowing… overwhelming… apprehending.

I don’t feel calm: tears kiss my quivering lip, fear desires to relinquish the skirmish in my mind.

Am I going to believe what I know to be true?

I know God is good. I know 2020 will hold good things. I know I’ve had a lot of joyous moments in 2019. I know the progression of time is natural. I know ending the year numerically/measurably separates me from pretty terrible experiences from 2019.

This year feels like finishing a chapter of a Stephen King novel; the horror is over, but the adrenaline from terrors pulsates through one’s veins and makes him aware that the books is not finished and that more trepidation awaits. With apprehension, the reader begins the next chapter.

I know I’m not living-out a horror novel, however, Jesus literally promised “In this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33). I know that, and that’s easy [for me] to believe. He also declared, “I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance” (John 10:10) and compared, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him” (Matthew 7:11). Somehow, those two facts are a bit harder for me to believe.

These truths I know, but I battle each day to believe them. I echo a millennia-old cry: “I believe! Help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24).

I exhale, imagining the year altogether. An overwhelming year amplified by increased stressors from the past few weeks. I’m tired of fighting. I reminisce on the past year in color: grays, blues, and splatters of red.

Gray. The color of endings—colors fade into a vortex of grays. From dust we came and to dust we return (Genesis 3:10). It’s the color of loss, of hopelessness, of abandonment, of absence. A sky convulsing with beating rains.

Blue. The color of sadness—shades of somberness in waves of emotion. As deep as the ocean, as expansive as the sky.

Red. The color of passion—drops from the hands, the feet, and the head of Christ. It indicates hurt. Likewise, it’s the color of life, of love, of anger, of danger, and of longing.

Apprehension gnawing at my soul and shivering in my hands, I petition myself again: Am I going to believe what I know to be true?

I know James was earnest when writing “the testing of your faith produces endurance,” (James 1:4). I know that God works all things together for good (Romans 8:28). I know that it is God who works within me (Philippians 2:13).

But oh, how hard it is for me to believe that my pain will not be wasted. How easy it is for me to believe that all of this is for nothing. That my pain is meaningless, that my words are meaningless, that I am a failure because I do not always believe the truth that I know, and that my pain will be wasted because it’s not easy for me to believe in goodness.

It’s hard to see the world around you when you’re filtered through gray, blue, and red. I am of little faith. I cling to the truths I know—I see God’s mercy, provision, and grace all around me—even while I shudder at thoughts of the future.

Yes, I’m happy to leave 2019. But 2020 will be the first year of my life without Patrick, and that’s never something I wanted to write. I will no longer live in the year of his death. The closer we get to the date, the more apprehensive I become.

It’s not that I don’t trust God with the future. I do. It’s simply hard to look forward to an unknown that currently holds little tangible hope–yet, my hope is in Christ and I know that my hope will not be put to shame (Romans 5:5).

Hebrews 11, a chapter exemplifying people of great faith, begins with “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not yet seen,” Hebrews 11:1. I have faith that God will bring good things from the dark year I’ve endured, but I also know the reality of their lives: “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth” (verse 13).

“Remember the promises of God,” many tell me. I remember them, I acknowledge them, and I cling to them, but I know that I might not live to see his promises fulfilled.

I—we, my friends—may never witness one drop of goodness to come from the tragedies in our lives, but we will experience God’s faithfulness. While not tangibly measurable, if we surrender ourselves to Christ, we are guaranteed to see some promises fulfilled. We will experience sanctification. We will experience knowledge and growth. My broken perspective doesn’t make God’s workmanship any less true.

We might not see the goodness amidst the darkness of today, but we can see God’s faithfulness. We can see God’s mercy, and we can trust God even when we cannot seem to believe.

Okay?

April 21, 2019

“You never give up on me”, the amazement flowed from the tears in Patrick’s eyes.

But, I thought, the truth is that I gave up on you years ago.

Yet I’m still here.

Maybe I tricked myself into believing that I gave up on you. Maybe it’s because I was well acquainted with the pain you cause[d], but I’m thankful that you realized I hadn’t given up on you even when I thought I had.

No, I never gave up on you. I believed in every single breath you gave.

— — —

I spent the last two months two months pretending that the most horrific events of my past did not happen. I went on eight different trips and visited 13 different cities; it’s funny how you can trick your mind into believing false narratives simply because you long for something greater. I want to believe that earnestness exists, that redemption persists, and that goodness triumphs.

