If I was to describe in one word what Jesus has come to mean to me, it would be CONSTANT!! the world around us changes so fast at times I feel like I'm beside the tracks of a speeding train trying desperately to at least peer in if not actually catch up, and it's annoyingly frustrating to the point of making me rather angry at times, but then I have never been great with change of any kind. but....here is where, when I think of Jesus, it's so comforting to know that know matter the changes in life, He is Constant, always there, never changing!!
when I think of the last 20 years of my life in regards to what Jesus means to me, here is where the description of Him as CONSTANT, has really rooted itself. because in spite of the tangled maze of exhaustion and confusion and drama our life has been, Jesus has been there, in the quiet, in the harried, in the laughter, the tears, He has NEVER checked out on me, on us, and He NEVER will!! HE HAS BEEN CONSTANT!! have I always appreciated as I should have or held Him as closely as I should have?? sadly, no!! but, that has never made a difference to Him, He still stayed right by me, waiting, until I came to my senses and checked in with Him again. He never looked my way and said, you know what, girl? your pathetic, and I don't have time to sit around here waiting for you to get your head outta your own self pity and issues to realize I'm here for you!! He never checked out on me and, and said, I'm here for the hard and messy, but you just ain't getting it, so I'm moving on!! nope, instead, He gently reminds me over and over He's in it for the long haul. he has never promised me that to live for Him would be without struggles, but He has reminded me over and over that because life isn't a piece of cake He'll be my constant rock, hiding place, pilot and burden bearer, He's always going to be there to give guidance and grace and wisdom and strength and faith, even through the dark, lonely, hard, ugly and messy. here is also where the fear of eye rolling and such, surfaces strongly, and the urge to shut down and quietly hibernate threatens to take over. But, this year I'm embracing courage and bravery, so this is where I'm gonna stand tall, firmly stomp a foot, give a dainty huff and fearlessly march on!! sooo.... here goes....this is me, marching on!!!
this year will be 20 years of marriage for us! never in all my wildest dreams would I have imagined going through stuff and dealing with life as we've been called to!! never would I have ever thought today I would be married to a totally different man than I married that gorgeous October day in 1996!! when we decided to build our first house, I remember vividly a few random conversations with various individuals that expressed slight horror and concern for our marriage if we enter into the construction adventure together. they were all like, are you sure your marriage is going to survive this kind of undertaking cause we've heard that it's one of the hardest battles to fight on together, you cant agree on styles, colors, etc and soon you have a new house your living in with someone you don't even know anymore!! Really? seriously?? well......we are now in our 3rd house and still married, and we're still together!! however, I would build a house every couple years if I could choose between walking through that adventure or grieving the loss of a child!! now there's an adventure that will tear you to pieces, chew you up, spit you out and leave you to feebly trying to scrape together the fragments and numbly trying to mend it all!! people look at grieving souls and think, ok, it's done, it's over, they're gone, it's been an X amount of years, move on already!! NO!! it doesn't work like that in the least!! you see, there's not just the saying goodby , laying to rest, and now back to life that's involved with this kind of battle, not at all, there's a whole casket load of issues and scenarios and struggles that you get handed along with the mourning garb that those not walking it has a clue of, and the victim is never prepared for!! as you are trying to heal and grieve there's kids still to be cared for and shaped and molded into responsible upstanding humans, there is no checking out while you get life figured out, there's days upon days where you want to hibernate and cry or sleep or pretend your someone else but guess what, there's still food to make for hungry bellies, there's still laundry needing washing and a new house that needs kept after and cleaned at least half heartedly or it'll soon be not so new!! there's still emotions and moods of not only yourself, but those in your care to nurture!! and in the middle of all this you have those that you always thought would be around for you, that grow tired of walking the teary journey with you cause they feel helpless, and so they just check out and your support system is rattled, and you have others that try desperately to fix you and make the situation go away and suddenly realize that's impossible and so in the end they to check out, and still there's others that say to your person, I just can't see how you face this house and this room and the memories every day and keep going, it's to hard and to painful to even come visit and because it hurts to much and it requires emotion and feeling they check out with the rest. I remember feeling so hurt and angry at the unfairness of that, and how there were days I longed to so easily just run from the pain and memories and emotions rising up to suffocate, but knowing very well that wasn't an option!! and so you feel like your left to go it alone and the yes the memories do crowd in, and the smell and presence of the loved one lingers along with those memories and you realize unlike everyone else there is no running from any of it, it's part of who you are and your story and despite the hard, you have to own it to move on. and I don't say any of the examples above to fault anyone, God knows had I not walked this path, that, that very much would be me! and so through all this sometimes it feels like the kids are getting shoved to the back burner and left to their own raising as mom and dad are floundering through the day to day trying to desperately keep there heads above the drowning waves and figure out how to exactly go on from here!! every person deals with and processes grief differently and it's not something you go through and not change from, and not all of that is bad, and it's not something you ever have a planned mapped out for ahead of time, no one signs up for this kind of hard, but it is a huge battle to face and try to get through with your right mind still in tact!! and so you find yourselves as 2 lost souls living in the same world but being polar opposites on most every level, and so you blindly try and feel your way...... I need people, He needs solitude, I need to talk about it, and everything else, he shuts down, I cry, he becomes silent, I need hugged and held and reassured, he needs to work and continue working and be busy, I need to go and do and reach out and plug in and help and feel, he needs his home and it's few members and his woods and nature!! the fight to balance all this and compromise together and keep communicating and to respect each others needs and space and own methods of healing are huge and exhausting!! and this is where you wake up one dismal morning and it hits you smack between your teary, bloodshot eyes that you are not only sleeping with, but married to, someone you no longer know and in some moments hardly recognize! and then the overwhelming question of where do we go from here?? how do we get us back?? how do relearn to know each other?? it's not like when you were dating and could step away for awhile and give each other space or reevaluate your compatibility and connections, your married!!! you said your I do's, you made a vow for life, your committed!! and, no, I didn't want to leave or have him leave, but it's a daunting, overwhelming mountain looking at you screaming how are we going to survive, how are we going to make this work? you make a choice everyday to fight for what you had and who you fell in love with and to get back a semblance of the couple you remembered took those vows and you work at it every single hour of every single day!!! but. it's. still. hard. and there's a lot of lunging ahead only to slide back down but you grab each others hands and pull each other forward and just exhausted or not keep on keeping on through the tears and misunderstandings and tears and silence and tears and miscommunication and tears.............
and so as I think back on life and the garbage we've waded through and how far we've come, the battle is constant to give in, give up.............but the one true Constant through everything....JESUS!!! even in the times of feeling like I couldn't quite reach Him, or like I was walking blindly I knew without a doubt He was always wherever I needed Him to be, He was always ready for me when I asked, He was the one unchanging, Constant!! while going through Devin's journey I ran across a thought that has stuck with me and comforted me so often.....
when it feels like your prayers are hitting the ceiling, it's ok, rest, because Jesus is right in the room with you!!! CONSTANT!! always there, never leaving, never changing!! and I know even though our journey is not finished and there maybe more rough roads ahead, I can bravely hold my head high and be assured that He will still even then be there, my Constant refuge!