But I don’t.

Or, at least, I didn’t.

Eight trips filled with laughter and memories, yet the plane rides or car drives confronted me with the realities I so desperately wished to ignore. On the plane and in the car–that’s where I fell apart.

You can only smile for so long before tears force their way out, leaving you exposed to an onlooking world. And on airplanes?? Lord bless those sitting next to me… they didn’t ask for this mess. Though, neither did I.

Thoughts on my final plane ride brutally scorned me: “If I love God, how could I _____?” “If you love someone, why do you purposefully act malignant?” “If I had done _____ would he still be here?”

One’s mind and heart quickly betray him in times of immense tragedy, rendering him confused and pained. Mine convinced me to ignore reality again and again and again, until reality assaulted my mind into submission. You cannot outrun the truth, no matter how bleak it is.

— — —

It’s was Tuesday night, three months and one day since we found out about my Patrick’s demise.

I’m in church and it’s dark. Unable to hold anything back, I release emotions I do not deserve to have–no one should endure circumstances like this.

My roommate Lauren reaches over:

“I’m proud of you, Hope. You’re finally grieving.”

Aaaaand I’ve cried everyday since. Moments so full of anguish that I stop breathing and have to literally remind myself how to function. WELCOME TO GRIEF, HOPE. It’s about time…

— — —

April 24, 2019

“I feel like we are a team specifically you and me to beat this. It means alot,” Patrick texts me.

“That’s right we are. You are going to beat this. Absolutely.”

“Every time I see you, you say we got this and i actually believe it for once”

I believed it too, Patrick. I believed it too. I still cannot believe that you are gone.

— — —

When you lose someone you love, it is as though all light has departed. Reality dims. Hope fades. Confusion suffocates.

Recklessness ensues when you stop believing in redemption: Satan tempts you to believe that actions are meaningless. You grew weary in doing good works. Look where they got you? I questioned as the tears soaked my sweatshirt.

The truth is, there are some things we will never let go of; we must live through the emptiness and press on because of Christ’s mercy. Sometimes the most disheartening circumstances are the manifolds of God’s mercy. While it’s laborious to perceive, there is much glory in earth’s eternal despondency.

I tried to stop hoping. I attempted to “give up” on those that I love dearly as a coping mechanism, but I cannot.

Even after the tragedies I’ve witnessed first-hand–no matter how “safe” disassociation and pessimism may make me feel–I cannot stop believing in redemption.

I don’t recognize much “light” these days. Engulfed in darkness, wrestling through disappointment and heartache: nonetheless, I still believe in redemption.

I see hurting people all around me, the heartbroken who respond by attempting to break themselves and to break those around them, but somehow I still believe in redemption. Side note: Please, seek help and guidance when you need it, friends. No one is past redemption’s threshold–if he would only focus on what he knows to be true. Not all is lost.

In The Fellowship of the Rings, Tolkien exemplifies the relationship between hope and heartache: “The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”

I cannot see the goodness in this situation, and I feel far more broken than I can express, but I trust and I hope in what I know is True.

In Loving Memory

Life is too precious.

My Grossi met Jesus March 11, 2019. She listened to Him release the words, “Well done, Thy good and faithful servant.” I wonder if He had tears in His eyes as He said it. God watched Mary Ellen endure her deepest joys and most anguished sorrows. She made it—she fought the good fight, and she finished the race with joy. I wonder if it brought tears to His eyes.

He had comforted her when she mourned, as He comforts we who mourn.

I think that the hardest part about grief is knowing that you will never be able to make memories with that person again. Death prompts you to remember all the little things that you didn’t realize you would miss.

Her smile, her laughter, her lipstick, her spunk. Her resolution. She was stubborn, as many of you know, and she was strong. I admired her tenacity.

It’s in those little moments that you grow to love someone—it’s the collection of those small moments that builds our trust and our admiration. Those small, insignificant moments.

And it’s often not until death that we realize the magnificence of all those moments.

Mary Ellen Schraner built her life from a collection of moments that highlighted the importance of faith, family, and friends. This church and these people made those moments. You, here today, were everything to her. She found her foundation in Christ and her blessings and joys in you.

Nine years ago, my mother gave her a notebook entitled Grandmother, Tell Me Your Story. Within it poses the question, “What are some of the things you hope your children and grandchildren have learned from you?”

Her answer: “Faith—the belief in God, Cooking—Hospitality,” which I know many of you inherited, and “peace in the family.” Mary Ellen taught me those three things, and she taught me to have fun and to celebrate when life calls for celebration. She prayed for her family more than anyone I know, she welcomed me to her home many times, and she filled my heart with joy and abundance.

It’s strange that she’s not here with us. It doesn’t resonate well. My mother once said, “We are eternal beings. We were never meant to say goodbye.” I suppose that is why it is so devastatingly painful to miss someone who deposited memories into our own life that made us have a life worth living.

So, as we hold our breath, and as we will the world to stop spinning, let’s take the quietness of grief and utilize it as a reminder to cling to the mundane moments. Let’s hold one another a little closer, for a little longer. Life is far too precious and far too short to cling to anything but those who love us.

I John 2:17 reads, “And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” This became one of my favorite verses the first time I endured grief from a separation that feels so very permanent, but the reality is that permanence fades when you recall Christ’s three words: “It is finished.”

Mary Ellen was ready to meet the Savior of the world, the God that held her tears in a leger. The God that gave her breath, and the God that took her breath away. The God who allowed tragedy, the God who prepared and encouraged her through devastation. The God who blessed her with so many people and things. The God who allowed her to live a full life—she was not afraid to meet the God she knew so well and loved so dear.

I wonder if she brought tears to her Savior’s eyes—happy tears. Christ knew that He brought her home. The heartache and the pain of this world has left her, and she has been made alive in the fullness of Christ.

While we cry because we miss her, I think that Christ may shed a tear in welcoming her home.

The Reset

And it was the end of an era I was not ready to let go of…

Two-Thousand and Eighteen: a year that completed four years of alteration.

– 2014 –

We moved to Virginia days after I graduated high school. I was sixteen, driving from Arkansas to Virginia with Shadow as my copilot, and leaving everything familiar behind except my family. We knew nothing of Virginia nor the East Coast, but I was supremely excited for the anticipated adventure. Though I had many dear friends there, I was ready to leave Arkansas. June 4, 2018, we arrived at our new home and a series of changes rapidly ensued.

[Journal Entry, dated July 25, 2015, italicized]

Sometimes I stop myself and take a breath and let it sink in; this is what I wanted, and this is how I imagined it. I have lots of friends who love me…we stay out late and stay up even later. We laugh and cry together, and I’m independent. This is what I always dreamed of. Yes, it’s horrifying, but if I’m really being honest, I’m in love with the constant chaos of everything around me.

Somehow, it’s terrifyingly beautiful.

I love my life, and I’m so thankful for where God has placed me. This past year has been a year of healing that I never could have dreamed of, and of rejuvenating that I didn’t know I needed.

I was exhausted when I left Arkansas. Now, being here has helped me so much. I love it, and I’m not ready to leave. But God is preparing my heart, and He will be with me. I love him, and I love my life. I am mortified of what will become of me, but I’m not afraid of who I will become. If I keep Him centered, what is to fear?

I wrote that a month before I left for Liberty University in a leather-bound journal that Laura Denson gave me. Thanks to the community God provided me with, Hampton was everything that I prayed for when I left Arkansas. I thought that going to LU would terminate many of the friendships I had made over the past year. While some naturally faded, others wonderfully strengthened.

[Journal Entry, dated December 11, 2017, italicized]

By the end of 2017, few people remained in Hampton whom I had met in 2014. Much of what I had grown accustomed to slowly faded away, and I no longer spent ample time with a majority of the people in these photos due to peoples’ moves, church changes, and/or other miscellaneous life transitions.

I was growing restless.

This season pains existence. Questions never cease, and answers never come. The twenties are so much harder than everyone tells you… Unpredictability characterizes this stage. My heart rips between here [Lynchburg] and Hampton… I’m exhausted from being alive. I need something new. I’m not even sure how I’ll make it next semester. I am so burnt out.

And thus, I drove home for Christmas break, and my friends and family reminded me why I held Hampton so dear.

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– 2018 –

[Journal Entry, dated January 1, 2018, itlalicized]

I began the year by running away to Europe—I specialize in running when I’ fear reality—and came back with a refreshed perspective.

The Lord reveals things, not in our timing, but in His; yet He laces hints in unlikely moments. My stubbornness falters me, yet He gives perfect grace to woo me to Him. He called me out from the wilderness of my own mind and brought me back softly to His presence. He’s reminded me of His sovereignty and His plan. That’s right, God has a plan for me. It’s a truth I’ve treated as a lie for quite some time due to my sin of disbelief.

– – –

Walter was with me during my first year in Hampton, and he was the last person from that stage of my life that remained close. When Walter died, so left the last consistent reminder of 2014.

Thus, it was reset.

[Journal Entry, dated January 1, 2018, continued]

I allowed my ignorance and frustration to warp my mind; so I looked to my known God—a good God, a creator, an assigner of work, a loving Father, a sovereign king—and ascribed to Him all of my anxieties…I embraced negativity and ran from my Savior because of the pain in my heart. I hurt, deeply, and I blamed God for it.

Yet, all the while, it was He who spoke kindly to me. It was He who whispered truth, even when I barely listened. All the while, He was stirring up my affections, burdening me with trivial matters, exposing my heart slowly… Slowly, softly, gently, because He knew I could not take it all at once.

I lost Walter, my mini-cooper, the familiarity of Lynchburg and college life within two weeks. My family moved the day I graduated, I quit a job I enjoyed a month later, and Shadow passed away shortly after that.

I’m ready for 2019. I’m excited to see what God will do. He’s growing me and He’s healing me. 2018 made me realize the depths of my weakness, but I am relearning to abide in God’s strength. I feel stronger and braver than I have felt in quite some time.

It’s like one of those movies that ends where it began—when I returned to Hampton in May, everything I became familiarized with in 2014 was gone.

2018 was terrifyingly beautiful.

I moved to Hampton days after I graduated college. I was twenty, driving from Lynchburg to Hampton with Spotify as my copilot, and leaving everything familiar behind except my friends. I grew to love Virginia and embraced the East Coast, but I somberly and optimistically anticipate the next adventure.

“Cling to What Is Good”

November 22, 2018

“Here, Hopey, it’s your turn.” My Aunt Beth smiles as she hands me our family’s Thanksgiving notebook—the ledger that preserves memoirs from the past three years of each of our lives. I release an oppressed sigh as my fingers trace the globe on the book’s cover and my mind drifts to a conversation I had with a dear friend the week prior.

– – –

“Hope, how are you doing?” My eyes involuntarily fell into my coffee cup before I mustered the courage to respond.

“Honestly?” I paused as I decided between duplicity and vulnerability: “I feel physically beat up. I feel like I got knocked down this year and have been kicked over and over and over again. I am physically and mentally exhausted.”

– – –

Beholding the journal, I apprehensively open the cover. What on earth am I supposed to write this year? Thanksgiving looked different than what I had anticipated weeks before, and I dreaded receiving this notebook; however, recalling that memory, sitting in my brother’s house, and being surrounded by family, somberness softly melted into gratefulness. Thus, I began with three simple words: “2018 was a year.”

* * *

I pondered the past eleven months of one surreal year. I spent New Year’s 30,000 feet in the air headed for London—I felt independent and free and unstoppable. I was twenty years old and flying to Europe for a five-country tour with some of my best friends, and then returning to my final semester of college. I had no idea what my life would look like after graduation and studied for half our trip, but I was reminded to enjoy the moment. God would provide in such miraculous ways in the months to come.

Life was a blur between January and May—sooo many late nights spent with Isabella, Emily, and Judd. Book club continued with Candace as we finished Priscilla Schrier’s Resolutions for Women and began Amanda Bible-Wilson and Raechel Myer’s She Reads Truth. We celebrated Ben and Lauren’s engagement and we cheered as Judd open for John Mark McMillan. School was crazy, but that’s consistent, so what’s new there? It was a perfect semester, culminated with enough stress and excitement to fill one’s life with awe and thankfulness. I spent more weekends than I had preferred in Hampton, but, in the end, I will forever thank God for how He arranged those trips back and forth.

Then we come to my favorite memory: at the end of April, Walter, Tyler, and Josh visited me in Lynchburg for a Hillsong concert. I remember sitting at dinner with Walt and Ty and thinking that it felt like old times—these had been my dear friends since I was 16. We all headed back to Hampton for Matt and Kayla’s beautiful wedding and continued to make the greatest memories. Walter convinced me to stay in Hampton after graduation and my sweet friend, Rachel, made that possible. I remember calling my mom that Monday and telling her how sweet that weekend had been—Ty and Walt visited me every year I was at Liberty and I didn’t think that would have been possible for them to come this year. That was the last time that I saw Walter. God was so kind to allow that trip.

After that weekend, everything seemed to fall apart. There were nine weeks of affliction—nine weeks where God revealed that nothing is constant, and nothing is permanent apart from Him.

Weary and discouraged, I boarded a plane to Portland, Oregon for a trip my grandparents had planned months before. I spent 18 days surrounded by family in a place far from the troubles of home. I learned how to breathe again and how to rest in the Lord’s presence. I realized the amount of pressure I bombard myself with when I attempt to rely on my own strength. I am so, so weak. I learned to lean on the strength of my Savior.

When I returned, my external circumstances remained uncertain, but my internal conflict ceased. I was ready to leave Virginia and would have given up had it not been for the encouragement of Nelly, Derek, and my grandparents. August 8^th, five days after I got back, I accepted a job in Virginia and chose to persist; the shadows of the uncertain slowly began to fade away.

– – –

I dreaded receiving that notebook, for I had no idea what I would write. What do you write for a year you wish did not exist? It’s been a year. Many things about this year feel fake–like they didn’t or shouldn’t have happened.

Yet God reminded me of His faithfulness. I remembered all the little moments that God used to prepare me for greater trials. I remembered Becca and Brittany and Lauren and Ben and Candace and Daniel and Maddie and Katie and Jocelyn and Jenny and Judd and Isabella and Emily—I remembered all of the friends who made college so wonderful and who helped me finish. I remembered how God allowed Candace and I to read a book about how He is permanent in a world that is passing away before and after Walter met Him. I finished college feebly, returning to school for final exams and papers the week after Walter passed away. I remember how Sandy and I clung to one another that first week back. I remembered how kind, supportive, and understanding all of my professors were. I remember how God allowed me to graduate despite the hardships—I would not have finished that final semester apart from God’s grace.

I remembered spending almost every Friday night with Morgan, Gabi, Laura Kate, and Lauren watching It Takes a Church and laughing together. I remembered the summer that my Church became my family in the purest way. I remembered visiting my parents in their new home and getting to spend a week of sweet vacation with them. I remembered going to Colorado to visit Tyler with Lauren, Mike, and Scott, and enjoying ourselves though everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. I remembered running to the beach with several friends to get away when things got too rough at home.

I remembered worshipping with those closest to me—in tears, in song, in celebration, and in laughter.

* * *

I received that notebook and I relentlessly wept as I mourned the past year. My family saw me and they held me as I clung to them. Nothing needed to be said, we all knew.

Thankfulness overcame me as I thought about the family that surrounds me. I held my niece each morning as she ate breakfast, and I played with my nephew’s hair until he fell asleep. I enjoyed early mornings with my parents and Luke and Karley and Aunt Beth and Uncle Terry and spent the afternoon the whole family. Each day was so sweet and so special. It’s been wonderful to have Luke and Karley live near–they have blessed me so much. Each of my siblings and their families have surpassed my expectations this year–I wondered what our relationships would look like once Mom and Dad moved away–I have grown closer to all of them this year.

It’s been a year–more painful than words express. I did not want to be grateful this year. I did not want to acknowledge all that God has blessed me within 2018–I wanted to focus on all that God has allowed to be taken from me. But He has blessed me, and He has been with me and before me through it all.

Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil, cling to what is good.

Romans 12:9

I am so weak. I need God’s strength and I need that reminder to “cling to what is good.” He is good, even when life aches.

When my strength fails, He is strong. When circumstances change, He is constant. When people disappoint me, He is faithful. When I make mistakes, He is forgiving. When everything collapses, He is a firm foundation.

2018 was a year. Yes, I do feel beaten down, but “we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair,” II Corinthians 4:8. Therefore, I will hope in the God that provides everything I need yesterday, today, and forever, and my hope will not be put to shame.

For Further Reading:

Hebrews 10:39

II Corinthians 4:16-18

Job 1:21

Psalm 136

Hosea 2

I John 2:17

Deuteronomy 31:6

II Corinthians 4

Exposed

Exposed

hope

Day 9

Redemption is Coming

Love Enduring

I Write to the Griever; I Write to the Friend

A Solemn Prologue

Grays, Blues, and Splatters of Red

Okay?

In Loving Memory

The Reset

And it was the end of an era I was not ready to let go of…

“Cling to What Is Good”